The nite, like a massive beast skin soaked in ink, silently blanketed the entire Blackwood Forest.
Colin pushed open the heavy stone door of the secret chamber, and a nite breeze carrying the fragrance of earth and the scent of grass rushed toward him.
He took a deep, greedy breath.
Fresh air flooded into his lungs, which were slightly oxygen-deprived from staying in the enclosed space for so long, clearing his muddled mind that was still reeling from the repeated impact of the word "Alchemy."
He stepped out of the Council Chamber.
In the room behind him, the faint, bitter, and unwilling light emitted by those four bottles of "healing potion" seemed to linger. Before him lay the kingdom he had built with his own hands, appearing serene and full of life under the Moonlight.
A strong impulse drove him, making him want to take a walk and see it all.
He strolled along without a fixed direction, simply following his instincts into this living scroll that he had personally sketched and which was now becoming a reality at an astonishing speed.
First, he arrived at the construction site for the southern section of the new city wall.
This was the only place in all of Blackwood Fortress that never rested at nite.
Hundreds of massive torches were stuck into scaffolding and the ground, illuminating the area for hundreds of meters as if it were day. The blazing flames crackled in the nite wind, casting countless busy figures onto the majestic, fledgling wall behind them, forming a dynamic silhouette full of power and vitality.
"Heave—ho!"
An incredibly burly Boar-folk was bare-chested, his skin reflecting the oily sheen of sweat in the firelight. He let out an earth-shaking shout, his arm muscles bulging like gnarled tree roots as he physically hoisted a massive stone, half a man's height, from the ground and placed it steadily onto the nearby pulley crane.
"Slowly! Pull!"
Several Werewolf Warriors were in charge of operating the crane. Their eyes were focused and their movements coordinated. At the leader's command, they exerted force simultaneously, and the heavy stone was slowly hoisted by the ropes toward the eight-meter-high top of the wall.
Atop the wall, more Boar-folk were using thick hammers and chisels to perform the final shaping and masonry on the stones that had just been lifted.
The crisp, rhythmic clinking, the coarse chants of the workers, the creaking of ropes turning on pulleys, and the loud shouts of the managers...
All these sounds converged into a grand symphony—primitive, wild, yet carrying a certain sense of order and hope.
Colin stood quietly in the shadows, watching this bustling scene.
He reached out and gently touched the completed section of the wall beside him.
The surface of the stone was cold and hard, with a reassuringly heavy texture.
The eight-meter-high wall was nearing completion.
Like a silent beast crouching on the earth, it used its indestructible spine, forged from Boulders and sweat, to block all danger and the unknown, while cradling all peace and hope within its embrace.
He remembered when he could only huddle in a burrow, trembling at the sound of a beast's roar from an unknown source.
But now, they possessed a bulwark formidable enough to make any enemy recoil in fear.
The lingering irritability and confusion in Colin's heart, brought about by the failed experiment, seemed to be partially absorbed by this cold stone wall.
A heavy emotion called "pride" began to slowly sprout in his chest.
He withdrew his hand and, without disturbing anyone, turned and walked toward the broader area outside the city.
Leaving the noisy construction site, the world instantly became quiet.
Moonlight, like spilled mercury, was softly draped over the newly reclaimed, endless fields outside the city.
The air was thick with the fresh, earthy scent unique to newly turned soil, mixed with the smell of plant sap, creating a fragrance that put Colin more at ease than any incense.
He walked along the soft ridges of the fields; as far as his eyes could see were rows of furrows as neat as if they had been measured with a ruler.
Within that black, fertile soil, tiny, bright green sprouts were stubbornly poking their heads out.
They were Earth Potato seedlings.
These high-yield crops, personally selected and bred by Colin, were bursting with life on this brand-new land. Their leaves still bore the curls of having just broken thru the soil, with crystal-clear dewdrops condensed upon them, reflecting fine and gentle light under the Moonlight.
In a few months, these inconspicuous little seedlings would grow into lush plants, and their roots would bear fruit plentiful enough to feed thousands.
This meant his people would completely escape the threat of hunger.
Food—that heaviest and most cruel shackle hanging over the heads of all Northland tribes—would be thoroughly shattered here.
Colin knelt down, reached out a finger, and gently touched the small, fuzzy leaf of one ocompletely dissipated.
In its place was a crystal-clear next target for the hunt.