They stayed above the city for a while. The wind was cold but gentle, and Seo Yerin's arms didn't tremble. Below, Hwagok was waking up—a few chimneys smoking, a dog barking somewhere near the south gate.
Then a yell came from below. Thin and distant, but unmistakable.
"GAON! YEON GAON!"
Another voice joined it, higher, cracking with tears. "MY SON! WHERE IS MY SON!"
Seo Yerin tilted her head toward the sound. "That's your parents," she said. "Down there, near the eastern road."
He looked down and saw them.
Two small figures standing at the edge of the market square. His mother was clutching her chest, her mouth open as she called his name again. His father stood beside her, one hand on her shoulder, the other shielding his eyes as he scanned the sky not because he knew they were up there, but because that was what people did when they searched for something.
His mother stumbled. His father caught her.
Gaon's throat tightened.
"They've been looking all night," Seo Yerin said quietly.
They descended.
The ground rose to meet them slowly, Seo Yerin's feet touched the dirt road without a sound. Then she set Gaon down on his own two feet.
His legs wobbled. His torn shirt hung open, revealing the pink scar across his collarbone. But he stood.
His mother saw him first.
"GAON!"
She ran. Her shoes slapped against the packed earth. Her face was red and wet and twisted with something between rage and relief. She crashed into him, arms wrapping around his small body so tight he could barely breathe.
"Where were you! Where—your shirt—there's blood—" She pulled back, hands flying to his face, his shoulders, his arms, checking every inch of him.
His father arrived a moment later. Slower. His face was pale. He looked at Seo Yerin, then at the dead wolf's blood still drying on Gaon's hands, then back at the young disciple.
"Ma'am," his father said, bowing low. "Thank you. Thank you for finding him."
Seo Yerin shook her head. "He found himself, mostly." She glanced at Gaon. "But you should get him inside. He needs rest. And a new shirt."
His mother was already pulling him toward home, one arm locked around his shoulders, her lips pressed to the top of his head. She was crying. She was also muttering something about never letting him leave the house again.
Gaon looked back over his shoulder.
Seo Yerin was still standing in the road, watching. She gave him a small nod.
Then she turned and walked away.
She walked to the edge of the road, then lifted off again until the rooftops of Hwagok shrank beneath her.
The wind pulled at her robes. The morning sun was starting to bleed over the eastern mountains, painting the clouds in shades of orange and gold. Below, the Crimson Bamboo Sect's compound sat nestled in a valley three miles from the city. She could see the training grounds, the meditation pavilions, the long dormitory buildings where disciples slept.
He couldn't have been more than eleven. Maybe twelve.
She had trained since she was seven. She had meditated, sparred, bled, cried. Her power had awakened at fifteen later than most of her peers, early enough to still be called talented. But that boy.
He had punched a wolf's head off.
What is he?
She shook her head.
But as she flew over the forest, she could still see his face. The way he had looked at his own fist. The way his breath had stuttered between sobs and silence.
He didn't even know what he had.
She would write a report. The sect elders would read it. They would decide if a boy in Hwagok was worth watching.
Until then, she would say nothing.
She landed softly on the stone platform outside the sect's eastern gate, smoothed her robes, and walked inside.
At this hour most disciples were still asleep. But near the koi pond, a man stood with his back to her, sleeves hanging loose, watching the orange fish circle beneath the water.
He turned as her footsteps approached.
"Senior Han," she said, bowing her head.
"How is it? Patrol tonight. Already finished?"
She nodded. "Yes, Senior. There was a missing child. A boy from Hwagok. I found him and brought him home."
Senior Han raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Seo Yerin bowed again. "I must sleep now. Permission to leave."
He waved a hand. "Go."
She walked past the pond, past the dormitory row, and disappeared into the shadows of the women's quarters.
***
The next morning, the door was locked from the outside.
Gaon sat on his sleeping mat, legs crossed, back against the wall. He had tried the door twice. It didn't budge. His mother had slid a bowl of rice and pickled vegetables under the gap an hour ago, and he had eaten it without tasting anything. The bowl sat empty near the threshold.
From the kitchen, he could hear her moving. The clank of a pot. The scrape of a ladle. Then a sharp breath the kind she let out when she was trying not to cry. She was furious and terrified both at once, and neither of them knew how to talk to the other about it.
His father was already gone, helping a neighbor repair a cart axle. That was his way. Work when things got hard.
Gaon closed his eyes.
The scar on his left collarbone itched. He touched it with his fingers. Still tender, but healed. Completely healed. That was not normal. That was the power.
He tried to focus. Breathed in slowly, the way the book had described. Let the energy flow from the dantian. Picture it moving up the spine, down the arms.
Nothing.
But he felt something. A tension in his muscles, like the moment before a sneeze. Not pain. Just... readiness. His biceps tightened for no reason. His jaw clenched. His fingers curled into loose fists.
It's there, he thought. It's real.
He just couldn't grab it. Not yet. Not on command.
He opened his eyes and stared at the wooden ceiling. The morning light seeped through the paper window, casting faint shadows of bamboo leaves on the wall.
"I can use it," he whispered to himself. "I just don't know how to start."
He closed his eyes again and kept trying.
He opened his eyes.
Enough I think its enough...
He stood up, walked to the door, and punched it.
Dug!
His fist connected with the wooden panel near the latch. A crack spread outward not enough to break through, but enough to splinter the wood and push the door open a finger's width.
From the kitchen, his mother's voice called out. "Gaon? Did you bump your head? Are you trying to get out?"
She thought he had hit his head against the door. He didn't answer.
He looked at his fist. The knuckles were red, the tingling was fading again. He had barely used anything just a flicker of the power, the same Glimmer state that made him twice as strong as a normal boy. And already the door had cracked.
If I scale it up, will it go even stronger?
Closed his eyes and focused. He thought about the wolf. The moment when his body had changed. The heat. The weight. The single punch that had caved in a skull.
He tensed every muscle in his small body.
And then it happened arms thickened shoulders broadened. Not by much he was still a child but enough to look wrong, enough to look like a little boy who had somehow borrowed a teenager's muscles. His robe stretched at the seams. His fingers felt heavy.
DUG!
He punched the door again.
The entire thing exploded outward wooden planks snapping off their hinges, the lock flying across the hallway, the frame splintering into jagged teeth.
From the kitchen, his mother screamed.
"Kyaaa!"
He heard her footsteps fast, panicked, running toward him.
Gaon let out a breath. The muscles shrank shoulders dropped arms became thin again. By the time she reached the doorway, he was just a small boy standing in front of a destroyed door, looking guilty and tired and very, very small.
"Gaon!" She grabbed his shoulders. "What happened? Are you hurt? Did something—"
"I'm fine, Mother."
She looked at the shattered door. Then at his soft, ordinary hands. Then back at the door.
"I... I heard a crash. Two crashes. I thought—"
"I fell," he said. "Against the door. Twice."
She stared at him. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"You fell. Against the door. Twice. And the door broke."
"Yes."
She did not believe him. But she did not know what else to say. So she pulled him into her arms and held him tight, and Gaon let her, because he did not know what else to do either.
To Be Continued.