The restless chatter in the hall had risen to a buzzing hum. Lin Jun's impatient finger-tapping had become a rhythmic drumbeat of annoyance. Lin Meilin's frost patterns now covered half her desk in intricate, fractaline designs. The bullies in the back had graduated to flicking pellets of condensed ice at each other.
Lin Xuan remained still, a quiet node in the brewing storm of childish impatience. He tracked the unseen, weightless gaze of the Patriarch—a pressure that now felt like a held breath over the entire assembly. The lesson was in the waiting. The test was in how they handled the void of instruction.
Patience is the first foundation, he thought, a line from the Frost-Foundation Sutra taking on new, practical meaning.
Then, without a sound, without a ripple in the air, a man stood at the front of the hall.
He was not young. His age was etched not in deep wrinkles, but in a timeless, weathered quality, like stone smoothed by ten thousand years of glacial wind. His hair was iron-grey, pulled into a severe knot. He wore simple, undyed hemp robes, stark against the glittering ice of the hall. He had not entered. He had simply manifested, becoming visible as if stepping out from behind a curtain of reality.
The hall fell so silent that Lin Xuan could hear the faint, crystalline hum of the academy's core enchantment.
The man's eyes swept over them. They were the color of a midwinter sky just before a killing blizzard—pale, distant, and utterly without warmth. When his gaze passed over Lin Xuan, for a fleeting moment, the boy felt a sensation akin to a scalpel tracing the outline of his bones and the edges of the dormant glacier within him. It was even more invasive than the Patriarch's assessment. This was a gaze that had seen things unravel from the inside out.
"I am Instructor Kuo," the man said. His voice was dry, rasping, like wind over bare rock. It carried no particular volume, yet it filled every corner of the silent hall. "For the next cycle, your foundational conditioning will be my responsibility. I have followed Patriarch Lin Zongyan for one hundred and twenty-seven years. I have trained his sons, his grandsons, and put the fear of true frost into some of the elders who now sit in council."
A slight, almost imperceptible ripple went through the children. Following the Patriarch himself? That was a lineage of terror and prestige beyond measure.
Lin Jun straightened, his earlier impatience replaced by intense focus. Lin Meilin's obsidian eyes glinted with keen interest. The bullies at the back had frozen mid-pellet-flick.
Instructor Kuo's pale eyes continued their slow sweep. "The Azure-Ice Academy is not a nursery. It is a forge. My methods are not designed to nurture. They are designed to temper. To burn away impurity, weakness, and delusion. What remains will be harder. What breaks will be discarded."
He paused, letting the words hang in the frozen air.
"This is your only courtesy. Your only warning. The training will be merciless. It will target your bodies, your minds, and the very foundations of your spirit. There will be moments," he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper that somehow pierced deeper, "when you will wish you had died in your crib. You will beg for the simplicity of a mere mortal's broken bone. The path of a Lin cultivator is not one of glory. It is a path of enduring what others cannot, so you may wield what others dare not."
He gestured with a lean, scarred hand toward the great arched doorway of the hall. "The door is there. If your heart harbors any doubt, if your will is made of parchment and pride, leave. Now. Return to your branch families, to your warm pavilions and your gentle tutors. No record will be held against you. This is the last choice you will be given that carries no consequence."
Silence, thicker and heavier than before, pressed down on the hall. Lin Xuan could hear the quick, shallow breaths of the child next to him. He saw Lin Jun's jaw tighten, his pride warring with the instinctual fear the instructor's very presence evoked. Lin Meilin sat perfectly still, but a faint line of concentration had appeared between her brows.
No one moved.
For a long moment, Instructor Kuo simply watched them, his expression unchanging. Then, he gave a single, slow nod that seemed less like approval and more like the acceptance of a burden.
"Good. The first lesson begins now. It is not a technique. It is a principle: Absolute Obedience. You will move when I say move. You will stop when I say stop. You will breathe when I tell you to breathe. Your thoughts are irrelevant. Your discomfort is noise. From this moment until I dismiss you, your will is an extension of mine. Is that understood?"
A ragged chorus of "Yes, Instructor Kuo" echoed through the hall.
"Louder."
"YES,INSTRUCTOR KUO!"
"Again.From your foundation. From the ice that bred you."
"YES, INSTRUCTOR KUO!"The shout this time was unified, sharp, shaking the frost from the window ledges.
Instructor Kuo's eyes glinted. "First exercise. Assume the foundational Glacial Pillar Stance. Hold it. You will hold it until I tell you to cease. If your form breaks, you will start again. If you fall, you will start again. There is no end until I perceive the beginning of discipline in your bones. Begin."
Chaos, then frantic order, as dozens of children scrambled to their feet and assumed the basic stance: feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, spine straight, arms extended forward as if embracing a massive pillar of ice. It was the most basic posture in the Frost-Foundation Sutra, often held for minutes at a time by beginners.
Lin Xuan flowed into the stance with an ease that belied his weak body. His muscles knew precision; his spirit understood endurance. He settled into the posture, making it look effortless, yet carefully ensuring it was not too perfect. He allowed a very slight, believable tremor in his left leg—the legacy of his frail constitution.
Instructor Kuo began to walk among them, a silent ghost. He did not speak. He adjusted a boy's slumping shoulder with a touch that made the child gasp in pain. He stopped behind a girl and simply pointed at her sinking knees until she straightened them, tears of effort springing to her eyes.
He came to Lin Xuan. The Instructor's shadow fell over him, and that scalpel-like gaze returned. He circled him once. Lin Xuan held his breath, his mind a placid lake, showing only the surface of a weak boy struggling to maintain a simple stance. He let the tremor in his leg become a fraction more pronounced.
Instructor Kuo stopped in front of him. He did not touch him. He simply said, low enough that only Lin Xuan could hear, "The ice does not tremble because it is weak. It trembles because it contains a mountain. Remember that."
Then he moved on.
Lin Xuan's blood ran cold, but his expression remained one of simple strain. Did he see through me? Or is he just referring to my physique? The ambiguity was more terrifying than a direct accusation.
Minutes stretched into a quarter-hour. The initial vigor in the hall dissolved into gasps, groans, and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor as muscles failed. Each time, Instructor Kuo would wordlessly point, and the child would stumble back to their feet, weeping but silent, to begin again.
Lin Jun held his stance, sweat beading on his forehead, his face a mask of stubborn pride. Lin Meilin held hers with a focused stillness, her eyes closed, her breathing intentionally slow.
Lin Xuan held his. The tremor was real now, born of genuine muscle fatigue. His body was still the weakest here. But within, the ember glowed steadily, feeding a deep, stubborn endurance that had nothing to do with muscle and everything to do with a will that had faced true death. The cold of the hall was nothing. The fatigue was an old friend.
As the half-hour mark passed and more than a third of the children were on the ground, sobbing quietly as they forced themselves back up, Instructor Kuo finally spoke.
"Cease."
The single word was a reprieve. Dozens of children collapsed, panting.
Instructor Kuo looked at them, his pale eyes holding no pity. "Today, you learned to stand still. Tomorrow, you will learn to move. Dismissed."
As the children staggered out, groaning and supporting each other, Lin Xuan slowly straightened, his muscles screaming. Lin Meilin shot him a glance, her own breathing labored. "He's… intense."
Lin Jun wiped sweat from his brow, a fierce light in his eyes. "He's exactly what we need."
Lin Xuan merely nodded, looking back at the now-empty instructor's platform. Instructor Kuo was already gone, vanished as silently as he had appeared.
The first day was over. The forge had been lit. And Lin Xuan knew, with cold certainty, that the man had seen something in him. Not the assassin, perhaps. But the mountain within the ice.
The training that made one wish for death had begun. And Lin Xuan, who had already experienced that wish, found a grim, familiar determination settling in his soul. This was a language he understood.