Several months after becoming the acknowledged Eldest Senior Brother, An Jing and the other boys and girls were introduced to the true training of Suspended Fate Manor.
It was no longer mere physical conditioning; Suspended Fate Manor truly began instructing them in martial arts and mental arts.
The Martial Path of Great Chen began with Inner Breath, but before officially becoming Inner-Breath Martial Artists, apprentice disciples had Three Hurdles to cross.
The first hurdle was the Mind: facing peril without fear, unblinking even with blades at one's throat.
The second hurdle was the Body: brimming with stamina and strength, delivering a thousand strikes without tiring.
The final hurdle was Technique: honing a single craft until it achieved seamless unity and flowed in a single continuous breath, allowing hundreds of moves and thousands of forms to shift at will.
Only when all three—Mind, Body, and Technique—were achieved could one deliver a strike penetrating with the full power of the entire body to comprehend Inner Breath.
The Body Hurdle was easy enough to pass through exercise alone. The disciples of Suspended Fate Manor had been chosen from all over and lacked nothing in talent; with steady progression, anyone could achieve it.
The Mind Hurdle required sparring: training until the mind was calm and the spirit focused, until fists could fly right before one's eyes without a blink, and pain could shoot through the brain without shaking one's nerve.
Ever since An Jing defeated eleven challengers in a row, sparring had become the daily routine on the drill ground. Though no one challenged An Jing anymore, the four disciples besides him who received meat rations were challenged daily. Positions rotated every ten days, honing their skills at remarkable speed.
Technique was the most difficult of all. It demanded day-and-night refinement as well as innate inspiration, fusing Mind and Body through refined skill to ultimately master Innate Primordial Qi and transform that qi into Inner Breath.
The reason An Jing had overwhelmed the other disciples was precisely because he had long since overcome the hurdles of Body and Mind. His Technique was merely not yet consummate, but even in progress he remained far ahead of the rest.
Furthermore, this Technique was not just about dexterity in hand: it required an understanding of the acupoints and internal organs of one's own physical body. If a person could not even identify the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, was ignorant of the major acupoints of the cosmic cycle, and could not discern the five viscera and six bowels, how could they possibly grasp Innate Primordial Qi and attain Inner Breath?
This was precisely why Suspended Fate Manor had been teaching the disciples to read and write all along: practicing martial arts required literacy.
The mental art taught by Suspended Fate Manor was called the Abyss-Facing Qi-Nourishing Stance. One had to stand blindfolded upon a post, visualizing a deep abyss and secluded gorge while controlling every muscle and internal organ throughout the body—fearless, unmoving, unshaken, and unperturbed.
While hardly a high-grade mental art, it was far more complete than the rudimentary techniques passed down in many martial families, capable of nourishing qi, focusing the spirit, and tempering bodily jin.
The martial technique taught to them was named Armor-Penetrating True Jin. In essence, it was merely a formula for directing jin, yet it was part of a superior martial art that even surprised An Jing.
Armor-Penetrating True Jin was actually the jin-release chapter of an orthodox, high-grade lineage inheritance.
It required uniting the mind with jin; the braver and more indomitable one was, the greater the jin released in that split second. If mastered to great accomplishment, its power was sufficient to pierce armor and sever steel.
If mastered fully, it could even be used to break through to Inner Breath.
Both the Abyss-Facing Qi-Nourishing Stance and the Armor-Penetrating True Jin cultivated a resolute and fearless disposition. They emphasized seamless continuity of qi and total explosive power—a way of life-and-death combat meant for trading one's life for another's.
Coupled with the very name "Suspended Fate Manor," An Jing could basically conclude with high probability that this place was a training base for assassins and deathsworn, established by some major power or sect.
Though he had suspected as much before, he was far more certain now.
For An Jing, the Abyss-Facing Qi-Nourishing Stance came remarkably easily. During the year spent fleeing disaster, he had stared death in the face multiple times; he had essentially walked along the brink of an abyss with every step. His mindset was a perfect match, and he mastered it completely in no time.
The same was true for the other Children of Calamity. They picked up the mental art very quickly; at most, a few who were slower at reading needed others to explain it before they understood.
Perhaps this mental art had been tailored specifically for surviving refugees like them.
As for the Armor-Penetrating True Jin, that was far more difficult.
An Jing learned quite rapidly, soon able to execute it fluidly with all kinds of weapons, bursting with forty to fifty percent more jin than usual in an instant. But very few could keep pace with him, and more than half had not even grasped the basics.
As Eldest Senior Brother, An Jing was willing to help the other children resolve some of their difficulties.
For instance, he offered training advice, methods for relieving fatigue, and explanations of his insights into martial techniques—explanations even more detailed than those given by some lecturers and instructors.
Under his guidance, Zhang Ying, Gu Yeqi, Cang Linzu, and others quickly mastered the mental art, while Cang Linzu and a few of the more gifted trainees even mastered Armor-Penetrating True Jin.
Though the others had yet to master it, each gained insights of their own. Knowing that An Jing had neither deceived them nor held anything back, and had genuinely shared his experience, gratitude welled in their hearts, and trust gradually took root.
From then on, many children were even willing to confide their troubles to him—mostly the whimsical notions and delicate heartaches typical of kids around puberty: yearning for their hometowns and parents, feeling insignificant like specks of dust, and the like.
An Jing felt rather helpless about it, yet he remained patient enough to listen, offering answers and comfort from the perspective of an older brother.
In this way, not just the children in his dormitory, but those in other dorms as well—boys and girls alike—came to respect An Jing from the bottom of their hearts, looking up to him as an elder brother.
Being respected and loved was indeed a pleasant feeling.
Furthermore, instructing others required a deeper understanding of the knowledge he was explaining.
While explaining things, An Jing realized that his understanding of martial arts had perhaps relied a bit too heavily on talent; he picked things up instinctively, but lacked a clear, concrete rationale.
The process of explaining things to his junior martial brothers and sisters was also an opportunity to review the key points, completely master these mental arts and martial techniques, and advance from proficiency to thorough mastery.
Yet during this same period, Suspended Fate Manor sent away its first batch of eliminated trainees.
"Some failed to meet Suspended Fate Manor's standards and were eliminated during the drills of the past fortnight."
This was the explanation offered one morning by a Medicine Pavilion physician in response to everyone's questions.
Suspended Fate Manor was short thirty people—neither too many nor too few, enough for everyone to notice, yet not enough to cause excessive shock.
Most of those eliminated were children lacking stamina and lagging far behind in martial progress, which made complete sense and aligned with what most expected.
Their elimination was only natural; neither the others nor they themselves likely found it strange.
An Jing felt the same way.
However, with his sharp powers of observation, he unexpectedly caught an odd detail.
It wasn't even truly odd, exactly... only, on the day those children were eliminated, An Jing did not recall hearing any carts leave the manor.
Suspended Fate Manor was nestled deep in an ancient forest. Every few days, cargo carts transported supplies; if people were to depart, they would most likely leave aboard those carts.
Yet in the days before and after, no carts came or went, nor were the eliminated children ever seen within the manor.
Still, this was no great matter.
Although he had initially doubted Suspended Fate Manor's trustworthiness, during this recent period An Jing had experienced its treatment firsthand: meat to eat and full bellies. Compared to the chaotic Northern Frontier, this place was practically paradise.
Though the instructors and lecturers were somewhat strict, on the whole they treated them quite well.
An Jing got along fairly well with several instructors. They would even bring small snacks to share with the children; though solemn during training, during breaks they would tell stories of their own training days.
Thus, An Jing did not take the matter to heart.
After all, they had never seen those five children who had appeared at the very start either—the ones who had likely already awakened their Destiny Patterns.
Suspended Fate Manor was vast, with many forbidden areas off-limits to them. Those five children might well be living in other quarters of the manor, and the eliminated children were probably waiting in some other area as well.
Without realizing it, another half-month slipped past.
Chapter 10