The month following the bandit attack was the most productive period in Greylock's history.
The victory, brutal as it was, had acted as a powerful catalyst.
The fear of external threats was replaced by a surge of communal pride and a fervent belief in their Baron.
The village, once a collection of sullen, hopeless individuals, was transforming into a unified, motivated workforce.
Kaelen, having secured his barony for the moment, threw himself into his projects with the focused intensity of a master architect overseeing his magnum opus.
His goal remained the same—a peaceful, comfortable retirement—but the scale of the project had grown exponentially.
It was no longer just about survival; it was about building a fortress of prosperity so solid that no one would ever dare threaten his peace again.
The "Greylock Glow-up" became even more pronounced.
The men, fueled by a steady diet of meat from the castle's hunting parties and the vitamin-rich turnips from the first small harvest, were now visibly stronger.
Their work ethic was relentless.
They hauled stone for the new, insulated houses, they dug ore from the Red Swamp with vigor, and they stood in the training yard every evening, their pike drills growing sharper and more disciplined under Seraphina's watchful eye.
The forge became the heart of the revolution.
Borin, obsessed with Kaelen's new designs, split his workshop in two. Half of his apprentices continued to mass-produce the essentials: plows, nails, pikes, and basic tools.
The other half, his most skilled artisans, were dedicated to the "Thunder Project."
Working from Kaelen's blueprints, they began the painstaking process of creating the first rifle.
It was a monumental challenge.
They had to invent new tools: a long-bore drill for the barrel, precision files for the trigger mechanism.
Kaelen spent hours at the forge, not as a lord, but as a consulting engineer, troubleshooting with Borin.
"The barrel pressure is the key," Kaelen would explain, drawing diagrams in charcoal.
"The rifling—these spiral grooves—will spin the projectile, giving it stability and accuracy. But the steel has to be flawless, or it will explode in the user's hands."
Borin, for his part, rose to the challenge, his craftsmanship reaching new heights.
He developed new quenching techniques and alloys, mixing in tiny, secret amounts of other metals to create a steel that was both incredibly strong and flexible.
While the forge hammered out the future, Kaelen focused on his own development.
His sword training with Seraphina evolved. Now that he had a basic foundation, she began to teach him about mana enhancement.
"You have a core now, my Lord," she said one evening, her own blade glowing with a soft, steady light. "But it is like a newborn foal—weak and clumsy. You must learn to control it."
She showed him how to draw a wisp of mana from his core and channel it into his blade. His first attempts were pathetic.
The mana would flicker and die before it even reached the hilt.
"Do not force it," she instructed, her voice patient. "Guide it. It is a part of you now. Feel the connection."
He practiced relentlessly.
During his morning runs, he would try to channel mana into his legs, attempting to lighten his steps. He'd stumble, the power cutting out, nearly sending him sprawling.
During his sword practice, he focused on coating his wooden blade. For every hundred attempts, he would manage one fleeting, momentary shimmer.
It was a slow, grueling process, a stark contrast to the explosive progress of his construction projects.
But Kaelen was nothing if not systematic. He logged every success, every failure, analyzing what he did differently. He was trying to turn the art of mana control into a science.
His relationship with Seraphina also changed.
The formal distance between lord and knight began to shrink.
During their lessons, she was his stern teacher. But afterward, as they caught their breath, she would sometimes ask him about his strange knowledge.
"This... 'chemistry' you spoke of in the swamp," she asked one night, "is it a form of magic?"
"It's a way of understanding the world," he'd replied, leaning against a wall.
"Everything is made of smaller pieces. If you understand the pieces, you can predict how they will react when you put them together. Fire and swamp gas is just a very fast, very loud reaction."
She didn't fully understand, but she listened.
She was beginning to see that his "madness" was simply a different kind of wisdom, one that saw the world not as a place of gods and curses, but as a massive, complex machine.
The first prototype rifle was completed a month after the bandit attack.
It was a beautiful, terrible thing. The stock was dark, polished wood. The barrel, a long, octagonal piece of Borin's finest steel, gleamed with a deadly light.
Kaelen, Borin, and Seraphina took it to a secluded clearing deep in the woods.
Kaelen had spent the previous week teaching Borin's apprentices how to make the other components: gunpowder from sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter, and soft lead bullets.
With steady hands, Kaelen loaded the rifle. He demonstrated the mechanism: lifting the breech block, inserting a single paper cartridge containing both powder and a bullet, and closing it.
He took aim at a dead tree a hundred yards away—a distance that would be impossible for even the most skilled archer.
"Cover your ears," he advised.
He squeezed the trigger.
The CRACK of the rifle was unlike anything they had ever heard.
It was sharper and louder than a cannon, a piercing whip-crack of sound that echoed through the forest. A cloud of white smoke erupted from the barrel.
For a moment, nothing seemed to have happened.
Then, a small, perfectly round hole appeared in the trunk of the distant tree.
Borin let out a low whistle.
Seraphina walked over to the tree, her face pale. She ran her finger over the hole.
The lead bullet had punched clean through six inches of solid oak.
Her sword, enhanced with mana, could do that, but it required her to be standing right next to the tree.
This... this was power at a distance. Cold, impersonal, and terrifyingly lethal.
"This changes everything," she whispered, looking back at Kaelen, who was calmly inspecting the rifle's mechanism for stress fractures.
"Yes," Kaelen agreed, a grim smile on his face. "It does."
He handed the rifle to Borin. "Your turn. We need to begin mass production. And we need to train the militia."
He then turned to Seraphina.
"And you and I need to get much, much stronger. Because as soon as word of this gets out, the threats we face will be far greater than thirty ragged bandits."
His industrial revolution had finally produced its first true offspring. And it was a weapon that would upend the very foundations of their world.
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Author's Note:
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