Ludger returned to Lionfang with his mana still faintly warm in the wrong places, testing Magic Enhancent in small, controlled bursts along the way.
A rock in his palm, reinforced until it felt heavier than it should.
A thin earth blade, edge extended just enough to bite cleaner.
A walking stick, stiffened for a mont like it had grown bones.
It felt… familiar. Similar to Weapon Enhancent, but not as brute-force. Weapon Enhancent was a hamr, raw reinforcent, raw output, more impact now. Magic Enhancent was closer to a lever, more balanced, more precise, able to increase reach and edge without simply dumping power into one point and praying it held.
More useful. Also harder.
Weapon Enhancent would be easier for most people to learn. Cleaner ntal model. Less fine control. Less risk of weird failures. So Ludger made the decision before he even stepped through the gate. Weapon Enhancent would go into the curriculum.
Not first, he wasn’t an idiot. Survivability ca before damage.
They’d learn Healing Touch first. Every new mber. No exceptions. If you couldn’t keep soone alive, you weren’t part of a team, you were a liability wearing armor.
But after Healing Touch? Weapon Enhancent. A simple, teachable boost that turned average fighters into dangerous ones without requiring them to carve runes or gamble on emotion like Rage Flow.
And with Shared Mana Recovery in place, guild mbers recovered mana many tis faster under the Lionsguard’s banner, the usual limitations shifted. They could train more often. They could make more mistakes and recover. They could drill enhancent bursts, rest, drill again, and actually build muscle mory instead of spending half the day collapsed with empty cores.
Which raised another question. If they could recover mana that fast… did they still need to learn to make their own spiritual cores?
Maybe not as urgently. Maybe not for everyone. But dismissing the idea completely would be foolish. Shared Mana Recovery was a benefit of being inside the guild’s web. A system advantage. A support structure.
Spiritual cores were personal. Independence. A reserve you carried with you when the guild aura wasn’t there, when you were cut off, when you were alone when Ludger couldn’t afford to use the skills.
Relying entirely on shared recovery was comfort. Comfort got people killed the first ti they fought outside the safety net. So Ludger kept the thought in the “later” pile. Not abandoned. Just delayed.
He stepped into Lionfang with that plan set in stone:
Healing first. Enhancent next. And cores… eventually, because building fighters who only worked well while holding his hand wasn’t building a guild.
It was building dependents. And Ludger didn’t have ti to babysit an army forever.
For three days, Ludger turned the yard into a workshop.
Not for the two hundred trainees. For the five.
Renn. Marie. Bramm. Jorin. Tali.
If Weapon Enhancent was going into the Lionsguard pipeline, he wasn’t going to teach it to a crowd. Crowds learned bad habits fast, then called them “style.”
He taught the five so they could teach everyone else. The first day was fundantals.
Mana flow into the limb. Then into the grip. Then into the weapon. Short bursts. No flooding. No drama. Control first, output later.
He made them practice with wooden weapons before he let them touch steel. When they complained, he told them bluntly that breaking a practice blade was cheaper than breaking their arms.
The second day was timing.
Enhancent on contact. Enhancent on impact. Enhancent to stabilize a block, not just to hit harder. He drilled them until their mana moved on command instead of emotion.
The third day was failure.
He pushed them to the edge of their control and made them notice what happened when the technique started slipping, tremor in the channels, heat in the circuits, the “false confidence” mont right before exhaustion. He didn’t want them learning that in a real fight.
By the end of the third day, all five could do it. Not beautifully. Not effortlessly. But reliably.
Which was enough to start spreading it. Ludger watched them run a final set, five lines, five weapons, five different styles of the sa technique, and a thought kept scratching at the back of his head.
Maybe this shouldn’t be taught to every newcor.
Weapon Enhancent was powerful, and power in untrained hands created problems. The official mbers could be held accountable. The trainees were still learning what discipline even ant.
He was still turning that over when Tali approached him after drills, sweat drying on her forehead, eyes sharp as always.
“Vice Guildmaster,” she said.
“What,” Ludger replied, already expecting another report about troublemakers.
Tali hesitated, rare for her, then asked, “Can we… ask you to teach us other things too?”
Ludger stared at her for a beat. Not annoyed yet. Just weighing the consequences.
“You an more techniques,” he said.
Tali nodded. “Yes. Not just this.”
Ludger exhaled slowly.
“I can teach you now and then,” he said. “When it makes sense.”
Tali’s eyes brightened slightly. Then Ludger added, voice flat and final.
“But we can’t go too far.”
Tali blinked. “Why?”
“Because it never ends,” Ludger said.
He gestured vaguely toward the guild yard, toward the trainees, toward the workshops, toward the town that kept growing like it was trying to eat his calendar.
“If I start teaching everyone everything they want,” he continued, “everyone will keep asking until I do nothing else aside from teaching.”
Tali’s mouth tightened, as if she didn’t like being told “no,” but understood the logic.
Ludger looked at her.
“You five are instructors,” he said. “That ans I invest in you. But I need you to beco multipliers, not dependents.”
Tali nodded slowly.
“Understood,” she said.
Ludger’s expression softened by exactly zero.
“Good,” he replied. “Now go teach it.”
And as she turned away, Ludger watched the five move back into position, already shifting from students to instructors, and felt, for once, that small, rare relief of a system starting to function without him holding every piece in his hands.
Bramm waited until Ludger finished dismissing the others back into their roles.
Then he stepped closer, scratching at his jaw like he didn’t enjoy speaking up but would do it anyway if it solved a problem.
“Asking you to teach everyone might be too much,” Bramm said. “But… what about writing manuals again?”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Manuals.”
Bramm nodded, warming to the idea as he spoke. “You write it down. Step by step. Then you let everyone figure it out. You don’t have to repeat the sa lesson a hundred tis.”
Renn’s ears perked. Marie’s gaze sharpened. Jorin looked imdiately relieved, like soone had just offered him a way to avoid being shouted at by confused trainees for the rest of his life. Tali watched Ludger closely, waiting for his reaction.
Ludger crossed his arms. The suggestion wasn’t stupid. That was the dangerous part.
He could see the benefits instantly: standardized teaching, fewer distortions as the technique spread, less dependence on his presence. A clean baseline. He also saw the risk. Manuals weren’t just teaching tools. They were secrets that could walk away.
If the wrong person copied them, if a rival guild got a hand on them, Lionfang wouldn’t just lose an advantage. It would lose control of that advantage. Ludger’s eyes drifted across the five. He exhaled slowly.
“It could work,” he said.
Bramm’s shoulders eased. “Yeah?”
“But the manuals stay controlled,” Ludger continued, voice flat. “They don’t sit on a bench in the training yard.”
He tapped the side of his head once. “They go in a room only mbers can access.”
Marie nodded imdiately. “Restricted library.”
Ludger nodded once. “Exactly.”
He let the silence sit for a beat, then made the decision.
“I’ll work on that,” Ludger said. “Soon enough. I’ll inform you when it’s ready.”
Bramm nodded, satisfied. “Thanks, vice guildmaster.”
The others looked pleased too, not excited, not loud. Just quietly relieved, like they’d found a way to multiply Ludger’s brain without demanding more of his ti.
Ludger didn’t smile. But he didn’t reject it either. Because a guild that couldn’t preserve and distribute knowledge was just a pile of strong people waiting to die.
Ludger had, in fact, forgotten about the manuals. Not because the idea was bad, because everything else kept trying to climb onto his desk and sit there until he dealt with it.
But Bramm had planted the thought back into his head, and once it was there, it wouldn’t leave. So Ludger decided to do it the only way that guaranteed it would actually happen. Imdiately.
He went to the guild and walked past the main halls without stopping, heading for a quiet stretch of stone flooring behind the warehouse where foot traffic was low and walls were thick. He placed his palm on the ground.
Earth mana sank deep. The guild shuddered.
Not violently, just enough that mugs rattled, lantern chains chid softly, and a couple of mbers in the corridor paused mid-step and stared at the floor like it had personally offended them.
Ludger didn’t look up. He shaped downward.
Stone peeled open beneath the guild like a swallowed mouth. A staircase ford first, tight and angled, hidden behind a sliding slab that looked like normal flooring when closed. Then the space below widened into a hollow chamber, smooth walls, dry ceiling, reinforced ribs of stone so the weight above would never sag.
A secret underground library. Not grand. Not ornate.
Rows of stone shelves carved into the walls. A central table. Small alcoves for reading. A ventilation slit disguised through the foundation so air would circulate without anyone noticing a “new draft.” A single narrow entrance that could be sealed with a thought.
So mbers definitely noticed the shaking. They glanced at each other. Raised eyebrows. A few quiet mutters. Nobody complained.
Because when Lionfang’s ground moved, it usually ant Ludger was building sothing that would keep them alive. People learned fast not to interrupt that.
Once the space was finished, Ludger sealed the entrance and walked back upstairs, already thinking about the next part.
The boring part. Writing.
He went to grab pencil and paper, actual supplies, not stone tablets this ti. Sothing that could be copied, revised, corrected without having to carve it into the earth. Then he headed for Yvar’s office. The mont he opened the door, he stopped. The room looked like a paperwork ambush.
Docunts were stacked on the desk, on the side table, on the chair that was supposed to be sat in. Rolls of parchnt leaned against the wall like they were waiting to attack. Sealed packets. Unsigned requests. Inventory updates. Complaint letters. Trade receipts. Training rosters. Supply orders.
The sort of “administrative overflow” that happened when the person who usually kept it controlled left for the capital.
Ludger stared at it for a long mont. Then he let out a slow breath through his nose. He almost regretted letting Yvar and his father leave. Almost.
Because now… Now he had to deal with this nonsense.
He stepped into the office, closed the door behind him, and looked at the mountain of paper like it was an enemy he couldn’t stab.
“Alright,” Ludger muttered.
He set the blank paper on the one clear corner of the desk that still existed.
Then he rolled up his sleeves. Manuals could wait an hour. The Empire’s nonsense had apparently decided to follow him ho.
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