The door slid open with a whisper of vapor. Sylveira Levenees finally entered her research chamber, still a little breathless from the jog she had no intention of doing that morning. Her sweat had long dried—vanished, rather, thanks to a swift sanitation incantation—but her muscles still tingled from Vastarael's relentless energy.
And speaking of the Monarch…
Vastarael Richinaria was floating in the center of the chamber thanks to his Flight Mystic Circles. Hundreds of Xinoraci runes rotated around him. The glow from the runes cast patterns along the ceiling, the floor humming in sync with his focus.
It was mesmerizing.
Sylveira froze at the threshold, instinctively straightening her back. But even with all her dignity and prestige, she still felt like a student standing in a master's sanctum. She always respected the Dynasty Monarch. That was non-negotiable. But every time she saw him at work, her awe deepened. They were the same age but he carried something rare, something she hadn't seen in a long time.
Futurism.
And still, he hadn't shown the world his full mage form. When he fought, he did it with his sapphire glaive and Plenituse martial mastery, never bothering to unfold his true mage potential. But she could tell how extremely strong as a mage. The Xinoraci Runes obeyed him like servants. There was not a single error or a single instability.
She cleared her throat, stepping forward.
"You're already up before me and training mages before dawn, Esteemed Highness. Don't tell me you're pulling an all-nighter in here too."
The reason why she wasn't as polite as she would be in front of a Dynasty Monarch is because he didn't like formal conversation unless when it came to official matters. It took her a few years to adjust to the casualness of his tone.
"Sleep is for people who aren't six years behind their deadline."
Sylveira rolled her eyes and walked past the floating tomes and hovering instruments to the table where two artifacts sat. One was the size of a thumb. The other was the size of an ant.
They were two crystal shapes with a diamond frame and sapphire density. Each was etched with impossibly small arrays of mystic programming, almost microscopic. This was their six-year project, the bridge between the physical and the theoretical. Nanobots.
He had named them that. She thought it sounded... foreign. Which it was. She thought it was one of his "inspired insights" when he was in Erna Isles. Her eyes flicked to.the ant-sized prototype.
"Esteemed Highness, remind me again why we've spent six years working on two of these?"
Vastarael didn't even flinch. "Because if we didn't, we'd have twenty billion useless ones later."
"And yet you said you could multiply them just fine."
"Oh, I can. I just haven't told you how."
"Replication Runes don't scale on objects smaller than a pinhead."
"I'm not using Replication Runes."
"Then what?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, his hand reached into the air and pulled three runes from the rotating swarm around him. The swirling Xinoraci symbols snapped into a triangular position midair and his eyes shimmered with golden light. Sylveira knew that look. He had an epiphany. She stepped closer as he dropped from mid-air and walked to the table. His fingers tapped the surface absently.
"Sylveira, walk with me here. What's been the main issue with this project?"
Sylveira stared at the nanobot.
"Resonance, Esteemed Highness."
"Between?"
She gave a small scoff.
"Between the Spheraphasian mind and the nanobot's structure. Even the best energy pathways don't 'think' like a Spheraphasian. And we can't change how people think just to use two ant-sized miracles."
"Then we change the miracle."
Sylveira looked at him sideways.
"Esteemed Highness?"
He looked up his eyes wide now.
"Adaptive Resonance Theory."
"What?"
"One of Earth's theories. Psychology meets neural computing. It's about how the brain adjusts to new patterns by reinforcing what's similar and rejecting what isn't. What if the nanobots could do that? Adapt to us?"
Sylveira scoffed lightly, half-wowed, half-skeptical.
"They'd need to… what, learn how to sync with Spheraphasian minds? Even divine minds? That's madness, Esteemed Highness."
"Or genius."
He flicked his wrist. Dozens of runes realigned instantly. He whispered something and five core Xinoraci Runes appeared in his palm. His eyes gleamed as he placed the words gently on the workspace.
"Adapt. That's the word."
Sylveira leaned forward. Her scholar instincts took over.
"That word doesn't have a rune."
"It can. Every word in Xinoraci can. My father taught me this as my first mage lesson. Xinoraci is infinite because it was created as a reflection of the primal forces. If a word exists, Xinoraci can make it real."
"Yes, but creating a new Rune—"
"Is just acknowledging a new truth."
He pressed his palm on the table. The rune of Adapt glowed faintly. It then pulsed and responded. It pulled nearby Resonance Runes toward it.
"That's… not possible."
"It is if the rune wants to exist."
He turned to her. Sylveira swallowed a little, then quickly turned back to the table.
"You realize what this means, Esteemed Highness?"
"Yes. This isn't just replication. This is evolution."
The Adaptive Rune, if stable, would allow the nanobots to gradually learn the emotional-mystical wavelength of the user. Combat instinct? It would match. Mage casting rhythm? It would sync. Divine impulse? It would adjust. And suddenly, it didn't matter if they had one nanobot or ten trillion. What mattered was functionality. Scalability. Conscious alignment.
Sylveira sat down slowly.
"Esteemed Highness… this would change everything."
"I know."
They both sat in a stunned silence. Then Sylveira slowly looked up. Her voice cracked slightly from disbelief.
"Did you just… create Adaptive Nanorunes?"
Vastarael smiled. "Almost. We still need to test."
"Test what? They barely exist—"
He tapped the prototype nanobot with a spark of Divine Energy. Instantly, the new Adapt rune flared and a web of runic energy crawled along its surface. Sylveira watched as it began to shimmer differently, almost like it was breathing. It responded to her. It tilted slightly toward her hand.
"It's… aware."
This was the beginning of a world that didn't distinguish between mysticism and machinery. And Sylveira Levenees, House Matriarch, Grandmaster Archmagus, knew one thing for sure.
She wasn't the best mage on the continent. He was. And he was just getting started.