Lord Lysander, Count of the Northern Reaches and Head Royal Steward of Solgrad, did not sleep for three days.
He had locked himself in his private study, a fortified room deep within the palace walls, far from the prying eyes of the High Council and the Royal Mages. The schematic the four-year-old Prince had given him was spread across his desk, weighted down not by paperweights, but by the sheer, terrifying gravity of its implications.
His King had given the authority, but it was Lysander who had to execute the impossible: commission a secret, next-generation Magitech diagnostic array, bypass the most powerful industrial guild on the continent, and do it all under the guise of a routine, albeit expensive, royal expenditure.
Lysander's fear was not of the cost. The Crown's contingency fund, fed by the vast wealth of the Human Kingdom, could absorb the expense. His fear was political and structural, rooted in the complex, democratic, and dangerously meritocratic nature of the Dwarven Kingdom of Gravehelm.
The Dwarves were not vassals; they were indispensable allies. Their society was a robust democracy built not on bloodlines, but on Engineering Guilds and Mining Clans. Status in Gravehelm was determined by one thing: Forge Rank, a quantifiable measure of one's skill, innovation, and the quality of alloys produced. This meritocracy made them reliable, but also incredibly stubborn.
The central Master Artificer Guild, led by the formidable Volund Aether-Hand, father of the promising young engineer Bronwyn, held a monopoly on all A-Rank sensitive components and Spacial Gate technology. To approach Volund directly, Lysander would need to submit the request to the entire Guild Council for review. This would inevitably lead to questions: Why did the Solaris line suddenly need a scanner that prioritized Spiritual Purity Metrics over Mana Rank?
This brought Lysander to the second, more terrifying problem: the Optimization Paradox. For decades, the Veridian Concord — Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Beastkin — had operated on a single strategic premise: the Demons' advantage was their Mana Multiplier, the factor that gave them mana capabilities far surpassing of the other races at the same-level. Therefore, all Dwarven scanners were optimized to measure one thing: Mana Rank/Volume. They were precision instruments designed to give generals a clean, quantifiable number for battle.
To achieve this "clean" data, the Dwarves had spent centuries developing filters to ignore chaotic background signals, dimensional echoes, and spiritual static. They dismissed these anomalies as "noise".
Now, a four-year-old prince, through what Lysander could only assume was a divine insight from his pure Light affinity, claimed that this "noise" was the threat. The prince was claiming that the entire technological foundation of the Veridian Concord's defense strategy was blind.
To approach Volund Aether-Hand with this schematic would be a political catastrophe. It was an accusation that their entire design philosophy was flawed, an insult that the meritocratic Dwarves would take as a declaration of no confidence. This would, as the prince correctly predicted, cause them to restrict the flow of Magitech components, fearing the humans were misusing their technology.
Secrecy was the only option. Lysander had to honour the prince's demand: the Ironhand Forge.
The Ironhand Forge was a small, independent, and notoriously eccentric clan operating on the fringes of Dwarven society. They were known for pursuing "novelty over mandated efficiency", often taking on impossible, non-standard projects that the main Guilds deemed too inefficient or unprofitable. They were brilliant, expensive, and, most importantly, discreet.
Lysander prepared the encoded missive, routing the massive payment through three separate, anonymized royal accounts. He used the prince's designed lie, the Spacial Gate Prototype cover story, as the official commission request.
It was the perfect deception. A Spacial Gate prototype would require Grade-Seven Tantalum Alloys for stability, and it would require A-Rank Purity Sensors to test dimensional stability.
The Ironhand Forge would see it as a fascinating, lucrative technical challenge, not a politically explosive indictment of Volund Aether-Hand's entire Guild system.
As he sealed the commission, Lysander felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. He was now the chief accomplice in a plot orchestrated by a child, a plot that bypassed the King's own council, and a plot that secretly admitted the Solaris Line was blind to a threat that could unravel the continent. His loyalty was now bound, inextricably, to the terrifying genius of Aureus Solaris.
…
While Lord Lysander navigated the political minefield of Dwarven contracts and secret logistics, Aureus began the second phase of his plan: forging his mind into a weapon as potent as his magic.
He was still only four, soon to be five, and his small body was not yet ready for the intensive physical strain required to truly master his [Sacred Aetheric Conduit]. The Regal Regeneration aspect of his Trait needed a robust, developed mana circuit to function optimally. Forcing it now would shatter his potential, a mistake the original Saint-Veridian Scion plot made clear many side-characters fell prey to.
His current training ground was not a hidden chamber, but the vast, ancient Royal Library of Lumina City.
He used his established "prodigy" status, now amplified by the King's awe, to make outrageous demands. Where other royal children were learning simple histories and arithmetic, Aureus demanded texts on advanced magical theory, geopolitical strategy, and ancient lore.
His tutors, under direct orders from the King to indulge the prince's genius, complied, though they were utterly bewildered.
Aureus sat at a massive oak table, his small feet dangling far above the floor, completely absorbed in a stack of scrolls. His focus was threefold.
First, he consumed everything related to the Elven Kingdom of Sylvanos. He needed to understand the mechanics of their power.
The Elves, governed by their Ancient Matriarchy/Eldership, were not just allies; they were the gatekeepers of the continent's most complex magical science: Runecrafting.
His meta-knowledge told him that Runecrafting was the art of inscribing complex, interconnected magical symbols (Runes) onto physical matter to create sustained, large-scale effects.
It was the Elves' longevity that allowed them to master the time-consuming scripts, and it was this art that stabilized the Aetheric Crystals he would later need to purify.
He devoured the theories, cross-referencing Elven rune sequences with Dwarven engineering principles, already formulating the purification ritual he would need in the future.
Second, he studied the threat: the Shadow Blight.
The public archives were predictably vague, referencing it only as the "Umbral Taint", a primordial, mythological Dark Element energy sealed beneath Veridia in a mythic age.
The official stance of the Veridian Concord (the formal alliance of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Beastkin) was that the Taint was a dead threat, a boogeyman from a forgotten era.
But, Aureus knew better.
The original novel's plot, The Saint-Veridian Scion, had revealed the truth in its later arcs: the Taint was real, and it was leaking.
It was a spiritual contagion that caused paranoia, madness, and the slow decay of a mage's Spirit/Will metric. It was the perfect invisible enemy, and the Optimization Paradox of the Dwarven scanners, which only read rank/volume, not purity, ensured the entire Concord was blind to it.
His [Sacred Aetheric Conduit] was the only thing that could sense it, and later, cleanse it.
Finally, he studied the Veridian Concord itself. He traced the lines of power, the treaties that bound the four races.
The Beastkin of 'The Jagged Alliance' are the Specialized Frontline. Their mastery of destructive, close-quarters elements, mainly Fire, Lightning, etc, makes them uniquely suited to be the "tip of the spear" and hold the chaotic, high-risk Aetheric Chasm.
The Humans of Solgrad are the Command and Strategic Reserve. They provide the military leadership, political structure, and the elite, versatile mages who act as strategic weapons against high-level threats.
The Dwarves of Gravehelm are the Engineers and Defensive Force. While they build the Magitech and weapons, their Earth or Metal mages are also vital combat engineers and fortification specialists who secure the defensive lines behind the Beastkin front.
Lastly, the Elves of Sylvanos are the Logistics and Support Core. Their Runecrafting stabilizes the Magitech, and their Wood or Plant magic is crucial for mass-scale healing and the resource cultivation that feeds and supplies the entire war effort.
Moreover, the texts described the chasm not as a simple sea, but as a vast, volatile magical frontier, a dimensional breach separating their continent of Veridia from the Demon Continent, making it an unnavigable, chaotic warzone. This chaotic energy was the source of the dimensional instability that Aureus knew was the true systemic threat, far more dangerous than the demons themselves.
But among all this, Aureus saw the fatal flaw: the Concord was not an alliance of equals; it was a chain of co-dependency. The Humans commanded, but the Beastkin fought, the Dwarves built, and the Elves supplied. If one link broke, if, for example, the Dwarves withheld components or the Elves stopped cultivating crystals due to a loss of faith in Human leadership, the entire defense against the Demon Continent would collapse.
This was the true political stakes. This was why Lord Lysander's secrecy was so vital.
For months, as the secret chamber was carved from the bedrock beneath the palace, Aureus trained his mind. He wasn't just reading; he was simulating.
He ran through scenarios, memorized economic charts, and cross-referenced Elven rune sequences with Dwarven alloy tolerances. By the time he turned five, his theoretical knowledge of the world's power systems likely surpassed that of his father.
Aureus Solaris, the "Show Stealer" was not just a prodigy of power; he was also a monster of intellect, and he was just getting started.