Chapter 108: Buying Years

The North District did not begin at any obvious boundary. Joe noticed the change gradually as the carriage moved away from the busier parts of Ashbourne. Commercial signs became less common, replaced by government buildings, walled estates, and compounds whose purposes were not advertised from the street. The roads were cleaner, the trees older, and even the electrical lines had been laid with more care than those crossing the southern districts.

The Montclair training annex stood well short of the ruling family's main estate. Joe had expected that. There was little reason for the royal branch to bring every promising young martial practitioner into its private grounds. The annex was built for exactly the opposite purpose: to process, train, and evaluate people who might eventually become worth greater attention.

The compound itself was practical rather than grand. Three broad stone buildings surrounded several training yards, with a clinic and dormitory wing extending behind them. The Montclair crest stood above the main entrance, but there was little ornamentation elsewhere.

Young martial artists crossed the grounds in training clothes or simple uniforms. Joe recognized Skin and Muscle practitioners immediately, along with several Bone practitioners whose exact stages were harder to judge at a distance. Near one of the inner yards, a young man moved with the controlled steadiness Joe had come to associate with Internal Organs.

Ashbourne's advantage was not that every martial artist was stronger. It was that stronger practitioners had places where they could gather, train, and be supported together.

Joe presented the letter at the administrative hall. The clerk checked the seal, confirmed his identity, and directed him upstairs. There was no long wait or public ceremony. Within fifteen minutes of entering the compound, Joe was seated across from a Montclair recruitment officer with the East District household's assessment open between them.

The official looked to be in his forties. He wore administrative clothes rather than training gear, but the control in his posture suggested that the distinction between clerk and martial practitioner was not especially useful here.

He read the household report once more before looking at Joe.

"Bone Completion, age eighteen, Five-Attribute Spiritual Root, with second tempering of Skin, Muscle, and Bone independently verified."

"Yes."

"The examiner who signed this is reliable. We won't repeat the same test unless something later gives us reason to."

That saved time.

The official folded his hands over the report. "Do you understand why the household forwarded your name?"

"Because the repeated lower foundation leaves the Acquired path open."

"That's part of it. At eighteen, Bone Completion with an Acquired-compatible foundation is worth looking at, even with a Five-Attribute Root. It doesn't make you exceptional by Montclair standards, but it gives you enough time for further development before the next Decennial."

That was closer to what Joe had expected.

"How much time matters?"

"A great deal. Someone reaching the same position several years later might still become a true Martial Artist. They might even reach Acquired eventually. But recruitment decisions aren't based only on what is theoretically possible. We care about whether the remaining time justifies the resources required."

The third Internal Organ refinement was only one threshold. Reaching it required first completing the realm itself, then repeating it safely enough to produce an Acquired-compatible foundation. None of that happened instantly merely because the earlier layers were prepared.

The official continued. "Your referral arrived during a wider recruitment cycle. We are evaluating more candidates earlier than usual, particularly those who may be viable for the Decennial preparation pool. That doesn't mean every person we examine will receive long-term support."

"What determines that?"

"Progress, resource efficiency, health, discipline, and whether the candidate continues to justify the allocation."

That answer interested Joe more than a promise would have. Montclair was spending resources to learn whether further investment made sense, not offering faith.

The official pulled another sheet from the file.

"The East District household is willing to continue selling you ordinary martial resources and provide limited support. We can do more, but before allocating anything significant we need our own record of how you train."

"Another assessment?"

"A longer one."

The officer slid the document across the desk.

Three months.

This content has been misappropriated from NovelPhoenix; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Joe read through the terms carefully. The trial included access to the Montclair annex, routine physician monitoring, a larger nutritional allowance, subsidized standard recovery medicines, general training facilities, and supervised access to instructors familiar with Bone and Internal Organ cultivation.

There were limits: no rare medicines, no private inheritance access, no exclusive instructor, and no long-term stipend. Most importantly, there was no service contract beyond ordinary rules governing the resources he used during the evaluation period. Joe read that section twice.

The officer noticed. "We don't bind preliminary candidates simply for being examined. If you later accept serious sponsorship, the terms change. This does not."

That suited him.

"What are you expecting to see in three months?"

"Not a particular breakthrough."

The answer made Joe look up.

"You're preparing for Internal Organs," the official continued. "Rushing you into the realm simply to improve a report would defeat the point of evaluating you. We want to see how you use resources, how your body responds to training, how quickly you absorb correction, and whether the foundation the household verified translates into efficient progress once you're working under better conditions."

That was more dangerous than a simple strength test. Machines could be fooled by showing less. A three-month training record required consistency.

Joe kept his expression neutral. "What happens if my progress is ordinary?"

"Then we treat you like an ordinary candidate."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then the next allocation can be discussed."

No promises. No exaggerated expectation. Joe preferred it that way. He continued reading. The restrictions were equally straightforward. He could not resell subsidized resources, share restricted Montclair materials, falsify medical records, or claim a rank or sponsorship status he had not actually received.

Nothing required him to disclose his private inheritance or explain where every stage of his cultivation had come from. The trial concerned what he could do now. Joe signed.

The officer added his own signature and stamped the document. "Report to the clinic tomorrow morning. Your nutritional allocation begins today. You'll also be assigned a training room and an instructor for periodic review."

"Internal Organ instructor?"

"Someone familiar with the transition. You're not being given a personal master."

"I wasn't expecting one."

"Good."

The officer closed the file. "One more thing. Don't treat the annex as a competition."

Joe waited.

"Some of the people training here have stronger Roots than you. Some have family preparation you never received. Others are younger and already farther ahead in realm. If you spend three months trying to prove you belong by matching someone else's schedule, you'll probably damage yourself."

That was advice Joe had no reason to reject.

"I intend to follow my own progression."

"Then we shouldn't have a problem."

The meeting ended there. No interrogation, no attempt to reconstruct his childhood, no declaration that Montclair had discovered something extraordinary. Joe had presented a profile strong enough to justify evaluation, and the state was willing to spend modest resources to determine whether further investment made sense.

Downstairs, a clerk issued him a meal card, clinic schedule, and authorization for two of the annex's general training rooms. Joe examined the card while crossing the courtyard.

Three months.

The arrangement created a problem he had expected from the moment he chose to reveal part of his foundation. He could no longer behave exactly as he had in Blackwood. There, concealment had been the safest default. Progress could be hidden without costing him much because nobody nearby possessed resources he desperately needed. Ashbourne was different.

Montclair was providing better food, physicians, training space, and access to martial practitioners who had already crossed the stages ahead of him. If he showed no meaningful progress, there would be little reason for them to continue paying.

At the same time, revealing his natural rate of advancement was impossible.

One Effort Equals a Hundred had long since made "natural" progression a useless concept.

Joe stopped beside one of the inner training yards. Several Bone practitioners were working under an instructor who moved between them correcting posture and force distribution. Farther away, an Internal Organ practitioner performed a sequence at a pace so controlled that an ordinary observer might have mistaken it for stretching.

Joe watched more carefully. The man's breathing remained shallow during certain transitions. His torso stayed protected even when his limbs extended fully, and none of his movements produced unnecessary internal shock. Joe's inheritance already contained better technical instructions than anything he expected to receive from a general annex instructor. That was not the same as having everything he needed.

A manual could describe correct practice. It could not watch a student and point out when the body was doing something subtly wrong, describe which mistakes were common among hundreds of practitioners, or identify warning signs people tended to ignore until too late.

The people here possessed accumulated experience. That was worth using. Joe continued across the yard toward the quartermaster's office.

His first state nutritional allocation was larger than what the affiliated household had provided. Two sealed cases contained concentrated foods and recovery supplements, while a smaller packet held standard medicines approved for Bone-stage practitioners preparing for Internal Organs.

Nothing inside was rare. It was simply available in quantities Blackwood could never have supplied consistently. That evening, Joe returned to Edwin's house with both cases.

Edwin looked at the Montclair seals before helping clear space near the stairs. "They've already increased your allocation?"

"For the trial period."

"How long?"

"Three months."

Edwin nodded, taking the answer more seriously than the supplies themselves. "So they're watching what you do with it."

"Yes."

That was the real value of the arrangement. Joe carried the cases upstairs and closed the guest-room door behind him. The lost Montclair inheritance lay hidden beneath his belongings. He took it out and opened to the Internal Organ section.

The annex had not given him a better method, nor had he expected one. What it had given him was an environment in which he could use the method he already possessed with fewer unnecessary limitations.

Reliable food. Medical monitoring. Training equipment. Experienced practitioners. People who had seen failures as well as successes. Joe had spent most of his cultivation compensating for the absence of those things. Now they were available. The challenge was no longer obtaining enough support to progress. It was deciding how much progress to let Montclair see.

Joe set the agreement beside the manual. Three months was long enough to establish a pattern and short enough that he could control what that pattern looked like. He would not waste the opportunity by pretending to be mediocre. He would not reveal everything either.

Somewhere between those two extremes was the version of Joe Vale that Montclair needed to see. Finding that balance would be part of the trial.