The creation of Varangian guard

He hurried to his manor and called old sentry.They started to form basic outlets of the plan.

To Ivars amazement old Bjorn had considerable amount of money stashed away.He had over 10000 golden dragons .This morning if Ivar knew this information he would not bother to go and take exam to be a mere scribe but now that is all in the past.He liked his new teacher "Halfdan" and wanted to learn about the runes.Old man was not stingy with his money and gave it all to Ivar.He did not like the drinking,the popular food dishes so he did not spend any of his paycheck.He as a sentry would gain 100 gold per month and old man only used his money to get some basic things done in the house manor .His total month spending was less than 10 gold dragons.

First thing they needed to do is to buy all the neighbor manors and to increase size of their own.Since the price of the manors in commoner area was a bit low they could do it for small amount of money.Ivar needed under one thousand gold to buy 10 manors that surrounded his house and he added one more thousand to the rearrangement and reconstruction of the new manor.For his plan he had over 8000 gold left. He planned to buy slaves for 5000 gold and the rest of the 3000 gold he would use to gather some cultivation resources ,to buy new pair of clothes for the children and get some food supplies for upcoming months .

Old sentry was in charge of manor buying .He would need to gather information about surrounding manors and than "press" them to sell.He would also need to pay some officials so information of the acquirement would go unnoticed in the eyes of the city office and great clans.

Then for the second step of the plan Ivar would need lot of muscle .So he planed to search for suitable children tomorrow after classes .He wanted to use manor building as cultivation training for the children and was really proud of that part of the plan.He also wanted to separate children in different grades strait away and give them some responsibilities ,So he would need to comb all the common area tomorrow for gifted orphans .

Third part of the plan was slave buying.He needed slaves with decent cultivation to guard the manor because old sentry would not be in the manor all the time.He also needed some slaves that had decent understanding of sword ,axes and warfare .Than for the final touch he needed some slaves with special arts like rune work,weapon forging and shadow mastery. Those slaves with insights would become teachers for the orphans and also would teach them how to write and read ,about cultivation and so on.

Since many people had different constitutions he had to find some qi circulation manuals that would benefit to all .That was the purpose of those last 3000 gold.1000 gold for the food and basic needs of the orphans and 2000 gold for the cultivation manuals and profound arts.

When the plan was finally formed Ivar sighted with relief."I will create my own force in Dagger tip"

Than he accompanied old sentry to the courtyard . Old sentry wanted to see him training and see his qi circulation art.

Ivar took out wooden sword and just attacked doll for two hours .He did not even move one inch away from his position and just struck the wooden doll at same target until he could not move again.Then he used qi circulation manual and regained some of his energy so he could repeat the process of striking again.

On the surface this was a wasted effort but old man Bjorn was astonished .With that dedication Ivar sword arts would break chrysalis and become butterfly soon.Also his foundation by that time would be perfect and spotless.Next part of the training left Bjorn more amazed.Ivar would use his sword to attack the doll as many times as he could over a period of 10 minutes .

"What a simple but effective way to train the way of the sword.Some would try to find profound arts and practice them strait away. Some would do little of basic sword training and their sword control would not be able to present the might of the weapon but young master seems to be the third kind . He seems to be one of the people that does not want to rush things and take them slowly" muttered old sentry with happy eyes .

After the whole training was over Ivar went to his room and drew runes.He did many of the water runes and he with some help of the old sentry even managed to do couple of air runes.Only fire runes escaped his grasp but since he just started he was really happy about the whole thing and after couple of hours went to sleep .Tomorrow would be a day of new beginnings.

Early in the morning he rushed to the temple.His teacher waited him and started the class as soon as he was present.One of the benefits of "personal scribe" title was that he was the only one .Also since Halfdan did not like any of other scribes he would explain rune works to Ivar and only to him for 3 hours.That was the real blessing here .Ivar would be privately tutored by one of the greatest rune masters in the city and with his Mead and his intelligence he would advance twice as fast with half effort.

After the runic class for the day was over Ivar rushed back to the commoner slums.With his eyes he searched for candidates!

At the start he noticed small group of children that were pick pocketing trough the streets . They targeted nobles from lower nobility and were quite decent with the art.One of the children would bow and distract the victim with random questions while other two or three would do the robbing.They even went for Ivar and robbed him because he allowed it .The whole company was led by 14 year old boy. He had black hair witch was rare in the northern empire and small scar across his right cheek.His rags were poor and had holes in them. He did not have any shoes and walked barefoot .On his small hands there were some residual signs of chains as he was probably chained long ago. In the group aside from boy were a fatty that would do the distracting and two girls that were twins because they had same face .After they finished with Ivar they went on and tried to rob another suspect. They found one or two victims and robbed them with lighting speed.

While they were doing this Ivar followed them from the distance .He wanted to know why did they need so much money !

Soon the group of young thieves found a new target.This was an old man with large belly and decent clothes. He had a hat on and large ring on his left hand that symbolized his noble origin.

The strange thing he was on foot and seemed like to be in deep thinking.This was something that looked like a blessing for the young group and went to approach him.

It looked like the perfect opportunity ! Another fat sheep would loose its wool but not all the things were as they seemed. The old man was a cultivator and one with decent cultivation.He enjoyed random walks trough the slums because he thought that is where life is! His noble family had a part in Market area of the second lvl and he was like every salesmen a bit cruel to the poor but the children did not know any of that. They circled around Fat man and tried to do the robbing.

When Ivar saw the situation he decided to act!If caught stealing the children would loose an arm, or worse they would be sold into the slavery by city office . So when one of the girls was close to touching the purse of fat man he screamed :"Thieves, those shits robbed me ! Get them for me "

Fat noble sobered up and quickly caught two girls.The fat boy tried to run away but when he turned was greeted by the guard of the commoners area .Only one that was left was young boy with dark hair.He tried to run pass Ivar but Ivar quickly used his leg to trample him .All 4 of the

little beggars from the group now were detained .

And since Ivar was the one that called for action he had the right to administer justice .This was one of the North laws. You can judge the people that tried to trick you ,rob you....

So the guardsmen asked ! " Young men what did they steal from you?"

Ivar responded :"They stole 50 golden dragons from me." the number of gold dragons that they stole was 5 but Ivar wanted to have young thieves into his custody.

Guard did not believe young man one bit so he continued with :" How can a poor young man like you have that much money!?"

Ivars expression darkened and said :" Who are you to judge how much money i can or cant have ! Well if you must know 50 golden dragons were given to me by Bjorn sentry commander .If you want to get further proofs I suggest you to get your superiors to call him"

Guard did not know what to do.They as city guards could not compare to sentries.Him and his superiors could not even come to sentry barracks of the third lvl.For matter to be worse he was just a regular guard not even a guard of the second and third lvl of the city.So when Ivar mentioned Bjorn he was scared for his life and tried to please the young man .There was a possibility that young man was lying but no man in his right mind would lie about his connection to the sentry.Sentries would kill people for less and those who dared to tarnish their honor would get their families killed , even clans . So in the end guard just asked politely :

"My liege your wish is my command, what will we do with the young bandits?

That was the thing that Ivar wanted and with angry voice responded :"Help me get them to my manor.They wanted to steal from me !!Now as punishment for stealing they would become my slaves ! "

Guard nodded and old fat man let those two girls go.He wanted to punish them earlier but young man took opportunity and took them as slaves. Old fatty did not want to stain his new toga with blood of the girls.He had right to cut hands of the thieves but he could not damage property owned by others so he just had given two girls to city officials and walked away from the scene.