The Butcher's Guild Hall was now Fyrion's.
The transfer of power wasn't marked by a ceremony or a signing of scrolls. It was marked by silence.
Grom, the mountain of a man who had been a king in this hall an hour ago, was now just a large, sullen employee.
He stood by his oaken table, cleaver in hand, watching as his men,men who had drunk and bled with him for a_decade—took orders from a 19-year-old boy.
They were hauling barrels of tallow and smoked meats, not to their own storehouses, but to the Fyrion castle.
They didn't grumble. They weren't angry. They were being paid.
In a land of starvation, loyalty was a commodity that could be bought with a full belly.
Fyrion finished his inspection of the larders, his ledger already filled with new inventory numbers.
"Grom," he said, his voice cutting through the heavy, meaty air.
The large butcher flinched, then turned, his face a mask of defeated rage. "What?"
"You're strong, and you know how to run a slaughterhouse. You will be my foreman. You'll oversee the rendering of all tallow in this territory." Fyrion tossed a small, gray Common-Brick.
"You and your sons will be paid in these, and in grain. You will not want for heat, and you will not want for food. But you will work."
Grom stared at the brick, then at the boy. This was not the humiliation of a silver coin. This was... a job. A wage. In the middle of the Three-Year Winter, it was a lifeline.
He was a prisoner in his own hall, but a well-fed one.
"I... understand," Grom rumbled, his voice thick.
"Good."
Fyrion left the hall, Gregor, falling into step behind him. The old soldier hadn't said a word. He'd just watched, his one good eye taking in the entire, bloodless conquest.
He had seen warlords take cities with less efficiency.
Back in the mansion-Silas was glowing. The room was warm, the ledgers were balanced, and the smell of ink was mixed with the distant, reassuring scent of the forge.
"Master," Silas said, bowing as Fyrion entered.
Fyrion nodded, shrugging off his fur-lined coat. He looked at the scribe. Silas's weasel-like nervousness was still there, but it was now overlaid with the frantic, manic energy of a man who had, for the first time, backed the winning horse.
"Your performance in the town was... adequate, Silas."
Silas beamed, as if he'd just been knighted. "Thank you, Master! The Common-Brick is a miracle! We'll have a monopoly on the entire region by the end of the month!"
"Good. But you're no longer the 'family scribe.'"
Silas's face fell, his smile vanishing. "M-Master?"
"You are my Chief Overseer. Your job is no longer to just count coins. You will manage all logistics: brick production, tallow rendering, and the new sales routes I'm establishing. You will answer only to me. You will be paid a salary, not just given scraps."
Silas stared, his mind racing. This was... this was real. A title. A salary. A purpose. He was no longer just the family's gambler, juggling debts. He was an executive.
"I... I will not fail you, Master!" he vowed, bowing so low his head almost touched the desk.
"See that you don't." Fyrion dismissed him with a wave.
He turned to the last piece of his new foundation. Gregor. The old soldier was standing by the door, his arms crossed, impassive.
"Gregor."
"My Lord." The title was still gruff, but the mocking, insulting edge was gone. It was just a statement of fact now.
"I've acquired the Butcher's Guild. I control the town's food supply, and its heat. I am the wealthiest man in this territory."
Gregor nodded once. "I saw."
"My assets are growing. My father's 'Watch' is a joke. They're old men who haven't been paid." Fyrion walked up to him. "You are no longer the 'Watch Captain' of a failing house. As of today, you are my Head of Security. Your job is to protect my assets. My forge. My storehouses. And my person. You will hand-pick ten men. Grom's sons, for a start. They're strong. You will train them. You will arm them. You will make them mine."
Gregor's one good eye studied the boy. This was a coup, plain and simple. The boy had seized the family's finances, its industry, and now, its military, all without shedding a drop of blood.
"A Head of Security," Gregor rumbled. "That's a rich title. And my first duty... is to train you."
"Exactly," Fyrion said.
"Then let's not waste time, Master."
Dawn. The training yard was a sheet of gray ice.
Fyrion stood in the center, a simple wooden training sword in his hand. His body was stiff, his muscles screaming from a lifetime of disuse.
Gregor faced him, his own heavy wooden sword resting on his shoulder. "Five silver coins for every time I knock you down, my lord. The day is young."
"Start," Fyrion ordered.
Gregor charged.
There was no grace, no Southern flair. It was a charge of pure, Northern weight. A shoulder-first, shield-breaking, bone-shattering avalanche of a man.
Fyrion's mind, the mind of a Grandmaster, saw it all in perfect clarity.
'[Stance Three: Northern Pike]. He's over-committed. His left side is open. Deflect high, strike his floating rib. 30 degrees, 1.2 seconds.'
His mind gave the order.
His body, slow with cold and neglect, betrayed him.
He tried to pivot. His foot slipped on the ice. He tried to raise his sword for the parry. His arm felt like it was moving through wet cement.
WHAM!
Gregor's heavy sword didn't even slow down. It smashed through Fyrion's pathetic guard and slammed directly into his right shoulder.
The pain was a white, blinding explosion. It wasn't the sharp sting of a lash; it was a deep, shattering thud that vibrated into his bone marrow.
Fyrion flew backward, his vision going black for a second before he landed hard on his back, the air punched from his lungs.
He lay on the ice, gasping like a landed fish, unable to move.
"Pathetic," Gregor's voice boomed above him. "You think like a master, but you move like a child. Your mind knows the forms, but your body is rubbish. Get up."
Fyrion gritted his teeth, the pain so sharp it made him want to vomit.
"Again," he rasped, forcing himself to his hands and knees.
"You're not up."
Fyrion roared in frustration, grabbed his sword, and staggered to his feet.
"Again," he said, his voice a low growl.
Gregor charged. WHAM!
This time, it was a low blow to the thigh. Fyrion saw it coming, but his leg wouldn't move in time. He collapsed.
"Again." CRACK!
A strike to his forearms that nearly made him drop the sword.
"Again." THWACK!
For four hours, the only sounds in the training yard were the brutal thud of wood on flesh and Fyrion's pained, ragged breathing.
He didn't just get knocked down. He was brutalized. He was a living training dummy, a sack of meat for Gregor to tenderize.
By the time the sun was high, Fyrion was a single, massive, throbbing bruise. He could barely lift his left arm.
But as he lay in the snow, coughing, he felt something else.
Deep inside him, his Aura Core, which had been a calm, gentle hum, was now an aching, burning furnace.
Every blow, every impact, he had instinctively channeled his aura to the point of impact, trying to cushion it. It was a desperate, failed defense. But it was also training.
Gregor hit him, and his Core flared. Gregor hit him again, and it flared hotter.
This wasn't just fighting. This was forging. He was forging his own body.
Gregor stood over him, breathing hard, his one good eye showing the first flicker of something... not pity, but respect.
"You're done, my lord. You can't even stand."
"Five... five more... silver..." Fyrion grunted, trying to push himself up on one arm. He failed, collapsing back into the snow.
"No," Gregor said. He tossed the training sword aside. "You're done. Go back to your bottles. We'll continue tomorrow."
Fyrion lay there for a long time before he finally, agonizingly, dragged his broken body back to the castle.
He limped into his cellar-lab, every step a fresh wave of agony. Silas, seeing him, yelped in terror.
"Master! Your face! You... you're... purple!"
"It's... growth, dumbass!," Fyrion grunted, collapsing onto a stool. He ignored the pain. He ignored Silas.
He looked at the new, massive vats of tallow Grom's men had delivered. His local monopoly was secure. His body was in the process of being reforged.
Now, for the next phase.
'The bricks solve the local problem. They give me heat and loyalty. But they're cheap. They're heavy. They're not a good export.'
His eyes, swollen and bruised, gleamed with his intelligence.
'But this tallow... this fat... this is a luxury resource in disguise.'
He took a scoop of the pale, rendered fat. He added a precise measure of the caustic lye he'd leached from the ash. He began to heat the mixture gently, his one good arm stirring.
Silas, confused, watched. "Master? Another brick? A... a premium one?"
"No," Fyrion said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He added a single drop of pine resin, which he'd been refining for two days. The acrid smell of lye was instantly overpowered by a clean, sharp, forest scent.
This wasn't a catalyst. This was a refinement. He was performing saponification.
He poured the now-cooling, milky liquid into a small, square mold. It hardened into a pale, clean, cream-colored bar.
Silas crept closer, sniffing it. It smelled... wonderful. It smelled like civilization. "What... what is it, Master?"
Fyrion held up the single, perfect bar of crude soap. His bruised, swollen face split into a terrifying, triumphant grin.
"The South is obsessed with hygiene," Fyrion whispered, his voice rough with pain and victory. "They pay fortunes for perfumes and scented oils to cover their stink."
He placed the bar on the table.
"We will sell this to the capital. To the nobles. This how we make real profit now."