Chapter Four – The Years Between
Emrys had stepped into the realm of Martial Grandmasters, his organs refined, his breath like a storm held in a jar, his heartbeat steady as a war drum. With the completion of the Sixth Pillar, he gained not only power—but time.
Sixty more years were added to his thread of life, weaving into the span he had already earned through blood, bone, and breath. At 176 years old, Emrys now carried the vitality of a man in his prime, with two centuries of life remaining—210 years gained through the Nine Pillars' sacred path.
But for once… there was no urgency.
The Seventh Pillar—Marrow Refinement—was not something to be rushed. It was the most subtle and internal of all body transformations so far. Hidden within bone, the marrow was the root of life and death, the furnace of blood, essence, and will. And so, Emrys chose to wait.
He sheathed his sword, pulled his cloak close, and became once more what he had been in his youth: a traveler.
For several years, Emrys wandered the breadth of the continent.
He journeyed through kingdoms at war and those at peace, walked sunlit coasts where sea-winds carried forgotten songs, crossed deserts where ancient ruins whispered tales of the old cultivators who once pursued the Nine Pillars before they were scattered by time.
He did not seek battle, but battle found him still. Bandits, monsters, misguided swordsmen—all came and fell away like waves against a cliff. He fought only when he had to, and when he did, he held back. There was no need to reveal the full scope of his cultivation. Most could not comprehend what he had become anyway.
He visited old friends, what few remained. Most had long turned to dust or become legends themselves. The villages he once knew were now cities. The swordsmen he once respected were now statues. He watched dynasties fall and rise, watched empires crumble and be born again.
Everywhere he walked, he listened.
He listened to storytellers in inns spin tales about a ghostly warrior who rode the winds of the north and fought wyverns with a single breath. He never revealed it was him. Let the legends live their own lives.
He sat with healers and asked about blood, about marrow, about life itself. Most thought him a strange but sincere old man. A few recognized the depth behind his eyes and shared truths too deep for common tongues.
He found a ruined temple high in the east where monks once studied qi circulation within the blood. Their techniques were long-lost, but in the broken murals and cracked tablets, Emrys began forming an understanding of Marrow Cultivation.
He learned of the red marrow, the birthplace of blood, and the yellow marrow, the reserve of essence within the bones. He saw the parallels between the body and a furnace—where marrow was the flame, and everything else merely the heat it produced.
He came to understand the terrifying difficulty of this Seventh Pillar:
• To refine the marrow was to rewrite the very origin of one's vitality.
• It was to flood one's essence through a lattice of fine, hidden channels buried deep in bone.
• It was to awaken the primordial flame within the blood.
• And, ultimately, it was to face the weight of one's own mortality, carried in the marrow since birth.
Emrys did not fear this.
But he respected it.
So, for now, he chose patience.
He sat beneath the great trees of the southern jungles and meditated as apes trained beside him.
He stood atop snowy cliffs and let the cold seep into his marrow, learning the feel of his body when death was near.
Years passed like this. Quietly. Thoughtfully.
Then, one night, under a sky of silver stars, Emrys stood atop a lonely hill and looked out across a battlefield—long since silent, bones buried beneath the soil.
He closed his eyes.
And for the first time, he felt it:
The faint flicker of flame within his bones.
A warmth not from muscle or blood or breath—but from within the marrow itself.
It was time.
The Seventh Pillar awaited.
And Emrys—vagabond, swordsman, Martial Grandmaster—took his first breath on the path to become a Martial Lord.