Chapter 65: Private Measures II

Early summer arrived beneath thunderstorms.

The rain became heavier but less constant. Afternoons could begin with bright heat and end beneath black clouds rolling over the western hills. Thunder shook windows. Water poured from awnings. Then, an hour later, steam rose from sun-warmed blackstone as though the town had never been wet.

The forest thickened rapidly.

From the wall, the roads looked like dark tunnels cut into green.

Joe’s next Skin repetition settled during that change.

He ran the same defensive tests.

The result improved again.

Not dramatically.

Enough.

He estimated, very roughly, that the later repeated layer now endured perhaps around eighty percent more of the kinds of surface stress he could safely compare than ordinary first Completion.

That number remained entirely in his head.

He had stopped writing anything that would make a curious person wonder what kind of “private conditioning” produced impossible progress. Notes about herb ratios were harmless. Notes about hidden realms were not.

He trusted Edwin.

He trusted Simon.

Trust did not make unnecessary evidence intelligent.

Some secrets should leave no paper trail.

Joe looked at the faint redness fading from his forearm after the latest controlled friction test and thought through the progression again.

First Completion is the standard. Enough to move on. The second repetition gave a large jump. Every thing after that gives less. That makes sense.

The martial system probably called the first completion enough because, for almost everyone, it was enough.

Why spend months or years squeezing another ten percent out of Skin when Muscle could increase combat ability far more quickly?

For normal practitioners, repeated Skin Tempering would be terrible economics.

For Joe, the equation was different.

No Regression meant every gain stayed.

Perfect Body prevented crude imbalance.

One Effort Equals a Hundred crushed the practice-time cost.

Money remained the real price, but money could be earned again.

A permanent improvement to his body could not be purchased later if he moved on too early and discovered the opportunity had disappeared.

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That did not mean repeat forever.

Joe had no interest in chasing microscopic gains because he liked the idea of perfection.

He needed a stopping rule.

If each new tempering kept shrinking normally, then eventually the cost would exceed the value.

At that point, he would advance.

Simple.

Evidence over obsession.

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Simon found him outside Edwin’s hall during one summer storm.

Joe had stopped beneath the awning after delivering medicine records, content to wait ten minutes for the worst of the rain to pass. The street beyond the awning had become a shallow river. Cartwheels pushed brown water over the curb, and a butcher across the road was shouting at an apprentice to move hanging meat farther from the splash.

Simon appeared at the end of the street in full guard cloak.

He was already soaked.

Joe watched him approach.

Simon saw him standing dry beneath the awning and slowed.

By the time he reached the doorway, water ran from his hair and sleeves.

Joe looked at him.

Simon pointed one finger.

“Do not.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I was going to say you’re wet.”

Simon stared.

Joe smiled.

Mira opened the door behind them.

“Get inside before both of you block the entrance.”

Simon stepped through. Joe followed. Mira took one look at Simon and frowned. “Did you walk from the eastern road like that?”

“I was working.”

“There are covered alleys.”

“Not where I was.”

Joe removed his dry outer coat.

Simon looked at him.

“You waited.”

“For the rain to weaken.”

“So, you understand weather now.”

Joe frowned. “I have always understood weather.”

“No. You understand plans. Weather is what happens while you’re planning.”

Mira laughed as she took Simon’s cloak.

Joe looked at her. “Why are you encouraging him?”

“Because occasionally he’s funny.”

Simon looked pleased.

“Occasionally?”

“Don’t ruin it.”

They moved toward the dining room while the storm pounded the roof hard enough to make Edwin raise his voice from the office.

Dinner became a long argument about whether Simon should have taken a different patrol route, whether Joe had become “too civilized” because he refused to cross a flooded street unnecessarily, and whether Mira was allowed to count both brothers as equally unreasonable for different reasons.

Joe barely defended himself by the end.

There was something reassuring about that kind of conversation.

His private cultivation had become increasingly abnormal.

The people around him remained stubbornly normal.

He preferred it that way.

?

The seventh repeated Skin tempering completed near the end of summer.

Joe tested again under the same controlled conditions.

The gain was smaller than the previous one.

Exactly as expected.

He mentally placed the defensive quality somewhere around 1.8 times ordinary first Completion.

Rough.

Approximate.

Good enough.

No excitement.

No sudden breakthrough.

Just a clear diminishing curve.

Joe sat in the private training room after the final test while late-afternoon light came through the narrow shutter in one pale line. Outside, the rain had stopped. Water dripped slowly from the roof.

The next one probably pushes me closer to double. After that, maybe even less.

That seemed reasonable.

Skin had become very good at what Skin was meant to do.

It did not need to become magical.

Joe flexed his fingers, rolled one shoulder, then pressed his thumb into the skin along his forearm. Normal texture, normal movement, far greater resilience beneath it.

He was satisfied.

Not finished.

The next repetition still offered meaningful improvement.

So, he would continue.

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By the time autumn began tinting the first leaves along the western hills, Joe had settled on the rule he intended to follow.

He would not chase an arbitrary number.

He would not assume nine mattered simply because he happened to have reached seven.

He would continue if repeated tempering still produced meaningful improvement relative to cost and risk. Once Blood Energy could no longer make the layer meaningfully better, he would move on.

That was all.

No prophecy.

No theory.

No ancient terminology.

Just evidence.

Joe stepped out of the private room into cool evening air and pulled his coat tighter as wind carried the smell of wet leaves from the western road.

The eighth tempering would answer the next question.

For now, that was enough.