The guard captain's gaze, casual at first, gradually grew focused, finally sharpening into an incisive scrutiny. He stood with his arms folded, the scar on his face looking especially deep in the morning light.
This child... something wasn't right.
Hillman had seen far too many children learning the sword. They either swung wildly, without any method, or rigidly copied the movements, stiff as puppets. But Loa was different. There was a strange "rhythm" to his movements-not the rigid cadence prescribed in the training regimen, but a more natural, more efficient flow.
What surprised Hillman even more was that this child seemed to be... "thinking through" every stroke. After each swing, he would pause for a breath or two, his eyes not vacant but focused on where the sword had struck the wooden post, as though analyzing something. Then he would make an exceedingly slight adjustment on his next stroke-the tightness of his grip, the spacing of his feet, even the length of his breaths.
This was not a state a six- or seven-year-old child should have been capable of.
"Stop."
Hillman's voice interrupted the training. The children stopped one after another, panting as they looked toward their captain.
He walked up to Loa and pointed at the two-handed wooden sword. "Were you keeping count of those three hundred strokes just now?"
Loa froze for a moment, then honestly shook his head. "I wasn't counting. About... two hundred and eighty-something?"
"Two hundred and seventy-three," Hillman gave him an exact number. He looked at Loa. "Why fewer than the others?"
"I..." Loa hesitated. "After each stroke, I think about what I could do better."
"Think?" Hillman raised his eyebrows. "Think about what?"
The question put Loa in a difficult position. He could hardly say he was using principles of mechanics from his previous life to analyze the chain of force generation, could he? After hesitating for a few seconds, he chose a relatively explainable answer. "About how to apply force more smoothly, and how to make the sword cut deeper."
A few snickers rose from the training ground. Several older children exchanged looks, clearly finding his answer ridiculous. Wasn't applying force just applying force? What good did all that thinking do?
But Hillman did not laugh. Instead, his gaze grew even sharper.
"You." He pointed at Loa. "Step out. Everyone else, keep working on your footwork. Twenty laps around the grounds."
The children groaned as they began running. Loa remained alone in front of the wooden post, holding his sword and looking at Hillman in some confusion.
"Show me what you 'thought through' just now." Hillman stepped aside and folded his arms. "No need to go fast. Once will do. Start from your ready stance."
Loa took a deep breath and settled into his stance again.
This time, he did not rush to swing. Instead, he spent a full ten breaths adjusting himself. The position of his feet, the bend of his knees, the curve of his back, how relaxed his shoulders were... he went over every detail in his mind. His breathing slowly sank into his lower abdomen, and that earlier thread of warmth awakened with it, circulating quietly through his body.
Then he moved.
The movement was slow, slow enough that every part of the wooden sword's path was visible. He pushed off the ground, and force rose from the soles of his feet, not surging straight upward but spiraling along the structure of his calf muscles; the twist of his waist and hips was not a violent burst, but a springy rotation brimming with stored force; when that force reached his shoulders, his arms almost seemed to be "pushed" open, the wooden sword tracing a full, rounded arc.
Finally, in the very last instant before the blade touched the wooden post, his wrist made an exquisitely subtle turn-not a deliberate action, but the natural release of force reaching its endpoint.
"Tap."
The sound was soft. But a thin chip of wood broke away from the edge of an existing dent in the post.
Hillman remained silent for a long time.
Long enough that Loa began to grow uneasy, thinking he had done something wrong.
"That old man at home," Hillman suddenly asked, "Old Jack. Did he teach you this?"
Loa shook his head. "Grandpa Jack only teaches me smithing. This... I worked out on my own, just fumbling around."
"Smithing..." Hillman repeated the word, his gaze settling on Loa's hands. They were no longer as soft as an ordinary child's. Thin calluses had formed around the joints, and charcoal dust that would not wash away was embedded in the lines of his palms. Yet the way he held his sword showed a practiced ease beyond his years.
He walked over to Loa, took the two-handed wooden sword, and hefted it.
"There were two interesting things," Hillman said, "about that stroke just now."
Loa raised his head and listened closely.
"First, your force started from the soles of your feet. That was right. But most children only know to push off the ground. They don't know to 'twist.' You pushed first, then twisted, sending the force winding upward like wringing out a towel." With his free hand, Hillman demonstrated an upward spiral. "That concentrates the force and keeps it from dispersing."
Loa's eyes lit up. This was precisely the theory of "spiral force generation" he had studied in his previous life!
"Second," Hillman continued, "your wrist. At the very end, you didn't force the sword to a stop. You followed the momentum and let it 'snap.'" He looked at Loa. "Do you know what that means?"
Loa shook his head.
"It means your sword is 'alive.'" Hillman handed the wooden sword back to him. "Many people spend their whole lives practicing, yet the swords in their hands are still 'dead.' They think a sword is an extension of the arm, so they use every bit of muscle they have to control it. But a true sword should be an extension of the body-the sword moves as the body moves. You shouldn't 'control' the sword. You should 'guide' it."
Those words were like a bolt of lightning, splitting through some of the fog in Loa's mind.
Guide, not control.
"But," Hillman abruptly changed tack, his tone turning stern, "all of that is 'technique.' However refined your technique, you still need enough strength to support it."
He extended a finger and tapped Loa's chest. "Your body right now is like a small bucket. Your technique makes the most of every inch of space inside it, without wasting a single drop of water. That's good. But if you want to hold more water, if you want to swing faster, cut harder, and fight longer-you have to make the bucket itself bigger."
Loa stood stunned.
"Starting tomorrow," Hillman said, "you'll do three extra sets of strength training every day, besides the group training. I don't care what method you use-lifting stones, carrying heavy loads, or continuing your smithing. But I want to see muscles on your arms, your shoulders, and your back that can support those techniques."
His gaze swept over Loa's thin shoulders. "Technique can let you defeat someone stronger than yourself, but only strength can qualify you to stand before a truly powerful enemy. Understand?"
Loa tightened his grip on the wooden sword and nodded firmly. "Understood!"
"Go home." Hillman waved a hand. "No more training today. Think carefully about what I just said."
Loa saluted and left the training ground. After walking a long way, he glanced back.
Hillman was still standing where he had been, his arms folded as he watched the children running. Morning light fell across his tall figure from behind, and the scar cast a deep shadow along the side of his face.
At that moment, Loa suddenly understood something Old Jack had once said: "Hillman, well, he looks fierce, but he carries the weight of the whole town in his heart."
When he returned to the smithy, Old Jack was quenching a plowshare. Surprised to see Loa back so early, the old man asked, "No training today?"
"I finished." Loa walked to the water vat, scooped up a dipper of water, and gulped down several large mouthfuls. The icy water slid down his throat, extinguishing the fire of excitement burning inside his body.
He set down the dipper and looked at his hands.
The thin calluses on his palms, the charcoal dust on his fingertips, the still-slender lines of muscle only just beginning to rise along his arms.
Hillman's words echoed in his ears.
Technique... strength...
"Grandpa Jack," Loa suddenly said, "I want to forge a heavier hammer."
Old Jack raised his head from the trough and wiped the water from his face. "Is your current hammer awkward to use?"
"No." Loa walked over to the anvil and picked up his hammer. "But I want to try a heavier one. I want... to get a little stronger."
The old man stared at him for a few seconds, then broke into a grin. "Sure. There's a good piece of iron in the storeroom I've never quite been willing to use. I'll forge you one tomorrow."
That night, Loa did not go to bed early as he usually did. Sitting on his little bed in the moonlight from the window, he reworked his training plan in his mind.
Morning training had to stay. That was the foundation. But he needed to add weight-sandbags tied to his legs, stones carried on his back. He had to make good use of his morning smithing time, consciously drawing on his whole body's strength with every hammer blow instead of relying only on his arms. If he had time in the afternoon, he would run up and down the hillside outside town a few times to build endurance.
There was also the breathing method. That breathing rhythm he had worked out from an ancient text had to be consciously practiced not only while swinging a sword, but while walking, running, and even before sleep. He wanted to make that state of "energy flowing throughout the body" an instinct.
As he thought, drowsiness crept over him.
In his haze, he seemed to return to the end of his previous life, to that pallid hospital room. The ventilator hissed, and his body felt nailed to the bed, even turning over exhausting every ounce of his strength.
Then the scene shifted-to the dancing forge fire in the smithy, to Old Jack's warm figure, to the solid rush of the wooden sword cutting through the air, to Captain Hillman's words: "Make the bucket itself bigger."
The two worlds intertwined in his dreams, finally converging into one clear desire-
He wanted a truly powerful body.
A body that could hold all his techniques, all his knowledge, and all his dreams.
Outside the window, a river of stars hung low over Wushan Town's night sky.
Inside the smithy, the embers of the forge glimmered faintly red in the darkness, like a heart refusing to go out, beating slowly and steadily.
The night was still long.
So was the road ahead.
Before you continue