Volithur discovered a deep loathing of the Castellan as he scoured the pipes. The task, it turned out, could not be conducted in a dignified manner. Standing beneath clay pipes as you stabbed at obstructions with a piece of wood proved just as hazardous as it sounded. Hair, ear canals, even nostrils were soon defiled by filth.
They barely finished the job in time for dinner. Volithur showered extra thoroughly, ate, consumed his elixir, and took to his hammock for a session of mental cultivation. As always, it drained him until he was barely conscious. He let the drowsiness take him under.
The next several days, fortunately, they did not have to repeat their work on the pipes. The Castellan appeared to have forgotten about their existence after ensuring they were sufficiently miserable. That let them return to the schedule of their first few days.
A small breakfast, half a day on septic duty, a shower, lunch leftovers, exercise, consuming an elixir, eating dinner, and then mental cultivation to end the day. It wasn’t exactly an enjoyable schedule, but its regularity and mundane annoyances served to insulate Volithur and Thassily from the moments of grief that would otherwise have overwhelmed them.
While on their own, they would complain about every perceived injustice sent their way, even something as minor as being forbidden to freeload off the mug of rum three of their fellow trainees pooled their meager funds to buy. They also mimicked the behaviors of the Sergeant and other soldiers with distinctive personalities. They even, on occasion, remarked on the appearance of several of the women whose paths they crossed as they went about their duties.
When their moods were particularly good, they would reminisce about things they missed from their home world. Electric lighting, chocolate milkshakes, giant soft pretzels from the mall, a television program called ‘Space Adventures’ they both watched each evening. Though they had gone to different schools, they had lived in essentially the same area and found their tastes in most things nearly identical.
At times when they felt more fragile, they avoided talk of home to focus on grandiose fantasies of their futures. Cultivating to the cusp of godhood like the Xian nobility, which would let them get revenge on everyone who had ever wronged them, become obscenely wealthy, and draw the attentions of beautiful women.
Volithur soon considered Thassily to be his closest friend. Perhaps that distinction mattered less than it once might have, considering all his old friends were dead or scattered, but in Volithur’s mind it carried great weight.
Other friendships were slower to form. They were treated fairly by the soldiers, but no one seemed interested in forging deeper relationships. Maybe because they were foreigners. Maybe because they were the youngest there. Maybe because as wards they might elect to leave the group after coming of age. Or maybe because they stank in spite of their best efforts each day to scrub away the filth.
The days rushed by. Soon their first week ended and they stopped receiving the moon water elixir. The Marshal came over from the palace on their eighth day to check on their progress.
The overbearing man squinted at each of them in turn, then pointed at Thassily. “You’ve done good enough. I’ll let you have a full vial of tea powder elixir tomorrow. If you impress me with your ability to absorb its potency, I will let you have a vial at the start of every month.” The Marshal scrunched up his face while studying Volithur. “I’m afraid your potential isn’t good enough for me to waste elixirs on you. You will be able to train with us and make some amount of progress before you come of age. At that time, it is customary to offer wards the opportunity to join a household in a staff position. You are unlikely to become a soldier, but if you work hard I will recommend you as a groundskeeper or something like that.”
Following the bad news at the end of their first week, nothing much changed for Volithur. His fantasies of greatness faded away, but he had never actually believed he had a real chance of becoming as powerful as one of the nobles. He was the son of a landscaper lucky enough to have a wealthy client list. Being employed as a groundskeeper in the fifth household could be considered taking up the family business in a sense. Volithur was never going to be a powerful person in his old life. His new life didn’t seem designed to propel him to great heights and he lacked the wealth that the nobles spent on growing their strength.
Initially, Volithur intended to give up on the mental cultivation since it seemed unlikely for the laborious practice to help his future, but he found himself struggling to sleep on that first night. Visions of his parents’ heads exploding haunted him in the quiet. So he went ahead with the exercise and found himself easily drifting into slumber.
Thassily, though trying not to brag, had no one else to confide his successes in. So Volithur heard quite a bit about the impact of the tea powder elixir. It was ten times as potent as the moon water elixir, brewed from leaves that had grown on the Xian home world and been transported to the fifth estate.
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That had been a bit of news to both of them. The third, fourth, and fifth households were not on the Xian home world. Apparently, just breathing the air and eating the food of the home world allowed people to cultivate cosmic energy at a rate that could only be matched here by generous use of elixirs and cosmic chambers. The world they now called home – named New Mart – had been conquered three hundred years prior, the Xian slaughtering the unempowered locals with ease until no one dared oppose the invaders.
The elixir allowed Thassily to continuously exercise to a level he had never been able to before, pushing energy out from his soul to allow his body to exert itself, then automatically drawing the elixir’s cosmic energy into his soul. The cycle continued for hours, like breathing in and out, Thassily growing stronger all the while. When he finally dropped from exhaustion, he had felt a connection to cosmic energy like he never had before.
Volithur did his best to be happy for his friend’s good fortune and concentrated on counting down the days remaining on septic duty. Their training would soon begin, and while it might not be relevant since he didn’t have the bodily cultivation skills to become a soldier, he was looking forward to learning some of the superhuman abilities of the Xian.
Finally, their final day of punishment arrived. They completed the duty once last time, showered, and reported to the Barracks Clerk. Clerk Anadra was on duty and pointed to the chalkboard. “For the next week, Harridan is on mop duty here in the barracks and Thassily is making laundry deliveries. Those duties are to be done as you have time, but always before the start of dinner.
“Both of you need to report to the training fields after breakfast for morning movement training and weaponless combat. Immediately following lunch you have a conditioning session. If you want to make the most of your time here, make sure you cultivate during any spare time.”
The next morning they lined up on the main training field with the other soldiers and recruits, from those with the most seniority on the right and those with the least on the left. Volithur found himself dead last, judged ever so slightly inferior to Thassily. Facing the line was the Sergeant, Instructor Lisbet, and Instructor Gordo.
After standing at attention and being given a quick rundown by the Sergeant of events happening that day, command was turned over to Instructor Lisbet. The middle-aged woman led the group through their morning movement training. It began with a series of gentle movements; twists and turns and bends that limbered up the joints and lengthened the muscles. The pace gradually picked up until they were flowing through positions that proved somewhat challenging from both a flexibility and a strength perspective.
They did about half an hour of that before switching to balance exercises. Standing on a single foot while bending in various directions. Thassily and Volithur laughed at their inability to do more than hop about and fall down until the Sergeant marched over to shout in their faces. After that incident, they took the balance exercises very seriously. They still failed each and every one.
Then came the ‘inverted balances’, which began with headstands before progressing to handstands. Planks, side planks, neck bridges… it never seemed to end. Either there were a never-ending number of exercises performed regularly by the Xian soldiers or Instructor Lisbet was an insane woman who took inspiration from gymnasts.
When the exercises finally ended, the assembled were separated into three groups. The advanced group, composed of professional soldiers, went off with the Sergeant. The intermediate group, a mixture of promising recruits and some militia members from the city outside the household grounds, went with Instructor Lisbet. That left the beginner group with Instructor Gordo.
The beginners were mostly militia members, with Thassily and Volilthur, plus three recruits slightly older than them. The recruits lived in the barracks with them and the soldiers, but the militia members only came onto the palace grounds to train on the fields before leaving again. They were civilians with normal jobs who came once a week to train as auxiliary forces.
A bored Instructor Gordo eyed the group for a few moments. “Well, let’s get started with some standing striking work. No domain use. If you are paired up with the newest two guys, no aura either. They are wards of the Lord General, currently unempowered, so don’t act cute unless you are eager to pay compensation for their injuries. Basic fist offense and defense drill to start, concentrate on your footwork and angles. Jabs, crosses, slips, bobs, and fades. Pair up and get to work.”
The instructor then pulled Volithur and Thassily to the side and showed them how to throw a punch, how to avoid taking a hit, and how to move their feet. Then they were walked through the drill, which involved one person throwing any three punches at any tempo they desired while their training partner avoided those punches to the best of their ability. Once the third strike was thrown, the attacker and defender roles swapped so that the other person would throw three strikes.
Instructor Gordo emphasized that they should mix up their rhythm so that they were training reading an opponent and reacting instead of just choreographing a performance. He wanted them to land real strikes on each other – without putting any significant force behind their blows. The two of them stood across from each other and traded robotic strikes while Instructor Gordo berated them for not circling, for standing too tall, for letting their guards fall, for keeping too steady of a tempo, for basically every thing they possibly could do wrong or forget to do.
Once Volithur was beginning to feel lightheaded, Instructor Gordo called for a quick break. Everyone hydrated from a water barrel before being paired up with a different training partner than last time. There was a good bit of shuffling around before Volithur found himself in front of a short, built man with a crooked nose, missing teeth, and an expression equal parts dull and malignant.
His misgivings proved prescient as the instant that Instructor Gordo called for the round to begin, a calloused fist launched directly towards his face.