CHAPTER 31: EIGHT MONTHS

Late autumn became Deepwinter while Joe trained Dynamic Foundation.

The first snow settled lightly over Green Hollow, whitening roofs, fences and the empty fields before footsteps and cartwheels turned the village road into gray slush. Heavier snow followed later. On some mornings, the family's six strips disappeared beneath an unbroken sheet of white, their boundaries visible only where raised ridges pushed through the snow.

The Hall remained open five days each week.

Cold changed training without stopping it. Breath clouded in front of the students during morning practice, warm-ups became longer, and the covered edges of the yard filled quickly whenever wind came down from the surrounding hills.

Joe continued working on both foundations.

His hidden Major Static Success gave him a much stronger resonance than Hall believed he possessed. Dynamic practice forced him to maintain that resonance while stepping, turning and shifting his weight.

At first, every movement seemed determined to break it.

Gradually, fewer did.

Progress slowed as winter deepened.

Joe could see it whenever he checked the panel. Early Dynamic practice had rewarded him quickly, while the gains nearer Minor Success became increasingly small.

That no longer bothered him.

He had experienced the same thing with Static Foundation.

For other trainees, a bottleneck might mean months or years of effort without knowing whether anything was changing. Joe's progress could become almost imperceptible, but Every Hard Work Pays Off still produced something whenever the effort was genuine.

No Regression kept it.

Eventually enough small gains would become a breakthrough.

-------

Joe turned ten near the end of Deepwinter.

No new talent appeared.

He had expected none.

Sixteen remained the next birthday worth watching.

His family celebrated anyway.

Pam claimed Joe had been the quietest baby in the household.

Lily disagreed immediately.

"You didn't sleep beside him."

"I didn't need to. I could hear the children from the other side of the room."

"You heard Simon."

Pam thought about that.

"Then perhaps Joe really was quiet."

Mary was less interested in the historical dispute than in whether birthdays still required sweets.

They apparently did.

Simon spent dinner explaining that Joe being ten meant the age difference between them was becoming less important.

"You are still three years older."

"I know, but three years matters less when you're ten than when you're seven."

Joe paused.

That was technically true.

He decided not to give Simon the satisfaction.

---------

Spring returned slowly.

Snow disappeared first from the open fields, exposing dark, wet soil beneath. Meltwater filled the shallow channels beside the roads, and the river grew broad and noisy for several weeks before settling back within its usual banks.

Bare hills turned green almost day by day.

Small flowers appeared in sheltered places. Buds opened. Within weeks the branches that had allowed Joe to see deep into the surrounding woods during winter were thick with leaves again.

The household became busier with the season.

Tools needed repairing. Irrigation channels had to be cleared. Seed grain was inspected before planting.

Merek's shop changed at the same time.

Fresh leaves, roots and early flowers began replacing the dry winter stores, and the rear rooms once again smelled of damp soil mixed with smoke and bitter herbs.

Joe continued experimenting with the scraps Merek allowed him to take.

Most attempts failed.

That was becoming less frustrating and more useful.

Every Hard Work Pays Off did not make incorrect preparation work merely because Joe had spent effort on it. If an ingredient was overheated, it remained damaged. If his proportion was wrong, the result remained poor.

What improved was Joe.

One failure taught him that a certain ingredient could not be boiled as long as he had assumed. Another showed that a powder needed to be added only after the mixture cooled. A third revealed that something Joe had considered an active medicinal ingredient seemed to matter more for the final paste's consistency.

The common healing preparation was slowly becoming understandable rather than merely familiar.

His panel reflected that progress with irritating precision.

Medicine had moved from ninety-eight to ninety-nine. Then stopped.

Routine preparation no longer seemed enough.

Joe suspected the final step would require him to do something he had not yet accomplished: understand and successfully produce a proper medicine on his own rather than simply becoming exceptionally good at assisting Merek.

He could wait.

Another threshold was closer.

Simon began Skin Tempering that spring.

Once Hall decided he understood the theory well enough, Simon moved from reading about the method to practicing it under supervision.

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Lily noticed the change before Joe needed to ask.

Some evenings Simon returned with parts of his skin faintly red from training, and his appetite climbed again. Lily responded by quietly adding more food to his bowl.

Simon responded by talking about Skin Tempering whenever anyone gave him the opportunity.

Joe let him.

The practical method was simpler than the explanations Joe had been constructing in his head.

"You don't temper the whole body at once," Simon said one evening. "You'd run out of blood energy before doing anything useful."

He tapped the front of his chest.

"You start with easier areas. Guide blood energy into the skin, spread it as evenly as you can, hold it there and stop before you damage yourself. Then you recover and do it again."

"How many times?"

Simon shrugged. "Until it's properly tempered."

Joe looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Simon continued.

"You keep expanding to other areas. The torso is easier. Some places take better control. Hands, feet, neck, face. Hall says rushing the harder parts is stupid."

That sounded like Hall.

"And what actually changes?"

"The skin gets tougher."

"Only tougher?"

Simon thought.

"More sensitive too."

Joe looked at him again.

Simon frowned. "That's what Hall says. People farther into Skin Tempering can feel things better. At high enough progress, even air moving across the skin becomes easier to notice."

That was interesting.

Tougher skin becoming more sensitive rather than less was not what Joe would have expected if the process simply produced thick calluses.

"Why?"

Simon shrugged. "Because it's tempered."

That answered absolutely nothing.

Joe resisted asking again.

Simon knew the method as Hall taught it. He knew what to do, what mistakes to avoid and what results were expected.

He did not know why biology worked.

That question belonged to Joe.

Later.

Simon also gave him a better sense of what the Hall meant by Initial, Middle and Late Skin Tempering.

Initial meant someone had successfully begun the actual tempering process and was steadily extending it through the easier parts of the body.

Middle meant most of the body had already been brought into regular tempering.

Late meant nearly everything had been reached, and the practitioner was spending more time strengthening weaker or difficult areas and making the result more even.

Completion came only when the entire skin had been properly tempered.

The terms were practical rather than exact.

Two people at Initial Skin Tempering could still be significantly different.

That explained the Hall's older trainees better.

Among the sixteen-year-olds approaching the end of their supported years, it was normal for two or three to have only recently entered Initial Skin Tempering. Among the current fifteen-year-olds, one had also reached Initial Skin Tempering early enough to attract attention.

Alex had been far beyond that when he left Green Hollow.

He had already reached Late Skin Tempering at fifteen.

Simon mentioned it while complaining that people compared every talented student to him.

"That's why Master Theodere let him go early," Simon said. "He was already strong enough that town work wasn't as stupid a risk, and Master Theodere arranged extra protection for him."

Joe remembered two other wealthy students from earlier years who had also left before sixteen.

"The others weren't Theodere's relatives."

"Their families wanted them to leave," Simon said. "They had people and money outside the village. That's different."

It was.

Sixteen was not a magical boundary.

It was simply the age at which the Theodere stopped supporting students for free.

Leaving earlier made sense only when someone's strength, family resources or connections made the added risk worthwhile.

For an ordinary village child, remaining under Hall's protection as long as possible was usually the safer choice.

Joe understood Alex's early departure better now.

Late Skin Tempering at fifteen was not merely good progress.

Compared with students who reached Initial Skin Tempering around fifteen or sixteen, Alex had been taking several substantial steps ahead.

--------

By late spring, Green Hollow was green again.

Young grain covered the fields. The river had settled after the meltwater, and fresh leaves hid most of the hillsides that had been visible throughout winter.

Around eight months after Joe entered the Dynamic Foundation group, the breakthrough finally came.

Rain had fallen during the night.

The Hall yard was already drying beneath the morning sun, although dark patches remained near the walls and drops of water still clung to grass beyond the compound.

Joe began the sequence.

Step.

Turn.

Shift.

Breath.

The resonance moved with him.

Joe noticed immediately.

For months, Dynamic Foundation had felt like trying to carry something that constantly slipped from his grasp. Movement weakened his awareness of blood energy, forcing him to recover during the next part of the sequence.

Now it stayed.

Not perfectly.

Not with the deliberate control required for body tempering.

But his awareness remained connected through the movement.

Joe finished the sequence.

Then repeated it.

The result was the same.

Dynamic Minor Success.

He showed nothing.

Nobody around him knew.

That evening, after dinner and rest restored enough blood energy, Joe went behind the house and summoned the panel.

[Skills]

Fishing — Lv.4 58/100

Farming — Lv.3 78/100

Medicine — Lv.2 99/100

Static Foundation — Lv.3 28/100

Dynamic Foundation — Lv.2 2/100

Joe studied the final line.

Eight months.

His hidden Major Static Foundation had undoubtedly helped. A stronger resonance meant he had started Dynamic training with a much better sense of what he was trying to preserve.

He looked briefly at Medicine.

Still ninety-nine.

That problem would wait.

Skin Tempering came first.

Joe was now genuinely qualified to learn it.

Hall simply did not know.

Revealing Dynamic Minor Success after only eight months would make his already fast public Static progress much more noticeable, particularly for a child without the continuous medicine available to wealthy trainees.

There was no reason to do that.

Simon already possessed the inheritance.

And Joe already knew the contract itself would not stop him from sharing it.

Alex had explained that before leaving Green Hollow.

The inheritance contract prevented restricted knowledge from deliberately passing to someone outside Theodere's inheritance.

Joe and Simon had both signed it.

Hall's training restrictions were different.

They existed because learning techniques too early could ruin a student's foundation or injure him.

Joe was no longer too early.

He simply could not prove that without revealing what he was hiding.

The difficult part would be convincing Simon.

-------

Joe waited several days.

Then he chose an evening when Simon had finished eating and was in a good mood after a successful tempering session.

The main room felt much larger than it had during winter. Bedding had been rolled against the wall, the door remained open to the mild evening air, and fading sunlight reached across the packed-earth floor.

Lily worked near the hearth.

Outside, Pam and Mary were sorting vegetables, although Mary's contribution seemed to consist mostly of asking whether several oddly shaped ones could be kept as toys.

Joe sat beside his brother.

"Simon."

"Hm?"

"I want you to teach me Skin Tempering."

Simon looked at him.

Then laughed.

Joe waited.

The laughter stopped.

"You're serious."

"Yes."

"No."

Joe had expected that.

"Why?"

"You know why. Hall doesn't teach it until you have Minor Success in both foundations."

"I know."

"Then what are we arguing about?"

"Alex told me the contract doesn't care."

Simon stopped.

"What?"

"Before he left. I asked him about the inheritance restriction. It only stops someone from passing the inheritance to people outside the contract. It doesn't decide which contracted student is allowed to learn which part."

Simon glanced down at his wrist.

"Alex said that?"

"Yes."

"Hall still forbids it."

"Yes."

Simon stared at him.

"So, you're asking me to break Hall's rules."

"I'm asking you to teach me."

"That's the same thing."

"Mostly."

"Joe."

Joe changed tactics.

"I'm not asking you to temper me tonight."

That slowed Simon down.

"I want the method explained properly. Not bits you mention at dinner. The order, how blood energy is applied, when to stop, the mistakes Hall warns about, all of it."

"You can learn that when Hall approves you."

"Merek teaches me martial recovery medicine already. Knowing what tempering actually does would help me understand what those medicines are treating."

Simon remained unconvinced.

Joe continued.

"Hall's reason for separating the stages is safety. You told me that yourself. If I want to understand Skin Tempering before I'm allowed to practice it, learning the correct theory from you is safer than trying to reconstruct it from pieces."

Simon considered that.

"You're not going to practice."

"Not from the explanation."

That answer was carefully true.

Simon noticed the wording.

His eyes narrowed.

Joe waited.

Finally, Simon sighed.

"Theory first."

Joe nodded.

"Theory first."

"If you do something stupid, I'm telling Father."

"Fair."

"And if I'm explaining, stop asking a question every time I finish one sentence."

"I don't do that."

Simon stared at him.

Joe reconsidered.

"I'll try."

"That's more believable."

Simon shifted his position and began.

"The first thing you need to understand is that tempering one area once doesn't mean anything..."

Joe listened.

For once, Simon's habit of explaining everything at length was exactly what he needed.

And beneath Simon's practical instructions waited a question Joe now found much more interesting.

If Skin Tempering made the body harder to cut while somehow making the skin more sensitive, then whatever blood energy was changing was more complicated than simply making the surface thicker.

Joe intended to find out what.