As Marwyn's words fell, the room sank into silence.
Kal held his wine cup and said nothing, simply watching Marwyn.
Marwyn, for his part, appeared very patient, waiting quietly.
No one knew how much time passed before Kal finally reached out, set the wine cup down, brought his hands together before him, and slowly spoke, "What is it you want?"
"Or, to be precise, what do you want me to do for you?"
At long last, Kal had taken the initiative to break the silence. Yet in the face of the question, Marwyn shook his head.
"I have never had any such intentions. I am quite satisfied with my current life, Your Grace."
Faced with temptation that was all but within reach, Marwyn remained calm, as though this were truly so.
Kal, however, laughed, tilting his head slightly to one side.
"The more a person understands this world, the smaller he feels himself to be."
"Maester Marwyn, what sort of existence do you think you are in this world between heaven and earth?"
Without the slightest warning, Kal smoothly shifted the topic.
Marwyn was taken aback, his eyes widening involuntarily.
"The more a person understands this world, the smaller he feels himself to be…" Marwyn murmured, repeating Kal's words once more.
Then he recalled another sentence Kal had spoken earlier that day, at the gate of the Citadel.
"Knowledge is power…"
As though he had understood something at last, the calm smile on Marwyn's face turned bitter.
He looked toward the young king before him.
"If one follows Your Grace's reasoning, then perhaps I am not even as much as a grain of dust in this world… no, not even that. I am nothing more than a fragile cinder, one that could be crushed by a single breath…"
Kal smiled with satisfaction. "You see? Haven't you arrived at a very clear understanding now?"
Marwyn let out another bitter smile.
Then he drew a deep breath, rose to his feet, knelt with one hand pressed to his chest, and bowed deeply toward Kal.
"May Your Grace show mercy to this pitiful mortal."
Marwyn's tone was devout, as though he were praying to a god.
In the very next moment, a gilded longsword suddenly appeared upon his shoulder.
Marwyn froze slightly, then instinctively raised his head to look.
He saw that at some point, Kal—who moments ago had clearly been empty-handed—now held a longsword, resting it upon his shoulder.
Yet he could be absolutely certain that just moments earlier, Kal had carried no weapon at all, nor had there been any within the room where they stood.
The learned scholar's pupils shrank at once.
Kal, however, remained seated on the sofa, holding the sword in one hand, its point touching Marwyn's shoulder.
"In my name, I answer your prayer, Marwyn."
When the king finished speaking, in the very next moment Marwyn understood where the longsword in the king's hand had come from.
For in the instant he blinked, the longsword that had been resting on his shoulder vanished, replaced instead by a green glass wine bottle.
As though everything that had just occurred had been nothing more than an illusion.
"This is a moment worth celebrating, Maester Marwyn. I am willing to share with you a fine wine brewed by the elves."
As Kal spoke, he pulled the cork from the bottle and took a wine cup, filling it for Marwyn.
A strange fragrance rushed forth, mingled with an unfamiliar fruity aroma that spread through the room. Marwyn instinctively drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent.
His knowledge was vast, yet he had never encountered such a bouquet before, and moreover—
"Elves? What are elves? Are they a kind of creature?"
In an instant, Marwyn seized upon the key word in Kal's words. His emotions stirred, and he hurriedly asked.
Kal was very satisfied with his reaction and pushed the already filled wine cup across the table toward him.
"By your understanding and perception, they are indeed a race, roughly similar to the children of the forest."
"But unlike the children of the forest, they are more beautiful, more powerful, and more wise."
"They possess a civilization of their own."
"And if you like it, the remaining wine is yours."
Marwyn stood there dazed, absorbing the meaning within Kal's words. He subconsciously accepted the wine cup and the bottle before him, which gleamed like green crystal, the blood-red liquid within sloshing gently.
"You just said 'they', and you also mentioned a civilization… yet I have never heard of such a race."
"It is merely because those connected to me all happen to be female. As for why you have never heard of them, the reason is simple—they do not belong to this world."
In response to Marwyn's questions, one after another, Kal could be said to answer every single one.
He continuously used the unknown to entice the man before him, guiding him step by step.
With a gulp, Marwyn swallowed once again, his saliva sliding down his parched throat. Yet it did nothing to ease the heat within him, so he lifted the wine cup on the table and drained it in one go.
The strange wine aroma instantly flooded Marwyn's taste buds, once more confirming to him that he had never tasted such wine before.
Whether in color, fragrance, or flavor, it was beautiful, like a work of art.
Added to that were the miracles that had vanished and reappeared before his very eyes, as though by magic.
"If I could witness everything you speak of, I would be willing to offer my life for it."
Marwyn's expression was solemn to the extreme, as though he were proclaiming the declaration of his life, the ideal of his existence.
"You can."
Kal gave his first promise to Marwyn.
Then his smile deepened as well.
"Then let us talk about my views on the Citadel…"
…
Kal remained in Oldtown for nearly two months in total.
Every day he spent there felt incomparably real.
It was also here that his understanding of this world deepened once more. It was no longer like the superficial flourishing civilization he had seen upon first arriving in this world.
Nor was it merely the hazy impression of this world that he had known in his previous life, seen only through books and moving images.
At the same time, during the period he spent at the Citadel, a small group—so insignificant as to attract no attention at all—was quietly developing beneath the surface of the Citadel.
Though its members were few, it had already acquired a pleasing name—the Conclave of True Knowledge.
As for Kal himself, he continued to wander within the world of understanding, until a letter from Highgarden roused him.
Setting aside a book in his hands concerning "magic," Kal accepted the letter.
Within it, Jon expressed his apologies for having taken so long to digest the gains presently obtained at Highgarden, and reminded the king that they had already completed their preparations for war once again.
After setting the letter down, Kal pulled his thoughts back from the unfamiliar world he had just been exploring and returned to reality.
His fingers lightly tapped the letter paper resting upon the desk as Kal pondered in silence.
After a while, Kal finally turned his head to look at a young maester standing beside him. He was also a member of the Conclave of True Knowledge, and like Marwyn, his "bloodline" caused him to be distrusted.
"Maester Shitelaude, please convey my words to House Hightower. I intend to depart tomorrow, and I hope they have already completed all necessary preparations."
"Yes, Your Grace!"
The maester named Shitelaude lifted his head to look at the king before him with reverence, then lowered it in a formal bow, allowing the room the Citadel had specially reserved for the king to return to silence.
Kal's time in Oldtown, of course, was not spent in vain.
After all, his ostensible purpose in coming here was to bring House Hightower to submission.
So no matter what, he had to act in a manner befitting what he ought to be doing at present.
And the deed most fitting of Kal's current status was nothing more than defeating his uncle—who still had not chosen to submit—and truly seating himself upon his own throne.
Therefore, during this period, Kal naturally needed House Hightower, which had already sworn loyalty to him, to commit troops and resources, to answer his call, and to devote themselves to their king.
It had to be said that the strength of House Hightower somewhat exceeded Kal's expectations.
Though nominally one of House Tyrell's most powerful and wealthiest banner houses, in reality House Hightower was simply the strongest house in the entire South.
Even the combined strength of the vassal houses that House Tyrell had rallied around itself in the Battle of Highgarden was of roughly the same magnitude.
They were one of the most deeply rooted houses in the Reach, bound by marriage ties to Houses Florent, Tyrell, Rowan, Redwyne, and others.
They had even intermarried with House Targaryen more than a century ago, and among their ancestral heirlooms was a Valyrian steel longsword known as Vigilance.
Moreover, as one of the oldest and proudest great noble houses in Westeros, House Hightower's bloodline can be traced all the way back to the First Men.
In the Dawn Age, they once styled themselves as kings, ruling Oldtown and the surrounding regions.
When the Andals invaded, they aided them from the side rather than resisting. Later, they submitted to successive Kings of the Reach, relinquishing their crown in exchange for retaining their ancient privileges and status.
Although the lords of the Hightower were powerful and exceedingly wealthy, they consistently favored trade and disliked warfare, and thus rarely involved themselves in Westeros's internal wars.
House Hightower financed the construction of the Citadel and has protected it ever since.
The Starry Sept within the city, before being supplanted by the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, was in truth the chief cathedral of the Faith of the Seven and the seat of the High Septon.
Shrewd and calculating, they have always been the greatest patrons behind both the maesters and the Faith.
It could be said that from ancient times to the present, House Hightower has never ceased to be one of the principal actors upon this continent—only that they have always kept a low profile.
Yet this does not negate the fact that House Hightower is, by right of destiny and blood, the true lord of this land—the King of the High Tower.
After briefly packing his belongings, Kal stepped out of the study.
At the very moment he left the room, a glass candle made of obsidian within it was extinguished.
It was one of the four glass candles that had been brought from Valyria to the Citadel before the Doom of Valyria ever fell.
Of these four glass candles, one was green and three were black. All were tall and twisted in form. The one Kal had taken with him under the pretext of curiosity was one of the black candles.
After closing the door, Kal lit the glass candle with magical power.
What he had not expected, however, was that the light emitted by the glass candle was an unsettlingly bright radiance.
It also caused the surrounding colors to undergo strange transformations.
White became brilliant like falling snow; yellow gleamed like pure gold; red turned into flame; while black grew so deep and heavy that it resembled a bottomless void suspended in midair.
"Four elemental attributes… as for black, it seems capable of absorbing light, creating a field similar to an anti-magic zone… though it appears not to be limited to that alone?"
Kal gained little from his study of the glass candle.
Moreover, due to the unknown nature of it and the constraints of time, he was unable to continue his research in greater depth.
As for what he had learned from books, it was said that the sorcerers of the ancient Freehold would use such glass candles to extend their sight across mountains, seas, and deserts.
By sitting before such a candle, they could also enter the dreams of others to display visions, or even exchange information across half the world.
Yet Kal was unable to replicate a single one of these feats. He had no idea how those sorcerers wielded this power.
For it was fundamentally different from the magic he had learned in the game world.
As for that final ability—communicating across half the world—Kal had, in his own way, managed to approximate it.
After experimentation with Robert, he had unexpectedly formed a kind of mental link.
Of course, this was not achieved through the power of the glass candle, nor could Kal establish such resonance with anyone else.
Kal roughly speculated that this was because Robert possessed the same magical factor within his body as he did. After all, the reason Robert could be revived at all was entirely because, back when Kal was in the game world, he had stewed the dragon egg in an iron pot atop a volcano.
Kal still did not understand whether Robert's revival had ultimately been due to magic, temperature, or simply the iron pot.
For Kal no longer had a second dragon egg available for further experimentation.
Yet deep down, Kal actually harbored another hypothesis.
That hypothesis was the volcano.
In the world of Game of Thrones, dragons have always shared an indescribable connection with volcanoes. Compared to their direct correlation with the density of magical tides, this connection was far more subtle.
Moreover, dragons in this world—aside from being magical creatures—are composed of materials that are, in one way or another, all linked to volcanoes.
After a dragon egg dies, it turns to stone.
The bones of a dead dragon turn black like onyx, and their teeth resemble curved blades forged from black diamonds.
This is because dragon bones contain an extremely high concentration of iron, which gives them their black coloration, and for this very reason, dragon bone is also a highly sought-after crafting material.
Because it can be shaped.
Dragons also emit heat, something especially noticeable on cold nights, as though their entire bodies were giving off steam.
Their scales can, to a certain extent, resist the effects of fire, and even the blood that flows from them is scorching hot, like molten steel.
Because it is said that a dragon's flesh and blood are, in essence, composed of fire itself.
It was precisely for this reason that, during his later review, Kal came to realize that Robert's true awakening—aside from being immersed in a magical potion that placed it in an environment extremely rich in magic—was otherwise entirely due to the volcano.
After all, before the game version update, there had been no volcano.
He had also never once thought of bringing a dragon egg to a volcano in the real world.
Had it not been for the appearance of a new map after the game update, and for Artessa—who, due to her pregnancy, needed to incubate dragon eggs—unintentionally bringing her own stone dragon egg there as well, Kal might still be holding onto a lump of stone right now, wondering why his dragon had failed to hatch.
Thus, as Kal walked out of the Citadel, thinking over these matters, he simultaneously established a mental link with Robert and informed it about their departure the next day.
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