There was no announcement. One morning, the time that should have been spent drilling martial arts under the instructors' supervision suddenly became a lecture, with teachers addressing everyone in the great hall.
And this lecture had nothing to do with the Scripture of Imperial Heaven they had been reciting all along. They spoke of very practical training techniques.
For example: Breathing Techniques that conserve stamina; ways to exert force using the correct muscles; techniques for protecting the joints. And so on and so forth.
Most of them were rather baffled. They had all lived through the long flight from the Northern Frontier, and each of them had their own hard-won understanding of how to save strength and protect themselves.
What did it mean for Suspended Fate Manor to solemnly teach them these most basic techniques?
—What did it mean? It meant the good days were over!
Only a small number of people, An Jing among them, grew wary, knowing this was a signal—An Jing carefully noted down every technique the teachers taught. It did not matter if he had learned some of them before; checking for gaps and filling them—there was always something to be gained.
That very afternoon, everyone, An Jing included, learned just how formidable "formal training" was.
Leading them today was none other than the One-Eyed Instructor: "Suspended Fate Manor has always held to the creed of choosing the finest among the finest. Formal Disciples who are granted the Lineage Inheritance are prized for quality, not quantity. And since stamina and endurance are the foundation of our branch's martial arts, a complete physical training session, to test the limits of everyone here, is very important."
"Now then. First, ten round trips up and down the mountain."
With that, he set off at a run, leading from the front himself, and An Jing, as the acknowledged leader at the very front of the pack, had no choice but to fall in step.
Now he understood. The ease of the past half month had merely been a way to let this batch of youths recover their health, restore their spirits, and cultivate a first sense of belonging to the group.
In essence, it was laying a foundation, so that they would not piss blood after a single bout of training, or drop dead from a small increase in intensity!
To be honest, these Children of Calamity, who had survived the flight from the Frost Calamity and been specially selected by Suspended Fate Manor, mostly had good talent, strong endurance and willpower, and no lack of physical strength.
The half month of rest had not weakened them. On the contrary, it had greatly strengthened them.
These hand-picked boys and girls had physiques that surpassed even those of ordinary adults.
But Suspended Fate Manor sat among the mountains, and the roads up and down the mountain had a slope of about twelve to twenty degrees, in places rising so steeply that they were nearly a climb.
A round trip was over five li of rugged mountain path.
And they had to run it ten times... no matter how you looked at it, that intensity was a little outrageous.
More importantly, they had to run at the instructor's pace, without slowing down. Fall behind, and you were left in the dust.
Sure enough, before even four round trips were done, people had already dropped their pace, and some were even falling behind, unable to run any farther.
By the sixth or seventh round trip, more than half of them had collapsed.
"The passing standard for this test is probably just finishing half the course?"
An Jing still had plenty of strength left at this point.
He had trained in martial arts, after all. Fifty li of mountain road would at most tire him a little, and the Breathing Techniques and skills he had mastered were enough to let him hold on more easily than the others. He even had the leisure to look back and observe his fellow runners who showed "potential."
Looking around, he spotted several familiar faces.
First of all, there were two people from the same dormitory as An Jing. One was named Zhang Ying, the other Ye Xiuyuan.
Zhang Ying's family had once been hunters in the mountains. He had run through the hills with his parents since he was small, so his stamina was naturally exceptional. Though he looked to be panting hard, his stride was still quite steady.
He was a rather simple soul. He had once been quite unconvinced of An Jing's status as "Eldest Senior Brother" and "leader," and on his second day at the manor he had come to test his strength against An Jing. After An Jing pressed him down one-handed until his legs nearly gave out and he almost knelt, Zhang Ying acknowledged him as his boss and had followed at his back ever since.
Ye Xiuyuan's family had once been a household of scholars. He had a rather gloomy personality, but he was very clever.
An Jing knew that before Zhang Ying came to test his strength, he had spoken with a group of people, and the one leading that group was Ye Xiuyuan.
Having used Zhang Ying to sound him out, Ye Xiuyuan straightaway acknowledged An Jing as his boss too. If he had not so often taken the lead in declaring that they should all heed their "boss" An Jing, playing the shill to bolster An Jing's authority, An Jing might not have found it so easy to secure his position as "Eldest Senior Brother."
Ye Xiuyuan's stamina was not up to much. Even after half a month of recuperation his build was still rather slight, but he had earnestly memorized every technique the teachers passed on, and had been practicing and experimenting with them all through the time around lunch. Amazingly, he held on as well, following behind An Jing.
Besides those two, there was one more girl following An Jing.
Her name was Gu Yeqi. She was a fellow native of An Jing's home region, the very girl whose chilblains had been cured. She was a year younger than An Jing, and she had seen him haggle with the One-Eyed Instructor and sell himself for his mother's sake. She admired him deeply and copied his every step, whatever the matter.
Gu Yeqi's family had once belonged to a great clan, and the whole clan had served a medicine estate, passing down a set of family martial arts. It was not strong, but its foundations were solid. Like Zhang Ying, though her breathing was unsteady, she could still keep going.
Noticing An Jing's gaze, she flashed him a huge grin.
Of the three, Ye Xiuyuan ran until the seventh and a half round trip before his eyes rolled back and he blacked out. Gu Yeqi lasted until nearly the ninth. Zhang Ying, if he had not tripped over himself, could have finished alongside An Jing—but stumbling and falling at that stage was basically the same as passing out.
At this moment, they fully understood why the manor was named "Suspended Fate."
Two hours later, of more than two hundred people, only fourteen were still standing after completing the whole course.
"So many?"
The One-Eyed Instructor was rather surprised as well. His pace had not been slow, and he had sped up afterward, covering more than fifty li of mountain road in under two hours, half of it uphill and half downhill. That speed and difficulty definitely surpassed the limits of an ordinary person of Great Chen.
Only truly "special" children could finish the entire course.
He could not help but laugh: "Your batch really does have good talent. Most of you finished half the course, and fourteen still have strength to spare—the several batches of youths in the past ten years put together don't add up to as many as you do."
But then he said, with considerable "distress": "But in that case, how are we to pick a leader who stands out above the rest?"
At these words, An Jing did not stir, but his eyebrows rose slightly and his expression turned subtle, while the other thirteen boys and girls who had completed the whole course turned their heads as one, all eyes fixing on him.
The One-Eyed Instructor looked at An Jing as well. The corner of his mouth curved up, and he waved a hand: "Continue! Back to the manor, two hundred lifts of the stone lock!"
The stone-lock lifts brought down three of them, but after that came two hundred swings of the long staff, two hundred horse-stance punches, two hundred in-place stone-lock squats... Before he collapsed, An Jing sank into deep thought: "Is this going to be a daily routine from now on?"
Even he felt a sliver of dread at this primitive training regimen, more terrifying than any modern leg workout.
But very quickly, An Jing had no time left to think about such things.
Because on the third day, ten people applied to challenge An Jing for the position of "Eldest Senior Brother."
Chapter 7