Hunter Training

At first light, Richard was awakened by a muffled thudding outside his window.

The sound came at regular intervals, once every few seconds, as if someone were using a hammer to strike something soft and thick.

He threw on his coat, walked to the window, and pulled the curtains open a crack.

The courtyard was an open space enclosed by walls, its ground paved with compacted sand, with several wooden posts standing along the edges.

Several young people were doing their morning exercises.

Richard recognized the one closest to the wall: Vincent, his cousin.

The young man stood there, his arm muscles stretching his clothes taut.

He stood barefoot on the sand, with a metal bucket before him filled with ice water.

Autumn had already arrived in the Imperial Capital, and a layer of dew coated the ground in the morning.

Vincent took a deep breath and plunged both hands into the bucket, submerging them to his elbows.

He closed his eyes, his lips moving rapidly as his breathing rate abruptly rose to several times that of a normal person.

Hyperventilation. Richard had read about this training method in books.

Apprentices of the Blood-Burning Path had to force their bodies to press Aether into their blood vessels amid extreme temperature differences.

The ice water made the blood vessels in the extremities contract sharply, forcing the blood back toward the body's core.

By hyperventilating during that process, Aether would surge back with the blood flowing toward the heart and pour deep into the veins.

Within a dozen seconds, Vincent's complexion changed from normal to iron-gray. His lips turned purple, and veins bulged at his temples.

He pulled his hands from the ice water. The skin on his arms had turned dark red, as though he had been scalded.

Then came the outburst.

He turned and threw a punch at a wooden post. His fist struck the coarse burlap wrapped around it, making the entire post sway three times in the sand.

That muffled thud had come from there.

He threw four more punches in succession, each one driving the post back half an inch.

After the fifth punch, Vincent staggered back two steps, braced his hands on his knees, and coughed violently several times.

Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve, straightened up, and returned to the bucket of ice water.

The next round began immediately.

Several other young men were doing similar training.

One was bare-chested in the corner by the wall, doing squats with iron weights and sandbags tied around his waist. He held a leather strap between his teeth to keep from biting his tongue.

Another was even more extreme. He held a plank position directly on the sand while his companion swung a wooden rod in full arcs against his back.

Every strike landed solidly. His flesh split open, and beads of blood ran down along both sides of his spine.

The man being struck gritted his teeth without making a sound. Every blow was followed by a round of explosive breathing.

Watching the rod tear open the man's flesh, Richard felt phantom pain himself.

The introductory training of the Blood-Burning Path truly differed greatly between the written descriptions in books and seeing it with his own eyes.

"Many apprentices do not survive their first winter." The line in Appendix C had been written with restraint and calm.

But paired with the scene before him, every word carried the warmth of blood.

He looked down at his own hands. Long, pale, and sharply jointed—these were hands made for holding a pen.

In a fight, he would probably be knocked to the ground before he even managed to raise a hand.

By seven o'clock, when breakfast was served, Vincent had already changed into clean clothes and sat at the other end of the long table.

If not for the poorly wiped trace of blood at the corner of his mouth, no one would have guessed that an hour earlier, he had been tormenting himself half to death beside a bucket of ice water.

"Morning." Vincent raised his teacup toward him.

"Morning."

"Grandfather said you might want to take a look around today."

He broke a piece of toast in half and stuffed the larger half into his mouth.

"Flower Moon Street, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good place." Vincent chewed his bread and spoke indistinctly.

"But that street runs pretty deep. It's best to have someone show you around the first time."

Evelyn came running down from the other end of the corridor, with only half her hair tied up and the rest hanging over her shoulders.

She clutched the box of Valentine Chocolate from last night, clearly having just eaten two pieces for breakfast.

"Brother, are you going out today?"

"Yes, I have some things to do."

"Can I come with you?"

"It wouldn't be convenient."

The little girl wrinkled her nose in confusion, but she did not ask anything further.

"Then Mom and I will go look around the department store."

She set the chocolate box on the table and went to pour herself some tea.

The Ashford Family's luxurious four-wheeled carriage was indeed far more comfortable than a Hansom hailed from the roadside.

Its shock-absorbing springs smoothed out most of the bumps from the stone road, and the cabin was furnished with cashmere cushions.

Vincent lounged in the seat opposite him with one leg crossed over the other.

After changing into everyday clothes, he looked like any wealthy young man commonly seen on the streets of the Imperial Capital.

A dark blue overcoat, light gray checked trousers, a thin scarf around his neck, and leather shoes polished to a shine.

When he trained, his muscles swelled so much that they nearly tore his clothes apart. Yet dressed normally now, he appeared lean and wiry. That was rather remarkable.

"Cousin."

"Hmm?"

"Do you train like that every morning?"

Vincent scratched his head, then realized Richard had seen his morning exercises.

"Every day." He pulled his scarf higher.

"The ice water and wooden posts are basic lessons. Rain or shine, summer or winter, never a single day missed."

"Since when?"

"Since I was thirteen."

Richard clicked his tongue inwardly.

Ice-water immersion, hyperventilation, striking wooden posts, muscles whipped until the flesh split open... every morning for six years, repeating it all.

"You get used to it." Vincent seemed to know what he was thinking.

"The first year was the hardest. Every morning, I woke up not wanting to get out of bed. There wasn't a single part of me that didn't hurt."

"Then, after hurting for long enough, you go numb. Later, the pain becomes heat, and that heat becomes strength."

He raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.

A layer of calluses covered his knuckles, and the skin around his finger joints was several shades darker than the surrounding flesh.

"If I trained like that, I probably wouldn't last through the first month," Richard said frankly.

"You weren't meant to train in this in the first place." Vincent seemed to think it perfectly natural.

"Grandfather told me yesterday. You'll probably take the Scholar path."

He unclenched his fist and flicked some dust from his knee.

"Honestly, I envy people like you who can become Scholars. You can sit in a study, flip through books, and advance. Sounds great."

"I sometimes read when I'm tired from training." The young man chuckled. "It's just that I tend to fall asleep while reading."

The carriage turned at a street corner, and the scenery outside began to change.

Stone row shops gave way to old wooden buildings. The streets narrowed, and the pedestrians grew more numerous.

The smell in the air changed as well.

Before, it had smelled of plane trees and carriage lacquer. Now it smelled of roasted chestnuts, cheap perfume, old books, and the sour stench drifting from some unknown drain.

"We're here."

Vincent lifted the carriage curtain and looked outside, then knocked twice on the wall to signal the driver to stop.

The two got out, and Flower Moon Street unfolded before them.

The street was far longer than Richard had imagined.

Densely packed storefronts lined both sides, each one doing everything it could to draw in customers.

The nearest shop to the street entrance had a string of wind chimes hanging outside, its copper tubes jingling endlessly in the breeze.

A row of Crystal Balls of varying sizes sat in the display window.

The cheap ones were the size of fists and supported by wooden stands, while the expensive ones were as large as watermelons, resting on black velvet.

Farther in, the shops became increasingly eclectic.

Stores selling evil-warding talismans, protective sachets, Tarot Cards...

Incense and candles burned outside every shop. Smoke spilled from door cracks and windows, mingling with the gray haze on the street until the entire road was shrouded in a bluish-gray veil.

As he walked, Richard split off part of his attention to use Perception.

The warmth in the Seat of the Sun within his chest acted as a probe.

The Aether concentration in most shops was level with that on the street—roughly zero.

The Crystal Balls in the Crystal Ball shop were as clean as radishes in a vegetable market.

The old woman in a headscarf sitting inside the Spirit Vision Pavilion had not a trace of flowing Aether anywhere on her body.

Frauds. Frauds. They were all frauds.

More than ninety percent of the shops on Flower Moon Street sold nothing but stories and atmosphere.

But there were exceptions.