The demonstration began shortly after noon.
The newly accepted students were placed near the front while the older trainees gathered behind them. Joe could see the difference between the two groups immediately. Most of the younger children looked curious or nervous, whereas the older students already knew what was coming and quieted almost as soon as Theodere stepped onto the training ground.
Even Simon stopped talking.
That alone told Joe the demonstration mattered.
He had heard about it for years. Simon had described cracked stones, impossible strikes and things Joe had quietly classified somewhere between exaggeration and misunderstanding.
Now he would finally see for himself what martial arts in this world could actually do.
Theodere stood before the gathered students.
Up close, his age was more noticeable than it had seemed from a distance. Gray showed clearly around his temples, and the lines around his eyes suggested a man who had spent decades outdoors and training rather than someone only slightly older than Mike.
Despite that, there was nothing frail about him.
He waited until the yard became completely quiet before speaking.
"Martial arts are only the beginning of a much longer road. If you become capable enough to continue walking that road, you may eventually see things ordinary people would call miraculous."
The younger students became noticeably more attentive.
"Martial training can give you strength, status and more control over the course of your own life. If you advance far enough, it can also extend your lifespan."
Joe listened carefully.
Theodere paused before adding, "And if you are extraordinarily fortunate, perhaps that road can lead even farther. There are stories of people who pursue immortality."
A murmur moved through the younger students.
Joe's attention sharpened.
Immortality was not a small claim.
Theodere did not allow the excitement to build.
"Don't start dreaming yet. Most of you will fail long before reaching anything remotely close to that. Many of you will never become true martial artists at all."
The murmuring disappeared.
Theodere looked over the children without much sympathy.
"That does not make your training worthless. A martial trainee who practices properly will still become stronger, healthier and more capable than an ordinary person. You will be harder to bully, harder to exploit and better able to protect yourself and your family."
That part sounded considerably more practical.
Joe trusted it more.
The immortality claim was another matter.
Perhaps Theodere was repeating old tradition. Perhaps upper-level martial artists really did live much longer than ordinary people, and centuries of retelling had stretched that into immortality. Or perhaps the highest stages of martial practice were stranger than anything Joe had yet encountered.
He did not know enough to choose between those possibilities.
Theodere continued.
"What you learn first is foundation."
He gestured toward the training area.
"Most beginners see stance training and think the purpose is only to strengthen the body. That is part of it, but not the important part. Static foundation teaches you to sense your blood energy. Without sensing it, you cannot deliberately control it. Without control, everything that follows is meaningless."
Joe remembered Hall's explanation during the Starlight test.
Blood energy.
This was the first time someone had explained how it connected to actual martial progression.
"Once your static foundation reaches minor success, you begin the dynamic foundation. Static practice helps you sense blood energy. Dynamic practice teaches you to move it while the body moves."
Several older trainees nodded unconsciously.
Theodere continued.
"When both foundations reach minor success, you can begin tempering the body itself."
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
He raised one hand.
"Skin comes first. After skin comes muscle, then bone."
The younger students listened closely.
"Only after a trainee becomes capable of beginning the tempering of the internal organs do I recognize that person as a true martial artist."
That immediately gave Joe a much clearer structure.
Static foundation.
Dynamic foundation.
Skin.
Muscle.
Bone.
Internal organs.
The first two stages prepared the trainee to sense and control blood energy. Skin, muscle and bone were still part of the martial trainee stage.
Beginning internal-organ tempering marked the transition into what Theodere considered a true martial artist.
Joe wanted to ask how blood energy actually tempered tissue, but this was not the kind of lesson where children interrupted whenever they became curious.
Theodere stepped aside.
A large rock sat near one edge of the training ground.
Joe had noticed it earlier but assumed it was part of the yard.
Now several assistants have moved away from it.
The stone was roughly the size of one of the family's pigs and thick enough that Joe doubted several grown men could lift it without tools.
Simon leaned slightly closer from behind.
Very quietly, he said, "That's the one."
Joe did not turn around.
Theodere approached the rock.
There was no dramatic preparation.
No shouting.
No long breathing exercise.
He simply positioned himself in front of it, settled his weight and struck.
The impact produced a dull, compact sound.
For the briefest moment, nothing appeared to happen.
Then a crack spread across the stone.
It branched.
Several more lines followed.
The entire rock split apart.
Silence covered the training ground.
Joe stared.
Behind him, Simon slowly turned his head in Joe's direction.
Joe could feel it without looking.
He ignored him.
The broken stone bothered him for a different reason.
Theodere had obviously struck hard, but the damage did not resemble what Joe expected from simple brute force. The surface around the impact point had not merely shattered outward. Cracks had spread through the stone as though the force had penetrated deeper before dispersing.
That reminded Joe vaguely of concepts he had encountered in his previous life while reading about traditional martial arts.
Ming Jin.
An Jin.
Bright force and hidden force.
His understanding had been shallow. Joe had never practiced either, and he had no idea how much of what he once read was accurate martial theory and how much was later exaggeration.
Still, the comparison gave him a way to frame what he had just seen.
Some systems distinguished between obvious external force and methods that were described as driving power deeper into a target.
Was Theodere doing something similar?
Perhaps blood energy had changed how force travelled through the stone.
Perhaps the rock had weaknesses Joe could not see.
Perhaps the entire mechanism was different from anything those old terms described.
Joe did not know.
One strike was nowhere near enough evidence to build a theory.
What he could say with certainty was much simpler.
Theodere had struck a rock the size of a pig and broken it.
That alone was absurd.
It also made the distinction between martial trainee and martial artist much easier to understand.
Simon had already become considerably stronger than an ordinary ten-year-old. Joe had seen the difference in farm work, running and the way his brother carried himself.
But Simon still operated within limits Joe recognized.
Theodere had just demonstrated something that no ordinary human body from Joe's previous world should have been able to reproduce casually.
Joe's assumptions shifted again.
For years, part of him had unconsciously treated modern knowledge as a reliable upper framework. This world might have strange martial arts, but he had still assumed he broadly understood what flesh, bone and force could accomplish.
That confidence was becoming less comfortable.
Theodere was not some legendary figure living at the top of the world.
He was an older martial artist living in a poor farming village.
A respected one, certainly, but still a man who spent much of his life in Green Hollow.
That raised obvious questions.
If someone like Theodere could exist here, what existed in Blackwood?
What existed in larger towns?
Cities?
Capitals?
There had to be institutions beyond what Joe had seen.
Green Hollow paid taxes.
Merchants travelled along established routes.
Blackwood maintained walls and guards.
Theodere had professional relationships with people outside the village, and families from nearby settlements willingly paid substantial sums to send children to his Hall.
This was not an isolated pocket of civilization.
At the same time, ordinary village life remained surprisingly stable.
Joe's household was poor, but poverty did not mean they were constantly starving. They owned land, kept most of what they produced and could sometimes accumulate surplus in a good year. Taxes existed, but from what Joe had personally observed, nobody was seizing everything above subsistence.
He was careful not to draw too much from that.
Joe knew almost nothing about the government beyond Green Hollow and Blackwood. A reasonably stable village did not prove the larger political system was fair, efficient or even particularly peaceful.
Still, it did not fit neatly into the rough picture of "medieval society" his previous-life memories tended to produce automatically.
Neither did glowing contracts.
Neither did spirituality.
Neither did calligraphy capable of retaining spirituality.
And now neither did a fifty-year-old man breaking a massive stone with one strike.
Joe was beginning to understand that Green Hollow had looked simple because it was poor.
Poor and simple were not the same thing.
Theodere looked once at the broken stone.
He did not explain the strike.
Instead, he turned back toward the students.
"What you saw is not something any of you should try."
A few children who had been staring at the broken pieces suddenly looked slightly guilty.
Theodere's gaze moved across them.
"You do not become strong by imitating the end of another man's path. You become strong by building your own foundation properly."
That sounded almost directed at the children who would otherwise spend the afternoon punching rocks.
"Learn the static foundation. Sense your blood energy. Learn control. Everything else comes after."
Then he nodded toward Hall.
That was apparently the end of the demonstration.
Theodere stepped away from the center of the yard while Mr. Hall moved forward to organize the new students.
For several seconds, the younger children remained unusually quiet.
The older trainees were less shocked.
Most had seen similar demonstrations before.
Familiarity had not removed the hunger from their expressions.
They wanted that strength.
Joe understood why.
Behind him, Simon finally leaned closer.
"I told you."
Joe kept looking at the broken stone.
"Yes."
Simon waited.
Joe knew exactly what he wanted.
"You told me."
Simon smiled broadly.
"I've been waiting three years for you to say that."
Joe finally looked at him.
"That's a little sad."
Simon ignored the insult.
"Still counts."
Joe let him win.
For once, Simon had earned it.