Chapter 114: The School (1)

Three months had passed since Encrid became the Strategist of the Wall.

There had been no further sign of the Roamer horde.

No messenger had come from the Great Green Forest carrying news of movement. No scout had returned with a new report. The forest had remained quiet, which Encrid had learned was not the same thing as peaceful, and the Wall had continued preparing anyway.

The grain problem had been solved more successfully than he had expected.

Steward Vess had gone back to the northern guilds with ten years of figures, a revised contract, and the uncomfortable reminder that the Wall was the only reliable source of higher-level Roamer cores they had in the Empire.

The negotiations had taken almost two weeks, involved more shouting than Encrid had expected from a discussion about numbers, and ended with every major contract being raised.

The guilds had complained.

Then they had paid.

The increased price of the cores had not only covered the additional grain the Wall needed. It had left the fortress with more money than it had possessed before the crisis began.

Vess had called it an unpleasant miracle.

Encrid had called it leverage.

Either way, the Wall was better prepared than it had been three months ago.

Today, Encrid intended to make another proposal. ℴℴ𝘮

And he expected this one to fail.

The Council was already seated when he entered the chamber.

Encrid placed a thin stack of papers on the table and took his usual position at the sixteenth seat.

No vote.

No command.

Only the right to speak.

He waited until the room settled and till the ordinary and boring stuff were discussed before bringing up the matter before the council,

"I want permission to establish a School of Star Cultivation on the Wall."

The silence that followed was different from the usual silence.

Several people simply stared at him.

Dane was the first to speak.

"A what?"

"A school."

"I heard the word. I was hoping I had heard it wrong."

A few of the commanders smiled.

Encrid ignored them.

"For hundreds of years, the Wall has never permitted formal cultivation instruction. I want to change that."

Steward Vess leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead.

"Before you continue, Strategist, I would like to point out the obvious problem."

"I know."

"Good."

Vess tapped one finger against the table.

"Every man who sits down to cultivate is a man who is not working."

He pointed toward the fortress beyond the chamber walls as though the entire Wall were visible through the stone.

"He is not walking the parapet. He is not hauling stone. He is not repairing the gates. He is not turning a javelin, carrying a message, standing a watch, or replacing the man who is doing any of those things. If you take a hundred men for four hours, then those four hours still have to be covered."

Nobody interrupted him.

Vess continued.

"The Wall does not possess four spare hours."

Encrid nodded.

It was a sound argument.

In fact, it was exactly the argument he had expected.

"I agree."

Vess frowned.

"Then why are we discussing this?"

"Because I agree with the logic, but I do not agree with the conclusion."

Encrid turned the first sheet around and pushed it toward the centre of the table.

"Eleven thousand people live and work on this Wall. Of those, roughly seven hundred have opened a Star."

That number drew more attention.

Ysolde Marr looked down at the paper.

"Seven hundred?"

"Approximately."

"That is fewer than I expected."

"It is fewer than there should be."

Encrid rested his hands on the table.

"Almost every one of those seven hundred either opened their Star before they came to the Wall or awakened it by accident. Some discovered it during training. Some during combat. Some under circumstances they could barely explain afterward. A few were taught by family members before they arrived."

He paused.

"The Wall has never had a system for teaching cultivation properly."

Dane looked at the list again.

"I intend to find out whether it can be changed."

Encrid pulled another sheet from the stack.

"A levy soldier with no Star can hold a section of parapet against a Level Two Roamer if he has proper equipment and support. That soldier is not weak. He is the reason this Wall has survived for centuries."

He looked around the table.

"But put the same man against a Level Three without support and his chances become poor. He needs an engine, a squad, a defensive position, or someone beside him who has opened a Star."

He turned the page.

"A cultivator is different."

Nobody spoke.

"A single Star does not make a man invincible. The difference between Realms is enormous, and an inexperienced cultivator can still die very quickly. But a trained cultivator can do things an ordinary levy soldier simply cannot. He can move faster, endure more, strike harder, perceive things others cannot, and in the right circumstances, one cultivator can replace several ordinary soldiers during the worst few minutes of a battle."

Dane folded his arms.

"How many ordinary soldiers?"

"I do not have a reliable number."

"Then you are asking us to gamble."

"No."

Encrid met his eyes.

"I am asking you to conduct an experiment."

That changed the room.

Not much.

But enough.

Encrid had expected resistance. He had expected questions about manpower, training time, instructors, equipment, and whether the Wall could afford to lose men from the rota.

What he had not expected was the strange attention that had settled over several faces.

But the attention was because of a different matter. It was because of something Elder Wode had said months ago.

A black Star.

At the time, Encrid had neither confirmed nor denied it.

He still would not.

But the thought had not disappeared from the Council.

It had only become quieter.

And there was another reason some of them were listening.

Star guides were rare.

The people who truly understood the process of opening Stars, advancing through the Realms, and recognizing the signs of a blocked or damaged cultivation path were rarer still.

And an uncomfortable number of the greatest Star guides in recorded history had been wielders of the Black Star.

No one said that aloud.

They did not need to.

The thought was already sitting in the room.

Encrid continued before anyone could ask the question.

"I am not proposing that we remove hundreds of men from the Wall and tell them to cultivate."

He tapped the final page.

"I am proposing forty."

Vess raised an eyebrow.

"Forty?"

"Forty people at a time. Four hours each morning. We use the old bathhouse near the eastern barracks. It is empty until noon."

"And who teaches them?"

"I will."

✦ ✦ ✦