Night deepened.
The campfire in the new camp burned brightly, but it could not dispel the chill in people's hearts.
Old Walker hunched over and shakily handed a piece of warmed jerky to a woman-she had accidentally injured her foot while moving things earlier.
The woman took it with difficulty, grimacing in pain.
He sighed and, leaning on his wooden staff, walked to the other side of the fire, where several village elders and hunters had gathered.
The firelight flickered across their worried faces.
An old hunter missing a finger spoke in a hushed voice. "That lord... he's been in the cellar all day... seems he's tinkering with Swamp Vines."
His voice was filled with undisguised disappointment.
"I thought he'd be able to cast some kind of magic, but now..."
"Stop the Weeping Moon's beast tide with a few vines? He's dreaming!"
Old Walker listened without a word.
He simply stared blankly at the dancing flames. Veylin's demand-"How long did any of them live?"-remained lodged in his mind like a poisoned thorn, sending sharp pangs through him again and again.
More than anyone, he wanted to believe. He wanted this young lord to truly bring change.
Yet he could not forget how, fifteen years ago, another lord, brimming with confidence, had pointed toward the distant mountains and promised them sturdy stone houses.
And what had happened? That winter, the Weeping Moon arrived early. The lord fled with his guards in the night, and thirty-seven people in Graymist Village died of hunger or sickness, including Old Walker's youngest brother.
Hope was the most extravagant thing in the swamp-and the deadliest.
He saw that familiar fear in the eyes of the villagers around him and listened to their whispered complaints and doubts about the future.
He knew this could not go on.
He cleared his throat, his voice heavy. "I know everyone's scared, afraid Lord Veylin is chasing some impossible fantasy."
"We can't stake more than a hundred lives on him alone... if we still don't have a usable wall when the Weeping Moon arrives, we'll slip back to Graymist Village under cover of night."
He looked around the circle, each word landing like a stone slammed into the ground.
"But until then, no one is allowed to shirk their work. Whatever the lord tells us to do, we do!"
Several pairs of eyes instantly brightened in the darkness.
That was a way out-a real, tangible way to stay alive.
The next morning, in the cellar.
When the magic apprentice Leo entered carrying a basin of clean water, the sight before him stunned him into stillness. The wooden basin fell from his hands with a clatter, splashing water over his trouser legs, but he did not even notice.
What coiled inside the clay flowerpot was no plant at all.
It was a work of art carved from obsidian, its surface covered in fine black crystals, vigorous aether energy surging through it in the faint glow of the magic circle.
Even Leo's voice trembled. "My lord... is... is this really what we made with our own..."
Veylin had not slept all night, and his face was somewhat pale, but his wine-red eyes shone with startling brightness.
He did not answer. The new panel information appearing on his retina was more invigorating than any potion.
[Stone-Skinned Soft Vine] [Level: Level 2 magical plant] [Bloodline: Flexible Steel Toughness (Gold Tier) 30%, mixed bloodlines 70%] [Abilities: Rapid growth (with sufficient water, nutrients, and aether concentration, growth speed increases by up to 500%), rock hardening (newly grown Stone-Skinned Soft Vines gradually increase in hardness from leather to lapis rock over 24 hours)] [Overall assessment: A plant evolved through special means. Further evolution is possible through continued directed cultivation]
Perhaps because it had been continuously stimulated by Springlaw Messenger, the Stone-Skinned Soft Vine had actually acquired the rapid growth trait.
But that was not the most important part. What surprised Veylin most was that it could still evolve further!
It was like laboring over a graduation thesis, only for your advisor to read it and solemnly tell you to polish it up and aim for Nature!
Veylin reached out a finger and gently stroked the vine, which had condensed to less than a meter long.
It felt cool and supple, like high-quality steel wire. It could be bent effortlessly to any angle and would never spring back once shaped.
Now he had the building material. Next came construction.
After a little thought, Veylin made numerous notes on paper, then went over his instructions with Leo again and sent him out of the camp with two mercenaries.
Then he went to the center of the camp. Under the villagers' curious gazes, he picked up a stick used for tending the fire and began drawing in the dirt in the middle of the clearing.
His movements were fluid, without the slightest hesitation.
First he drew a star-shaped outline with multiple sharp points. Then he added internal lines radiating from the center like a snowflake's crystalline structure, dividing the entire area into several regular sectors.
The villagers gradually gathered around, watching their lord's actions in utter bewilderment.
"What... what's he doing? Drawing for fun?"
"Looks like a magic ritual?"
"Has he gone mad...?"
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Old Walker shook his head as he watched. Their lord really was chasing an impossible fantasy.
Veylin ignored the murmurs. He stood and pointed at the lines on the ground, ordering Barrett beside him, "Dig trenches along these lines, half a meter deep and half a meter wide."
Though equally puzzled, Barrett and his mercenaries faithfully carried out the order.
He was about to call his men over when he suddenly murmured, "Hmm?" and crouched to study the drawing on the ground.
He could not make sense of the whole design, but years of military service made him instinctively sense a certain... military elegance.
"My lord, would these angles let the defenders attack enemies at the foot of the walls?" he asked hesitantly.
Veylin gave him an approving look. "Exactly. This is called a star fort. Eliminating defensive blind spots is only its most basic function."
Recalling the battles he had fought in, Barrett drew a sharp breath. He imagined having to assault a fortress like this... it would be every infantryman's nightmare.
Setting aside his awe of Veylin, Barrett carried out his orders with even greater diligence.
Under his leadership, the settlers were swiftly organized.
Soon, across the land that would become their future home, trenches gradually took shape, orderly to their eyes but serving some unknown purpose.
Veylin laid the supple vines along the bottoms of the trenches, as though laying out electrical circuits.
Once he had finished, he dusted the dirt from his hands and surveyed the construction site, which resembled the setting for an enormous sacrificial ritual, his eyes gleaming with anticipation for the future.
In his mind, this was no jumble of scribbles.
On the outside stood a star fort that embodied the pinnacle of European defensive design, enough to halt any besieger beneath its walls.
Inside were a square, drainage channels, residential areas, public baths... the beginnings of a town were already contained within these most basic lines.
But the watching villagers understood none of this. All they saw was their young lord leading people in digging trenches for an entire day, then burying two black vines in them, like some absurd farce.
A child carrying a wooden bucket tugged at his father's trouser leg in confusion.
"Dad, what is the lord doing?"
His father, drenched in sweat from exhaustion, glanced at the trenches and vines and answered distractedly.
"Playing in the mud."