The next morning came quiet and cold. Dew clung to the grass, and a thin fog wove between the trees like drifting cloth. Adam stood before the cave, watching the light spread. His mind felt still. Heavy. Almost peaceful.

Behind him, he heard small footsteps shuffling against stone.

Kai emerged first, hair messy from sleep, rubbing his eyes. Mina followed, hugging her arms against the chill, eyes still swollen from sleep but bright beneath the haze.

They stood beside him, not speaking. They didn't need to. For a while, the three of them just watched the sun rise.

Adam turned to them. "Today we go back."

Mina tilted her head. "Back?"

"To the sect," he said.

Kai shifted on his feet, unsure. "Will… will they let us stay there?"

Adam looked at him. "They will."

He didn't say it like a promise. He said it like a fact. As if reality itself wouldn't dare argue.

They gathered what little they had. Adam led them through the forest trails, moving slow enough for their short legs to keep up, pausing every so often to teach them small things – which mosses held clean water, which plants numbed pain, how to walk without snapping twigs.

By afternoon, they reached the edge of the valley where wide stone steps led up to the sect gates. Kai's chest tightened at the sight. He'd never seen anything so large. Towers rose above the forest canopy, carved with drifting talismans that glowed faintly in the noon sun.

Mina slipped her hand into his. "It's beautiful."

Adam glanced back at them, unreadable, before walking forward.

Disciples on guard bowed quickly as he passed. "Grandmaster."

He didn't respond, just kept walking. The twins hurried after him, eyes wide, taking in every robe color and sword glinting at a disciple's hip. Older students stared at them, curious. Some scoffed at their dirty clothes and bare feet. But no one spoke.

Not while Adam was there.

He led them through courtyards filled with training students, past prayer halls humming with cultivation chants, to a small garden on the eastern side of the mountain. There, quiet streams flowed beneath peach trees, and stone lanterns flickered gently.

"This is yours," he said simply.

Kai frowned. "Ours…?"

He gestured to the small wooden house nestled under the largest peach tree. It was simple. Clean. A single room with woven mats for beds, a small hearth, and shelves lined with folded blankets and clay cups.

"You'll stay here," he said.

Mina stepped inside first, running her hand over the smooth wooden frame. She turned back to Adam with tears in her eyes. "Thank you."

Adam nodded once. Then he turned and left.

They didn't see him for two days.

During that time, disciples visited, bringing them clean robes and food, though few spoke beyond polite greetings. Mina spent her time cleaning every corner of their house, humming softly. Kai sat outside most hours, watching students train in the courtyard below. Watching them move with ease. With power.

He felt small.

But also… eager.

On the third morning, Adam returned. He entered without knocking, waking them both as dawn light spilled through the doorway. He carried no weapons, wore no armor, only simple black robes tied with a white sash. His hair fell loose around his shoulders, shadowing his eyes.

"Follow me," he said.

They obeyed.

He led them to a quiet training ground near the cliff's edge. The ground was smoothed stone marked with old symbols and shallow cuts from countless battles fought in silence. The sky above was wide and empty, pale clouds drifting like ghosts.

He faced them. "Sit."

They sat cross-legged on the cold stone, shivering as the dawn wind cut through their robes. Adam knelt before them, his gaze steady.

"Close your eyes."

They obeyed.

"Breathe in."

They drew breath.

"Hold."

Their chests ached.

"Out."

The air left them.

"Again."

The minutes stretched into hours. Birds called in the distance. Leaves rustled. Adam said nothing beyond the slow rhythm of breath. Kai's knees burned. Mina's shoulders trembled. But neither spoke.

Finally, he broke the silence. "Open your eyes."

They blinked into the morning light, dizzy and lightheaded.

"This is the foundation," Adam said calmly. "If you cannot master your own breath, you will never master the world."

Kai swallowed. "What do we do next?"

Adam stood. "You will learn to stand."

And so the days became weeks.

Adam visited them each dawn, before the sun touched the highest peaks. He taught them posture first – how to plant their feet without locking their knees, how to align their hips and shoulders, how to breathe deep without puffing their chests like roosters.

When they mastered that, he taught them movement.

Small steps at first, shifting weight without lifting their heels. Gliding their feet like drifting shadows. Their calves burned. Mina fell many times. Kai's ankles swelled from strain. Adam never comforted them. He only watched, silent and unmoving, like an old tree standing against winter wind.

At night, they read cultivation theory by candlelight, tracing the brushstrokes with calloused fingers. They didn't understand most of it, but they tried. Adam never corrected their mistakes immediately. He waited until they realised themselves, then spoke a single sentence that cleared confusion like water washing ink from stone.

Months passed.

Winter came, wrapping the mountains in quiet white. Their house grew cold, but Adam showed them how to build fires that burned clean and long. He taught them to gather herbs under snow, to track hidden roots, to fish under ice.

During those long winter nights, they sat with him by the fire. He rarely spoke of himself. Sometimes Mina would ask questions – about his past, about where he learned so much. Adam would remain silent until she fell asleep against his arm. Then he would look into the flames, eyes distant, as if remembering a world no one else could see.

Spring arrived, shaking the cherry blossoms loose across the courtyard. By then, Kai had learned to wield a training sword. His swings were clumsy, but his grip was strong. Mina learned staff forms, spinning the wood until it hummed with force.

Adam began teaching them cultivation.

He guided them through their first meditation beneath the peach tree, tracing points on their backs with warm, steady fingers. He helped them open their meridians slowly, safely, ignoring sect traditions that forced breakthroughs with pain and risk.

"You're not weapons," he said quietly one night when Kai asked why he held back their cultivation speed. "You're people."

Kai didn't understand fully. But he nodded.

Years passed.

They grew tall and strong. Mina's spirit energy flowed with gentle clarity, her staff becoming an extension of her heartbeat. Kai's sword strikes grew heavy and precise, his aura burning quiet and blue when he focused.

The sect disciples began to respect them. Some whispered behind their backs – calling them the Grandmaster's strays, his shadows. Others bowed to them as seniors. Kai ignored the whispers. Mina only smiled.

Adam remained the same.

He taught them every dawn. He walked the training grounds at dusk. Sometimes, late at night, he would stand outside their house, eyes turned to the stars, unmoving for hours. Kai would wake and see him there, silhouetted against moonlight, and feel something tighten in his chest. Like seeing a god who forgot he was divine.

One spring evening, after a long day of sparring practice, Kai sat beside Adam on the training ground, wiping sweat from his brow. Mina rested on Adam's other side, her hair tied up messily, cheeks flushed pink from training.

Kai spoke quietly. "Master… why do you stay with us?"

Adam didn't respond immediately. His gaze stayed on the distant peaks where sunset burned gold behind drifting clouds.

Finally, he said, "I was supposed to leave this place."

Mina frowned. "Why didn't you?"

Adam didn't answer. His eyes softened as he looked at them both. Mina saw it first – the sadness behind his calm. The quiet love he never spoke aloud. She leaned against his shoulder, closing her eyes.

Kai watched them for a moment, then looked at the horizon again.

Neither of them knew Adam was supposed to return to other worlds, other wars, other thrones waiting for him to sit again. Neither knew he had stopped thinking about them.

Because here, beneath drifting peach blossoms and dawn wind, he remembered what it meant to be human.

Years later, when Kai and Mina stood before the sect disciples as masters in their own right – when Mina's gentle staff flows could split stone without shattering it, when Kai's silent sword could cut through illusions without breaking reality – they still rose before dawn each day to train with Adam.

Even after their first students called them elders. Even after their names carried weight beyond the Lowlands.

Because no matter how strong they became, they never forgot the silent man who taught them how to stand.

And Adam, watching them train beneath morning skies, sometimes smiled to himself. A faint smile. Barely there.

Because somewhere between teaching them how to stand and watching them grow, he forgot he had ever meant to leave.

And in that forgetting, he found something the gods never granted him.

A place to stay.

A quiet life.

Two children who called him master, but treated him like father.

And for a man who had once cracked the sky with a whisper, this small, quiet world felt heavier and warmer than any throne ever could.