Chapter 111: Mana Construction

"No?" Evander echoed the reply and threw it back as a question.

Kai’s face stayed indifferent. He cut a solid piece of chicken, put it in his mouth, and chewed without hurry. The refusal had already been given once. Repeating the argument would only train Evander to treat it like something negotiable.

He swallowed and reached for the next cut.

Evander leaned in slightly, recovering faster than Kai would have preferred.

"Come on. Think about it. A marriage between us would benefit both our families."

The word families landed wrong.

Internally, Kai was thrown clean off the rhythm of the meal. Outwardly, he kept his composure intact and set the knife down with care, as if the plate still mattered more than the prince’s assumptions.

"I do not have a family."

Evander’s face drained.

"What?"

"You heard me. I do not have a family."

For a second the oversized dining chamber felt even larger around that fact. Evander stared at him colour drained from his face.

"What happened?"

"They died."

"All of them?"

Kai ate another portion before answering. He did not dramatize it. He did not soften it either.

"Yep."

The simplicity of the answer did more damage than a speech would have. Evander’s earlier confidence cracked around the edges, leaving behind a more human discomfort.

"Oh my goodness. I am so sorry."

Kai dropped the cutlery fully this time and rested his jaw against his hands, elbows on the table, eyes steady on the prince. If people insisted on talking alliance, then they could do it with the truth in the room.

"Now tell me, Your Highness. How would an alliance benefit the two of us?"

Evander opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed in visible defeat. The proposal language had nowhere left to stand.

"I am so sorry, Kai. I was inconsiderate."

"That is what I thought," Kai said, accepting the win without ceremony and drinking water to finish it off.

The water was cold enough to help. He held the glass a second longer than necessary and let the silence settle. For a short stretch, the chamber belonged to the sound of glass returning to the table and the quiet recalculation on Evander’s face.

Good, Kai thought. Let him sit with it.

Then an attendant entered and bowed.

"What is it, Anselm?" Evander asked, impatience cutting back into his voice as if a sacred rite had been interrupted.

"Sorry, my prince, but it is time for your checkup."

Kai’s attention shifted at once. The word checkup did not fit the earlier performance of health and appetite.

"Checkup? Are you ill?"

Evander smiled, and some of his ease returned at the sound of concern. That reaction alone told Kai the prince had heard the sympathy and valued it more than he should.

"No. It is protocol. My mana construction has to be monitored regularly if I want to become a competent ruler."

Kai frowned slightly.

"Mana construction?"

The System answered immediately.

[Answer.]

[Mana Construction refers to the internal architecture through which a person gathers, stabilizes, and releases mana.]

[It determines flow efficiency, elemental compatibility, and long-term magical growth.]

[There are three primary types.]

[Linear Construction: stable, efficient, and common among disciplined formal mages.]

[Adaptive Construction: flexible under pressure, able to shift output according to need.]

[Sovereign Construction: rare, high-ceiling architecture associated with exceptional future potential and unstable early readings.]

[Host note: construction type does not equal current strength. It indicates growth pattern.]

Kai absorbed every line. The terms were clean enough to matter. The shape of possible growth.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Oh?"

Evander watched his face and caught the interest at once. He looked almost relieved to have found a door that was not marriage.

"Are you interested? Do you want to have yours checked?"

The idea landed cleanly. Kai had unlocked mana and still had no precise map of what sat under it. Flight and sealed bloodline rewards were one thing. Formal reading was another. A real diagnostic could turn vague potential into direction.

He kept his voice even.

"Yes. Please."

Evander turned to the attendant with renewed energy.

"Bring in the physician."

Anselm bowed.

"Yes, Your Highness."

He left at once.

Evander looked back at Kai, clearly pleased with himself.

"You will like it. It reveals a lot."

Kai remained expectant and quiet, fingers loosely laced on the tablecloth. For the first time since entering the palace, the evening felt useful rather than purely political. If the reading was ordinary, he would leave with information. If it was not ordinary, he would leave with a reason to move.

That was already better than another proposal.

Before long, Anselm returned with an elderly man in formal robes and a physician’s hat. The man carried himself with the calm of someone who had handled noble bodies and noble egos for decades. His eyes moved carefully, and his hands looked steady in the way of practiced work rather than court performance.

"Good evening, Your Highness," he said, taking Evander’s hand in a brief handshake.

Evander gestured between them.

"Kai, this is Physician Halric Venn, royal diagnostician. Physician Venn, this is Kai Valerius."

Halric turned to Kai and looked at him with open professional curiosity. Not desire. Assessment. That alone made Kai more willing to tolerate the attention.

"You have quite a look on you."

"So I have been told."

Halric extended a hand. Kai took it.

On the handshake, the physician’s grip tightened unexpectedly, not in challenge, but in reaction. The change was immediate enough that Kai felt it travel up his wrist.

"Your mana... it is unique."

Kai blinked.

"Huh?"

Evander brightened at once, all residual awkwardness replaced by interest.

"Tell us. What do you feel?"

Halric released Kai’s hand slowly and glanced toward the empty stretch of the massive table. Most of that ridiculous surface had gone unused throughout the meal. Now the physician looked at it like a practical workspace.

"Can you come lie on that part of the table?"

The request was abrupt enough to make Kai skeptical. Stretching out on a royal dining table under a physician’s hands had not been anywhere on his expected itinerary. For a second he almost refused on principle alone.

The System moved before the refusal could harden.

[Recommended Action: Comply.]

[Probability of useful diagnostic data: high.]

[No immediate hostile intent detected from Physician Halric Venn.]

[Host should proceed.]

Kai exhaled once and nodded.

"Fine."

He rose, smoothed the front of his clothes out of habit, and walked toward the open section of the table. Evander caught his eye and gave an encouraging look that sat somewhere between support and open anticipation. Kai climbed on carefully and lay still, staring up at the high ceiling while feeling mildly absurd.

A crown prince, a royal physician, and me on a dining table, he thought. Perfect.

"Try not to enjoy this too much," he muttered.

Evander’s smile widened.

"No promises."

Halric stepped in and began the diagnosis. A red light orb formed above his palm, dense and controlled, then stretched into a hovering scarlet weave around his fingers. The glow was vivid enough to tint the nearby silverware as he moved it slowly over Kai’s still body, from chest to throat, then outward along the shoulders and back toward the center.

Minutes passed.

Kai remained quiet and tracked every shift in the light. The orb pulsed once, then again, then settled into a tighter rotation over his sternum. There was no pain. Only pressure, faint and searching, like something reading the grain of him from the inside.

Then the light faded.

Halric stopped and removed his glasses.

"This is phenomenal."

Evander leaned forward at once.

"What did you find?"

Halric looked from the prince to Kai with the expression of a man revising every ordinary expectation he had carried into the room. He cleaned the lens of his glasses with the edge of his sleeve, not because they needed it, but because his hands wanted an occupation while his mouth caught up to the result.

"It is spectacular. His mana construction is not linear in the common sense, and it is not merely adaptive either. The signature is layered, complex, and unusually coherent for someone with no formal magical schooling on record. The density pattern suggests a growth ceiling associated with future divine-class mages. If nurtured properly, he has the potential to stand among the strongest practitioners this kingdom has seen."

Kai turned his head slightly on the table.

"Divine-class?"

"In practical terms," Halric said, restoring the glasses to his face, "it means your architecture can support high-tier shaping, multi-element handling, and long-range development that ordinary constructions cannot sustain without collapse. Potential is not mastery. But your foundation is exceptional."

Kai sat up slowly.

The words settled in pieces. Layered signature. High ceiling. Divine-class potential. For months his route through this world had been reaction first and choice second. Survive the execution. Survive the forest. Survive Voltra. Survive men who wanted to bind him before he finished becoming himself. Now a royal physician was telling him the thing under his skin could become more than emergency power and sealed rewards.

Did he finally have a purpose in this godforsaken place? he thought.

If the reading was true, then strength was no longer only bloodline seals, borrowed skills, and system interventions. He could become a mage in his own right. Possibly one of the best in the game world. That possibility landed with a weight that was almost calming.

He faced Halric fully.

"How do I nurture it?"

Halric’s answer came without theatrics.

"By attending the Academy."

Kai’s eyes sharpened.

"The Academy?"

"Yes." Halric’s voice settled into the practiced clarity of a man repeating an institutional truth. "The Imperial Magic Academy is the formal training body for high-construction candidates, noble practitioners, and exceptional independents admitted by measured potential. There you would learn control, theory, elemental discipline, combat shaping, and long-term stabilization. Without structured instruction, a construction like yours can grow wild, leak, or attract the wrong kind of attention before you can use it properly. With instruction, it becomes a foundation instead of a hazard."

The chamber seemed quieter after that.

Evander watched Kai closely, quieter now, as if aware the center of the evening had moved away from proposals and onto something Kai actually valued. Kai let the explanation settle all the way through. Academy. Structure. Control. A place where potential became craft instead of spectacle.

He already knew he was going.

He also knew better than to hand that certainty over too quickly. In rooms like this, eagerness became a handle other people could grip.

So he gave the answer that protected his leverage while leaving the path open.

"I will think about it."

He had already accepted the logic. He only wanted to play difficult enough to keep the decision his.