The sky was bleeding light when I arrived at the Sealed Atelier.
An ancient vault beneath the palace—once a dragon roost, then converted by my father's great-grandfather into a failed golem foundry. Its defenses still pulsed with layered magic, a perfect place to hide what I was about to begin.
I touched the stone slab at the entrance.
[Authority Verified: Royal Signature + System Override]
[Welcome, Heir of Flameborn. Enter the Enginebirth Forge.]
The doors opened.
Inside lay raw emptiness. Crystalline dust, rusted anchors, and exposed mana conduits hummed with dormant power.
Perfect.
I summoned the Proto-Ship Core.
It hovered in my palm—half gleaming obsidian, half pulsing Earth tech etched with circuits. A contradiction. A promise.
[Item Activated: Starforge Seed Alpha]
[Initiating Design Interface…Select Configuration:]
Scout-Class Frigate
Planetfall Command Cruiser
Interdimensional Coreframe (WARNING: Requires Level 50)
Custom Prototype
I selected Custom Prototype.
The blueprint unfolded before me—holographic and arcane at once.
I began to design.
Not a ship, but a declaration.
Sleek like an elven blade. Plated with adamantite-steel composite.
Mana reactor embedded with stabilized dragon cores.
Ranged weaponry? Railgun arrays, augmented with void-crystals.
Close-range defense? Kinetic pulse emitters and mana blades.
I added aetheric wings—folding sails that would allow dimensional slipping once stabilized. And a cloaking system using shadow-veins harvested from abyssal beasts.
Ship Design Saved: CODE NAME – "Eclipse One"Required Materials Queued: 91 Items – Including: Etherglass, Ancient Coresteel, and Blood of an Aether Titan (???)
I smiled. Ambitious? Absolutely.
But I had a kingdom to conquer first.
Then the System flashed:
[Warning – Royal Network Breach Detected]Location: North Tower – Private Chambers of Queen Selyra (Your Mother)]
[Breach Vector: Royal Advisor Tharion – False Loyalty Detected]
I froze.
Tharion had served our family since before I was born. He taught me my first court etiquette lessons.
But the System didn't lie.
I activated a secondary subroutine of my personal interface—one even my family didn't know about:
[Quantum Observation – Threadlink Sight: Active]
The vision was… hard to describe.
It wasn't just sight. It was intent, layered with decisions not yet made, emotions unspoken, and mana trails so faint only the System could render them.
In my mind's eye, I saw it all:
Tharion—kneeling before a false altar, a spiral carved into his skin.
Speaking to someone unseen.
A voice crackled through the aether:
"Is the prince ready for the Feast of Wills?"
Tharion replied:
"He grows too quickly. We must act soon… or he will birth the Sky Engine."
I severed the vision.
There was no more doubt.
The Spiral had infiltrated the court.
They feared what I was building.
Good.
Let them.
Because I was done waiting.
Level Up!
Current Level: 20 → 23
Status Points Gained: +15
Unspent: 15 → Assigned: +5 Strength, +5 Mana, +5 Agility
I closed my fist and summoned my first tool of vengeance: a spear forged from sky-iron and encoded with my personal signature.
[New Weapon Created – "Spear of the Void Prince"]
[Effect: +50% attack speed in low gravity / Causes dimensional bleeding on contact]
My first kill was no longer a political eventuality.
It was an inevitability.