Chapter 69: A Year Measured in Food II

Joe's income rose with the medicine business through summer.

Not explosively.

Steadily.

Edwin expanded distribution carefully instead of flooding Blackwood with more stock than local demand could absorb. Resellers took small lots. Hunters purchased recovery preparations. The guard bought regular quantities. Caravan merchants carried sealed packages toward nearby villages where local medicine quality was worse.

Mira handled more of the supplier comparisons and delivery records.

Joe noticed her influence most when something didn't go wrong.

A shipment arrived early and had somewhere to go.

A reseller requested more stock and did not exhaust Edwin's shelves.

A poor herb lot was caught before production rather than after.

One afternoon Joe found Mira reorganizing three supplier contracts at the office table.

He glanced at the columns.

“You changed the northern order.”

“Yes.”

“Reduced it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She did not look up. “Their autumn price is usually worse.”

“That hasn't happened yet.”

“It happened the last two years.”

Joe smiled slightly.

Mira finally looked at him.

“What?”

“You're getting better.”

She stared.

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yes.”

“It sounded like you were evaluating livestock.”

Joe considered his wording.

“Your procurement decisions are improving.”

“That is worse.”

Joe laughed.

Mira shook her head. “Just say ‘good job’ like a person.”

“Good job.”

She looked suspicious.

“You hated that.”

“A little.”

“I could tell.”

They went back to the contracts.

?

By the end of summer, Joe's monthly income had reached levels that would have sounded absurd in Green Hollow.

Twenty silverlings from guard work after Theodere's deduction.

Did you know this story is from NovelPhoenix? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Medicine distributions increasingly added forty, sometimes fifty.

Small specialty preparations added more.

Unofficial sales remained irregular rather than something Joe could responsibly treat as salary.

A decent month could now reach seventy or eighty silverlings.

A stronger one, close to ninety.

Joe thought about Mike.

A good grain sale for the entire family might once have brought around ten silverlings.

Now Joe could earn several times that in a month.

Yet the psychological change was less dramatic than he expected.

Because the money already had destinations.

Food.

Medicine.

Training resources.

Herbs.

Recovery.

Occasional equipment.

Savings.

The more Joe earned, the more cultivation revealed ways to spend.

That relationship would become much worse later.

For now, Muscle III remained affordable.

Mostly.

?

Autumn arrived in smoke and grain dust.

The forest turned yellow first along the exposed hillsides, then red deeper within the valley. Farmers entered Blackwood with wagons stacked high enough that guards sometimes stopped them at the gate to check visibility. Herb shops hung drying bundles beneath every usable roof edge. Evening temperatures dropped enough that food stalls brought braziers back into the streets.

Simon reached Skin Completion during that season.

Joe learned at dinner.

Simon tried to pretend it was not important.

That failed immediately.

“I finished Skin.”

Joe looked up.

Mira smiled.

Edwin lowered his cup.

Daren and Cole were also there because Simon had somehow turned a normal meal into a small gathering without admitting that was what he had done.

Joe asked, “When?”

“This morning.”

“And?”

Simon frowned. “And what?”

“How did the assessment go?”

“Fine.”

Cole laughed. “Fine?”

Simon looked at him.

Daren explained to Joe, “He spent half the morning telling everyone the instructor said his defense was excellent.”

“I did not say everyone.”

“Three people before lunch.”

“That is not half the compound.”

Cole said, “You told me twice.”

“The second time you asked.”

“I asked whether the stew was ready.”

Mira laughed.

Simon pointed at him. “This is why nobody takes guard discipline seriously.”

Joe smiled.

He was genuinely pleased.

Simon had worked for this.

Years of Foundations.

Skin training.

Guard duty.

Injuries.

Medicine when he could afford it.

No impossible talents.

No hidden multiplier.

Just consistent effort and access to better resources than he had possessed in Green Hollow.

Joe looked at his brother differently for a moment.

It would have been easy, given his own abnormal progression, to treat ordinary cultivation as slow.

That would have been unfair.

Simon had reached Muscle while still young enough that many village practitioners would never reach it at all.

Good.

Joe said, “Congratulations.”

Simon stopped.

Perhaps because Joe said it without teasing.

“Thanks.”

Then Joe added, “Your food bill is about to get worse.”

Simon stared.

Mira laughed first.

Daren followed.

Cole immediately started asking Joe how much worse.

Simon regretted telling anyone.

?

Simon began Muscle Tempering not long afterward.

Watching him was useful.

Joe did not interfere much.

Simon had proper guard instruction and enough pride that unsolicited advice from a younger brother would have produced more argument than improvement.

Still, Joe noticed the contrast.

Simon trained normally.

Several hard sessions each week.

Recovery.

Food.

Correction from instructors.

Progress accumulated gradually.

Joe's own third tempering had already pushed his muscular capability far beyond what anyone around him suspected.

The difference reinforced how dangerous disclosure would be.

No one needed to know why Joe progressed so quickly.

No one ever would.

Not Simon.

Not Edwin.

Not Mira.

Not Theodere.

The truth belonged to Joe alone.

That certainty had stopped feeling lonely years ago.

It felt safe.

?

The first cold wind of the season arrived one evening while Joe crossed the western wall after guard work.

Below, Blackwood spread beneath him in familiar layers: central roofs of tile and stone, outer timber buildings, warehouse yards, narrow alleys, smoke rising from cooking fires, lanterns beginning to appear one by one as daylight faded. Beyond the walls, the forest rolled toward darkening hills where autumn color had already begun fading toward brown.

Joe rested one hand on the stone parapet.

Muscle III.

Roughly six hundred kilograms of controlled whole-body strength.

Still far from whatever limit the repeated layer held.

His Skin had taught him what might happen at IX.

Muscle had not yet confirmed it.

Three passes were not enough.

The ordinary gains were still too large.

The interesting question remained distant.

Joe looked down at the town.

His life had changed without any single dramatic moment.

He earned more.

Patrolled less.

Worked more in medicine.

Ate an unreasonable amount.

Simon had entered Muscle.

Edwin's operation had expanded.

Blackwood no longer felt like the enormous town he had first entered.

A year could disappear like that, not as one jump but as dozens of ordinary days accumulating until everything around him had shifted.

Joe smiled faintly.

For most people, time moved progress forward.

For him, progress was beginning to make time visible.

He pushed away from the wall.

Muscle IV would come next.

There was still a long way to nine.