"Show me what you did against the scout," Balos said. He hefted his sword up as Lucius nodded and went into the Quickdraw stance.

It has been almost five days since Lucius made the gun, waiting for an attack. They crammed as much training time into each day possible, forcing Lucius to advance rapidly.

Balos stepped toward Lucius and swung his sword up, forcing Lucius to jump back. The instant his feet touched the ground, he dashed forward and did a quick stab, which was easily stopped by Balos. Then, he followed up with a roll and ended up behind Balos, who made no further attempt to move.

Without hesitation, Lucius unleashed a flurry of blows that he didn't know he had in him. It was something that he would see on T.V. or in a movie, but nonetheless, he did it. It was rapid slashes and quick stabs, but Balos blocked them all with ease.

Then, Balos took his own sword and unleashed swings faster than what Lucius could do. Knowing the difference between strength, Lucius sidestepped and jumped back.

"Your movements are getting faster," Balos said without a hint of fatigue on his face. Lucius was taking deep, ragged breaths. "But you aren't showing me what you did!" Balos said and lunged again.

This time, Lucius tried to get out of his comfort zone like what he did with the scout. This time, while he was busy avoiding the swings of Balos, he invented his own killer technique.

Balos swung at Luciuss head and he dropped down. He took that moment to swing upward at Balos' chest, which he blocked.

At that moment, Lucius rolled right beside Balos legs and forced his entire body to lunge up. His feet were misplaced, however, but he still got into the air. He held his sword above him and jumped into the air in a spiral that was aimed directly at Balos back.*

*(AN: look at this for how I imagined it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_cMHXyygUI)

Balos easily stepped to the side and avoided it, but it still surprised him.

"Good. That was a very unexpected move. Use that more often in a fight.," Balos said and returned the sword to his back, which meant that they finished practice.

"What about the rest of today? There's still lots of time," Lucius asked, confused. Balos shook his head.

"I taught you everything you need to know, and I cannot teach you any further. You must seek out other sword masters to teach you, but at your level, you could already take on the lot of them," Balos said. Lucius couldn't tell if he was happy or sad.

They both sat down on a stump and looked at the town below them. It just looked like a normal town, but it was too small. Lucius wasn't even sure why he called it a town. There was barely fifty people. Maybe it was the idea that it could become a town, but Lucius shook his head and stood up.

"We need to reinforce the village," Lucius and Balos said at the exact same time. It seemed like they were thinking at the same time. Balos looked at Lucius. "Do you have an idea?"

"Yeah. We need some sort of wall around the town and we need to arm or at least teach the wolf-people how to fight," Lucius said. "It'll be bad if the Voxis Kingdom decided to storm into this place with more than one hundred soldiers."

"I agree-- we need the walls. How we are going to build that, I have no idea, but arming the wolf-people aren't needed. They all can fight-- it's their instinct. They have sharp claws too. If the Voxis Kingdom decided to come down now, they would not go back unscathed," Balos said with surprising venom.

"Uh... right," Lucius said, clearly concerned with the tone that Balos was using. Changing the subject, he said, "I'll go see what to do about the walls."

Balos seemed to calm down a little bit. Lucius brought Balos down to the town, where he did his calling. The wolf-people stopped what they were doing and hustled over to them.

After they went silent, Lucius said in a loud voice, "I have news from Voxis Kingdom." At this, many of the wolf-people bared their teeth in remembrance of the attack on the town. Pausing for a moment, Lucius then continued.

"They are planning to attack this town at any time," Lucius said. "Right now, Baylight is not defended as well as I want it. If they decided to attack, I don't want to think what could happen. Most likely a repeat of the past," Lucius said. Some people growled on reflex. He thought he heard someone cry softly, but he started speaking again.

"We need to build a wall around the town. This is for the safety of your children and your parents, and if we do this, we will be one step closer to defending the town. If there is an attack, I will do as much as I can to defend this town."

The wolf-people were dead silent.

"So I ask for your help. I will start the construction of the wall later today, and I will not be able to do it alone."

The wolf-people looked at each other, some with a horrified expression. Lucius knew why.

"However, I am not going to force you to do this. I am not here to enslave you, whip you, or starve you until you die. This work is completely optional and, I repeat, you do not have to do this. This is voluntary work."

"If you are willing to help, step forward now," Balos said beside him. No one moved; they all looked afraid like if they decided to move, they would be killed. Lucius soon was afraid that his speech would be pointless.

But his fears were washed away. As if all of the wolf-people controlled, almost all of them moved forward at the exact same time. Lucius grinned, pleased that he wasn't going to be embarresed.

"Good. I expect you all later today," Lucius said and walked away.

Once they were out of earshot, Lucius said, "Yes! We did it!"

But instead of the happy look that Lucius was expecting, all he got was the shaking of his head.

"Not yet."

Puzzled, Lucius said, "What do you mean?"

"We managed to convince the lot of them, but now we have to act. If what you did was an empty promise, then we are in for some big trouble."

Lucius paused for a moment, then said, "Touche."

They both went inside the house and split into their respective rooms. Lucius glanced at his gun for a moment, which was leaned against a wall.

I need to figure out how to make lights, one way or another. Torches are too dangerous for indoor use, and sunlight is very unreliable, Lucius grimly thought about the task ahead of him. I need to do research more often. This work ethic is going to kill me one day.

Lucius grabbed the sniper off the wall and put it on his back. The sheer weight of all of its components was enough to almost make Lucius stagger. He then grabbed his katana and put that on his belt. He felt like he weighed another fifty pounds, but then again, he was never the strongest.

Then, he dropped a leather T-shirt over his head. Balos revealed his skills and quickly made Lucius a shirt from the leftover Eloon leather, which was strong, flexible, and warm. He also made a mask for Lucius, since he figured out that Lucius would be a target and would best remain hidden under a mask. Lucius stuffed the mask in his pocket.

He then set out, where he saw wolf-people already starting to drag logs over. Luna and Balos were there, directing them.

The stronger wolf-people were dragging logs and setting them upright, while the weaker ones were collecting sap from trees. One of the wolves showed Lucius that if he mixed mud with the sap, it would become cement hard. Lucius quickly put that into work.

Lucius was amazed on how fast beast-men worked. Ever since he got to Zenos*, he's been surrounded by beast-men. And they have demonstrated things that no human could do, like build a whole town in seven hours.

*(AN: In case you forgot, Zenos is the name of the world that Lucius was sent to)

If you could imagine, the wall went up quickly. Within two hours, the foundation and part of the wall were built. In five hours, the wall structure was done and most of the wolf-men were packing the mud-sap mixture.

The next two hours was time for Lucius to get his elbows dirty. He lit a fire and put his already hot sword into it, making it even hotter. It became white hot, and that's when Lucius deemed it suitable for the task.

He walked to one part of the town that he would make the "front." He plunged the burning sword into the wood and tried to cut into it. Instead of cutting, the wood burst into flames. The mud-sap stopped the fire, but it was still enough to make Lucius into a nervous wreck.

He needed to cut the wall into an entrance, and he was thinking of something like a gate. He already built the mechanisms while the beast-men were building the wall and only needed to install it.

He couldn't think of a way to break into the wall until he remembered his sniper. He took it off his back, fully aware of the wolf-people watching the gun with a puzzled expression. He gestured away at the wolf-people.

"Stand back. This is going to be loud," Lucius said. The wolf-people scooted over to the side, well out of the range of the estimated blast range.

Lucius switched cartilage for his gun and put the one that had the Blast Crystals in them. He raised the gun and aimed it at the bottom of the wall.

He pressed the trigger, heard the small hum of the Mana Crystal, then there was a thunderous noise. Lucius's gun flew up as the crystal blasted out of the gun and collided with the wall. It exploded upon impact and dust plumed into the air. Lucius squinted his eyes in an attempt to look through the dust, but he gave up and waited until it faded.

The base of the wall was ripped open. It was jagged and blackened, but Lucius prepared for that. He grabbed his sword and quickly broke off the uneven pieces. Some wolf-people joined in the effort and quickly, the hole looked cleaner. Lucius then started hollowing out the ground under the archway alongside the beast-men, who seemed very interested in what Lucius was doing.

After the narrow and deep strip of dirt was removed out of the ground, Lucius lowered in a long, thick slab of wood into it. It was the perfect height, as the top of the wood was perfectly level with the ground. Lucius then connected a thick and very strong rope to two of the ends and connected it to two elevated cylinders of wood on top of the wall.

It was a medieval mechanism that worked fairly well. It was a crank that lifted the wood up to block the entry, and when the crank was released, the wood would fall back into the spot into the ground and open up the gate.

Pleased, Lucius gave thanks to the wolf people and went to sleep, exhausted.