Chapter 66: The Eighth Skin Tempering II

The season continued turning.

By late autumn, the western hills had become a patchwork of red, brown and gold. Dry leaves collected along Blackwood's walls and clogged gutters after every windstorm. Grain traffic peaked. The morning markets opened in darkness and filled with wagon lanterns before sunrise.

Joe's eighth Skin tempering approached completion.

The final weak areas were mostly small and inconvenient: fingertips, the edge of the palms, thin tissue along the face and neck, folds around joints, sections of the scalp hidden beneath hair. None were dramatic, and Joe preferred it that way. If he had reached VIII and suddenly discovered half his back was poorly tempered, that would have suggested something had gone seriously wrong years earlier.

The diminishing returns became undeniable.

A full session might produce a difference he could barely feel.

Recovery still consumed resources.

Blood Energy still moved.

The body still improved.

Just slowly.

That was what normal diminishing returns looked like.

Joe found it reassuring.

--------

A letter from Green Hollow arrived with one of the grain caravans.

Simon brought it to Edwin's house during dinner.

Lily's handwriting filled the first half of the page, compact enough to use almost every available space. Harvest had been decent. One fence needed repair. Joseph had misplaced a tool and later found exactly where Pam claimed it had been the whole time. Mike's shoulder had recovered. The pig had somehow escaped once and caused enough trouble that Lily used three separate lines to complain about it.

Then Mary's writing began.

Larger.

Darker.

Much less concerned with paper conservation.

Joe read the first sentence.

Stopped.

Simon noticed.

“What?”

Joe continued reading.

Simon leaned closer.

“Don't do that.”

“Do what?”

“Read silently after making that face.”

Joe handed him the letter.

Simon read. Then sighed.

Mira reached across the table.

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“What did she say?”

Simon moved the page away.

“No.”

“That means I definitely want to see it.”

Joe took the letter back and gave it to her.

Simon looked betrayed. Mira read Mary's section and started laughing. Edwin glanced up from his food.

“What?”

Mira read aloud, “‘You both live in a town where merchants bring sweets from other places, yet somehow none of those sweets have reached your youngest sister. I can only assume Blackwood has made you selfish.’”

Simon pointed at Joe.

“She learned that from him.”

Joe frowned.

“I don't write like that.”

Mira continued, “‘If you come home without something good, I will tell Grandmother you forgot us.’”

Edwin nodded thoughtfully.

“Effective.”

Simon stared at him.

“She is threatening us with Pam.”

“Yes.”

“You approve?”

“I respect leverage.”

Joe smiled.

Simon looked around the table.

“Why is everyone against me?”

Mira handed the letter back.

“Buy your sister sweets.”

“You say that because you don't have a younger sister.”

“No, I say that because she has already won.”

Joe considered economics.

“We can split it.”

Simon turned immediately.

“Why half?”

“Because there are two of us.”

“You make more.”

“You're older.”

“That is not how money works.”

“It is how responsibility works.”

Simon opened his mouth.

Mira cut in.

“You both pay half. Problem solved.”

Simon looked at her. Then Joe. Then Edwin.

Edwin was eating peacefully.

“You planned this.”

Joe smiled.

“Yes. Several seconds ago.”

Simon muttered something under his breath.

The next morning, he bought the sweets.

Joe paid half.

---------

The eighth tempering completed shortly before the first hard frost.

Joe waited several days before testing.

The private training room had become cold enough that his breath showed faintly when he first entered. He lit two lamps, warmed up, checked the padded weight, replaced the friction cloth, and repeated the same comparisons he had used for months.

The result settled very close to his expectation.

Roughly one-point-nine times ordinary first Completion in the kinds of external stress he could measure consistently.

Perhaps a little more.

Perhaps less.

The exact decimal did not matter.

The pattern did.

VIII had nearly doubled the defensive quality of the layer.

And the improvement from VII to VIII was small.

Joe sat on the floor for a long time afterward.

Outside, evening wind moved through the street, carrying dry leaves along the stones. Someone nearby was closing shutters one by one. A cart passed slowly, its wheels clicking across the blackstone seams.

He thought through economics first. Another pass would cost money. Not devastating money. Enough to notice. It would delay Muscle.

Muscles would improve actual force production, flexibility under load, sustained muscular output and recovery. Joe had already pushed Skin far beyond what the ordinary martial system required. If IX gave another tiny diminishing gain, then the opportunity cost of delaying Muscle might exceed the Skin benefit.

That argued for stopping.

Then Joe considered information.

The same question would appear in Muscle.

And Bone.

Perhaps Internal Organs later.

If repeated tempering always decayed smoothly, one layer would be enough to learn the rule. If something happened at the actual Blood Energy limit, stopping one step early would hide it.

He rested his forearms across his knees.

What am I buying with IX?

Not just defense. An answer.

If the ninth pass gave another tiny gain, he would know the curve continued and stop immediately afterward.

If it produced nothing, he would know Blood Energy had already reached its practical limit at VIII.

If something unexpected happened, that would matter even more.

The risk remained low because Skin was already stable and he understood the process intimately.

Joe smiled faintly.

That is enough.

One final Skin tempering. Then Muscle.

---------

Winter announced itself several mornings later when frost remained in the street shadows until nearly noon.

The markets changed first. Fresh vegetables became scarcer. Root crops replaced them. Food stalls served thicker soups. Guard cloaks grew heavier. Edwin started complaining about fuel costs for the preparation room.

Joe began the ninth Skin tempering quietly. No ceremony. No expectation of a breakthrough.

Just another controlled experiment.

For the first few weeks, everything confirmed his prediction. The gains were almost insultingly small.

One narrow region near the right wrist responded slightly. The transition around the ankle improved. The side of his neck stopped lagging behind nearby tissue under standardized pressure. Each correction mattered, but barely.

Joe felt increasingly certain IX would be the last simply because continuing beyond it would be pointless. Then, near the middle of Deepwinter, something happened that made that certainty disappear.

It started in his right palm.