CHAPTER 24: A YEAR IN THE HALL

Spring became summer almost without Joe noticing.

His days had settled into such a regular pattern that the changing fields marked time more clearly than anything else.

The family's six strips turned green after planting. Young grain rose in narrow rows, then thickened until the boundaries between neighboring fields became more obvious than the plants themselves.

Whenever Joe had a Hall rest day, there was usually work waiting at home.

Weeds needed pulling.

Irrigation channels needed clearing after rain.

The garden produced more vegetables than Lily and Pam could process without help.

Mary remained convinced that being sent to collect anything from the garden was punishment, although she became remarkably willing if Joe went with her.

One afternoon Lily handed them two baskets.

"Beans. Only the full ones."

Mary looked at Joe.

"You heard her."

"I heard."

"You pick."

"You're carrying a basket."

"I can carry what you pick."

Lily spoke without turning around.

"Mary."

Mary immediately began picking.

Joe said nothing.

By midsummer, the house had changed with the season as well.

Most bedding stayed rolled against the wall until night. The door remained open during daylight, letting air move through the main room, and much of the work that had crowded around the hearth during winter shifted outside beneath the shade beside the house.

Mary's old writing board remained with Joe more often than with her.

She had officially decided it was boring.

Joe used it on rest days to review medicine.

Merek's lessons had expanded considerably.

The old healer now trusted him with basic preparation tasks under supervision. Joe could wash and cut several common roots, prepare drying trays and grind simple ingredients without someone watching every movement.

He still did not know Merek's important recipes.

That had become almost amusing.

The better Joe grew at medicine, the more clearly he saw how carefully Merek prevented anyone from learning too much of a profitable preparation at once.

Joe respected the method.

He also no longer felt any urgency to steal anything.

Access itself had become valuable enough.

Merek answered more questions now because Joe rarely needed the same answer twice.

One hot afternoon, Joe was sorting a collection of dried leaves when the healer stopped beside him.

"You've arranged those by effect."

Joe looked down.

"Mostly. The ones on the left are more useful for recovery after strains. The middle group is nourishing, and those three are both depending on preparation."

Merek picked up one of the leaves.

"And this?"

Joe explained.

The healer placed it back.

"You learn too quickly."

Joe looked at him.

That could have sounded suspicious.

Merek only seemed irritated.

"Your other apprentices complained when I made them memorize twenty plants in a month. You make me find more things to teach."

Joe relaxed slightly.

"I can learn slower."

"No."

Merek looked offended by the suggestion.

"If a student can learn, the teacher should teach. Otherwise, both are wasting time."

Then he walked away.

Joe smiled.

Merek had begun enjoying the same thing he complained about.

A capable student made teaching satisfying.

Joe allowed that advantage to remain visible.

It was safe.

Nobody was going to cut open an eight-year-old because he remembered herbs unusually well.

At worst, Merek would brag about him.

The old man had already started doing that occasionally.

Joe overheard him tell one customer, "The small one reads better than my older apprentices did when they started."

The apprentice standing nearby looked deeply offended.

Joe pretended not to hear.

His martial progress remained hidden.

Static foundation continued improving after minor success.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The resonance created by the six stances grew stronger and more detailed. At first Joe had merely sensed blood energy as a vague presence throughout his body.

Months later, the sensation contained structure.

He could distinguish where the resonance was stronger and where it weakened. Fatigue altered it. Poor breathing disturbed it. Small errors in posture changed the way the sensation spread through his limbs.

Every Hard Work Pays Off kept finding details for him to improve.

No Regression kept them.

Joe still had not achieved major success.

That did not frustrate him.

He could feel himself moving toward it.

More importantly, for the first time he began noticing something else whenever his blood energy was unusually full.

A familiar pressure.

It reminded him faintly of the pale birthday screens.

The realization came during a rest day behind the house.

Joe had finished a particularly good static training session and remained standing beneath the tree he once used to count days.

His blood energy felt unusually clear throughout his body.

On impulse, Joe tried something he had attempted many times as a small child.

He called for the screen.

Nothing happened immediately.

Then the blood energy inside him shifted.

Joe's attention sharpened.

A pale outline flickered in front of his eyes.

Rectangular.

Almost transparent.

Gone.

At the same moment, a noticeable portion of his blood energy disappeared.

Joe staggered half a step.

He stopped immediately.

The sensation left behind was similar to training too long without eating—not injury, but emptiness.

Joe stared at the space where the outline had appeared.

There was something there.

A panel.

He was certain of that much.

He could not open it properly yet.

Whatever mechanism produced the birthday notifications appeared capable of responding to blood energy, but Joe's current reserve was insufficient to sustain it.

That suggested an interesting connection between his talents.

Past Life Memory.

No Regression.

Every Hard Work Pays Off.

The pale messages themselves.

Perhaps the talents were not completely separate gifts. Perhaps they interacted through some deeper structure he had only begun to touch.

Joe did not have enough evidence to go farther.

He also had no intention of repeatedly draining his blood energy just to stare at an empty outline.

The panel could wait.

Joe suspected major success in the static foundation would increase either his resonance, usable blood energy or both enough to make another attempt more worthwhile.

That gave him one more reason to continue.

---------

Summer eventually began leaning toward autumn. The grain was hardened. The fields changed from green toward gold. Household priorities changed with them.

Merek saw less of Joe during the busiest harvest weeks. So did the Talent Hall.

Everyone in Green Hollow understood that harvest came first.

Training mattered.

Medicine mattered.

Neither produced bread if grain was left rotting in the field.

Joe worked beside Mike and Joseph whenever he needed. His small childhood chores gradually became real labor. At eight he still could not match an adult, but Perfect Body, years of preparation and martial training made him considerably more useful than an ordinary child his age.

He carried bound stalks.

Helped gather dropped grain.

Moved smaller loads toward storage.

The work was repetitive, tiring and strangely satisfying.

Every Hard Work Pays Off responded to it too.

Joe became more efficient with the sickle movements he was allowed to perform, better at tying bundles and less wasteful in how he carried weight.

The talent did not care whether the task was martial arts or farming.

Work was work.

Pam noticed before anyone else.

"You finally learned how to carry grain without looking like you're negotiating with it."

Joe shifted the bundle against his shoulder.

"I was smaller before."

"You were also stubborn."

"Those aren't opposites."

Pam laughed.

The harvest was good.

Not exceptional enough to transform the household's finances, but strong enough that Lily stopped watching the grain storage with the same tension she carried after poorer years.

There would be surplus again.

Less than the previous year's unusually useful sale, but enough to matter.

Joe immediately thought about medicine.

Then stopped himself.

It was not his silver.

The roof still needed work.

Mary still needed clothes.

Tools wore out.

Winter always produced expenses nobody remembered during harvest.

Joe now had another path toward resources anyway.

Knowledge.

That would take longer.

He could afford long.

As Starlight approached, Green Hollow began changing in familiar ways.

Children gathered flowers.

Lantern frames appeared outside houses.

Travelling merchants arrived along Blackwood Road, bringing cloth, tools, dried goods and medicines more expensive than anything Merek normally sold.

Joe noticed the medicinal stalls differently this year.

Last Starlight he had barely understood what he was looking at.

Now he recognized ingredients.

Not all of them.

Enough.

Some merchants sold common herbs at prices Merek would have mocked.

Others carried things Joe had never seen in the shop at all.

He wanted to ask questions.

He also wanted to enjoy the festival when it came.

Those desires could coexist.

The afternoon before Starlight, the Talent Hall dismissed students early.

Joe had just finished changing out of his training clothes when Alex called him over.

Alex looked different.

Not physically.

His clothing was simply better than normal, and a small travel bundle rested near the covered walkway.

Joe already suspected the reason.

Alex confirmed it.

"The Blackwood selection was today."

"You passed."

Alex smiled.

"Obviously."

Joe almost laughed.

"Congratulations."

That pleased him more than pretending surprise would have.

"I leave after Starlight. The town group heads out the following morning."

"Guard?"

"That's the plan."

Alex's expression made it clear he expected more than remaining an ordinary guard forever.

Joe expected the same.

Alex was already in late Skin Tempering, came from the elder's family and had Theodere as a relative and connection.

Blackwood would give him more opportunities than Green Hollow ever could.

Alex looked toward Joe.

"You should keep training properly. You're slow to speak, which is better than most of the younger idiots, and you remember what people tell you. If you make it to Blackwood later, find me."

Joe nodded.

"I will."

Alex probably imagined Joe arriving years later as the same clever younger follower he knew now.

Joe had no reason to correct him.

Connections mattered.

His previous life had taught him that long before reincarnation.

A person does not need to love you to be useful.

He did not even need to respect you completely.

Alex liked having a capable junior who listened and made him feel knowledgeable.

Joe liked having access to information and, eventually, someone familiar in Blackwood.

Both could benefit.

That was enough.

"Learn more before you come," Alex added. "Blackwood has enough village boys who arrive thinking they're important because they were strong at home."

Joe smiled slightly.

"I'll remember."

"I know. That's the annoying part."

They clasped hands.

For the first time, Joe wondered what Alex would look like when they met again.

If his own talents continued working the way they had so far, the hierarchy between them might not survive those years.

Perhaps Alex would remain far ahead.

Perhaps not.

Joe did not need to predict it.

He only needed to keep progressing.

Alex left to speak with several older students.

Simon came over a short while later.

"He's been telling everyone he passed?"

"He did pass."

"I know. He's still enjoying it too much."

Joe looked at his brother.

"You explained Master Theodere's nod for a week."

Simon stared at him.

"That was different."

"Of course."

Simon continued walking as though the conversation had somehow ended in his favor.

Joe followed.

They returned home through golden fields.

Cut grain stood bundled along several neighboring strips, and smoke from early festival cooking drifted above Green Hollow.

Tomorrow would mark one year since Joe entered the Talent Hall.

The difference between that child and the person walking home now felt much larger than twelve months.

He had entered knowing only that martial arts were real and that blood energy existed.

Now his static foundation had secretly reached minor success and continued advancing toward major success.

He understood that food and medicine supplied the body that created blood energy, while spirituality—at least at his current level—was simply the qualification that allowed a person to enter the path in the first place.

He began learning medicine under Merek.

He knew enough about the later foundation stages to understand why rushing forward could weaken everything built afterward.

He had discovered the inheritance contract contained more flexibility than Hall's training rules suggested.

And somewhere just beyond his current ability, a pale panel waited for enough blood energy to open properly.

There was still far more he did not know.

That no longer bothered him in the same way.

Unknown things could be learned.

Tomorrow was Starlight.

Last year Joe had spent the festival waiting to discover whether the black stone would accept him.

This year he had nothing to prove.

He planned to eat whatever Lily allowed him to take, watch Mary attempt something she had been specifically forbidden to do, listen to Simon explain the festival to people who had attended it their entire lives and enjoy one day without turning everything into training.

The next stage of his plans could wait until after Starlight.

For once, Joe was simply looking forward to the festival.