Fortress Reborn
Before dawn's first light touched the spires of the East Wing, Charles was already awake.
His study was dim, lit only by the soft violet hum of the Emberveil Pendant beneath his robes and the flickering holographic schematics hovering above his desk—SIGMA's projections, born from every book the system had absorbed. From Charlemagne's personal library to the forbidden tomes hidden within Lady Evelyne's sealed chambers, it was now all inside his mind.
Knowledge was power.
And he planned to weaponize every shred of it.
He studied the layout of the Ziglar Estate with new eyes, no longer as a passive resident—but as a reformer. No, a commander. The East Wing was supposed to be a place of disgrace, where the unwanted heir was kept tucked away, out of sight and mind.
But that was before.
Now, it would become a fortress.
His fingers traced an aerial projection of the East Wing's perimeter. "SIGMA, overlay defensive points and array anchor positions."
[Overlaying. Based on current cultivation level, you can personally inscribe low-tier arrays. Recommend delegation of mid-tier and high-tier formations to contracted specialists. Proceed?]
"Already done," Charles muttered. "Elmer's been discreet. I told him to bring in external array masters under merchant cover. Has the first batch arrived?"
[Confirmed. Four array specialists arrived last night posing as coastal surveyors. They've begun laying rudimentary protective arrays beneath the guise of shoreline reinforcement work.]
Charles's lips curled. Perfect.
Sea Gineva bordered the estate's rear flank—a stunning coastline, but also an overlooked vulnerability. Now, it would become an asset. Amphibious training drills, sea-bound patrols, and hidden escape routes would be woven into the shoreline. Security through obscurity.
He opened the revised defense matrix and began marking key positions.
"Basic tier arrays I'll do myself: Spirit-Sensing Wards, Minor Anti-Stealth Seals, and Displacement Alert Circles. Keep me to tasks with high success probability for my current rank."
[Parameters adjusted. Optimal placements suggested. Estimated success rate: 91.3%.]
"Close enough."
Charles took a breath. After completing his brutal gauntlet integration and three weeks of elemental drills in Lady Evelyne's hidden training chamber, he had reached Foundation Realm Rank 3. The power now coursing through him was no illusion—it was refined, disciplined, earned.
And now, he would shape his domain to match.
He scrolled through a file labeled: East Wing Combat Division: Draft Alpha.
The contents weren't what most nobles would expect. There were no calligraphy charts or archaic sword patterns.
It was brutal.
Unforgiving.
A daily training regimen modeled off elite military forces from Earth. Charles had drawn from memory—SEAL, Marine, Krav Maga, Olympic-grade sprints—and fused it with cultivation fundamentals.
Each day would begin before dawn with:
Qi Circulation and Flexibility (30 mins): To enhance elemental resonance.
Strength Conditioning (45 mins): Bodyweight drills, weapon holds, combat pressure routines.
Amphibian Combat and Endurance (1 hour): Training along the Gineva shore—weighted swimming, breath retention, sea-to-land transitions.
Elemental Sparring Modules (1 hour): Duels focused on elemental compatibility—shadow vs. fire, earth vs. lightning.
Array Familiarization (30 mins): Teach guards to identify, avoid, or destroy enemy arrays.
Combat Technique Practice (1 hour): Using dummy opponents, real-time team formations, stealth pursuit-and-neutralize games.
Night Watch Rotation Training (Evenings): Teach staggered sentry duty, night vision adaptation, and stealth tracking.
Every recruit would also receive:
A standardized uniform reinforced with light enchantments.
Basic-grade enchanted weaponry tailored to affinity.
Monthly supply of stamina-restoring elixirs.
They would suffer.
And they would thrive.
The sloppiness of the past would be beaten out through blood, sweat, and spiritual strain. Because Charles didn't want bodyguards. He wanted wolves.
SIGMA's voice hummed, as another data stream opened.
[Knight Elmer has begun the background checks and loyalty screenings. Five guards already flagged for suspicious behavior and dereliction. Recommend quiet reassignment.]
"Do it. Rotate them out with fabricated duties in the outer holdings. Replace them with vetted candidates."
Charles took a long breath, his hands stilling over the ink-black table.
A month ago, he was a shattered core, a joke.
Now, his manor would soon house a private army, shielded by arrays drawn from his own bloodline and reinforced by modern warfare logic.
And this was only the beginning.
With Duke Alaric and Garrick deployed to the Norwest border to suppress a rebellion from the neighboring Kingdom of Sedona, and Seraphina returning to Embersteel Academy to resume her elite combat studies, the Ziglar Estate was temporarily under Charles's sole command.
Perfect.
For the first time, the house was his.
But of course, there would always be prying eyes.
The flame had been lit.
Now, it would spread.
A Drillmaster's Resolve
To lead, Charles knew he could not simply command from behind silk curtains.
At the break of dawn, while nobles still lingered in perfumed baths and recited empty mantras to incense smoke, the East Wing training yard exploded with chaos. Sweat, screams, curses—and Charles, shirtless in the mud, yelling like a demon drill sergeant reborn from hell.
"Low stance! Knees lower! You call that a warrior's squat or a bloody court curtsy?!"
The once-shabby guards of the East Wing stared with hollow eyes. Some had served decades without ever breaking a real sweat. Now, they were face-down in sand, soaked from morning shore runs, bodies trembling from fire-infused burpees and lightning-imbued sprints.
Charles wasn't just barking orders. He was right there beside them—wrist bandaged, hair plastered to his brow, fingers raw from sandbag dragging and repeated flame-fist drills. He fell more often than they did. But he always got up faster.
He bled. He gasped.
But he never quit.
"You want to die in the next ambush like that coward Branis from the South Gate?" he roared, dragging a soaked battle dummy up the training slope. "Then move like your life depends on it!"
They did.
Because watching their 15-year-old "frail young lord" outpace seasoned guards half again his size... broke something in their pride.
And built something in its place.
The physical workouts alone were nightmarish:
50 Plank Holds, each 45 seconds, with the Gauntlet pulsing with elemental feedback.
Flame Fist reps, shadowboxing into resistance barriers.
Lightning Flick sprint laps, done barefoot over electrified sand.
Earth Rooting holds, where men stood in defensive stance for minutes, resisting force blasts from rotating pressure arrays laid by newly hired specialists.
Wendy, ever-present, hovered like a ghostly nursemaid from hell—cool cloth in one hand, Qi-recovery pills in the other, towel thrown across her shoulder like a battlefield medic.
"You're bleeding from your eyebrow again, Young Lord."
Charles grunted as he struggled up from another knuckle push-up set in wet clay. "Tears of effort."
"That's blood."
"Same family."
"Your ankle's twisted."
"It's just confused."
"You tore the sleeve of your robe."
"That robe started it."
Wendy sighed dramatically but helped anyway, her palm glowing faintly with healing Qi as she pressed it to his side. "One of these days, you're going to keel over mid-flaming lunge."
"Then pour fire elixir on me and toss me back in."
She muttered under her breath, "Little masochist."
The men overheard. Laughed.
Laughed until Charles doubled their training time for insolence.
"He's a demon in noble skin."
"My bones don't bend that way anymore, Lord!"
"This isn't training—it's punishment!"
"Good," Charles shouted over their whining. "Because the world isn't going to treat you like pampered puppies."
Every morning began with Qi Circulation Drills—flowing elemental essence through core meridians, guided by the Aetheric Crystal. Charles, now Foundation Realm Rank 3, used basic internal fire pulses to heat his blood, Earth Rooting to stabilize his core, and Shadow Flicker to silence his breath. These were basic-level techniques—but brutal when layered with his incomplete foundation.
His muscles weren't trained for this.
So he trained them the hard way.
He started with Level 1: Skin Tempering, immersing himself in Fireleaf-soaked baths, skin red and steaming, then transitioning into wind-swept dashes around the yard—Flame Fist strikes burning at his knuckles, each strike pulling more fire from within.
Level 2 began the Muscle Forging phase. Using Flicker Jab Lv.1, Charles drilled hundreds of fast strikes against magical dummies. They were programmed to counterattack after five seconds.
He got decked. A lot.
Wendy stopped counting bruises.
When the Stone Fist practice began, the guards groaned louder than he did. They had to slam their fists into hardened clay up to 100 times, channeling earth essence each time. Most barely reached 20. Charles passed out at 65.
Elmer caught him mid-fall.
Woke him up with a splash of icy sea water and whispered, "You made it farther than most nobles ever would."
Charles opened one bloodshot eye. "Next time, throw in a fish. I'm starving."
By Level 3, he added Shadow Strike drills—dark energy condensed into his fist, aimed at illusionary enemies projected by SIGMA's training orbs. The shadow essence was tricky, slippery, always trying to slide from his grasp. But it felt... like him.
Like vengeance restrained.
The guards, seeing him train in darkness alone, started calling him "Little Abyss."
He didn't stop them.
The shoreline training was its own brand of hell. Amphibious exercises forced men to run into the icy surf, dive beneath crashing waves with weights, then emerge and duel each other while soaked to the bone and shivering. The only warmth was from Violet Flame Pulse, which most of them hadn't even mastered.
More than once, Charles was seen hauling men out of the water—guards twice his size—coughing up seawater as they clung to consciousness.
He'd slap them awake.
"Die on your own time," he growled. "You're mine until this realm breaks."
Elmer, watching from atop the cliffs, chuckled behind his helm. "He trains them like they're Iron Banner legionnaires."
Wendy nodded. "He's worse. They didn't do fire burpees."
The sloppiest recruits were stripped of privileges: no elixirs, cold meals, isolation drills at night. Charles even posted signs like "Honor Board" and "Disgrace Wall," where names were etched in magical ink depending on performance.
At first, it felt like bullying.
But after a week—no one wanted to be on the Disgrace Wall. It stung more than a punch.
Rewards were just as legendary. Top scorers received:
Bonus Qi Pills
Access to the elemental bath chambers
Time inside the practice illusion arrays
A private lesson from Charles himself on array recognition
By the third week, the East Wing guards were transformed.
They moved in unison. They obeyed instantly.
Not because of fear.
But because they saw the mud-covered, bloodied young lord crawling beside them through the worst of it—fists glowing, breath ragged, muttering array patterns even as his legs gave out.
Charles didn't need to shout anymore.
When he whispered, they listened.
And when he stood at the end of each day, battered but unbowed, raising his gauntlet toward the heavens and yelling, "Again!"—they screamed it with him.
Because if he could do it—
Bleeding. Broken. Barely a teenager.
Then so could they.
Eyes in the Shadows
The East Wing may have been under his rule, but Charles knew better than to assume safety. Not in a place like this. Not with the viper nest that was House Ziglar's central estate barely a stone's throw away.
Power never went unnoticed.
And power that rose from disgrace?
That was cause for whisper and concern.
So, when SIGMA pulsed to life with a discreet tone while Charles was reviewing the day's surveillance logs, he immediately straightened.
[Unusual movements detected. Sector 6—rear orchard—approximately 2300 hours last night. Shadow activity without corresponding guard patrols.]
Charles frowned. "Playback."
The projection hovered in the air before him—an overhead, grainy aura-feed. For ten seconds, nothing. Then, a flicker—an unnatural distortion of light bending in a human shape. Someone had used a mid-tier stealth technique, nearly bypassing the spirit-sensing arrays.
But not SIGMA.
"Was it one of ours?" he asked coldly.
[Negative. No authorization tag, no scent match in the personnel registry. Estimated probability: 87% chance external spy. Possibly tied to House Brelith or the Royal Audit Division.]
Charles exhaled slowly.
He'd been expecting this.
With Alaric and Garrick away suppressing the Sedona rebellion, Seraphina back at Embersteel Academy, and Charles suddenly surging from the weakest noble heir to a commander training a private force, someone was bound to sniff around.
He opened the encrypted file: "Contingency Protocol – Watcher Trap."
A layout of the East Wing perimeter appeared, highlighting five intersecting spiritual tripwire arrays that funneled any intruder into a narrow corridor cloaked in illusions. He had already laid the groundwork for a capture scenario, aided by SIGMA's stealth-trigger matrices.
"SIGMA," he muttered, voice like frost, "activate Watcher Trap Protocol. If they return, I want them alive."
[Protocol armed. Would you like to inform Knight Elmer?]
"No," Charles said. "This needs silence. If Elmer suspects something, let it come from what he sees, not what I warn him of. Loyalty is proven in action."
Still shirtless from the morning drills, Charles stood and looked out the tall windows of his study. The sky outside had begun its slow slide into twilight, and the faint sound of the ocean waves from Sea Gineva carried a calming rhythm. But his heart was sharp—cutting through stillness with cold focus.
He had taken the first steps.
But now… now the game had truly begun.
Because he wasn't just building an army.
He was inviting war.
And whoever thought the discarded heir would roll over and remain irrelevant?
They were about to meet a new breed of Ziglar.
A wolf forged in fire, shadow, and tide.
A silent guardian of a crumbling house soon rise again.