The morning after the tower rose felt different, as if the sky itself had decided to watch Asmora more closely. The air was crisp and damp, carrying the scent of churned soil, fresh timber, and smoke from cookfires that had been stoked through the night. Villagers moved early, quieter than usual, casting cautious glances toward the hill where pale marble now gleamed through the morning haze. Even the wind seemed to avoid the tower, skirting around it as though unwilling to disturb something old.
Asmora was working again, yet the rhythm was hesitant. A place could rebuild walls and riverbanks, but it took longer to rebuild certainty. Men hauling stones did so with knuckles white, listening for tremors that did not come. To the villagers, it was a miracle. To some, it was a curse. To Alaric, it was both a gift and a blade.
He stood near the command tent, small hands clasped beneath his cloak. At four years of age, he should have been learning letters and proper court bows. Instead, he watched laborers measure wall lines and listened to soldiers discuss patrol routes. His red-gold hair, a physical manifestation of his harmonized mana, caught the light softly. Beside him, Dawn Angelique stood as a silent shadow, her knuckles white as she gripped her meteoric staff.
"Today," Asimi said softly, approaching from behind, "we make your words real."
They walked toward the cleared grounds near the half-finished palisade. The Knights Gallant and Theurge stood in clean lines, armor polished to a mirrored sheen. A crowd of villagers gathered at a cautious distance, curiosity finally outweighing their fear of the marble spike on the hill.
The Gallant commander stepped forward, his voice a steady rumble. "We are forming a local order under Prince Alaric's banner, the Starfall Order. An Asmoran defensive force, trained and equipped to protect this land."
Asimi stepped to the front, her metallic eyes catching the winter sun. "Starfall Manor was sold to rebuild this village," she announced, her voice like silk over steel. "Its wealth now belongs to Asmora's future. To ensure this future, the Prince has decreed that these conscripts will not fight with rusted scrap or sharpened wood."
She gestured, and knights pulled back heavy canvas covers from several long wagons. The crowd gasped. These weren't just the dwarven relics from the tower; alongside them lay rows of castle-forged steel. Gleaming breastplates, reinforced pikes, and broadswords forged in the finest imperial smithies, purchased with the last of the Starfall coffers.
"The best steel money can buy," the commander roared, "for the men brave enough to wear it!"
Alaric stepped forward, his small stature balanced by a presence that felt far older than his four years. He looked out at the rough-handed men, the smiths, the farmers, the survivors.
"Equipment is a start," Alaric said, his young voice carrying with unnatural clarity through the still air. "But a title is earned. In one month's time, we will hold a tournament of arms and discipline. The fifty men who prove themselves most capable, most loyal, and most courageous will not merely be soldiers."
He paused, and the silence was so absolute that the snapping of the command tent's banners sounded like thunder.
"They will be knighted," Alaric declared. "Directly by my hand. They will be the first Knights of the Starfall Order, with all the honors and land-rights that title affords."
A collective breath was drawn across the clearing. To a commoner, knighthood was a distant dream, something that happened to the sons of minor lords, not to men who smelled of river mud. The doubt in the men's eyes flickered and died, replaced by a hungry, desperate fire.
A grey-haired villager, his hands gnarled from years of toil, stepped forward. "My lord..." he began, his voice cracking. "If you truly mean to give us a chance to be more than just fodder for the next flood... we will build for you. We will die for you."
Alaric looked at the man's rough hands and then at the tower. He felt the Ninth Layer's pulse through his ring, a reminder that he was no longer just a child, but a catalyst.
"I don't want you to die for me," Alaric replied, the James Silver part of him speaking with a blunt, corporate honesty. "I want you to live for Asmora. I want you to hold that line so no one else has to."
As the ceremony ended and the men began to swarm the recruitment tables, Asimi leaned down to Alaric. "You've given them more than steel, Alaric. You've given them a path upward. Just remember, men with a path upward are much harder to control than men who are crushed."
"I don't want to control them," Alaric whispered, watching a young farmer lift a castle-forged helm with trembling hands. "I want them to be a wall."
Dawn stood beside him, her royal-blue eyes bright with the reflected glow of the tower. "A wall of stars," she murmured.
The tower stood silent on the hill, its gold veins shimmering. Below, the first recruits of Starfall began their drills, their boots striking the earth in a new, unified rhythm. The world would notice the mana spike, and the Emperor would notice the expenditure, but for now, in this corner of the mud, a prince was forging something the Empire hadn't seen in centuries: an army that fought for a home, not just a throne.