Four dog-eared booklets dropped onto the cedar table, their coarse paper covers fraying at the corners and stained with dried lamp oil.
Caleb picked up the top manual, glancing at the crude woodblock illustrations depicting basic energy circulation. Across the veranda, Edric leaned on his spear while Nolan, Gideon, and Mara stood in a tense half-circle, their knuckles raw and their breathing steady after bathing in the hot mineral springs. The four scrolls represented the sum of their martial education, bought from second-hand stalls near the lower barracks for ten copper coins apiece.
"This is the Iron Skin Primer," Caleb said, turning a leaf of coarse hemp paper between two fingers. "The manual instructs you to circulate raw aura through the gallbladder meridian three times before send
