Nine kurals to build a fortress. One kural to demolish it. Valluvar spends nearly the entire chapter stacking stone upon stone — water, mountain, forest, height, breadth, strength, provisions, warriors, tactical geometry — constructing what sounds like an impenetrable monument to defensive engineering. Then, in the final couplet, he pulls the keystone. No matter how majestic the walls, if the people inside lack the skill to act, the fortress is nothing. The entire chapter is a trap: it lures the reader into believing that security is a problem of architecture, then reveals it was always a problem of character. This is Valluvar writing a military treatise that turns out to be a parable about human competence.