Chapter 64: What One Silver Used to Mean

It was the middle of spring. Blackwood smelled of rain, horses, frying oil, and wet stone.

The forest beyond the western edge had gone from winter gray to violent green in what felt like a handful of days. New leaves thickened along the branches. Water ran fast in the roadside channels after every storm. The packed-earth lanes of the poorer outer district turned to mud, while the central blackstone streets merely became slick.

Joe had stopped thinking of spring as a season of planting.

In Green Hollow, spring meant Mike checking the soil with his hands. Lily counting seed stores. Pam complaining that everyone planted too early or too late regardless of what they did.

In Blackwood, spring meant prices changed. Fresh vegetables became cheaper. Certain dried roots became more expensive as winter stores ran low. Hunters started returning with different beast parts. Caravan traffic increased as roads reopened. The medicine hall became louder.

Joe sat in the upstairs room Edwin had allowed him to use for account work and spread three months of figures across the table.

The first sheet was income.

Guard pay: Thirty silverlings gross.

Ten to Theodere under the old arrangement.

Twenty remaining.

Medicine profit share for the last month: Fifty-three silverlings.

Unofficial medicine: Thirty-one.

Small miscellaneous work and one specialty batch: Six.

Total: One hundred ten silverlings.

Joe stared at it.

One hundred ten.

At eight years old, Mike had brought home ten silverlings after a particularly good grain sale and the entire household had felt wealthy.

Joe had spent four silverlings of family money on medicine and felt guilty for weeks.

Now he could earn more than ten times that in a month.

He turned to the second sheet.

Food beyond ordinary meals: Eleven silver.

Mostly meat, eggs, grain, and rich broth.

Cultivation herbs: Eighteen.

Recovery powders: Seven.

Nourishing packets and ingredients he did not produce himself: Six.

Miscellaneous training and medicine materials: Four.

Total: Forty-six silverlings.

Joe leaned back.

Forty-six.

Almost half his month's income had gone directly into making his body stronger.

And this was Skin.

Skin V, specifically.

Not Bone.

Not Internal Organs.

Not whatever existed beyond those realms.

He picked up the brush and drew a small line beneath the total.

Then he added ordinary living expenses.

His room arrangement was favorable because of guard connections and Edwin's business relationship, but food outside cultivation, clothing repairs, bathing, small fees, and other city costs still accumulated.

Blackwood was remarkable that way. It gave money with one hand and developed increasingly sophisticated methods of removing it with the other.

A knock came at the half-open door. Simon entered without waiting.

“Are you doing accounts again?”

“Yes.”

“You've become boring.”

“You came here.”

“I was looking for food.”

“There isn't any.”

Simon turned immediately.

Joe looked up.

“There is tea.”

Simon paused.

“What kind?”

“Tea.”

“That isn't an answer.”

“Then leave.”

Simon came in.

He looked at the papers.

“How much?”

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Joe covered the income sheet with another page.

Simon clicked his tongue.

“You know, in a normal family, brothers tell each other when they become rich.”

“In a normal family, older brothers don't inspect younger brothers' money.”

“That sounds false.”

Joe poured him tea.

Simon sat. His guard uniform was damp at the shoulders. Mud darkened the edge of one boot.

“You patrolled the south lane?”

“Outer east.”

“Then why is your left boot muddy?”

Simon looked down.

“Because streets connect.”

Joe waited.

Simon sighed.

“We stopped for dumplings near the south lane.”

“There it is.”

“You ask too many questions.”

Joe pushed the tea toward him. Simon drank. His expression softened slightly.

“Good.”

“It's Edwin's.”

“Of course it is.”

He leaned over again.

“Seriously. How much are you making?”

Joe considered refusing. Then he thought about the family.

Simon already earned well by Green Hollow standards. Around fifty silverlings a month now that his captain allowance and benefits were counted. He had become accustomed to Blackwood faster than Joe had.

“How much does it cost you to live here?” Joe asked.

Simon frowned.

“What?”

“Monthly.”

“Depends.”

“Approximate.”

Simon counted mentally.

“Room is covered through the guard barracks when I use it. Meals, some covered. Clothes. Extras. Mira says I waste money.”

“You do.”

“I was not asking you.”

“Continue.”

“Maybe eight silver if I'm careful. Twelve if I'm not.”

“You're usually not.”

“Maybe ten.”

Joe nodded.

“How much would Mother spend in Green Hollow?”

Simon looked confused.

“One silver? Maybe two if something breaks.”

“Exactly.”

Simon looked at the papers.

Joe tapped the expense column.

“People hear that guards make thirty silverlings and think Blackwood makes everyone rich.”

“It makes guards richer.”

“Yes. It also costs more to exist here.”

Simon shrugged.

“Still better.”

“For us.”

Simon looked at him. Joe continued.

“In Green Hollow we own the house. We grow grain. Vegetables come from the garden. Chickens make eggs. Wood can be gathered. Nobody charges rent because it rained.”

Simon smiled.

“Who charged you because it rained?”

“My boots.”

“That doesn't count.”

“It does if I need new ones.”

Simon laughed. Joe looked back at the ledger.

Blackwood offered something Green Hollow never could.

Opportunity.

A person could arrive with almost nothing and find work.

Guard. Porter. Workshop labor. Apprentice. Cook. Merchant assistant. Hunter. Caravan hand.

There were dozens of ways to earn cash. But that same person had to buy food.

Pay rent. Buy fuel. Pay for medicine. Pay for transport. Pay for things a village family created themselves without ever converting them into coins.

The city was not simply richer. It was more monetized.

Joe did not have that exact word available in this language, but the concept was obvious.

“What's wrong?” Simon asked.

“Nothing.”

“You've been staring at forty-six for too long.”

Joe looked at him.

Simon grinned.

“I saw it before you covered the page.”

Joe sighed.

“Cultivation cost.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

Simon stopped smiling.

“Forty-six silver?”

“Yes.”

“In one month?”

“Yes.”

“What are you eating?”

“Food.”

“You should eat less of it.”

“That would defeat the point.”

Simon sat back.

“Forty-six.”

Joe nodded.

Simon whistled.

Then he looked thoughtful.

“My medicinal meals at the Hall didn't cost me that much.”

“You received three a week because you were assisting.”

“I know.”

“You were also doing normal Skin Tempering.”

Simon looked at him.

Joe kept his expression neutral.

That had been slightly too close.

Simon didn't notice.

“Still,” he said. “Forty-six.”

Joe changed the subject.

“How is patrol?”

Simon began complaining immediately.

--------

Later that afternoon Joe walked through the market before returning to Edwin's hall.

Spring had pulled people into the streets.

A woman sold green onions from baskets beneath a striped awning. Two children chased each other around a cart until the driver threatened to put them to work. Steam rolled from a dumpling stall. A fishmonger shouted prices loud enough to be heard halfway down the block.

Joe passed a laborer arguing over the cost of a room.

“Three silver? For that?”

“Then sleep outside.”

“Last year it was two.”

“Last year you weren't asking in spring.”

The laborer walked away cursing.

Joe kept going.

Three silverlings for a poor room.

Three months of basic Green Hollow household cash expenditure.

Here, one roof for one man.

Farther down the street, a carriage stopped outside a medicine shop and a servant entered carrying a list.

The person inside the carriage probably did not know what anything cost.

Same town. Different lives.

Joe had begun to understand why Edwin never talked about wealth as if it were a single number.

A hundred silverlings meant one thing to Mike.

Another to Simon. Another to Edwin. Another to the Black family.

And increasingly, something else entirely to Joe.

If Skin V required forty-six silverlings in one month, what would Muscle cost?

Bone? Internal Organs?

How much does a real high-level martial artist consume?

The answer was probably ugly.

Joe found that encouraging.

High cost meant there were still barriers.

Barriers meant his talents had not made the world trivial.

He still had problems to solve.

-----------

Skin V progressed steadily through spring. Not quickly enough for Joe's liking.

One Effort Equals a Hundred made every correct session valuable. His tissue responded visibly enough that he could notice differences over days rather than months. But the same talent exposed the resource problem brutally.

One meaningful tempering effort could create the equivalent of enormous ordinary practice.

The body still needed material to rebuild.

Blood energy still had to be replenished.

Protein still had to come from food.

Medicinal support still had to come from actual herbs.

Perfect Body did not manufacture flesh out of sunlight.

Joe could accelerate the work. He could not cheat matter.

After one particularly demanding session, he sat alone in his room with both forearms resting on his knees. Skin V had concentrated on correcting small remaining differences along the wrists and backs of his hands.

The changes were subtle.

The skin looked almost normal. But when he rubbed his thumb across the opposite wrist, he could feel a difference.

Not hardness. Integration.

The outer tissue seemed to distribute pressure more evenly.

Blood Energy moved through the area with less drag. Even the touch of his own fingertip felt clearer.

Joe flexed his hand. Then looked toward the medicine packets on the shelf.

Six left.

He had bought eighteen earlier that week.

He looked at the bowl beside them. Empty. He was hungry again.

Joe laughed quietly. Not because anything was funny. Because the equation had become ridiculous.

At sixteen, he had awakened a talent that multiplied meaningful effort approximately a hundredfold. He had thought effort itself would stop mattering. Instead, effort had become the cheap part.

Food. Medicine. Knowledge. Recovery.

Those were now expensive.

He opened his ledger again.

Income. Costs. Cultivation.

For the first time, he wrote one more line beneath them.

Resource requirement at current rate. Then another.

Required income if Skin expenditure doubles.

And below that: Muscle?

He left the number blank. He did not know enough yet.

Outside, rain started again. Drops struck the roof, then strengthened until the whole building seemed to hum beneath them. Down on the street, someone shouted while dragging a cart beneath an awning. Joe listened for a few seconds.

Blackwood was expensive. Blackwood was crowded. Blackwood could chew through money faster than Green Hollow could imagine.

It also had Edwin's medicine hall.

Permanent markets. Caravans. Wholesale herbs. Hunters. Workshops. Customers. Knowledge.

Money. Opportunity.

A blessing and a curse depended largely on which side of the price you were standing.

Joe looked at the blank space beside Muscle. Then at the figures above it.

For now, at least, his income is rising faster than his needs.

That would not last forever.

He smiled faintly. Good.

It gave him something to work on.