Chapter Zero: Char Thunder

Prologue: [Shaya Thunderclap]

All things considered, Shaya Thunderclap was the very definition of a “country bumpkin.”

By that, it meant he was born in the wilds, a rough-hewn fellow of little learning, or to put it more bluntly, an uncouth man from the mountains with little knowledge of the world.

For example, every meal for him had to include meat; his greatest skills were splitting firewood and hunting. Even at sixteen, he still believed the most beautiful woman in the world was Aunt Sophia, the vegetable seller in town, whose waist was as thick as a barrel and who was already mother to two children.

And then there was his name: Shaya Thunderclap.

The name carried a hint of exotic mystery, but in truth, it was given to him when he was three and still nameless. One day, his father got drunk, suddenly recalled his paternal duties, looked up at the sky—summer thunder was rumbling overhead—and so, the boy became Shaya Thunderclap.

One could easily imagine just how irresponsible his father was. Fortunately, it had only been thunder that day—had it been hail or a sandstorm, he might have spent his life skulking in some cave, laboring under a name like “Spring Sandstorm” or “Winter Hailstorm.”

Shaya Thunderclap’s rusticity further revealed itself in his firm belief that coarse hemp cloth was better and sturdier than silk—a conviction, of course, born primarily from poverty. He simply couldn’t afford silk. Call it sour grapes, if you will.

The real reason for his poverty, however, was that most of his hunting earnings were spent on his old man’s drink. The old man, so-called, had raised Shaya Thunderclap, but by the age of eight, the boy had realized this fellow was not his real father. Eight is young, but old enough to know that a blue-eyed man cannot sire a black-eyed son.

So, after eight, he refused to call the old man “father.”

As for his origins, the old man could offer no clarity. In his words: “Many years ago, on a dark and windy night, I was roasting a wild chicken in the wilds. I’d just turned away behind a tree to relieve myself, and when I came back, there you were, sprawled by my fire, a drumstick already half devoured. You know what my first thought was, seeing such a tiny thing gnawing on my chicken leg?”

At this point, the old man always shook his head and looked at Shaya Thunderclap with disdain. “I thought—this brat, eats so much at such a young age, he’ll eat me into poverty one day!”

Incidentally, the old man was a drunkard, and Shaya Thunderclap a budding one. The reason for this was simple: when Shaya was a small child and cried from hunger, the shameless old man, too lazy to prepare real food, simply poured liquor down his throat. Thus, before he was even weaned, Shaya was already set on the path of a hard drinker. By thirteen, his capacity for drink had surpassed the old man’s, and two years later, with the family unable to support two such prodigious drinkers, the old man shamelessly declared a ban on Shaya’s drinking.

One of Shaya Thunderclap’s proudest skills was splitting firewood—a fact that also fed his disdain for the old man.

The old man often boasted of being a renowned swordsman of the continent, but Shaya had never once seen him wield a sword. In fact, their house had none. The closest thing to a sword was a blackened fire poker tossed in the hearth.

As he grew older, Shaya, like all boys, yearned for weapons and feats of arms. He believed the old man’s tales and wanted to learn martial arts from him. The old man at first played hard to get, but finally relented under Shaya’s persistent pleading, thus beginning more than a decade of hardship.

Enduring all manner of training—carrying water, standing stakes, even soaking in foul-smelling herbal baths—Shaya accepted it all. But what truly vexed him was that, for all the old man’s claims of swordsmanship, he refused to teach Shaya the sword.

Once, a down-on-his-luck traveling bard visited the tavern and spoke of legendary swordsmen—stories that left young Shaya entranced. He dreamed of being like those aloof, noble swordmasters, dressed in snowy white or iron-black robes, sword in hand, righting wrongs with a flourish. What a magnificent life that would be!

But the only weapon the old man ever taught him to use was the axe—not some legendary battle-axe or poleaxe, but the kind sold for six coppers at the village smithy, the standard tool for chopping wood.

As for his skill with the axe, Shaya himself was unsure. The old man claimed the style was all about returning to simplicity. Most axe-wielders prized accuracy and strength, but the old man insisted: “When you master the art of subtlety with the axe, you’ll have arrived.”

Accuracy and strength—those he understood. By thirteen, he could lob an axe from fifty paces and slice the tail off a running rabbit. But as for “subtlety”—that, it seemed, was in the eye of the beholder. According to the old man, it meant carving a chrysanthemum from tofu using a twenty-pound axe—a task that was clearly designed to torment.

Shaya had always harbored doubts about the old man’s so-called axe technique. His daily training amounted to splitting wood, slicing tofu, and butchering game—gutting, deboning, chopping meat and bone.

Still, he practiced diligently for ten years, though the old man never commented, only squatting nearby with a bottle, eyes eternally glazed, neither approving nor criticizing.

It wasn’t until a year before he died, when the old man finally spoke on his deathbed, that Shaya received any sort of appraisal. Yet the words left him pondering for days, uncertain whether it was praise or a veiled insult—he suspected the latter, especially since the old man, bedridden and craving drink, had been denied by Shaya, both for his health and because they could barely afford to eat.

Perhaps that was why the old man spoke with such bitterness.

In his final hours, the old man looked at his foster son with a complicated gaze and sighed:

“That ‘Thousand Army Slayer’ technique of mine—seeing you practice it like this, I suppose it’s creative, at least. After I’m gone, you’re forbidden to touch an axe. Any other blade, spear, sword, or staff is fine, but no axes—else I’ll never rest in peace.”

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