Aronia wiped her hands on a cloth that used to be white, then motioned Ludger closer. She didn’t bring him inside. Instead, she led him along the edge of her garden where the plants grew denser and the air felt faintly… different. Not warmer. Not colder. Just awake.

At the center of it was a shallow stone basin she’d carved into the ground, fed by a sealed clay jug that hummed softly with contained mana. The water inside looked normal at first glance, clear, still.

Then the light hit it, and Ludger saw the faint shimmer beneath the surface, like the water was holding onto something that didn’t belong in liquid form.

Aronia’s tired expression tightened into the sharp focus of someone who’d been thinking about the same problem for too long.

“This is water from a magic spring,” she said.

Ludger didn’t interrupt. He just watched.

“It’s… common,” Aronia continued, “for dryads to gather around springs like this. Communities form near them. They’re safe points. Sacred points.” Her fingers hovered above the basin, not touching. “The spring isn’t just water. It’s a concentration point. A place where the land breathes mana in a clean way.”

She glanced at him. “I’m half-dryad. I know what I’m looking at.”

Ludger nodded once. He already believed her.

Aronia’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you find any dryads on the other side?”

Ludger shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No living communities. No groves. No presence.”

Aronia frowned, and the frown looked more tired than surprised.

“Then what was there?” she asked.

“Signs,” Ludger said. “An abandoned civilization. Old. At least fifty years gone.”

He kept it concise, but the details were vivid in his memory, the emptiness, the wrong silence, the way ruins made you feel watched by the past.

“There were rune marks,” he added. “Not random carvings. Built structures. Patterns. Like the place was designed around runic work.”

Aronia’s gaze sharpened. “A city?”

Ludger nodded.

“A city,” he confirmed. “A city based on runes.”

Aronia slowly straightened, rubbing her fingers together like she was feeling residue that wasn’t there.

“That would make sense,” she murmured.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

She looked at him, tiredness momentarily replaced by the cold clarity of someone connecting old knowledge to a new threat.

“Because you told me,” Aronia said, “that the runic golem labyrinth connected both lands.”

Ludger didn’t move. He didn’t deny it.

Aronia gestured lightly toward the basin. “If a runic infrastructure existed there, if a whole city depended on it, then a spring like this would be worth building around. The land would be richer with mana, even if they didn’t know about it..”

Her expression darkened slightly. “And if it was abandoned… the spring didn’t stop existing.”

She finally touched the surface with one fingertip.

The water barely rippled, but the plants nearest the basin seemed to perk, like they’d felt a signal.

Aronia pulled her hand back and met Ludger’s eyes.

“This isn’t just ‘useful,’” she said quietly. “This is the kind of resource that changes who can live where. It changes recovery rates. It changes farming. Healing. Fertility of land. It changes how long a community can endure under pressure.”

Ludger’s jaw tightened. Aronia didn’t need to say the next part for him to understand it. If the Empire knew springs like this existed near sealed labyrinths… that was another reason to control information.

Another reason to keep the north “manageable.”

Ludger exhaled through his nose, gaze steady.

“Can you tell what it does?” he asked.

Aronia hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Not fully. Not yet. But I can tell you what it is.”

She looked back at the basin, and for the first time her tired expression carried something like reverence.

“A community spring,” she said. “A dryad anchor.”

Then her eyes sharpened again, all reverence burned away into practicality.

“And if you found it beside an abandoned runic city…” she added, voice low, “then someone didn’t just leave. Someone was forced to.”

Ludger went quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that meant he was stunned, Aronia had known him long enough to recognize this one. This was the quiet where his mind laid options out on a table and started cutting away anything that would get people killed.

He stared at the basin for a while, watching the faint shimmer under the surface like the water was holding its breath.

Then he nodded to himself.

“We bring it,” he said. “As often as possible.”

Aronia’s tired eyes sharpened. “You can?”

“Not immediately,” Ludger replied. “Not consistently.”

He lifted his gaze from the water to her face.

“It will take time before some of my members are strong enough to conquer the runic golem labyrinth and reach the other side safely,” he said. “Right now, forcing it would mean casualties. And I’m not paying that price for convenience.”

Aronia’s shoulders eased slightly. She didn’t look relieved so much as… satisfied that he wasn’t being reckless. Ludger continued, voice calm but firm.

“And it stays Lionsguard-only.”

Aronia blinked. “You’re worried about trade leaks?”

“I’m worried about information,” Ludger said. “The moment people know a spring exists beyond that labyrinth, it becomes a target.”

He paused, then added bluntly, “And information spreads. Fast. Especially when coin gets involved.”

Aronia glanced away, thinking, then nodded once. “What about Rathen?”

Ludger’s mouth tightened, just a fraction.

“I trust Rathen,” he admitted. “Enough.”

Then the next part came out colder.

“I don’t trust everyone under him. Not the Ironhand crew. Not every merchant in his orbit. Not every ‘friend of a friend’ who hears something on a dock and decides it’s worth a gamble.”

He looked back at the basin, at the plants leaning toward it like they recognized home.

“If it leaks,” Ludger said, “we don’t just lose the water. We invite attention. Expeditions. Claims. Nobles ‘protecting’ it. The Empire deciding it suddenly matters.”

Aronia’s expression tightened with understanding. She’d lived long enough, half-dryad or not, to know how quickly “resource” became “war.” She nodded again, slower this time.

“That is probably for the best,” she said quietly. “If you want to use it for Lionfang, you need it stable. Quiet. Controlled.” Ludger gave a small nod back.

“Good,” he said. “Then we plan for it properly.”

He let his gaze drift over her garden one more time, taking in how healthy it was despite the rough soil and the hard frontier air.

“And when we can bring enough,” Ludger added, almost to himself, “we’ll make people feel the difference here. Not just hear about it.”

Aronia’s tired mouth curved faintly.

“That,” she said, “would be revolutionary.”

On the way back from Aronia’s place, Ludger did what he always did when he needed to stop feeling and start solving.

He checked his status screen.

Name: Ludger

Level: 119 (2,450 / 11,900)

Current Job: Guild Master (Lv 55 – 1.620 / 5.500)

Current Class: Geomancer (Lv 134 – 1.300 / 13.400)

Health: 5630 / 5630

Mana: 25160 / 25160

Stamina: 6060 / 6060

Strength: 821

Dexterity: 1095

Intelligence: 2049

Vitality: 563

Wisdom: 2566

Endurance: 606

Luck: 418

Classes & Skills

Magic Knight Lv. 35 (+7 DEX, +7 INT, +7 WIS / level)

Skills: Summon Magic Swords Lv. 41]

Summon Magic Spears Lv. 11

Summon Magic Hammers Lv. 11

Summon Magic Clubs Lv. 11

Summon Magic Shields Lv. 11

Summon Magic Arrows Lv. 01

Summon Magic Knives Lv. 01

Summon Magic Staves Lv. 01

Guild Master – Lv. 55 (All Parameters + 3 per level.)

Skills: Morale Lv. 25

Shared Insight Lv. 25

Collective Cognition: Lv. 25

Enduring Line Lv. 25

Shared Vitality Lv. 25

Fortunate Momentum Lv. 25

Shared Recovery Lv. 35

Shared Mana Regeneration Lv. 35

Shared Stamina Regeneration  Lv. 35

Iron Will Lv 01 – Reduces pain and shock effects. Doesn’t reduce damage, just keeps people functional. The more guild members nearby, the higher the effects..

Team Mentality Lv 01 – Reduces pain caused by magic and mental attacks. The more guild members nearby, the higher the effects..

Doctrine Imprinting – Lv. 01 – Guild develops a “style” according to the situation. Members slowly adapt toward it even when acting independently

Ludger let the numbers and confirmations scroll.

The expedition had done exactly what he’d intended: it turned fear into experience, and experience into strength. The kids, members, had leveled fast in the only way that mattered. Not just raw power. Competence. Formation discipline. Decision speed. The ability to keep their hands steady while something with too many legs tried to eat them.

And the best part?

It wasn’t just them.

Everyone working under the Lionsguard banner was getting pulled forward, like his skills were a current, and the guild was finally learning how to swim with it instead of against it.

Useful. But not enough. A passive aura and a week of terror didn’t get him a dryad spring supply line. It didn’t get him control over a sealed door into the past. It didn’t get him ahead of the Empire’s quiet games. He needed something more than “grow faster.” He needed a breakthrough.

And the answer was in the north. With the northerners.

Not because they were magical geniuses. They weren’t. They were blunt, loud, and built like the world had tried to crush them and failed. That was exactly why they mattered.

With the right gear and the right strategy, he could build a team that could actually take the runic golem labyrinth, push through it consistently, establish a route, reach the other side, and start hauling spring water like it was just another resource.

The northerners could handle the brutality. The pressure. The attrition. Lionsguard could handle the structure. The runes. The planning. Together, they could crack it. Ludger’s eyes narrowed as the next problem rose up, ugly and obvious.

“The underwater battles,” he muttered.

That was the part that didn’t care about courage. Underwater wasn’t just “combat, but wet.”

Underwater meant your footing lied. Your momentum lied. Your vision lied. Everything took longer, hit softer, and punished mistakes harder. A runic golem didn’t need to breathe. They did.

And if the labyrinth forced engagement in flooded corridors, if the path to the other side demanded fighting in submerged chambers, then every advantage shifted toward the thing that could swing forever without lungs, panic, or fatigue.

He stopped walking for a moment, staring at nothing, already building the solution in pieces. And, most importantly… They’d need the northerners.

The kind who didn’t freeze when their chest tightened. The kind who could keep swinging when their body screamed. The kind who treated panic like an enemy to punch.

Ludger exhaled through his nose, already annoyed at how many moving parts it would take. His Guildmaster skill could make them stronger.

But the labyrinth wouldn’t care about “stronger.” It would care about prepared. He started walking again, the plan sharpening with every step. North. Gear. Training. Strategy.

Then the water. Then the spring. Then Lionfang becomes different in a way nobody can ignore.

The only question left was how many people he could get through those underwater halls before the labyrinth taught them what drowning felt like.

And Ludger didn’t like learning lessons the hard way, not when he could build the answer first.

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