As dawn broke, Richard was woken by a muffled thudding sound from outside his window.
The sound was rhythmic, coming every few seconds. It was as if someone was hammering something soft and thick.
He threw on a coat, walked to the window, and pulled the curtain open a crack.
A wall enclosed the courtyard, creating an open space with a ground of packed sand. Several wooden stakes were set up along the edge.
Several young men were doing their morning training.
Richard recognized the one closest to the wall: his cousin, Vincent.
The young man stood there, the muscles in his arms straining the fabric of his clothes.
He stood barefoot on the sand with a tin bucket in front of him, filled with a mixture of ice and water.
Autumn had already arrived in the Imperial Capital, and a layer of dew coated the ground in the early morning.
Vincent took a deep breath and plunged his hands into the bucket of ice water, submerging them up to his elbows.
He closed his eyes, his lips began to move rapidly, and his breathing rate suddenly shot up to several times the normal pace.
’Hyperventilation.’ Richard had read about this training method in a book.
Apprentices of the Path of Burning Blood needed to endure extreme temperature changes to force Ether into their blood vessels.
The ice water caused the blood vessels in his extremities to constrict sharply, forcing blood back to the core of his torso.
By hyperventilating during this process, Ether would be carried deep into the circulatory system along with the blood rushing back to the heart.
Within seconds, Vincent’s face went from its normal color to an ashen gray. His lips turned purple, and veins bulged at his temples.
He pulled his hands out of the ice water. The skin on his arms was a dark, angry red, as if he had been scalded.
Then came the explosive release.
He turned and threw a punch at a wooden stake. His fist smashed into the coarse burlap wrapped around it, and the entire post wobbled violently in the sand.
So that was the source of the thudding sound.
He threw four punches in quick succession, each one knocking the stake back by half an inch.
After the fifth punch, Vincent stumbled back two steps and braced his hands on his knees, coughing violently.
A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his sleeve, straightened his back, and walked back to the bucket of ice water.
The next round began immediately.
Several other young men were engaged in similar training.
One, shirtless in a corner, was doing squats with iron blocks and sandbags tied to his waist. He bit down on a leather strap to keep from biting his tongue.
Another was even more extreme. He held a plank position on the sand while a partner repeatedly struck his back with a wooden staff, swinging with full force.
Every blow landed with unsparing force, splitting the skin. Beads of blood trickled down both sides of his spine.
The man being struck gritted his teeth, not making a sound, performing a round of Explosive Breathing with each blow he endured.
Watching the staff land and tear the man’s skin, Richard felt a pang of phantom pain himself.
The written descriptions of the introductory training for the Path of Burning Blood were nothing compared to seeing it with his own eyes.
The line from Appendix C—"Many apprentices do not survive their first winter"—had been written with such calm restraint.
But paired with the scene before him, every word seemed to carry the warmth of fresh blood.
He looked down at his own hands—long, pale, and bony. These were the hands of a scholar, made for holding a pen.
’In a fight,’ he mused, ’someone could probably knock me to the ground before I even raised a hand.’
When it was time for breakfast at seven, Vincent, having already changed into clean clothes, was seated at the far end of the long table.
If not for the faint trace of blood at the corner of his mouth he hadn’t quite wiped away, no one would have guessed that just an hour ago, he’d been putting himself through hell next to a bucket of ice water.
"Morning," Vincent said, raising his teacup to him.
"Morning."
"The Old Man said you might want to head out today."
He broke a piece of toast in half, stuffing the larger piece into his mouth.
"Huayue Street, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good place," Vincent said, his voice muffled by the bread he was chewing.
"But it can be a treacherous place. Best to have someone show you around your first time."
Evelyn came running from down the hall, her hair only half-tied up, the rest spilling over her shoulders.
She was clutching the box of Valentine chocolates from last night, having clearly nibbled on a couple for breakfast.
"Richard, are you going out today?"
"Yes, I have some errands to run."
"Can I come with you?"
"It wouldn’t be convenient."
The little girl wrinkled her nose in confusion but didn’t press the matter.
"Then I’ll just go to the department store with Mom."
She placed the chocolate box on the table and went to pour herself some tea.
The Ashford Family’s four-wheeled luxury carriage was indeed countless times more comfortable than a Hansom cab hailed from the street.
Its shock-absorbing springs smoothed out most of the bumps from the cobblestone road, and the interior was fitted with cashmere cushions.
Vincent leaned back on the seat opposite, his legs crossed.
Dressed in casual attire, he looked just like any other wealthy young man one might see on the streets of the Imperial Capital.
He wore a dark blue overcoat, light gray plaid trousers, a thin scarf, and leather shoes polished to a brilliant shine.
It was incredible how his muscles, which had seemed on the verge of tearing his clothes during training, were now hidden beneath his everyday attire, making him appear quite lean.
"Cousin."
"Hm?"
"Do you train like that every morning?"
Vincent scratched his head, realizing Richard must have seen his morning training.
"Every day," he said, pulling his scarf up a little higher.
"The ice water and the stakes are the fundamentals. Not a single day is missed, regardless of the heat, cold, rain, or snow."
"When did you start?"
"I was thirteen."
Richard was secretly astounded.
’Soaking in ice water, hyperventilating, striking the posts, being beaten until his skin split open... He’d repeated this every single morning for six years.’
"You get used to it," Vincent said, seeming to read his mind.
"The first year is the hardest. You wake up every morning not wanting to get out of bed. There isn’t a single part of your body that doesn’t ache."
"After a while, the pain just became numbness. Then, the numbness turned into heat, and that heat turned into strength."
He raised his right hand, slowly clenching it into a fist.
The back of his hand was covered in a layer of thick calluses, and the skin over his knuckles was several shades darker than the rest.
"If it were me, I probably wouldn’t last a month," Richard admitted frankly.
"You’re not meant to train like this, anyway," Vincent said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"The Old Man told me yesterday that you’ll likely be taking the Scholar path."
He unclenched his fist and flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his knee.
"Honestly, I’m a little jealous of you Scholar types. Advancing just by sitting in a study and flipping through books... how nice is that."
"I try to read sometimes when I’m tired from training," the young man added with a chuckle. "I just... have a tendency to fall asleep."
The carriage rounded a corner, and the scenery outside the window began to change.
Stone-built row shops gave way to old wooden buildings. The streets grew narrower, the pedestrians more numerous.
The smell in the air changed, too.
The scent of sycamore trees and carriage lacquer gave way to roasted chestnuts, cheap perfume, old books, and a sour stench wafting from some unknown drainpipe.
"We’re here."
Vincent lifted the carriage curtain to look outside, then knocked twice on the wall to signal the driver to stop.
The two of them alighted from the carriage, and Huayue Street spread out before them.
The street was much longer than Richard had imagined.
Shopfronts were packed tightly in two rows on either side, each one using every trick in the book to attract customers.
The shop closest to the street entrance had a string of wind chimes, their copper tubes tinkling endlessly in the wind.
A row of Crystal Balls of various sizes was displayed in the shop window.
The cheaper, fist-sized ones were propped up on simple wooden stands, while the expensive ones were as large as watermelons, resting on pads of black velvet.
Further down the street, the variety of shops grew.
There were shops selling Exorcism Talismans, Protective Incense Pouches, Tarot Cards...
Incense and candles burned in front of every doorway. Smoke spilled from windows and the cracks beneath doors, mingling with the street’s gray haze and shrouding everything in a gray-blue curtain of smoke.
As Richard walked, he focused a part of his attention on his Perception.
The warmth from the Throne of the Sun in his chest acted as a probe.
The Ether concentration in most of the shops was level with the street—which was to say, practically zero.
The Crystal Balls in the shop were as spiritually "clean" as radishes at a farmer’s market; there was no difference.
The old, turbaned woman sitting in the Spiritual Vision Hall had not a single trace of Ether Flow about her.
’Frauds. Frauds. They’re all frauds.’
Over ninety percent of the shops on Huayue Street were just selling stories and atmosphere. But there were exceptions.

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