Four months later
The Kresh'val bridge stood completed three weeks ahead of schedule, its mythril cables gleaming silver in the mountain sunlight, its reinforced deck spanning the two-hundred-sixty-three-meter gap with the confident permanence of infrastructure built to outlast kingdoms. Misaki had watched the final inspection team cross it seventeen times, testing load capacity with progressively heavier cargo until Senior Engineer Kalth'ren declared it certified for six centuries of service.
"You built something that will still be standing when your great-great-great-grandchildren are elderly," she'd told him on completion day, her four-hundred-year-old face showing genuine pride. "That's what engineering means in Seleun'mhir."
The bridge had no embedded heating elements—the Trade Council's rejection of his innovative narrow design had forced him back to conventional width and seasonal limitations. But Misaki had insisted on comprehensive maintenance protocols. He'd trained a rotation of workers in pre-winter inspections: checking cable tension, examining deck planking for rot indicators, clearing drainage channels before the first snowfall. Then post-winter assessments: cataloging ice damage, replacing compromised materials, reinforcing stress points before they became structural failures.
"The bridge might close for three months each winter," Misaki had told the maintenance crew, "but it will reopen every spring for the next six hundred years because you'll catch problems before they become catastrophic."
Thel'mor had absorbed every lesson, his sixty-year-old mind soaking up knowledge he'd apply across seven centuries of future engineering work. The apprentice would probably still be maintaining this bridge when Misaki was dust.
The adoption papers had been finalized two weeks after Sera's request, but the outcome had surprised everyone—especially Misaki.
"Seleun'mhir doesn't recognize parental adoption for refugees under age twenty-five," the family court administrator had explained, her ancient eyes scanning Misaki's documentation with bureaucratic precision. "You're twenty-one. By our laws, you're legally still within the youth protection category yourself. You can't be registered as a parent to minor children."
Misaki had felt his stomach drop. "But I already told them—I promised—"
"However," the administrator continued, "we do recognize sibling bonds. You can be registered as Sera and Kyn's elder brother. Full legal guardianship, same financial responsibilities, same custodial authority. The only difference is terminology and inheritance law complexity."
Lyria had laughed at Misaki's confused expression. "In a world where people live eight hundred years, the line between 'parent' and 'elder sibling' gets blurry anyway. You'll all be adults together for seven centuries. Does it really matter what the paperwork calls you?"
So Misaki became a brother instead of a father. Sera had been delighted by the technicality—"I have a big brother now!" she'd announced to anyone who would listen. Kyn was too young to understand, but he'd started reaching for Misaki whenever he entered a room, which suggested the infant's instincts didn't care about legal classifications.
The refugee relocation notice had arrived six weeks after bridge completion. The mountain kingdom's integration program was moving M'lod's survivors from temporary garrison housing to permanent settlement in a border city called Stone's End—a mining community built into the eastern mountain range where Seleun'mhir's territory pressed against Vel'koda'mir's aggressively expanding borders.
"Most of you will be assigned to mythril and copper mining operations," Commander Yresh'tal had explained during the relocation briefing. "Stone's End needs labor. You need permanent employment. The arrangement benefits everyone."
Riyeak had been pleased—the fifteen-year-old giant had discovered he actually enjoyed quarry work, the brutal physical demands suiting his massive frame perfectly. Torran would continue his precision metalworking, now producing mining equipment instead of bridge components. Lyria and Millia would work in Stone's End's communal kitchens, feeding the mining workforce.
And Misaki had been given a new engineering assignment: fortification improvements for Stone's End's defensive walls.
The city revealed itself as their wagon convoy crested the final ridge—a compact settlement of perhaps eight thousand souls built into terraced layers of mountain stone, with the dark mouths of mine shafts visible in the surrounding peaks like wounds in the granite. The defensive wall encircled the entire settlement, a continuous barrier of fitted stone that had clearly stood for centuries but now showed the deterioration of inadequate maintenance and advancing age.
Misaki stood at the wall's base three days after arrival, surveying the structure with his engineer's eye while Sera played nearby with other refugee children and Kyn napped in a cloth carrier on his back. The wall rose approximately eight meters high and measured three meters thick at the base, tapering to two meters at the top. Competent construction for its era, but the stonework showed obvious problems: mortar erosion in the joints, vertical cracks from thermal expansion cycles, and sections where the facing stones had actually separated from the rubble-fill core.
The city's defensive coordinator—a woman named Syvra who'd spent two hundred years managing fortifications—handed Misaki a rolled set of architectural surveys.
"The wall was built four hundred fifty years ago," Syvra explained, her voice carrying the professional weariness of someone who'd been requesting upgrade funding for decades without success. "It was adequate for its time—designed to deter raiding parties and wild beast incursions. But Vel'koda'mir has been pushing their borders eastward for the past thirty years. What was once a remote frontier settlement is now a border city facing a militaristic nation that views territorial expansion as national identity."
Misaki unrolled the surveys, studying the wall's complete circuit. "You're asking me to increase height and width?"
"Height to fifteen meters minimum—tall enough that scaling becomes genuinely difficult rather than merely inconvenient. Width to six meters at the base—thick enough to support defensive platforms at the top and resist siege equipment impacts." Syvra pointed to several marked sections. "And these segments need complete rebuilding. The structural integrity is compromised beyond repair."
"This isn't a city wall project," Misaki said quietly, understanding crystallizing. "These are country defense fortifications."
"Exactly. If Vel'koda'mir decides to test Seleun'mhir's commitment to neutrality, Stone's End will be where they test it. We need walls that can hold against professional military assault, not just discourage bandits."
The scope was massive—potentially years of construction work, thousands of tons of stone, engineering challenges that would make the bridge project look simple by comparison. But Misaki found himself intrigued rather than intimidated. Earth's history was filled with defensive fortification innovations: concentric walls, angular bastions, killing fields, murder holes, strategic gate designs that turned attackers into channeled targets.
"I'll need to survey the complete circuit before proposing specific improvements," Misaki said. "But I have ideas. Methods from my world that might improve defensive efficiency significantly."
"How long for the survey?"
"Two days. Maybe three."
"You have one week. Vel'koda'mir just established a new garrison forty kilometers east of here. We need to know what we're building before they decide to find out how strong our walls are."
Misaki walked the wall's complete circuit as the day cycle progressed, Kyn sleeping peacefully on his back, making notes in his engineering journal about every structural deficiency and defensive weakness. The wall had potential—the original builders had understood basic principles of fortification—but four and a half centuries of weathering and minimal maintenance had reduced it to a barrier that would slow attackers rather than stop them.
As twilight approached and Ulth'rk descended toward the horizon—hanging noticeably lower here than it had in M'lod, the seasonal angle creating longer nights as winter approached—Misaki reached a section of wall where the guard torches hadn't been lit yet. The defensive walkway stretched into darkness, and the surveying work required visibility.
He set Kyn down carefully in a sheltered corner, making sure the infant was secure, then approached the nearest unlit torch mounted in its iron bracket.
Six months of practice. Six months of meditation, focused training, deliberate chakra development since that desperate moment in M'lod when he'd first manifested fire to survive. His Manipura chakra—the fire element centered in his solar plexus—had progressed from chaotic outbursts to controlled manifestation.
[Manipura Chakra: Awakened (30% Mastery)]
Thirty percent didn't sound impressive until you understood the scale. Most practitioners spent decades reaching fifty percent mastery. Some never progressed beyond twenty percent their entire lives. But Misaki had discovered something about his Jack class: it learned quickly when he applied knowledge practically rather than meditating in isolation.
He focused inward, sensing the warmth in his solar plexus—the seed of fire that lived in every human but that most never awakened. Drew it upward through channels that had become familiar with practice. Extended it through his arm, into his hand, concentrating the thermal energy into his palm.
The consumption was noticeable but manageable. Prana—life force—drained at a rate he'd learned to measure through experience. At thirty percent mastery, igniting a torch cost him maybe two percent of his daily prana reserves. Exhausting if he did it a hundred times. Trivial for a single flame.
Heat manifested in his palm, not visible as fire yet but radiating warmth that made the air shimmer. He touched the torch's oil-soaked wrapping, focused his will, and pushed.
Flame erupted—orange-red and completely normal-looking, indistinguishable from fire created by flint and steel. The torch caught immediately, burning with steady light that pushed back the encroaching darkness.
Misaki moved to the next torch. And the next. Walking the wall's circuit, igniting each unlit brand with a touch, leaving a trail of firelight in his wake. The prana consumption accumulated but remained sustainable—maybe fifteen percent of his reserves total for forty torches.
When he'd started this practice six months ago, lighting a single torch had exhausted him completely. Now he could illuminate an entire wall section and still have energy left for a full day's engineering work.
Progress. Measurable, quantifiable progress in a world where power development stretched across lifetimes.
As he returned to collect Kyn, who'd woken and was making the small sounds that meant he'd be crying soon if not attended to, Misaki looked out over Stone's End toward the eastern horizon where Vel'koda'mir's new garrison sat invisible in the darkness.
He was building walls.
But wars didn't care about walls unless the walls were strong enough to make invasion more costly than the potential gains justified.
Time to show Seleun'mhir what Earth's defensive engineering principles looked like when combined with six centuries of construction durability requirements.