As Joe grew older, he also began paying more deliberate attention to his physical condition.
He had no intention of doing anything extreme. His body was still developing, and memories from his previous life were enough to make him cautious about injuries caused by trying to progress too quickly. Becoming stronger a little faster was not worth damaging a joint or tendon that might trouble him for years afterward.
Instead, he used what Green Hollow already provided.
He ran short distances along the paths around the village, climbed trees, hung from sturdy branches and practiced keeping his balance on fallen logs. Simple squatting movements strengthened his legs, while carrying water, firewood and produce gave him plenty of opportunities to work without needing anything resembling proper exercise equipment.
Farm life was already more physically demanding than the average life he remembered from his previous world. Joe simply began treating some of those ordinary movements more deliberately.
His goal was not to become unusually muscular or strong for his age. At seven, that would have been pointless. He wanted his body balanced, coordinated and reasonably prepared for whatever training might eventually come from the Talent Hall.
Whenever something became easy, he increased the difficulty gradually.
He ran a little farther. Carried slightly more. Chose a narrower section of a fallen log. None of it looked impressive, and Joe preferred it that way.
The larger limitation was food.
His family ate enough, but enough to grow and ideal for physical development were not the same thing. Grain and vegetables formed most meals, beans appeared frequently, and eggs were valuable enough that Lily kept a close count of how many the hens produced.
Meat remained occasional.
Simon received priority because he already trained at the Talent Hall.
Whenever there was an extra egg, a larger piece of fish or a little more meat available, Lily usually placed it in Simon's bowl without discussion.
Joe normally received an egg once or twice a week unless the hens were laying particularly well.
He understood why.
Simon had already passed the Starlight test, and the family had spent years rearranging work and food around his training. If he became a successful martial artist, everyone in the household could benefit.
Understanding the decision did not mean Joe never noticed it.
One morning, Lily placed an egg beside Simon's porridge and began turning away.
Joe looked at Simon's bowl, then at the basket containing the remaining eggs.
Lily noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Then stop counting them with your eyes."
Joe looked back at his breakfast.
Simon grinned.
"There aren't enough for everyone," Lily continued. "Your brother trains all day."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
Joe had not been, but explaining that would probably sound exactly like being a smartass.
Pam, sitting near the hearth, gave him a small piece of dried fruit when Lily turned away.
Joe accepted it without comment.
Poor households had their own logic, and affection did not create additional food.
Mary received no special claim to meat either, no matter how thoroughly she had trained everyone to spoil her in almost every other part of life. She could cry over a missing sweet or demand to sit beside whichever adult she preferred, but Lily had very little sympathy when food was being divided seriously.
"You already ate," Lily told her one evening when Mary reached toward Simon's bowl.
"But he has more."
"He trains."
"I can train."
"You can finish your vegetables."
Mary looked toward Joe for support.
Joe concentrated on eating.
He had learned better.
Physical preparation without proper instruction still created mistakes.
Joe occasionally pushed farther than he should have. He overworked muscles, landed badly while climbing and once twisted an ankle after stepping off a wet stone.
The first few incidents did not concern him much.
Then Pam began noticing.
One morning, Joe walked into the house with one leg slightly stiff after overdoing a set of squats the previous afternoon.
Pam looked up immediately.
"You fell again?"
"No."
"Then why are you walking like Joseph?"
From outside came his grandfather's voice.
"I can hear you."
Pam ignored him.
Joe sat down.
"My leg is sore."
"From what?"
"Exercise."
Pam stared at him.
"You made your leg hurt on purpose?"
"Not exactly."
"Sounds like exactly."
Joe decided there was little benefit in explaining progressive overload to his grandmother.
Lily was less amused.
When she realized Joe had been deliberately exercising beyond ordinary chores, her expression hardened.
"You are not in the Hall."
"I know."
"Then stop behaving like you are."
"I'm only exercising."
"You're limping."
"Only a little."
Lily pointed toward the door.
"If you hurt yourself before Starlight because you decided you were clever enough to train without a teacher, don't come crying to me."
Joe doubted she literally meant that.
The look on her face discouraged testing the possibility.
Afterward, he became more cautious.
At the same time, those small injuries gave him better opportunities to understand Perfect Health and Perfect Body.
His recovery was unusually clean.
A twisted ankle that he expected to bother him for a week might feel almost normal after several days. Muscle strains faded without lingering stiffness, while scrapes and shallow cuts healed neatly and rarely left much of a mark.
More importantly, once the discomfort disappeared, Joe could find no obvious weakness remaining in the injured area.
That caught his attention because of something Simon had learned at the Talent Hall.
Martial artists called them hidden injuries.
Simon explained the idea one evening after returning from training.
"Mr. Hall says you can hurt yourself without knowing you're still hurt."
Joe looked at him. "That sounds contradictory."
"It's not. He said the body can recover enough that you stop feeling it, but the damage doesn't always disappear completely. Then you keep training and damage the same place again."
Simon stretched one leg in front of him.
"Muscles, joints, tendons, even nerves. Older martial artists have problems from things they did when they were young."
That part sounded plausible enough.
Simon continued, enjoying the opportunity to explain something Joe did not already know.
"Advanced training is worse. Mr. Hall said some methods put stress inside the body too, especially once people start tempering deeper parts. If you train badly for years, you can feel strong when you're young and then everything starts going wrong later."
Joe remembered that.
One sentence in particular stayed with him because Simon repeated it exactly as Hall had apparently said it.
"A martial artist doesn't only grow old. His old injuries grow old with him."
The idea made immediate sense.
Repeated physical stress could accumulate damage even when individual injuries appeared minor. Joe knew enough from his previous life to understand what chronic joint problems, damaged tendons and repeated strain could do over decades.
According to the Hall, this was one reason two martial artists who appeared equally strong while young might decline very differently with age. Someone who accumulated fewer hidden injuries could remain near his peak longer, while another might begin losing strength, speed or endurance much earlier.
There was also a broader belief among martial artists that avoiding hidden injuries improved longevity.
The reasoning, as Simon understood it, was simple enough. A body carrying years of damage through muscles, joints, nerves and eventually internal organs would have a harder time remaining healthy once age began weakening it.
Joe had no way to verify the lifespan claim.
The effect on a martial artist's peak years was easier to believe.
What interested him most was the possibility that Perfect Body might prevent such damage from remaining.
His ordinary injuries did not merely stop hurting quickly. They appeared to heal completely.
If the same thing continued once he eventually began real martial training, then Perfect Body might offer an advantage very different from simply making him stronger.
It could allow him to accumulate fewer hidden injuries over the years.
That, in turn, might mean more consistent training, fewer interruptions and a longer period at whatever eventually counted as his physical peak.
Joe did not treat the idea as proven.
Childhood scrapes, sore muscles and a twisted ankle were nowhere near enough evidence to conclude that Perfect Body could repair the damage caused by actual martial training. The Hall methods might affect the body in ways he had never experienced.
Still, the possibility was worth remembering.
It also gave him another reason not to behave recklessly.
Perfect Health and Perfect Body had already made recovery easier, but Joe did not want to discover their limits by deliberately injuring himself.
From then on, his preparation remained simple.
He ran, climbed, balanced, carried manageable weights and continued helping around the farm. If something hurt in the wrong way, he stopped. If fatigue began changing how he moved, he rested instead of forcing another repetition.
There was no reason to hurry.
Starlight would come when it came.
Until then, Joe wanted to arrive at the Talent Hall with a healthy body rather than a collection of injuries caused by trying to prepare for training he had not even qualified to receive.