Suddenly jumping from icy cold into scalding hot lake water is indeed a way to temper one’s willpower.

In fact, like most hot springs, the waters of Snow Moon Lake also have excellent healing and restorative properties. So no matter what kind of torment Amy endured the previous day, with the help of Snow Moon Lake, Amy could always recover to a good state.

After an hour of willpower training in Snow Moon Lake, the next step was still physical training—swimming back to Haike Village along the Warm Water River. Judging by the timeline, this physical training lasted only a year before it was canceled.

Once, Amy was so exhausted that Amy actually fell asleep while swimming. The mineral-rich Warm Water River is very buoyant; even without swimming, one can easily float on the surface. And the river flows directly toward Haike Village, so after discovering this secret, Amy would use this time to catch up on two hours of sleep.

Until one time, Amy overslept and drifted all the way out to sea. Ethan Brooks waited in the village for half an hour and still didn’t see Amy return, so, worried, he found a wooden boat and discovered the sleeping Amy five kilometers from the shoreline.

12

After returning to the village, the next training was combat skills, which was actually just chopping wood. What does chopping wood have to do with combat skills? Perplexed, Amy asked his beloved Uncle Brooks.

The answer was, as always, darkly humorous. “Hmm,” Brooks rubbed his nose, “To be honest, I don’t know either. All the other training was arranged by me, but this one was told to me by your dad.” It did seem to be Lake Harper’s idea. When Amy, following Ethan Brooks’s instructions, visited each household in Haike Village to offer them free chopped firewood, most of the old residents showed an expression that said, “As expected of a child from the Haber family.” Every noon, the villagers would deliver large coniferous hardwood logs from the forest to the little thatched hut of the Haber family by sled.

Anyone who has chopped wood knows that the most important thing is the axe. The bigger the wood, the bigger the axe needed, especially the construction of the axe’s back and blade. The wider the back, the better; the blade doesn’t have to be very sharp, but the connection between the blade and the back must be very smooth. Only then can you fully utilize the V-shaped structure of the axe to split the wood smoothly after striking.

Although it was Ethan Brooks who made wood chopping a required course for Amy, judging by his performance, this lower-ranked imperial noble really knew nothing about chopping wood. Even with the largest double-handed axe, he couldn’t split even non-coniferous wood smoothly.

It was Grandpa Harper who truly understood his son’s intentions. During his grandson’s wood-chopping skill training, he carefully taught him how to use hand strength, how to use waist power, how to stand with both feet to exert full force, how to read the wood grain, which direction to chop for the easiest split, how to deal with trees with knots, and what to do with forked logs.

The one who listened most intently to Old Harper’s explanations wasn’t little Amy, but rather that uncle called Ethan Brooks. “Oh, so that’s the reason. No wonder that guy could always strike the least resistant spot on my spear with his first blow, and could stand so steadily in the snow, able to withstand my impact.” He muttered thoughtfully to himself.

From that day on, there were two figures chopping wood in the dilapidated yard of the Haber family—one big, one small. At first, Amy’s wood-chopping speed was indeed very slow, mainly due to lack of strength and poor axe technique. Even when he had picked out the right grain, the axe blade would end up who knows where. If it weren’t for Uncle Brooks’s help, the 200-plus households of Haike Village would probably have to endure a “Cold Food Festival.”

In the first year of skill training, for the first half, Amy used the largest axe to chop wood; in the second half, the axe was replaced with a medium-sized one, but the diameter of the logs kept increasing.

After dinner, even after a day of hard work, Amy still couldn’t go to sleep. Under the snow dolphin oil lamp, Ethan Brooks began teaching Amy knowledge.

In Amy’s eyes, this was the area where Uncle Ethan Brooks excelled most. As an imperial noble, regardless of rank, he had an absolute grasp of imperial history; likewise, as a former border army battalion commander, Uncle Brooks’s understanding of military coordination far surpassed that of ordinary villagers in Haike. So at night, every other day was a military strategy lesson, and on alternate days, imperial history.

What interested Amy even more were the casual chats after the lessons. Ethan Brooks would often talk about the customs and people of the imperial capital, as well as some mercenary stories circulating among the people.

13

Seeing how absorbed Amy was, Ethan Brooks once curiously asked why he was so interested in mercenaries.

Amy answered honestly—because mercenaries can kill snow wolves.

Upon hearing this, Ethan Brooks nearly fell off his stool. He simply couldn’t imagine that the son of an imperial infantry battalion commander, the disciple of an imperial cavalry battalion commander, would have the lifelong wish to become a mercenary.

Neither imperial soldiers nor soldiers of the Kingdom of Hami are allowed to kill snow wolves at will, just as soldiers of the Kingdom of Hami are not allowed to kill the warhorses of imperial soldiers.