Chapter 106: Routine Verification

Joe returned to the East District compound the next morning carrying little more than a change of clothes. The lightness of what he carried felt strange. Most of his cultivation had required preparation before anything useful became available. Food had to be earned or purchased, medicine rationed according to cost, and training spaces borrowed, improvised, or fitted around other people's schedules.

Ashbourne had also forced him to adjust his sense of scale. The Montclairs were far more than another powerful martial family. They descended from a branch of the kingdom's royal house and had governed the state for generations. The state remained part of the kingdom and acknowledged the central crown, but most internal affairs were handled under Montclair authority, including administration, taxation, military forces, major appointments, martial institutions, and the distribution of state resources.

The major families Joe had once considered enormous still possessed wealth, businesses, inheritances, and generations of strong practitioners, but they existed within that order. The Montclairs stood above them through both blood and authority, with enough autonomy that most matters inside the state never needed to rise beyond them.

The East District household occupied only a small place within that much larger system. It could support practitioners, provide access to resources, and recommend promising candidates upward, but it did not decide how the Montclairs themselves would value those candidates. For Joe, that was enough. He had reached a place where resources unavailable in Blackwood could be obtained without placing him anywhere near the center of state attention.

At the gate, a guard checked his name against a list and waved him inside. The household's support was clearly not unlimited, but the difference was already obvious. Someone else had arranged his physician, meals, training access, and the accounting behind them. Joe only needed to appear at the proper place and make use of what had been prepared.

The training yard was quiet at that hour. Two younger members of the household moved through Foundation exercises beneath an instructor's supervision, their steps measured against markings set into the stone. Farther back, several older practitioners trained beneath a covered section where racks of weighted poles, sand-filled implements, and other equipment had been arranged in orderly rows.

An attendant led Joe past them toward one of the side buildings. His first appointment was with a physician. The examination room smelled faintly of alcohol, dried herbs, and freshly boiled cloth. Cabinets covered one wall, each drawer and bottle labeled. A narrow padded table stood beneath an electric lamp, with several trays of instruments placed within easy reach.

The physician read through Joe's assessment before looking up. "Bone Completion, with repeated tempering through the lower layers."

"Yes."

"And you're preparing for Internal Organs?"

"Eventually. I want the body fully prepared before I begin."

The physician glanced at the paper again. "Good. Too many people reach Bone Completion and decide the next realm immediately without consulting about their body."

Joe sat where he was directed. The examination was considerably more thorough than anything routinely available in Blackwood. The physician checked his pulse at several points, listened to his breathing at rest and after controlled exertion, tested abdominal tension, measured recovery, and observed how different regions of the body responded while Joe circulated Blood Energy without allowing it to touch the organs themselves.

Joe cooperated while keeping everything within the range expected from the foundation he had chosen to reveal. Perfect Health made that easier in some ways and more awkward in others. There was no accumulated damage to conceal, no persistent inflammation, no old fracture that had healed poorly, and no internal weakness left behind by years of cultivation.

Fortunately, excellent health was not suspicious by itself. The physician finished one set of notes. "Any serious injuries in the past?"

"Nothing lasting."

"I'm asking what happened, not what still bothers you."

Joe considered the distinction. "Strains. Impacts. Minor injuries from training. I've never broken a bone, and I don't know of anything that caused lasting internal damage."

The physician accepted that with the expression of someone accustomed to martial artists considering an injury irrelevant once it stopped hurting. After finishing the examination, he set the chart aside. "Your condition is excellent. I see no medical reason to delay ordinary progression once your cultivation method, preparation, and resources are in place."

He opened a drawer and passed Joe a printed schedule.

"Your current support includes an examination every ten days, additional checks if your condition changes, access to the recovery room, and training meals while you're on the grounds. Medicine is handled separately according to what you need and how expensive or scarce it is."

"Who approves it?"

"Routine preparations can be authorized through the medical staff. Anything expensive or difficult to obtain goes through procurement and, depending on the request, the family."

Joe looked farther down the sheet. "The meals include concentrated nutrition?"

"Yes. Nothing particularly rare, but they're prepared for martial training rather than ordinary household meals."

"What do they contain?"

The physician regarded him with slightly more interest. "Concentrated extracts, rendered fats, grain essence, mineral salts, and several mild herbs to support appetite and recovery. The proportions change according to body size, training load, and sometimes cultivation stage."

Joe asked several more questions about the amount contained in a serving and the approximate nutritional density. The physician could not give him every manufacturing detail, but Joe heard enough to compare it with what he had relied upon in Blackwood. he improvement was substantial, yet there was nothing mystical about the principle. It reminded him more of something from his previous world. Instead of forcing a practitioner to consume enormous quantities of ordinary food, the household concentrated as much usable nutrition as possible into a smaller volume and adjusted the composition according to the demands placed upon the body.

Different knowledge had led to a familiar solution. A martial artist could consume far more of what his body needed without spending a large portion of the day eating. Bone refinement had already demanded enormous quantities of food and medicine, but the organs left far less room for poor recovery. During repeated tempering, nutrition and rest would no longer be matters handled after cultivation. They would become part of the process itself.

"Can I purchase more than the standard allocation?"

The physician looked from Joe to the schedule in his hand. "You haven't eaten the standard allocation yet."

"I prefer knowing beforehand."

A faint trace of amusement crossed the man's face. "Yes. If it proves insufficient, extra portions can be purchased through procurement."

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That was enough information. Joe thanked him and left.

As the morning continued, another difference between Blackwood and the East District household became increasingly difficult to miss. Everything had a system behind it. Training equipment was maintained before it became unreliable. Instructors corrected small errors before they settled into habits. Meals arrived according to schedule. Injuries were written down instead of being remembered vaguely several weeks later. Medicine was assigned according to cultivation stage, physical condition, and recovery rather than handed out merely because someone requested it.

None of that replaced talent or effort. It removed waste.

Joe spent the remainder of the morning learning how several pieces of training equipment were meant to be used before eating in the household hall. The meal appeared ordinary at first. Rice, meat, eggs, cooked vegetables, and a thick savory drink were arranged across the tray in portions suited to someone under heavy physical training. The difference became clearer once he started eating. The food was unusually dense, particularly the drink, which contained enough concentrated material that he estimated a single serving could replace a substantial portion of one of the enormous meals he had once required in Blackwood.

He finished the tray and held it out when an attendant passed nearby.

"Another serving."

The attendant paused. "You're still hungry?"

"Yes. I eat more than most people."

The man studied him for another moment before accepting the tray. Whatever curiosity he felt did not become a question. A second portion arrived a few minutes later.

Joe finished that as well. He considered asking for a third, then decided against it. There was no advantage in making his appetite one of the first things the household staff remembered about him. If the standard allocation remained insufficient, he could adjust it through procurement without turning a single meal into a spectacle. His more important work began after he returned to Edwin's house.

Joe locked the guest-room door, placed the Montclair inheritance on the desk, and opened the Internal Organ section again. He had already read it enough times to remember most of the important passages. Until now, however, much of that knowledge had remained theoretical. Ashbourne was finally giving him access to the food, physicians, equipment, and supply network necessary to turn the inheritance into a practical cultivation plan.

The first Internal Organ tempering was not conceptually complicated. Blood Energy had to enter the deeper pathways under controlled circulation, interact with the organs gradually, and withdraw before the accumulated strain exceeded the body's ability to recover. Perfect Health gave Joe an enormous advantage in recovery, while Perfect Body had strengthened the physical foundation supporting everything above it. Neither talent made recklessness useful.

If anything, his foundation created a different danger. Nine completed temperings of Skin, Muscle, and Bone meant that the first Internal Organ refinement would not be constrained by weakness in the lower layers. Joe could probably push far harder than the inheritance expected of an ordinary practitioner at the same stage. That did not mean he should. One Effort Equals a Hundred rewarded valid effort. It did not transform a poor cultivation method into a good one simply because he performed it intensely.

Joe closed his eyes and began circulating Blood Energy. He followed the familiar routes first, allowing the flow to settle before guiding it toward the deeper pathways described in the inheritance. Each time the circulation approached the point where actual organ refinement would begin, he stopped, withdrew, and started again. He repeated the route until he no longer needed to consciously remember each transition.

The purpose was not to strengthen anything yet. He wanted the unfamiliar circulation to become routine before introducing the danger of actual tempering. By the time he finished, nearly an hour had passed without a single deliberate act of refinement. Joe considered the hour well spent

Across Ashbourne, meanwhile, the East District household's recommendation had already entered the Montclair recruitment system. The office occupied one wing of a larger administrative complex north of the commercial districts. Under normal circumstances, candidate intake for the next Decennial would have been relatively narrow. This cycle was different.

Recommendations had arrived from martial families, affiliated households, city schools, county organizations, and other groups permitted to forward promising young practitioners. The wider search produced far more mediocre submissions than exceptional ones, but that had been expected. The directive from above was simple: examine more candidates early so fewer worthwhile ones disappeared before anyone with meaningful resources noticed them.

A clerk opened the East District household's submission shortly before noon. The first candidate required little consideration.

Four-Attribute Spiritual Root. Almost Twenty. Already in Internal Organs. Twice tempered lower foundation. Long documented training history.

The file went directly into the stronger preliminary-review group.

Joe Vale's record followed. Five-Attribute Spiritual Root. Age eighteen. Bone Completion. Second refinement of Skin, Muscle, and Bone verified by the household examiner. Lower foundation assessed as suitable for continued development toward the Acquired realm. The Spiritual Root was ordinary by the standards of candidates who reached this office. The rest was not.

Under a narrower recruitment cycle, an eighteen-year-old Five-Attribute practitioner at Bone Completion might simply have remained with his sponsoring household until demonstrating progress in Internal Organs. This year, however, the entire purpose of the expanded intake was to identify candidates earlier.

The clerk marked the recommendation for preliminary verification. No senior Montclair official was summoned. No unusual alert appeared beside Joe's name. His file was simply retained instead of being discarded. Verification began with the things that mattered before anyone considered spending meaningful resources: identity, age, registered Spiritual Root, existing sponsorship agreements, service obligations, inheritance restrictions, serious legal problems, and the martial record submitted on his behalf.

The testing-hall certificate was valid. His temporary Ashbourne residence had been properly recorded. The East District household had certified Bone Completion and the second refinement of the lower three layers through its own examiner. Requests were sent to Blackwood and Green Hollow primarily to confirm identity and establish whether another organization already possessed contractual rights over him. Nothing in the initial submission justified reconstructing every year of his childhood. For now, the question was much simpler.

Did Joe Vale exist as described, and was he free to accept future sponsorship? His file joined the others while the answers were gathered.

Three days later, Joe purchased his first additional case of concentrated training food from the East District household. The family sold it to him at cost. He paid without hesitation.

Edwin saw the receipt when Joe returned and looked from the amount written at the bottom to the wooden case being carried through the doorway.

"That's food?"

"Mostly."

Edwin opened the lid. Inside were sealed packets, preserved mixtures, and several thick bottles packed tightly enough that there was almost no wasted space. Edwin looked at him, then back into the box. "How much are you eating now?"

"More than they expected."

"That wasn't really an answer."

Edwin had known him long enough to recognize when further questioning would accomplish little. He closed the case and stepped aside.

"Fine. Just don't decide those bottles mean you can stop eating real meals."

"I won't."

"Good."

Joe carried the case upstairs. The contents were ordinary in origin, intended for practitioners undergoing sustained martial training. The formulas themselves were probably known in one form or another to many physicians and martial organizations. The real advantage was producing them consistently, preserving them properly, packaging them in usable quantities, and maintaining a supply network large enough that a practitioner could finish one case and simply purchase another. That kind of infrastructure could not be recreated casually in Blackwood.

Joe opened one of the bottles and drank a small amount. He stopped and he checked the label. Nothing had spoiled.

Joe looked at the bottle again before taking another drink. Apparently concentration had improved everything except flavor.

Later that afternoon, one of the routine replies from Green Hollow reached the Montclair office. It confirmed Joe Vale's identity, his family registration, his childhood enrollment in the local Talent Hall, and the absence of any active Hall contract or exclusive sponsorship claim. Nothing in the response contradicted the East District household's submission.

Blackwood's records arrived separately and confirmed his more recent residence, formal martial registrations, and lack of binding service obligations. The paperwork did not explain every year of Joe's development. Village and small-town records were rarely complete enough to reconstruct an individual's entire training history, while rooted children receiving private instruction were hardly unknown.

The verification clerk checked the relevant boxes, attached the responses, and returned the file to the preliminary-review stack. Joe Vale remained what the submission claimed he was: an eighteen-year-old Five-Attribute Root holder at Bone Completion, with verified additional tempering through the lower foundation and no competing contractual claim over his future.

Back at Edwin's house, Joe knew none of this. His attention remained on the Montclair inheritance spread across his desk and the circulation route he had spent the past three days practicing without crossing into actual Internal Organ tempering.

Ashbourne had already solved one problem for him. Food, physicians, equipment, and a reliable supply network were now available. The remaining danger was his own impatience.