CHAPTER 23: FOUNDATION BEYOND THE THRESHOLD

Joe kept his minor success secret.

Doing so was easier than he expected.

Hall did not test the static trainees every week. Senior assistants corrected posture, breathing and obvious mistakes, but the moment at which a student first achieved consistent blood-energy perception was usually reported by the student himself.

Most students wanted to report it immediately.

Why wouldn't they?

Minor success opened the dynamic foundation.

Joe was probably the first eight-year-old in Green Hollow deliberately pretending he had not reached it.

He did not need to fake poor training.

That would have been counterproductive.

Instead, he simply stopped short of demonstrating how clearly he could now sense blood energy. When assistants asked whether the sensation had become more consistent, Joe answered that it was improving.

That was true.

It simply omitted the important part.

His real question became how far the static foundation could progress.

Hall's beginner instruction offered little help.

The Hall was designed to move students forward efficiently, not encourage a child who had already qualified for the next phase to remain in one place indefinitely.

Joe needed information from someone farther along.

Alex became the obvious source.

Alex was fifteen, already in late Skin Tempering and belonged to the village elder's family. Through that family he was also a younger relative of Theodere, though not close enough to inherit everything Theodere knew simply by asking.

He nevertheless had access to information ordinary village trainees lacked.

Joe had spent months watching him.

Alex was confident, proud of his family and accustomed to younger students treating his opinions seriously.

He was not particularly cruel.

He was also not nearly as mature as he believed.

That made him easier to approach than an adult.

Joe did not suddenly begin following him everywhere.

That would have been obvious.

He simply became useful.

If Alex spoke about Blackwood, Joe listened.

If he mentioned an older trainee's mistake, Joe asked why it mattered rather than challenging him.

A little well-placed admiration did the rest.

Alex gradually decided Joe was one of the smarter younger children and, more importantly, one who understood that Alex knew things worth hearing.

Joe was comfortable with the arrangement.

Pride was cheap.

Information was useful.

One afternoon Alex had finished a Skin Tempering session and was cooling down beneath the covered edge of the training ground when Joe joined him.

Joe waited until Alex had finished drinking.

"Can I ask something about foundation?"

Alex looked toward him.

"You always do."

Joe ignored that.

"Does minor success mean a stance is finished?"

Alex gave him a strange look.

"No. It means you've finally learned enough of it to be useful."

That was exactly the answer Joe wanted.

"How far does it go?"

Alex leaned against one of the timber supports.

"There are four stages people actually care about. Minor success, major success, complete success and perfection."

Joe remained quiet.

Alex enjoyed explaining when nobody interrupted him.

"People sometimes describe minor success as roughly a quarter of the way there, major success around half, complete success around three quarters and perfection near the end. Don't start treating that like someone measured it with a ruler. It's just an easy way instructors explain the difference."

That suited Joe.

"And after perfection?"

Alex smiled.

"Return to nature."

Joe waited.

Alex rolled his eyes.

"It's mostly something people talk about in stories. Supposedly a technique becomes so natural that there isn't any technique left to see. You don't enter a stance. You don't prepare a movement. The correct thing simply happens."

"Has Theodere reached it?"

"I don't know."

That answer interested Joe more than a boast would have.

Alex continued, "Master Theodere says anyone worrying about return to nature before perfection is wasting time he could spend training."

Reasonable.

Joe shifted the question.

"What actually changes between the stages?"

"Minor success means the method works reliably. For static foundation, the resonance is strong enough that you can sense your blood energy throughout the body, even if the feeling is still vague."

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Joe already knew that now.

"Major success means you don't have to spend so much time settling yourself into it. The stance, breathing and resonance come together quickly. If it's a technique used in combat, that's usually the point where you can call it up fast enough to matter."

Alex lifted one hand as he continued.

"Complete success means the method has almost no obvious flaws left under normal use. Perfection is different. You stop being trapped by the exact shape you learned as a beginner. You can adjust without breaking the principle behind the technique."

That description immediately appealed to Joe.

Perfect execution without rigid imitation.

Alex looked toward the younger training grounds.

"The better your foundation, the easier everything built on it becomes. Better resonance means you sense blood energy more clearly. Better control later means less waste during tempering."

Joe asked the question that mattered next.

"Then why do students move to dynamic foundation immediately after minor success?"

Alex laughed.

"Because we're not immortal."

He saw that Joe was serious and explained further.

"The distance from nothing to minor success is already long for most students. The distance from minor to major can take another year or more even if you keep practicing. Sometimes longer. Nobody wants to stand in one place waiting for every foundation stage to become perfect before doing anything else."

"So they progress in parallel."

"Exactly. Minor static, then learn dynamic. Once both reach minor success, begin Skin Tempering while continuing to improve the foundations."

Joe nodded.

That was the ordinary answer.

It was not his answer.

Every Hard Work Pays Off meant he did not face the same kind of stagnant bottleneck.

If another year of static practice would produce another year of real improvement, waiting was not wasted time in the same way.

Alex continued.

"You also need higher foundation mastery for deeper tempering anyway. Minor success in both is enough to begin Skin Tempering. Before Muscle Tempering, you want major success in both."

He lifted another finger.

"Bone Tempering requires complete success if you don't want to make your life much harder."

Then another.

"And nobody with sense tries to begin Internal Organ Tempering before reaching perfection."

Joe looked at him.

"Nobody?"

"People have."

Alex smiled without humor.

"Some of them even survived."

That was clear enough.

The structure suddenly made much more sense.

Static and dynamic foundation were not merely doors that trainees walked through and forgot.

They remained beneath every later stage.

Students simply could not afford to perfect them first.

Joe could.

At least more than most.

"What makes organ tempering different?"

Alex's expression became more serious.

"Everything before that is easier to survive when you make a mistake. Skin can heal. Muscle can heal. Even bone gives you warnings if you're not completely stupid. Internal organs aren't as forgiving."

He tapped his chest.

"Hall says the practical deadline for beginning it is around thirty-six."

Joe remembered hearing older students discuss age, but never so precisely.

"Why thirty-six?"

"It's not a magical birthday. That's just the line Hall uses. By then the organs are weaker, old injuries have accumulated and forcing blood tempering through them becomes much more dangerous. Maybe some people start later. I wouldn't volunteer."

Joe agreed.

Alex added, "That's why everyone keeps moving. The deeper stages are harder than the ones before them, and the body doesn't wait while you think about it."

That explained the urgency Joe saw among older trainees.

Sixteen was only the age when Green Hollow stopped paying for them.

Thirty-six was the more dangerous limit waiting farther ahead.

Joe was eight.

He had time.

That did not mean he planned to waste it.

His conversations with Alex became more frequent afterward.

Joe was careful not to make the relationship look like worship.

Alex would probably have enjoyed that.

It would also have drawn attention.

Instead, Joe became the younger trainee Alex sometimes called over when he wanted someone intelligent enough to understand what he was saying and deferential enough not to turn everything into an argument.

Alex clearly considered Joe something close to a junior follower.

Joe knew.

He did not care.

Simon cared even less.

When Joe once asked whether Alex had said anything about Blackwood selection, Simon shrugged.

"Alex talks like he already owns a house there because his grandfather knows people. He's strong, though. I'm not stupid enough to tell him that to his face."

"You just said it to me."

"You're not Alex."

That summarized Simon's position.

A few wealthier outside students treated Alex differently.

They sought him out more deliberately, laughed harder at his jokes and found excuses to stand nearby whenever Theodere visited.

Joe recognized currying favor when he saw it.

He simply did it with more restraint.

His previous life had taught him that useful relationships mattered.

If Alex reached Blackwood before him, then Alex would possess contacts, knowledge and experience Joe could eventually use.

Whether Alex privately thought of Joe as a clever underling was irrelevant.

Joe suspected the relationship would look very different in several years anyway.

There was no need to tell Alex that.

Another useful conversation happened almost accidentally.

Joe had been watching Simon's dynamic group from far enough away that none of the actual movements were visible in detail.

Alex noticed.

"Hall will throw you back to the beginner field if he catches you trying to copy."

"I'm not copying."

"Good. It's stupid before minor success."

Joe turned toward him.

"The contract would react?"

Alex frowned.

"Why would it?"

"Dynamic foundation is restricted."

"From outsiders."

Joe paused.

Alex understood the question.

"Oh. You mean if Simon taught you."

Joe said nothing.

Alex laughed.

"You really haven't figured that out?"

"Apparently not."

"The inheritance contract stops us from deliberately passing restricted material outside the inheritance. You signed the same contract Simon did."

"So the mark wouldn't react."

"Not for that."

Alex pointed toward the separated training areas.

"Hall separated the groups because beginners are idiots."

Joe waited.

Alex corrected himself.

"Most beginners are idiots."

That sounded more like Alex.

"He doesn't want someone seeing half a movement, practicing it early and building bad habits before they can even sense blood energy properly. That's a Hall rule. The contract isn't watching whether Hall gave you permission to learn something on Tuesday instead of next year."

Joe considered the implication.

Simon could technically teach him dynamic foundation.

The inheritance contract would not punish either of them because the knowledge remained between two people already bound to the same inheritance.

Hall certainly would punish them if he discovered it.

That was different.

Joe had no intention of asking Simon yet.

His brother would probably agree eventually if Joe presented a good enough reason, but involving Simon meant creating another person who knew Joe's real progress.

There was no need.

Static foundation still rewarded him.

He would continue pushing it toward major success first. The loophole could wait.

Hall's increasing trips to Blackwood produced more rumors over the following months.

Joe eventually learned one fact from Alex that made those trips more understandable.

Hall was thirty-two. And at Bone Tempering.

Joe had assumed the man was older. Alex explained the rest one afternoon in a lowered voice.

"Hall used to work under Master Theodere before the Talent Hall became what it is now. They travelled together."

"Adventurers?"

"That's what the older people call it."

Joe had heard the term before, usually attached to hunters, guards and people who took dangerous work beyond ordinary village boundaries.

Alex continued.

"Master Theodere led the group. Hall followed him for years. They fought together, hunted dangerous animals and took jobs outside the region."

That relationship explained their trust.

It did not make them brothers.

Theodere had been the leader then and remained the stronger man now.

Hall had earned enough trust that Theodere gave him responsibility for the Hall and brought him into other opportunities.

But there were boundaries.

Theodere would not simply hand Hall everything he possessed because they had once fought side by side.

"Hall wants to reach Internal Organ Tempering," Alex said.

"Before thirty-six."

"Obviously."

Joe looked toward the main building. "What's stopping him?"

"Several things. Money. Resources. His foundation isn't at perfection yet."

That caught Joe's attention.

Hall could buy or earn medicine eventually.

Comprehension could not be purchased so easily.

"Then why Blackwood?"

Alex shrugged.

"Opportunity. Better medicine. Better instructors. Maybe something Master Theodere is arranging will help. I don't know everything he tells Hall."

That last sentence carried a small amount of irritation.

Alex disliked not knowing. Joe understood.

"So Theodere is helping him."

"Giving him chances."

Alex corrected the wording almost immediately.

"Master Theodere doesn't owe him a breakthrough."

That distinction matched what Joe had already observed.

Theodere opened opportunities.

Hall still had to succeed himself.

Joe found that more believable than the idea of an endlessly generous master solving every problem for everyone around him.

People had limits.

So did relationships.

Even loyal ones.

Hall had four years before the age he himself considered dangerous.

That sounded like plenty of time to an eight-year-old.

Joe knew better.

Four years could disappear very quickly when a bottleneck refused to move.

For the first time, Joe understood some of the impatience behind Hall's teaching.

The man who told children not to waste time was running out of his own.

Joe returned to his static stance training with renewed attention.

Minor success was not enough.

He wanted major success before revealing anything.

And unlike Hall, Joe possessed a talent that promised every genuine effort would eventually pay.