The snow that fell that night was quieter than silence.
Kell sat beneath the cherry tree, eyes half-open. He hadn't moved in hours. Not even when the wind brushed his cloak or when icicles melted into his lap. Something within him had heard Fuzi's words—but it had not yet understood.
"He breathed."
Not in the way he was taught, nor in the rhythm of cultivation manuals. He simply breathed, hoping the world might answer back.
Morning came slow. Light crept like ink along the mountains. The sky was clear, too still to be beautiful.
Fuzi approached without sound. He carried no incense, no scrolls, no blade. Just a wooden stick, thin as a finger, which he dragged lightly along the snow. He traced twelve circles into the frost-covered ground, each one evenly spaced around Kell.
He didn't speak until the last was drawn.
"These are not spells," he said softly. "Not techniques. Not even a system."
Kell looked up at him.
Fuzi's gaze was distant. But his voice had changed—no longer the tone of a teacher reciting knowledge, but of a man remembering something almost lost.
"They are twelve points of remembrance," he continued. "Twelve places inside you that existed long before cultivation."
He touched the first circle with his finger. The snow inside it melted instantly.
"This is where your path begins. Not through the dantian. Not the heart. But here."
Kell stared. "The base of the cosmos…"
"The body," Fuzi nodded. "The forgotten contract between you and the world. Survival. Grounding. The reason your soul chose to remain."
He straightened. "It is called the Foundation Node. The first of the Twelve Pillars of Ascendancy."
Kell repeated the name under his breath.
Fuzi continued, walking slowly around the outer ring. "Each pillar awakens not through will, but through return. You do not seize power. You remember what you already carry."
There was no scroll for this. No diagram. Only circles in snow and a master's voice that trembled faintly with memory.
Kell frowned, not in doubt—but in awe. "Where did this come from?"
Fuzi paused.
"Before techniques were born… before cultivation had a name… there were people who listened. To rivers. To sky. To stillness." He looked at Kell. "They never carved symbols into stone. They left them in the wind."
A long silence followed.
Kell rose slowly, walking to the first circle.
"What do I do?"
"Sit," Fuzi said. "But not to control. Not to command your body. Let it remember its weight. Let the earth recall it."
Kell obeyed.
The moment he sat, something within him shifted.
There was no energy. No flow. Just the cold beneath him… and the sense that the ground no longer pushed back.
He exhaled.
For the first time in days, the breath didn't feel trapped.
Fuzi watched him with quiet approval, though he said nothing. There were no praises in this path. No promises.
Only a beginning.
And snow that no longer felt cold.
After some time, Kell slowly opened his eyes. The cold mist around him had thinned, and his breath no longer trembled in the winter air. The training had left a dull ache in his chest, but something inside him—subtle, ancient—had stirred.
He turned to Master Fuzi, who was seated cross-legged beneath a twisted pine tree, eyes closed in meditation.
"Master…" Kell's voice was quiet, but filled with curiosity. "What are the stages of the Twelve Pillars of Ascendancy?"
Fuzi opened his eyes, deep as still water, and nodded. "So, you are ready to know."
He raised a finger and spoke calmly.
"The first stage is called the Foundation Node.
In this stage, one must channel cosmic energy into the body. It strengthens the physical form and creates the first bridge—your connection to the cosmos itself. Without this, the later stages are meaningless."
Kell leaned in, listening with a reverent stillness.
"The second stage is known as the Ember Core.
Here, you must confront your deepest emotions and fears. Devour them. Understand the vastness of the universe—not by force, but by walking with it, flowing in harmony with its time, its nature, its creativity. It is both terrifying and beautiful."
Kell's eyes widened, his breath catching in awe.
Fuzi paused, a faint shadow of memory flickering across his face.
"I only know these two stages," he said softly. "The rest… lost to time. The Twelve Pillars are said to be the oldest and most powerful method of cultivation—so potent that even gods and immortals feared to pass them on. It is the origin. The root from which all other methods were born."
There was a long silence. The wind shifted.
"Some say," Fuzi added, lowering his voice, "that even the first stage grants enough strength to slay immortals with ease."
Kell stared at him, a mix of awe and fear in his eyes. "If it holds such power… then how did you come to know it, Master?"
Fuzi chuckled softly, but his gaze drifted toward the distant mountains, clouded in snow and time.
"That… is a long story. One I'll share with you on a quiet day, when the wind forgets how to scream."
He stood, brushing the frost from his robes. "For now, begin. Walk the path of the Foundation Node."
Kell nodded, but couldn't help noticing the distant look in Fuzi's eyes—as if he were remembering an old friend, or perhaps a forgotten battle.
And so, beneath the snow-laden sky, the true path of the Twelve Pillars began...