CHAPTER 69: 11th Area

Junk to Others, Treasure to Another

A minute before the report reached Alistair, Adrian was inspecting the wall with the leaders of the smithing and mining workshops.

The snow had begun lightly that morning, not enough to bury the stone paths or interrupt the patrol lines, but enough to soften the outer landscape into pale silence. The southern wall stood above it like a deliberate refusal to be swallowed by winter. Its reinforced body stretched along the visible curve of the territory, each section marked by new plating, embedded support frames, and narrow inspection corridors designed not only for defense, but for maintenance. The old version of the South would have called such construction excessive. The new South understood that a wall was not merely something to hide behind. It was a system.

Adrian walked along the upper inspection path with his cloak moving faintly in the wind. Behind him followed Fredo, Gilbert, two workshop assistants, three mining recorders, a junior engineer, and Sheila from the alchemy department. Norman remained farther behind with the attending knights, recording the movement of the inspection group while ensuring no unnecessary staff crowded the wall. Garret was not present this time, but the order of the entire route still carried his touch. Every report was prepared. Every product was placed. Every guard post knew when to clear space. Even in the absence, when it belonged to Garret, the order remained orderly.

Fredo stood at Adrian’s right.

At first glance, no one would have guessed the man had once been dragged in chains toward death. He was in his mid-forties, broad-shouldered, thick-armed, and marked by the kind of strength that came not from noble training halls but years beside furnace, hammer, and iron. His hands were scarred, his forearms dense with old burns, and his posture carried the blunt steadiness of a man who had survived too much to waste respect on empty titles. Among common-born smiths, Fredo had been called the greatest long before Valenhart found him. That talent had nearly killed him.

The late baron had hated talented commoners.

To men like that, a gifted commoner was an insult wearing human skin. Such people were either hidden, sold, broken, or left to rot where their ability could not embarrass noble incompetence. Fredo had been among those kidnapped the week before the territorial war truly erupted. He had been thrown beneath the earth with others whose only crime was value without protection. There, in the slave underground prison, hunger and darkness had done what chains alone could not. Men had begun surrendering before death arrived.

Then the young master had opened the cell.

Fredo still remembered it clearly.

No grand speech. No dramatic promise. No question asking who they were, what they could offer, or why they had been imprisoned. The door had opened, torchlight had entered, and Adrian had looked at the dying prisoners as if their condition were not fate, but evidence. Evidence of a crime. Evidence of waste. Evidence of a system that deserved to be dismantled.

After that, Valenhart did not fail them.

Food. Clothing. Shelter. Medical care. Clean water. The freedom to choose work under a proper contract. It sounded simple when listed that way. To people who had been treated as inventory, it felt like being told that the world had not entirely rotted. For those who resented nobles, Valenhart became a contradiction. For those who resented the world itself, Valenhart became the first standard by which true nobility and righteousness could be measured without laughter.

Almost half a year had passed since then.

Now, Fredo was not a rescued prisoner. He was a respected blacksmith, a workshop leader, and one of the few men trusted to handle complicated products under Adrian’s emerging magi-tech plans. He still looked uncomfortable when noble-born visitors bowed to him out of protocol, but he no longer looked as if he expected kindness to vanish when his back was turned. The South had given him work. Adrian had given him purpose.

Recently, Fredo had begun learning the mana sensing method.

He did not approach it like a knight. He did not approach it like a mage. That was what made him useful. He approached it like a smith.

Mana sensing sharpened things he had already known through instinct. Fire was no longer only about temperature. It was behavior. The sound of the hammer striking the iron no longer ended at a rhythm. It carried density, resistance, fatigue, and hidden impurity. The amount of power needed in each strike became easier to judge. The incorporation of mana into smithing no longer felt like foreign magic forced into metal, but like a second heat entering the work at the correct moment.

Now he stood beside the young master, a man who treated him not as a rescued slave, not as a convenient tool, but as a person whose expertise mattered.

Adrian stopped near one of the newly installed wall devices.

It was mounted along the outer reinforcement line, half-embedded into the stone and covered by a dark metal frame etched with thin channels. At a distance, it resembled nothing more than a protective ornament or a strange noble crest fixed to the wall. Up close, one could see the layered craftsmanship: sensor plates, mana-guiding grooves, impact-dispersing ribs, and a sealed interior chamber where future mana stone integration had been designed but not yet fully implemented.

Adrian pointed to it. “May I hear the analysis of the product?”

Fredo stepped forward and handed over the prepared papers. His voice was rough, but steady.

“Young master, this is MT-50013, produced according to your request for outer wall fortification. It has a scanning capability that reaches ten feet underground and above the wall line. It also has an alarm feature whenever infiltration is detected. Current durability can withstand up to sixth-circle mana pressure under controlled testing, though impact type still matters. If we successfully combine it with mana stones, we can improve both duration and strength in the future.”

Adrian accepted the papers and scanned them page by page.

The workshop assistants watched him with barely hidden tension. Fredo did not. He had learned that Adrian’s silence during the review was not displeasure. It was a measurement. His eyes moved too quickly for ordinary reading, yet no detail seemed to escape him. Materials. installation points. energy flow. pressure limits. activation delay. false alarm probability. The report contained both successes and weaknesses because Fredo had forbidden his assistants from hiding flaws to make the work look better. Adrian valued accuracy more than praise. Any worker who failed to understand that had no place near magi-tech.

After a moment, Adrian nodded. “The structure is stable for an early defensive product. The scanning radius is acceptable. Improve the response delay by half a breath, and separate the alarm signal into three grades instead of one. A small animal, an ordinary intruder, and a mana-bearing threat should not produce the same response.”

Fredo’s eyes sharpened. “Understood. That will require another channel.”

“Add it,” Adrian said. “Efficiency is not simplicity when simplicity creates confusion.”

Fredo gave a deep nod, already seeing the correction.

Gilbert, captain of the mining team, stepped forward next.

He was not as physically imposing as Fredo, but the mountain had shaped him differently. His skin was weathered, his hands broad, and his eyes carried the careful watchfulness of a man who knew stone could kill more patiently than enemies. He had once respected nobles from a distance. Now he respected Adrian directly, not because of title, but because the young master worked with them at least once a week whenever his schedule allowed. He inspected tunnels. He asked questions. He corrected methods. He stood near dust, ore, sweat, and danger without acting as if labor dirtied noble blood.

Gilbert handed over another packet. “My lord, these are the reports and analysis of mana stones from the eleventh area of the mining field. We confirmed that the cave connects to the second mountain. The scouting team saw clear evidence of mana stone growth along the deeper section. As you instructed, only a limited number of people can access the eleventh area. We doubled security, the same as mithril ore at the fifth and sixth areas. All initial samples were given to the alchemist department and Fredo two weeks ago.”

He paused, unable to fully hide his satisfaction.

“Surprisingly, it works as you thought, my lord.”

The words pulled the memory back into the present.

The eleventh area had not been considered valuable at first. It was a rough section of the mining field, unstable in some places, strangely dry in others, and filled with stones that old miners dismissed as decorative waste. Too bright to be useful metal. Too inconsistent to be sold as proper gems. Too difficult to extract cleanly for ornament. Under normal management, the area would have been marked as low priority and left for later generations to misunderstand.

But Gilbert had learned not to dismiss irregularity.

Two weeks prior, one of his scouts had reported strange reflections deeper in the cut. Gilbert had gone himself, carrying lamp, rope, and two trusted miners. The deeper they moved, the more the tunnel changed. The stone walls narrowed, then opened into an unusual cave where the air felt strangely full despite the cold. Gems glittered in veins along the walls and ceiling. At first glance, they resembled cloudy diamonds, beautiful but inconsistent. Under ordinary sight, they were decorative at best.

Then Gilbert used mana sensing.

The cave changed.

The stones did not glow in one color. They shimmered faintly with layers, like trapped rainbows seen beneath ice. Red, blue, pale gold, green, violet, gray-white, and colors that did not remain long enough to name moved beneath the surface when touched by perception. The mana inside them was not wild, but dormant. Stored. Waiting.

Gilbert had not touched another piece after that.

He reported it immediately.

Within a minute of receiving the message, Garret and Adrian arrived.

No wasted procession. No delay. No dramatic announcement. Garret had simply appeared with the correct clearance seals, and Adrian had asked Gilbert to guide them. The young master entered the cave without excitement, yet the stillness of his gaze changed as soon as the first mana stone was brought beneath the lamp.

“What do you see?” Adrian had asked.

Gilbert, uncertain, had answered honestly. “Junk to most miners. Treasure to someone who understands mana.”

Adrian had looked at the cave walls for a long moment, then said, “Then we will make sure only the second kind of person enters this place.”

He had ordered the eleventh area sealed under double security. Access lists. rotating patrols. false classification in outer records. Sample extraction under supervision. Separate delivery to the alchemy and smithing divisions. No open announcement. No loose talk. Even the miners assigned nearby were given only what they needed to know. The South had already learned that a resource discovered too loudly became a resource stolen in advance.

Garret had been instructed to make a quiet inquiry into historical references.

That inquiry returned an answer Adrian had expected but still found useful. Old records mentioned stones like these, but most dismissed them as decorative waste, temple ornaments, collector’s gems, or failed crystal deposits. Some ancient notes claimed they carried mana, but the comments were vague, inconsistent, and often treated as superstition. No one had properly systematized them. No one had linked them to large-scale magi-tech.

That was the mistake.

Back on the wall, Sheila stepped forward.

She was the youngest among the alchemy team and still carried the quiet edge of someone unused to standing before leaders. She had once been an unknown, common-born mage, abducted and nearly swallowed by the same cruelty that had taken many others. Unlike some, she had escaped before the war’s end, surviving through a mixture of instinct, fear, and the small mana talent she barely understood at the time. When news spread that the South offered a real opportunity to common-born talent, she had come expecting perhaps safety, perhaps work, perhaps a place to hide from those who would sell her if found.

She had not expected Adrian.

The first time he saw her, he paused for half a breath and said she had a familiar feeling. Sheila had never understood what he meant. Adrian, however, had remembered someone from his past life—his personal assistant, a woman whose competence had once made entire systems move without unnecessary noise. The resemblance was not in face, but in presence. A quiet mind. Quick hands. Unusual retention. The ability to organize complex details without demanding praise for them.

Adrian placed Sheila in the alchemy department of the magic tower and told her she had potential in that field.

She had discovered, to her own surprise, that she loved it.

Now she held her own report and spoke with nervous clarity. “The mana sensing method helped us analyze the stones better than ordinary observation. By comparing the data from historical books, we found that mana stones were often treated as junk or decorative stones because most people could not consistently activate or measure them. They were beautiful, but unreliable under traditional handling.”

She adjusted the pages in her hands.

“However, with calculation, material science, property testing, and mana sensing during execution, we confirmed that the stones can function as sustainable energy sources. Depending on size and purity, one properly stabilized stone can last up to a decade under low to moderate output. It can also handle enchantments between the second and fifth circles, again depending on size, density, and structural support.”

Fredo added, “The issue is casing and channeling. Raw stone leaks under pressure. But placed inside a proper frame, with guiding grooves and layered metal, it behaves.”

Sheila nodded quickly. “Yes. Without a frame, it is unstable. With the right frame, it can power small devices, maintain alarm functions, reinforce enchantments, or serve as a reserve energy core.”

Gilbert muttered, “Junk, they called it.”

Fredo gave a low laugh. “Junk to those who cannot hear it.”

Adrian smiled.

It was not the smile he used before enemies. This one held respect and appreciation, restrained but visible enough that the workshop leaders straightened under it.

“Keep up the good work,” Adrian said. “I will help you explore more products in the future.”

Sheila lowered her head quickly, almost too quickly. “Thank you, young master.”

Fredo bowed with less polish but equal sincerity. Gilbert did the same.

Adrian turned his gaze back toward the wall device.

MT-50013 was only the beginning. The mana stones changed the scale. Stable stored mana meant longer-term systems. Defense arrays. communication relays. powered gates. preservation chambers. factory tools. transport support. weapon modules. mining safety equipment. Hospital devices. Signal towers. Perhaps even larger engines could be once enough purity, casing, and conversion theory were refined.

The rest of the kingdom saw mana as something held by individuals.

Adrian saw infrastructure.

That was when his gaze changed.

He looked past the device, past the outer road, past the white breath of winter drifting over the distant slope. The wind shifted.

His eyes narrowed.

“The smell of blood,” he said. “Give me binoculars.”

The nearest knight reacted first, removing the field glass from his belt and handing it over with both hands. Adrian lifted it to his eyes.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then he saw him.

A lone figure staggered through the snow beyond the outer road, half-hidden by the pale fall and uneven rise of the ground. The man leaned on a broken stick, each step dragging more than landing. His clothing was dark with blood across the side, shoulder, and thigh. One sleeve hung torn. His face was barely visible beneath dirt, frost, and red streaks. Behind him, no horse followed. No cart. No escort. Only a trail of disturbed snow and the stubborn, half-dead rhythm of someone refusing to collapse before reaching the wall.

The gate knights noticed the change in Adrian’s posture and sounded the alarm.

Men moved fast.

The nearest wall guard raised his horn. Two squads shifted into defensive formation. Archers moved along the parapet. One knight shouted for the lower gate to hold until identification. The workshop assistants were pulled back by Norman’s gesture. Fredo stepped instinctively in front of Sheila despite knowing he had no business shielding anyone from arrows or ambush. Gilbert cursed under his breath and looked toward the road.

Adrian lowered the binoculars.

The formation tightened.

The injured man stumbled again, caught himself on the stick, then raised his head as if the wall itself were the only thing left in the world.

A captain near the gate called, “Possible bait, young master. Permission to hold position?”

Adrian lifted one hand.

The knights froze.

Then he lowered his palm.

“Lower weapons.”

The order passed instantly, though not without tension. Bows remained ready but dipped. Spears lowered from the killing line to the guard line. The gate formation shifted from hostile interception to rescue readiness, though every knight kept enough sense to watch the snow behind the wounded man.

Norman stepped closer, waiting.

Adrian’s gaze remained fixed beyond the wall. His expression had become cold, but not uncertain.

“Norman, get the medic team nearby. Knights, help the man immediately.”

He paused just long enough for those around him to understand that this was not an ordinary traveler, not a random wounded merchant, and not merely another victim of the roads.

“I know him.”