It had taken a while for Jacob to find the right rock. He wanted something that had some Magic, or at least some mineral-infused in it. And during his trip with Francis, he had found the perfect rock. It was mostly made of Milites Iron, the mineral that Jacob and Francis had found inside the cavern.

Milites Iron was one of the most common magical ores, the one that was present in pretty much every single alloy; and it was the base of so many because it had incredible flexibility. You could make Milites Steel out of it, or combine it with much rarer metals to create incredible alloys. Even in some Relics, they used the Milites Iron as the base. Indeed, it was the most common ore in existence after the apocalypse, and entire empires used it to arm their cultivator armies.

One thing few people knew was that Milites Iron sometimes would be found melted together with rock. It was unusable for any purpose besides a decorative one. But that had been exactly what Jacob had looked for.

He stored the massive rock, almost three meters tall, with the help of Kevin. Then, he immediately went back to St. Peter and plopped it in the middle of the city, right beside the main street.

Jacob had plans to take down every single house as soon as he had time to level the ground a make a big plateau of it, and he decided to put the rock where one day they would have the new center of the city.

As soon as it was out of the dimensional storage, Jacob started using Kevin to slice off chunks of the rock. He had to use part of his aura since the mineral was quite resistant, even in this useless form.

It took him almost an entire day, even with his own expertise, to do this. It was questionable expertise, for sure, but a legendary sculptor is still a title not to scoff at. And he had learned the craft when he had needed something to remember humanity by.

People had stopped multiple times to ask what he was doing, but Jacob had just given them a vague answer. They would need to wait because this was a matter for which waiting was more than appropriate. Sometimes, the best things were required not to be revealed until the end.

It was almost dawn when he finally put down his sword and started using his Qi to smooth the rougher parts and make it stronger in the most fragile segments of it.

In Jacob’s opinion, such a statue should have been realized long before; even before the subject had needed a statue; that would have been ideal.

Instead, in place of a great hero in the flesh, the inhabitants of St. Peter, old and new, got a reminder.

And reminders were important. They were as important of stories of great deeds being told.

People needed those stories, and the heroes, even the ones who had just tried, deserved to be remembered.

When dawn broke in all its magnificence, and the first rays hit the statue, he wiped the sweat off his forehead and finally sat down on the plain street, admiring his own work.

Humanity had started telling stories of heroes in a dark moment of their story. They had developed enough culture to think like the greatest but not enough technology to survive all the calamities mother nature had been ready to throw at them.

And so, the collective suffering had brought forth stories of great deeds, of heroes who could not be killed unless they struck their heels, of the mightiest strategists and kings. They almost all ended in tragedies, for that was humanity’s end destination in every case. But they inspired people, they taught people just how great other humans had been.

Some had been so great to be called demigods, some ascended to Godhood or even slain Gods.

Every culture would have its own interpretation. But the most important thing was that in every dark period, humanity had needed its heroes, fictional or not. And every time a dry spell would ruin the crops, or the torrential rains would take away children from their mother embrace, or even when foreign armies came knocking, everyone knew, in a small corner of their hearts, that there could still be a hero, that they could be the heroes.

Jacob himself didn’t care much about that title. He had donned it in his previous life, and it hadn’t saved anyone. He had let down many people who expected to meet the greatest warrior, but only found a human with a cape that didn’t quite fit him.

And that was when he understood a strange principle.

People would never see heroes directly. They couldn’t see the greatest heroes because even the real heroes were only so for a part of their tale. For the rest, they would become just another petty human.

So, Jacob decided to elevate Frederick to the title both he and the people deserved.

Hero.

The statue saw Frederick in striking heroic traits destroying the huge Charybdis they had faced in their struggle in Fort Mountain.

While Jacob sat on the ground, he saw the first inhabitants of St. Peter come out in the street to admire the finished work.

The sun made the metallic stone shine with a blueish hue, that gave even more solemnity to the already grand sculpture.

Jacob could barely feel his muscles by now, but he was proud of what he had done.

Someone, apparently, had gone to wake up Luis Albert, or to rouse him from an organizational frenzy from his laptop simply.

Jacob saw the man, the father, approach slowly, looking at the statue in awe. People were looking with pure fear toward the disgusting and terrifying Charybdis. It was a creature not even Nightmares with the capital ‘N’ could conjure. It was something only the bravest could fight, something so grim, so horrid, awful, and scary that only…

“Only a hero could kill something like that,” Jacob used the sword to prop himself up and spoke toward Luis Albert.

The man slowly nodded, trying hard to claim back the tears that were already streaming on his cheeks.

“That’s damn right,” Luis Albert said, finally starting to properly grieve in front of the hero that his son had been.