I loaded the Mysticism panel.

As dawn broke, Richard was awakened by a muffled thud coming from outside the window.

The sound was rhythmic, occurring every few seconds, as if someone was hammering something soft and solid.

He put on his coat, walked to the window, and pulled back the curtains a crack.

The courtyard was enclosed by a wall, with a patch of compacted sand on the ground and several wooden stakes standing along the edge.

Several young people are doing their morning exercises.

Richard knew the one closest to the wall; it was Vincent, his cousin.

The young man stood there, his arm muscles straining against his clothes.

He stood barefoot on the sand, with a tin bucket in front of him filled with a mixture of ice and water.

Autumn has arrived in the capital, and a layer of dew condenses on the ground in the early morning.

Vincent took a deep breath and dipped his hands into the bucket of ice water, up to his elbows.

He closed his eyes, his lips began to move rapidly, and his breathing rate suddenly increased to several times the normal level.

Richard had read about this training method in a book: hyperventilation.

Apprentices of the Blood Burning Path must force their bodies to inject ether into their blood vessels under extreme temperature differences.

Ice water causes blood vessels in the extremities to constrict rapidly, forcing blood to flow back to the core area of ​​the torso.

During this process of hyperventilation, ether is injected into the depths of the blood vessels along with the blood flow returning to the heart.

Vincent's face turned from normal to iron gray in a dozen seconds, his lips turned purple, and veins bulged on his forehead.

He pulled his hands out of the ice water; the skin on his arms was dark red, as if he had been scalded.

Then came the explosion.

He turned and threw a punch at the wooden stake, which slammed into the coarse burlap covering it, causing the stake to wobble three times in the sand.

That muffled thud came from here.

He threw four punches in a row, each punch causing the wooden stake to retreat half an inch.

After delivering the fifth punch, Vincent took two steps back, put his hands on his knees, and coughed several times.

A trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his lips. He wiped it with his sleeve, straightened up, and walked back to the bucket of ice water.

The next round is about to begin.

Several other young people are also doing similar training.

A man was doing squats shirtless in a corner of the wall, with iron blocks and sandbags tied around his waist and a piece of leather rope in his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue.

Another, more extreme example, involved him lying face down on the sand in a plank position while his back was violently whipped by his companion with a wooden stick.

Every blow landed squarely on my skin, tearing open my flesh and drawing blood down my spine.

The person being hit gritted his teeth and remained silent, taking a burst of breathing with each blow.

Richard felt a phantom pain as he watched the stick strike his body, tearing his skin open.

The introductory training for the Path of Blood Burning is quite different from what I've actually seen in the book.

"Many apprentices don't make it through the first winter." This sentence in Appendix C is written with restraint and composure.

But when paired with the scene before them, every word takes on the warmth of blood.

He looked down at his hands, long and pale with distinct knuckles—the hands that held the pen.

In a fight, he'd probably be knocked to the ground before he even had a chance to raise his hand.

………………

When it was seven o'clock, Vincent had already changed into clean clothes and was sitting at the other end of the long table for breakfast.

If it weren't for the bloodstain on the corner of his mouth that wasn't completely wiped clean, no one would have guessed that just an hour ago he was tormenting himself to the point of near death by the ice water bucket.

"Good morning." Vincent raised his teacup to him.

"morning."

"The old man said you might want to go out for a walk today."

He broke a piece of toast in half and stuffed the larger half into his mouth:

"Flower Moon Street, right?"

"Um."

"Good place," Vincent mumbled, chewing his noodles.

"But that street is quite dangerous; it's best to have someone guide you the first time you go."

Evelyn ran from the other end of the corridor, her hair only half tied up, the other half loose over her shoulders.

She was clutching the box of Valentine's chocolates from last night, and had obviously just eaten two for breakfast.

"Brother, are you going out today?"

"Yes, I'm going out to take care of some errands."

"Take me with you?"

"inconvenient."

The little girl wrinkled her nose in confusion, but didn't ask any more questions.

"Then I'll go to the department store with Mom."

She put the chocolate box on the table and went to pour herself some tea.

………………

Ashford's luxurious four-wheeled carriage was indeed many times more comfortable than the Hantham carriages that people hailed on the roadside.

The shock-absorbing springs absorbed most of the bumps from the cobblestone road, and the carriage was lined with cashmere cushions.

Vincent leaned back in the opposite seat, looking at the person with their legs crossed.

After changing into casual clothes, he looked like any other wealthy young man you could see on the streets of the capital.

He wore a dark blue overcoat, light gray plaid trousers, a thin scarf around his neck, and his leather shoes were polished to a shine.

This person's muscles bulged so much during training that they almost burst his clothes, but now he looks very lean in ordinary clothes, which is quite amazing.

"cousin."

"Um?"

"Do you practice like that every morning?"

Vincent scratched his head and then realized he had seen the morning exercise.

"It's like this every day." He pulled his scarf up higher.

"Ice water and wooden stakes are the basic courses, which are taught without fail, regardless of the weather."

"From when?"

Thirteen years old.

Richard clicked his tongue in amazement.

Immersion in ice water, hyperventilation, beatings with wooden stakes, muscles whipped until the skin is torn and bleeding... Every morning for the past six years, this has been repeated.

"You'll get used to it." Vincent could tell what he was thinking:

"The first year was the hardest. Every morning when I woke up, I didn't want to get out of bed. Every part of my body ached."

"Later, the pain subsided and became numb. Then the pain turned into heat, and the heat turned into strength."

He raised his right hand and clenched his fist.

There were calluses on the surface of his fists, and the skin at his knuckles was several shades darker than the surrounding skin.

"If I were to train, I probably wouldn't last the first month," Richard said frankly.

"You shouldn't have been practicing this in the first place." Vincent seemed to take it all for granted.

"The old man told me yesterday that you're probably going to pursue a scholarly career."

He loosened his fist and flicked the dust off his knees with his fingers.

"Actually, I envy those of you who can become scholars. You can get promoted just by sitting in your study and flipping through books. Isn't that great?"

"I sometimes read when I'm tired from training," the young man chuckled. "But I tend to fall asleep while reading."

As the carriage turned a corner, the scenery outside the window began to change.

Stone-built row shops have given way to old wooden buildings, the streets have narrowed, and there are more pedestrians.

The smell in the air is different now.

It used to smell of sycamore trees and carriage lacquer, but now it smells of roasted chestnuts, cheap perfume, old books, and a sour, stench wafting from some unknown drain.

"arrive."

Vincent lifted the curtain and looked outside, then knocked twice on the side of the car to signal it to stop.

The two disembarked from the carriage, and Flower Moon Street unfolded before them.

The street was much longer than Richard had imagined.

The shops on both sides are densely packed in two rows, and each shop is doing everything it can to attract customers.

The shop closest to the street corner had a string of wind chimes hanging from it, the brass pipes jingling endlessly in the wind.

A row of crystal balls of varying sizes were displayed in the shop window.

The cheap ones were the size of a fist and supported by a wooden frame, while the expensive ones were as big as a watermelon and were padded with a piece of black velvet.

As you walk further in, the variety of shops becomes increasingly diverse.

Selling amulets for exorcising evil spirits, selling protective sachets, selling tarot cards...

Incense and candles were lit in front of every house, and the smoke spilled out from the cracks in the doors and windows, mixing with the haze on the street and shrouding the whole street in a gray-blue smog.

Richard walked while simultaneously diverting his attention to his surroundings.

The warmth within the Sun Constellation on the chest acts as a probe.

The ether concentration in most shops is the same as that on the street, approximately zero.

The crystal balls in the crystal ball shop were so clean they were no different from radishes in the vegetable market.

The old woman with a headscarf sitting in the Spirit Vision Hall showed no trace of etheric flow on her body.

Liars, liars, they're all liars.

More than 90% of the shops on Huayue Street are selling stories and atmosphere.

But there are exceptions.