The next week, Ludger finally began his first “noble appeasement tour.”

  The target: a nearby lord who had attended Viola’s birthday party, a middle-aged man with thinning hair, a polished beard, and the confidence of someone convinced he was far more impressive than reality admitted. His manor wasn’t large, but the entrance hall was filled with portraits, each one depicting the noble in poses that defied both anatomy and good taste. So when he described the sculpture he wanted, Ludger wasn’t surprised.

  “I would like,” the man said, puffing out his chest, “a depiction of myself in heroic form. You know, muscles, armor, that sort of thing. The people should feel my greatness just by looking at it.”

  Ludger stared at the man’s soft stomach with all the emotion of a dead brick. Then nodded once. Slowly. The noble continued enthusiastically, unaware of the silent judgment radiating off his guest.

  “Yes, picture me standing atop a battlefield! A massive sword in one hand! A shield the size of a wagon! Perhaps add some lightning? Or a roaring lion behind me?”

  Ludger nodded again. Internally, he was thinking:

  So even in a world without Photoshop, filters, or beauty magic, people still lie to themselves about their own greatness. Good to know some things never change.

  The nobleman rambled on about impossible definitions in his arms and “naturally” sculpted abs that probably hadn’t existed at any point in the man’s lifetime. Ludger kept nodding, because he wasn’t paid to point out lies, only to convert them into stone.

  He worked outside in the manor courtyard, letting the noble and his servants watch as he shaped the earth with smooth, precise motions. Hours passed. The sun shifted across the sky. Birds came and went. By the time evening settled in, Ludger had spent the entire day crafting the piece.

  When he stepped back, sweat drying on his forehead, the sculpture stood tall in the courtyard. It wasn’t Viola’s monument, nothing would match the emotional resonance of that piece. But the statue was undeniably impressive: the nobleman rendered with the heroic proportions he dreamed of, broad chest, chiseled jaw, rippling muscles that even Ludger found hard to exaggerate without laughing.

  It radiated presence. Not truth. But presence. And the System answered.

  [Object Created: The Heroic Self]

  Grade: Uncommon

  Effect: Those who gaze upon the sculpture gain an increase of twenty points strength and endurance for 2 hours.

  (Effect radius: 100 meters)

  The buff was small, more aesthetic than practical, just enough to make the noble feel a pleasant tingling in his arms and believe he could still draw a sword without snapping his wrist.

  The nobleman approached with wide eyes. “I—I feel… stronger! Look! My arms—there’s a warmth! This is remarkable!”

  Ludger resisted the urge to point out that the effect would disappear long before dinner.

  Instead, he simply nodded. “Good.”

  The noble, too busy admiring his fictional muscles, didn’t even think to complain about the sculpture taking all day.

  “Marvelous! Truly marvelous! You are an artist beyond compare!”

  Ludger accepted the praise with the same emotional investment one gives to a weather forecast. One sculpture down. Twenty more nobles to silence. And so far, no buildings needed to be cracked. Yet.

  Ludger accepted the pouch of payment with a single nod and a quiet, almost indifferent hum. But the moment he loosened the drawstring and peeked inside, his eyes narrowed a fraction. The unmistakable gleam of gold reflected back at him, fifty coins, neatly stacked and more weight than anything this small manor had any business handing out. For a noble of a town this size, fifty gold wasn’t just payment; it was resources, the kind that usually required months of careful budgeting, tax collection, or minor exploitation of their villagers. In Lionfang, it would fund decent projects. Here, it was practically a treasury.

  He tied the pouch to his belt, feeling the heavy clink against his hip as he turned his gaze toward the manor’s perimeter walls. The stonework was aged and uneven, patched inconsistently across different years. Some sections bulged outward from poor mortar work. Others had cracks like lightning scars across their length. To Ludger’s eyes, trained to see structural strength and weakness through Geomancy, the walls looked less defensive fortifications and more like loosely stacked rocks waiting for a stiff breeze to humble them.

  Rubbing his chin, he let the idea settle. The nobleman was still fawning over the sculpture inside the courtyard, rambling about how it made him feel “heroic,” and “empowered,” and “truly represented.” Ludger waited until the man finally took a breath before speaking.

  “So,” Ludger said casually, “since the pay was good, why don’t I fix your perimeter walls too?”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The noble blinked at him, caught off guard. “Ah—no, no need! The walls are perfectly serviceable. Really, they’ve weathered many—”

  Ludger didn’t bother waiting for the excuses to pile up. He simply shifted his weight, lifted one foot, and brought it down with just a hair more force than usual. The effect was immediate. A deep thoom rolled out from the impact, a shockwave rippling across the courtyard and into the foundations of the manor itself. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the walls gave out all at once.

  A thunderous chain reaction roared around the perimeter. Four massive walls, each easily a hundred meters long, buckled and collapsed inward and outward simultaneously. Stone shattered. Mortar disintegrated. Dust blasted upward in swirling clouds. Servants shrieked and scattered as the nobleman watched his defenses crumble like wet sand kicked by a bored child. He stood frozen, jaw hanging so low Ludger half-assumed it would pop out of its socket.

  “My… my walls… what—why—how—!? You just—They—This—!?”

  Ludger stepped past him calmly, raising a hand. “Relax. They were already falling apart.”

  Before the man could process that, Ludger touched the ground with both palms. The earth answered instantly. Stone fragments rose as though gravity had been reversed. Mortar dust condensed into hardened lines of reinforced essence. The walls reassembled themselves not through simple repair, but through recreation, rising higher, straighter, and cleaner than they had ever been.

  Cracks sealed invisibly. Weak points realigned. Old stone became solid, fresh, and perfectly fitted. Then Ludger went further.

  He pulsed mana into the structure, deep, anchoring threads that seeped into the stone. Stone Grip spread through the new walls like glowing veins beneath the surface. A lattice of force locked each segment into place, binding the entire perimeter into a unified, fortified whole.

  Where once stood weathered, fragile defenses, now rose walls that looked capable of shrugging off a siege engine. Ludger dusted his hands and stepped back.

  “All finished,” he announced simply.

  The nobleman stared at the rebuilt walls with trembling eyes, then at Ludger, then back at the walls. His confusion, awe, and terror blended into one expression Ludger saw often on nobles who realized the gap between themselves and actual power.

  “My… they… you… are those really my walls?” he stammered.

  “Repaired. Reinforced. Better than before.” Ludger gestured toward the crisp, seamless stone. “You’ll get a few decades out of them now.”

  The noble swallowed hard, nodding rapidly as if agreeing too slowly might get him turned into a sculpture next. Ludger offered him a polite, almost friendly smile.

  “Consider it a service.”

  Then he turned his back, walked out of the manor courtyard, and left behind a man who would never, ever, dare complain about anything to him again. One noble silenced. Dozens more waiting. Politics wasn’t fun. But it was starting to become… efficient.

  Since he was already in the noble’s territory, and since the manor lord was still too stunned to form coherent sentences, Ludger decided he might as well make the trip worth his time.

  He walked through the town’s narrow streets, the same fifty-gold pouch bouncing lightly at his hip, and inspected a few of the local shops. The blacksmith here wasn’t bad, but the racks were filled with chipped blades, dented shields, rusted plates, and swords with cracks thin as hairline fractures but deep enough to kill someone mid-swing. Perfect training material.

  Ludger bought several damaged weapons and pieces of armor, stuffing them into a stone cart big enough to make shopkeepers mutter about “greedy adventurers.” They didn’t know he wasn’t hoarding them, he was farming experience.

  His Magic Blacksmith class would thank him later. On his way out, he paused at the town’s main square. A cluster of kids lingered around the fountain, some barefoot, some poorly dressed, some pretending not to watch him.

  Ludger glanced over them. Most were older than the group in Lionfang, but their eyes had the same look: hungry, directionless, waiting for something, anything, that wasn’t just another day of running errands or sweeping floors.

  He weighed his original plan. He had intended to only take orphans. Pure pragmatism, prevent future criminals, stop underworld recruitment, simple, efficient.

  But the longer he worked with Yvar, the more kids showed up who weren’t orphans at all. Some had parents. Some worked odd jobs. Some were simply bored or curious or desperate to learn anything that could lift them out of the mud.

  And Ludger had realized something: It was idiotic to assume only orphans became future problems. Anyone could. Anyone could fall. Anyone could be pulled into crime or violence or get caught in a noble’s schemes.

  Limiting his project would create resentment. Dependency. Jealousy. The kind that turned small towns into breeding grounds for trouble. If he wanted fewer headaches in the future, the obvious answer wasn’t “teach a small group.”

  It was “raise a generation.”

  So Ludger stepped up onto the fountain base, drawing the kids’ attention with nothing more than his presence. He spoke plainly, no theatrics, no speeches:

  “If you want to learn how to read, write, do basic math, or control magic safely, the Lionsguard is teaching anyone who wants to come.”

  The kids stared. Some whispered. One boy dropped the stick he’d been using to pretend to swordfight.

  Ludger continued:

  “It’s free. Food included. No fighting in town. No trouble. Just learning. If you show up, you practice. If you don’t, you don’t. Simple.”

  A few eyes widened. Others lit with hope.

  One girl hesitantly raised a hand. “Even… even if we’re not from Lionfang?”

  “Yes.”

  Another child stepped forward. “Even if my parents are alive?”

  “Yes.”

  A third swallowed hard. “Even if we don’t… have talent?”

  Ludger paused. Then answered with a dry, utterly sincere voice:

  “I’ve taught worse.”

  The group let out a collective breath, some relieved, some offended, all suddenly interested.

  He left them buzzing, whispering excitedly among themselves, and walked away without looking back. He didn’t need to. He could already sense the outcome through their mana signatures flickering with eagerness.

  More students. More growth. More experience for his Teacher class. More chances to prevent future idiots from becoming his problem. He adjusted the sack of broken weapons on his shoulder, the metal clinking softly.The more the merrier.