Seigmer woke before dawn, as he always did.
The Hold was still quiet — the only sounds the low crackle of watch-fires and the distant hoot of an owl in the forest. He slipped out of his simple quarters in the praetorium, cloak thrown over his tunic, and made his way to the inner courtyard.
Physical training first.
He dropped to the ground and began push-ups — one hundred, then two hundred, arms burning but steady. Pull-ups on the wooden bar he had installed — fifty strict, grip tight, no swing. Squats with a heavy log from the timber yard — one hundred and fifty, thighs quivering but unyielding. He ran the perimeter of the walls — five miles in the dark, breath measured, feet silent on the gravel paths he had ordered laid.
At fourteen, his body was a weapon honed sharper than any blade. Stronger than his prime in the old life, because this time he had built it from the ground up, without the scars of bad habits or old injuries.
But physical strength was only half the blade.
He moved to a secluded corner of the courtyard, away from the sentries' eyes, and sat cross-legged in the dirt.
Telekinesis.
He started small — lifting a pebble from the ground and spinning it in a tight circle ten meters away. Then a fist-sized rock, holding it steady for thirty heartbeats. Then a twenty-pound log, raising it slowly, lowering it without a sound. The pressure behind his eyes built, but he pushed through it, nose bleeding slightly by the end. Ten-meter radius. Twenty-pound limit. Still not the god-like powers from the movies, but enough to turn a battle: snap a neck, light a fuse from cover, deflect a bolt mid-flight.
He wiped the blood away and stood.
He would not disregard his training. The body and the mind were the foundation. Without them, the empire he was building would crumble.
The sun crested the ridge as he walked to the smithy.
The forges were already hot. Hammers rang. The twelve blacksmiths — four Suebi, eight former Roman auxiliaries — looked up as he entered.
Seigmer unrolled a deerskin on the anvil.
"Brigandine," he said. "This will be the standard uniform for my men."
He pointed to the sketch: small overlapping iron plates riveted between layers of leather or canvas, covered with a tough wool outer layer. Flexible enough to move in, strong enough to stop a spatha thrust or a pilum jab. Lighter than full mail, easier to produce with the Roman scrap they had salvaged.
"Each man gets a vest and greaves. Use the best Roman iron for the plates. Punch them thin, shape them square. Rivet them tight — no gaps. The original two hundred and thirty will get the first sets. The four hundred volunteers follow. Produce as many as you can. This is not decoration. This is survival."
The chief smith — Quintus, the Roman who had forged the first cannon — nodded slowly.
"It will stop blades. Arrows too, if the plates are thick enough. How many?"
"Six hundred and thirty," Seigmer said. "Then more. We grow every day."
He left the smithy and moved to the cannon yard.
The four bronze tubes from the battle had been joined by two more. The smiths were working on the rifling — spiral grooves cut by hand, tested with wooden plugs to ensure the spin. But the shells were the real evolution.
Seigmer had invented explosive shells.
Not the solid conical projectiles yet — those would come when the rifling was perfect. These were hollow bronze spheres, filled with black powder and iron scraps, fused with a simple impact striker or slow-burn wick. Loaded into the 10-pounder and 20-pounder Parrott-style cannons, they would arc high and burst above enemy ranks, raining death from the sky.
He selected one hundred and sixty men for artillery training — the smartest, the most steady, the ones who had shown aptitude for math during the literacy lessons. They would be his officers: calculating ranges, adjusting elevation, commanding gun crews.
The training began that afternoon in the ravine north of the Hold.
Seigmer stood before them with a clay tablet covered in lines and numbers.
"Trigonometry," he said. "Geometry. These are not games. These are weapons."
He drew a triangle on the ground with a stick.
"This is your cannon. This is the target. This is the arc the shell will follow. Know the angle of the barrel, know the charge of powder, know the height of the hill — and you know where the shell will land. Miss by one degree and you hit nothing. Hit right and you kill a hundred men with one shot."
The men leaned forward, eyes intense.
He taught them basics: sine, cosine, tangent. Pythagoras for distance. Circles for trajectory. They scratched calculations on their own tablets, practiced with small models of cannons, learned to measure elevation with simple wooden protractors he had the carpenters make.
These were not just gunners.
These were the first artillery officers of the new Suebi.
By evening they were firing blank charges — measuring the recoil, calculating the range, adjusting for wind.
Seigmer watched them and felt the shift.
Gunpowder production was ramping up. The refining process was now a science: saltpeter from caves and manure pits, charcoal from controlled burns, sulfur from the northern veins. Every batch tested for strength. No more weak misfires.
The shells would be ready soon.
He returned to the Hold as the sun set.
The children's lessons were ending in the central square.
Seigmer had ordered it: every child between six and twelve gathered daily for reading and writing. Older boys and girls helped teach. The adults who could read — mostly the original Forge men — led the groups.
They sat on logs or the ground, scratching letters on clay tablets with sticks. Some recited basic math: addition, subtraction, multiplication tables up to twelve.
In his free time — the rare hours between planning and training — Seigmer had written stories on scrolls. Simple folktales and fairy tales from his old life, adapted to the Suebi world. Cinderella became a girl from a poor clan who rose to lead her people with wisdom and strength. Robin Hood was a forest raider who stole from Roman tax collectors to feed his tribe.
One of the older girls was reading Cinderella aloud to a group of wide-eyed children.
"…and with a single act of courage, she stepped forward and claimed her place, not as a servant, but as a queen…"
Seigmer paused at the edge, listening.
The children looked up at him — not with fear, but with awe.
One small boy stood and saluted like the sergeants did.
Seigmer nodded once — approval.
Then he walked on.
The stories were not just entertainment.
They were lessons.
Courage. Justice. Rising from nothing.
The next generation would grow up with them.
And they would be ready for the world Seigmer was building.