A Pug's Journey (Cultivation Starts with Breathing)

The climb wasn't steep yet, but my paws started to itch from the constant stream of uneven stone and loose soil getting stuck in between my paw pads.

Eline had been sort of nonchalant about her calculations when she sent me off.

"It should be over the mountain range in a couple of hours, give or take, depending on the wind," she'd said, her quill tapping against the desk in a rhythm that betrayed how nervous she was. "If you leave now, you'll have time to spare. It should be a sunny day with barely a cloud in the sky, so you should spot it from far off. Just break the mana weave surrounding it before it grows any bigger. Since it hasn't risen high enough yet, dispersing it should only cause a small flood."

The air was cool as I climbed, and despite my large form, each step felt steady. The mountain trail wound between jagged outcroppings and pale tufts of grass clinging stubbornly to the slope.

The sky stretched wide and clear, just as Eline had promised. There wasn't a single cloud, except for one.

Far ahead, it floated lazily over the ridgeline.

I squinted at it, trying to decide if it looked bigger than it should, but from this, distance it was impossible to tell.

And really, did I have another option?

Even if it was just a harmless pocket of vapor, it was the only thing around for leagues. I'd have to assume it was hers and deal with it.

That was why I kept climbing, paws steady on the soily and rocky path.

What bothered me more was something else she'd said.

—"You just need to get close enough to break it apart."

Did she expect me to leap at it and swipe with my claws?

She shouldn't know about Claw Intent. That was something I'd kept quiet about for obvious reasons, not least of which was how absurdly overpowered it could seem to someone like her. Yet the way she'd phrased her instructions, it was hard not to wonder if she'd guessed.

Had she planned this? Or was she just blissfully unaware of what she was asking?

It didn't matter. I didn't have time to dwell on her intentions when there was a ticking mana experiment floating nearby Lumineth.

I pushed upward, the slope getting steeper now. The wind blew through my fur, it felt refreshing. And despite the incline, I didn't feel tired.

In fact, there was something strangely invigorating about it all.

Each breath felt clean, almost nourishing. My muscles didn't burn, and my claws found purchase in the stone without effort. It was as if the mountain itself was lending me its strength.

Just the steady rhythm of air in my lungs, the occasional chirp of a bird from somewhere, and the faint pulse of Qi I could feel in my body.

Still, my gaze kept drifting upward toward the lone cloud.

The higher I climbed, the more the air felt different. Not thinner, exactly, but denser in a way I couldn't quite name. Every breath seemed to settle deeper in my chest, each one leaving behind a faint warmth that didn't fade.

I didn't think much of it at first. Maybe I was just in better shape today, more than I thought.

But the feeling didn't stop.

With every step, the warmth grew stronger. Not just in my lungs, but in the space behind them, where my core sat. It wasn't quiet anymore.

The Qi inside me grew.

At first, it was subtle, like a trickle of water through dry earth. Then it became more noticeable. A slow, steady current rising through my body, pooling in my chest until it pressed against my ribs.

By the time I reached a flat stretch near the peak, the pressure had grown heavy enough that I had to stop.

The cloud was still there, drifting lazily in the distance.

But I had to direct my focus elsewhere.

The core in my chest started to feel alive, coiling and surging.

A thought flickered in the back of my mind.

If I don't get control of this soon, something bad was going to happen.

The sensation spiked. I lowered myself onto the cool stone, lying flat as if the mountain itself might steady me.

My claws pressed deep into the ground.

I closed my eyes.

The world narrowed, sound falling away until there was only the steady beat of my heart and the low thrum of Qi moving through my body.

Then it appeared.

The familiar screen faintly showed itself behind my eyelids.

〈Pophet, The Gentle Faith That Echoes〉

[Mana: 0 / 0]

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

[Skills: 3]

Skill: Breath of the Awakened Heavenly Beast

In its early form, it gathered Qi through the body's calm, inviting energy only when the soul and breath were perfectly aligned in rest.

But the stillness has broken. The beast has awakened for itself.

Alive with emotion long suppressed. Tempered by restraint. Forged in stillness, this technique no longer draws quietly.

Level: 4/4 Core Formation

Skill: Thousand Fats Body Compression

A secret technique born from the ancient and mostly-forgotten ██████████████, this minor art was developed by low-ranking disciples who needed to evade both danger and responsibility with equal grace. By tightening the meridians and weaving Qi, the user may compress their physical vessel into a deceptively diminutive form.

Practitioners of this technique once used it to sneak past gatekeepers, hide beneath floorboards, or nap inside sacred urns to avoid morning drills. While compressed, power output is greatly reduced.

Legends say true masters could vanish into a teacup. You, however, are pug-shaped and still squishy.

Skill: Claw Intent

A martial resonance born not from the blade's cold precision, but from a beast's raw will to impose its truth. Where swordsmen speak of splitting the world cleanly in two, this art rejects such binaries entirely.

To claw is not to divide; it is to rend. To tear jagged lines into which exists. To leave behind scars that speak louder than any cut. Four strokes at once, not one. Four truths.

This intent does not manifest visibly, but the world remembers where it has been.

A new skill had joined the list: Claw Intent.

Not surprising. That had been brewing for a while now, ever since my fight with Gorran.

But my attention snagged on something else.

Level: 4/4 Core Formation

The words pulsed faintly, in rhythm with the surging energy in my chest.

The Qi wasn't trickling anymore. It was flooding, pressing outward as if it wanted to push its way to freedom.

I knew what this was.

If I wanted to move to the next phase of this Qi thing, I couldn't fight it.

But I couldn't let it spill over, either.

I had to stay still.

Let the Qi flow through my body.

No stray thoughts. No restless twitch of a paw. Nothing but breath and focus.

The pressure deepened, curling tighter within my chest-core.

My fur shifted faintly in the mountain wind, but I didn't move.

The storm inside me had to be contained, or it would tear me apart before I could do anything to do the cloud.

So I stayed there, lying flat against the cold stone, letting the rising tide of Qi flow without interruptions with all I had.

At the very top of the Aurielle Conservatory, Eline squinted through the lens of her modified telescope.

The device let out a faint hum as she adjusted its focus, her fingers smudged with ink and faint burns from the last round of "improvements."

"Come on… come on…" she murmured, twisting the dials with careful precision.

The view sharpened.

There, among the jagged rocks of the mountain range, a fawn-furred figure was climbing steadily toward the peak.

Eline exhaled in relief, a small grin tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Amazing…" she whispered. "He's making good time too."

This whole time, she'd been mapping the range as best she could, trying to reconcile what she saw in her visions. She'd followed them to the letter—building the cloud, sending Pophet out with those instructions, even staying behind so she wouldn't disrupt whatever event was waiting to unfold.

And yet… something still eluded her.

The storm.

She had seen it twice in her glimpses of what might come. Dark clouds boiling over the mountain like smoke trapped in glass, flickers of lightning deep within. But the details were vague, shifting every time she tried to peer closer.

Two chances to observe it in her visions, and both had left her with more questions than answers.

Was it a natural phenomenon? A consequence of her experiment? Or something else entirely?

Her telescope hummed faintly as she readjusted the view.

Pophet had reached the summit.

She expected him to pace along the ridge, circling the mana cloud as he sized it up. Instead… he lay down.

Eline blinked.

"…What are you doing?" she murmured.

At first, she assumed he was resting. Even for him, that climb in that amount of time was no small feat.

But then the air over the mountain began to change.

Clouds gathered. Dark, heavy, curling inward as though the sky itself had decided to scowl. The sunlight dimmed in her scope, the faint glow around the ridgeline swallowed in rolling gray.

Eline adjusted the dial again.

The clouds thickened, their edges twisting like angry smoke.

And then lightning flashed, silent but bright, illuminating the summit for the briefest of moments.

Her breath caught.

The storm wasn't random.

It wasn't an effect of her mana cloud.

It was centered on Pophet.

He was the cause.

Eline's breath hitched as she watched the storm roil tighter over the peak.

And then she laughed.

It started soft, a strained little chuckle, but grew sharper, louder.

"An anomaly!" she cried, her voice echoing faintly off the dome of the observatory. "No event like this has been in recorded history! Not once in any archive, any library, any relic text I've dug through!"

She gripped the edge of the telescope, her fingers smudging the brass fittings with ink.

"Is this a second awakening? Has the process ruptured the barrier between his internal realm and the physical one? Or… or…" her voice pitched higher with each word, "...is this an entirely new phenomenon? A resonance event?"

She gasped and slapped her hands together.

"What are you, Pophet?" she whispered, almost reverently.

And then she snickered, a sound as sharp and wild as the crackle of lightning she saw in her scope.

She stepped back from the telescope, fumbling at the pocket of her oversized coat. A small notebook tumbled out, pages filled edge-to-edge with cramped handwriting and diagrams that looped like spiderwebs.

She flipped it open to a half-torn page, her quill already in hand.

"Let's see… yes…" she muttered, eyes scanning a list of marks and hastily scrawled notes. A jagged line in the margin caught her attention:

Flash flood. 87 lives lost.

"Ah."

Eline tapped her pen against the words, staring for a long moment.

Then she gave a tiny shrug.

"No matter."

Her quill scratched against the paper, adding more lines under the others.

"Progress demands a price."

She spoke softly now, almost tenderly.

The storm in her scope cracked again with silent lightning.

But her quill didn't stop moving.