CHAPTER 41: THE EMPTY PLACE

Simon leaving created an empty space in more places than the house.

The most obvious was at the Talent Hall.

Simon had helped the Hall before, but not always in the same role. When he was younger, his better reading and writing had occasionally made him useful as a literacy assistant for newly accepted students.

The martial responsibility came much later.

For the past two years, roughly from fourteen to sixteen, Hall had trusted Simon to help with the younger martial groups. He could demonstrate basic stances, supervise repetitions and correct simple mistakes that did not require Hall's personal attention. That position also earned him three medicated meals each week, an advantage that had become increasingly valuable once he entered Skin Tempering.

Now Simon was gone.

The Hall had other assistants, but losing someone experienced was still noticeable.

Joe began filling part of that space almost accidentally.

At first Hall simply pointed toward whoever needed help.

"Fix his stance."

Joe did.

The next time there were two trainees who could not understand the breathing rhythm. A few days later Hall left Joe with a younger group while he went to correct several students practicing Dynamic Foundation.

Joe had helped occasionally before, but never as a regular responsibility.

Several weeks after Starlight, Theodere made the arrangement official.

"You'll help with the younger groups three days a week."

Joe looked toward Hall.

Hall nodded.

"Mostly foundations. Nothing beyond what I tell you to handle."

Joe understood.

Simon had once received medicinal meals as compensation for similar work.

Joe's circumstances were different.

Hall was already paying for his medicinal diet because of the progress Joe had publicly shown. That support had begun long before anyone expected him to teach. Hall had looked at a village boy advancing unusually quickly without regular medicine, and decided additional resources would probably produce additional results and spent money accordingly.

The assistant’s position did not add another set of medicinal meals.

Instead, for the first time, Joe had a practical way to return some of the value Hall had been putting into him.

He found the arrangement fair.

More than fair, really.

Hall had fed him for over a year based largely on potential.

A few hours spent helping younger trainees hardly balanced the account.

"Fine," Joe said. "Which group?"

Hall pointed toward five children struggling through the second Static stance.

"Start there."

Joe quickly discovered that teaching was not the same thing as knowing.

Hall could watch a trainee for several breaths and say, "Hip lower."

He was almost always right.

The problem was that the trainee did not necessarily understand how to become right.

One morning, a boy around eight repeatedly failed to establish stable resonance in the third Static stance. Hall corrected him twice before being called toward another group.

The boy tried again.

Nothing happened.

Joe watched for a few repetitions before walking over.

"Stop trying to feel the blood energy."

The boy looked confused.

"Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

"Eventually. Right now you're chasing the feeling instead of building the stance that creates it."

Joe pointed toward his front foot.

"Move that slightly outward."

The boy obeyed.

"Now your shoulders."

"What about them?"

"You're trying so hard that you're lifting them. Relax."

"If I relax, won't the stance get weaker?"

"Not everything. Just what doesn't need to be tense."

Joe demonstrated beside him.

"Look at where my weight settles. I'm not leaning forward to force the posture and I'm not pulling backward either."

The boy adjusted.

Joe shook his head.

"Too much. You changed three things at once. Go back."

The boy sighed.

"Again?"

"Again."

Joe corrected the foot first, waited until that felt natural, then adjusted the knee and finally the hips.

"Now breathe normally."

The boy did.

"Again."

His posture settled.

"Good. Now use the breathing pattern."

Several breaths passed.

The boy's eyes widened.

"I felt it."

"Good."

The boy immediately tried to strengthen the sensation.

His shoulders rose.

The resonance vanished.

Joe tapped one shoulder.

"And that's why I told you not to chase it."

The boy frowned.

"It disappeared."

"Then repeat what worked instead of trying to invent something better."

The second attempt produced a weaker sensation.

The third lasted longer.

By the fifth, the boy was grinning.

Joe stepped away.

That happened often.

Hall understood the martial foundations far more deeply than Joe did overall. He had practiced them for decades, corrected hundreds of students and possessed experience Joe could not recreate simply by advancing quickly.

But expertise and explanation were not identical skills.

Some errors had become so obvious to Hall that he no longer remembered why a beginner could not see them.

Joe still remembered being a beginner.

More importantly, habits from his previous life encouraged him to break problems apart. Instead of telling a student that the entire stance was wrong, he looked for the first mistake causing the rest.

Foot placement.

Weight.

Unnecessary tension.

Breathing.

Correct one variable.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Observe.

Then correct the next.

The younger students responded well to it.

Some began waiting until Joe was nearby before asking questions they were embarrassed to ask Hall.

Hall noticed.

He never praised Joe directly.

Instead, whenever another confused trainee appeared, Hall increasingly pointed toward Joe.

Joe considered that praise.

Teaching also improved his own foundations.

Watching one body could hide a great deal.

Watching twenty different children fail in twenty different ways revealed patterns.

Some trainees created too much muscular tension and smothered the resonance before it stabilized. Others relaxed so completely that the structure collapsed. A few breathed correctly while placing their weight badly enough that the rest of the technique had no chance to work.

Joe began understanding not only what the correct stances looked like, but why each component mattered.

That distinction became increasingly important as his own Static Foundation advanced beyond the level where obvious corrections helped.

Static Complete Success had once sounded like an ending.

It was not.

Reaching Complete meant the six stances had become connected enough that resonance remained coherent through the entire system. Advancing beyond Complete demanded something subtler.

Tiny inefficiencies.

Minute changes in weight distribution.

How the ribs expanded during a particular breath.

How tension in one portion of the back affected resonance somewhere else.

The complexity seemed to multiply the deeper he went.

Progress became slower than Joe had expected.

Not stopped.

Slow.

He could live with that.

Hall had spent years trapped against a real bottleneck.

Joe possessed No Regression and Every Hard Work Pays Off. If he found a genuine improvement, it stayed. If he worked meaningfully, something accumulated even when the amount was tiny.

That did not make the path short.

It made the path reliable.

There was a difference.

Dynamic Foundation was another matter.

That one was getting close.

Movement had once threatened the resonance. Later he learned to preserve it. At Major Success, the resonance began following the body's movement instead of merely surviving it.

Now the separation between intention, motion and blood energy was shrinking further.

Joe could feel Complete Success somewhere ahead.

He simply had not reached it yet.

Skin Tempering II moved more stubbornly than either of the foundation stances.

The second pass had confirmed one thing very quickly.

His skin remembered being tempered.

Unfortunately, that did not make tempering it again easier.

It made it harder.

The first pass had transformed ordinary tissue.

The second was demanding further adaptation from tissue that had already become unusually strong, efficient and resistant.

Joe could still produce genuine changes.

He simply had to work much longer for them.

That reinforced his suspicion that repeated tempering carried increasing costs, though he remained careful about projecting too far from limited evidence.

The first tempering required one unit of work.

The second appeared likely to require roughly twice as much.

Maybe the third would require three times the first.

Maybe it would not.

Joe had no interest in turning two observations into a law of cultivation.

For now, his problem was simply finishing the second.

Anything beyond that could wait.

Several weeks after becoming a formal assistant, Joe found something in the library that changed how he thought about leaving Green Hollow.

It was not a martial manual.

It was barely even a proper document.

A single sheet of paper had been folded inside an old collection of hunting notes, perhaps as a bookmark or perhaps because someone had intended to save it and forgotten where it was.

Joe almost put it aside.

Then he noticed the breathing diagram.

The notes described a method for suppressing the outward signs of blood-energy activity.

Joe read the page once.

Then again.

Then a third time.

The method did not weaken the practitioner.

It did not reduce the actual amount of blood energy or undo physical tempering.

Instead, it coordinated breathing, posture and internal resonance so that less evidence of that activity reached the surface where another person might casually notice it.

The method had limits.

A proper examination would still expose the truth.

Someone significantly more skilled might notice discrepancies between the practitioner's apparent state and the way he moved.

Physical feats obviously could not be hidden by breathing.

But casual observation could be fooled.

Joe sat motionless for several breaths.

Then a phrase from his previous life surfaced.

Playing the pig to eat the tiger.

He almost laughed.

Ren looked up from the desk.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Then do nothing more quietly."

Joe lowered his head.

He had always thought protagonists in those novels enjoyed concealing their strength far too much. They would hide three realms, deliberately act weak and then wait twenty chapters for someone arrogant enough to insult them.

Joe still thought that part was stupid.

The useful part was controlling information.

Green Hollow had become increasingly difficult for that.

Everyone knew everyone.

Hall remembered when Joe had entered each training group.

Theodere knew his family.

Merek knew which medicines he bought.

Neighbors knew when he went to the Hall and when he returned.

If Joe suddenly demonstrated strength far beyond what people expected, there would be questions immediately.

Blackwood would be different.

Most people there had never met him.

They would know only what he showed them and whatever information arrived from Green Hollow.

A method capable of concealing some signs of his true cultivation gave Joe far more flexibility.

He could appear ordinary when ordinary was useful.

He could reveal more when circumstances required it.

And if he ever suffered an injury he preferred not to advertise, controlling the outward signs of his blood energy might help prevent people from immediately noticing that something was wrong.

Joe copied the sheet carefully onto his writing board before returning it exactly where he found it.

Then he began practicing.

The technique was not easy.

Suppressing outward signs while maintaining internal control required another layer of attention, particularly during movement.

Joe liked it immediately.

Not because hiding was exciting.

Because choice was.

Around the same time, Hall began disappearing from the Talent Hall.

At first Joe assumed he had gone to Blackwood.

Then several days became a week.

A week became several.

The senior assistants handled more of the ordinary training, while Theodere appeared at the compound more often than usual.

Joe eventually asked when he found Theodere watching the younger groups.

"Where's Hall?"

Theodere remained silent for a moment.

"Preparing."

Joe understood after another breath.

"Internal Organ Tempering?"

Theodere nodded.

Joe looked instinctively toward the place Hall normally stood.

Hall had been at Bone Tempering for years.

One successful step beyond it would make him a true martial artist.

"He's going to attempt it?"

"Yes."

Joe hesitated.

"Again?"

Theodere turned toward him.

That was enough of an answer.

"He tried before."

"Once."

"What happened?"

"He failed."

"Badly?"

Theodere's expression tightened slightly.

"Badly enough that he needed a long time to recover."

Joe did not ask for more detail.

A failed attempt at tempering the organs did not require much imagination to sound unpleasant.

"Why try again now?"

Theodere looked across the yard.

"Because waiting doesn't make him younger."

That was the problem.

Hall was around thirty-five now.

Joe did not know his exact birthday, but he knew enough to understand the urgency.

Beginning Internal Organ Tempering became increasingly dangerous as the body aged and accumulated injuries. Ideally, a practitioner would first bring both Static and Dynamic Foundations to Perfection.

Hall had not.

His foundations were excellent by village standards, but not perfect.

Apparently they might never become perfect.

If Hall waited indefinitely for that breakthrough, the safer foundation might arrive only after the body itself had become less capable of surviving what came next.

Joe understood the choice.

Attempt Internal Organ Tempering with imperfect foundations while the body still had some margin.

Or wait for an ideal condition that might never come.

Neither option was good.

Hall had chosen the one that at least offered movement.

Joe looked toward the training yard again.

"What happens here if he succeeds?"

"The Hall continues."

"I mean Hall himself."

Theodere raised an eyebrow.

"Would he really keep standing here every day correcting children?"

Theodere's expression softened slightly.

"Not every day."

Joe had expected that.

The Talent Hall mattered tremendously to Green Hollow.

That did not mean it justified the full-time attention of a true martial artist.

If Hall succeeded, someone else would eventually handle more of the daily instruction. Perhaps one of the older assistants. Perhaps another practitioner Theodere knew. Perhaps Hall would still return occasionally while spending most of his time elsewhere.

Joe did not know.

He found himself hoping Hall succeeded anyway.

Part of that was selfish.

Hall had invested heavily in him.

The medicinal diet alone represented more money than Joe's family could reasonably have spent on his martial training. Hall had also given him access to the library, supervised his body tempering and trusted him enough to help teach younger trainees.

If Hall became a true martial artist, even a modest relationship with him might become extremely valuable once Joe entered Blackwood.

But that was not the whole reason.

Hall was fair.

Not always patient.

Not especially warm.

Certainly not the best teacher Joe had ever imagined.

But fair.

When Joe showed enough potential to justify investment, Hall invested.

When Bran's conflict had produced contradictory evidence, Hall had refused to invent certainty simply because one side was more powerful.

Joe respected that.

He wanted Hall to succeed.

That evening, Joe trained behind the house.

Summer had begun fading, and the fields beyond the yard moved beneath a cooler breeze than they had had only weeks earlier.

He started with Static Foundation.

The resonance arrived immediately.

Complete Success had made entering the state almost effortless.

Improving it was another matter.

Joe remained in the stance, breathing slowly while his attention followed small imperfections through the structure of his body.

There.

A slight imbalance through one hip.

Corrected.

Then something smaller appeared in the way his rib cage settled during the next breath.

He adjusted.

Better.

Not perfect.

He held the stance longer.

The improvement was microscopic.

It was still improvement.

Joe moved into Dynamic Foundation afterward.

Here the difference was more satisfying.

The resonance followed his steps almost seamlessly. Turns that once required correction now carried blood energy naturally through the shift, and his breathing remained integrated even when he changed direction quickly.

Closer.

He knew it without needing the panel.

Then came Skin Tempering II.

Joe selected one of the slower regions and guided blood energy into tissue that had already survived an entire complete tempering.

Warmth spread.

Then pressure.

Then resistance.

The second pass never felt quite like the first.

The tissue seemed almost stubborn now.

Joe continued carefully, allowing the energy to work without forcing it beyond what the area could safely tolerate.

Progress has come.

Small.

Real.

Enough.

He stopped.

After recovering, Joe sat beneath the old tree near the house.

Simon was somewhere in Blackwood now.

Perhaps already through the guard's formal test.

Perhaps complaining about the food.

Perhaps discovering that Joe had been right about being polite to Alex.

Hall was preparing to gamble years of work against one dangerous breakthrough.

Joe himself had less than a year before the next Starlight.

He opened the panel.

[Skills]

Medicine — Lv.3 64/100

Static Foundation — Lv.4 31/100

Dynamic Foundation — Lv.3 82/100

Skin Tempering II — Lv.1 11/100

The completed first Skin Tempering no longer appeared.

Joe had removed it deliberately.

It was finished.

He did not need to spend blood energy displaying an accomplishment he already understood.

The concealment breathing method was absent as well.

For now, it was too new to be useful information.

Joe studied what remained.

Medicine continued advancing.

Static moved much more slowly than he had once expected, but it moved.

Dynamic was approaching Complete Success.

Skin Tempering II had only begun.

There was plenty left to accomplish.

Joe dismissed the panel and leaned back against the tree.

Green Hollow no longer felt like his entire world.

It felt increasingly like preparation for the next one.

The village had given him safety, family, training and time.

It had also become a place where every unusual step was visible.

Blackwood offered danger.

It also offered anonymity.

Resources.

More martial knowledge.

More medicine.

More people.

More chances to learn what this enormous world contained.

And Simon was already there.

Joe looked toward the southern road beyond the dark fields.

Next Starlight, if everything went according to plan, he would follow.

A year sounded long.

Joe knew better.

A year was hundreds of training sessions, thousands of repetitions and countless small chances to become better than he had been the day before.

For someone whose hard work always paid something back, that was a great deal of time.