Sylveira watched as her Esteemed Highness pulled out a golden cube from his inventory. It looked small at first, no larger than his hand, but with a simple flick of his wrist, the cube expanded with an elegant hum, unfolding itself until it was the entire size of a table.
Vastarael took the ant-sized prototype and gently dropped it into the box. It didn't bounce off it. It phased through the surface like the cube had no solid form, and then, the cube lit up.
A spiral of radiant symbols spun across its surface in blue-gold streaks. A pulse echoed outward like a heart skipping a beat. Vastarael laughed. The crystalline walls of the room shook with the resonance of his joy.
"I did it! Six years, and all I needed… was a single damned epiphany!"
Sylveira blinked. She had never seen him like this... unrestrained.
He tapped the side of the golden cube with two fingers. There was a shimmer as the top face opened. Hundreds of thousands of sapphire nanoscales, each the size of an ant, flew out in a gentle torrent, whirling into formation. They floated around him in concentric rings, obeying no force but his will. Sylveira's lips parted slightly, her scholar's instincts screaming in disbelief.
"Esteemed Highness, what kind of replicating device is that?"
"It's called Fool's Copy. Got it from a lake goddess in Erna Isles. It replicates what you put in it, but only when the object fulfills its purpose. Otherwise, it refuses. It's picky."
Sylveira had no words.
The nanobots continued their orbit, the sapphire flickers catching the light and reflecting across the ceiling. He waved a hand and they reassembled into a perfectly aligned lattice above his palm.
"Observe, my dear mage student. All you need now is to speak the Rune."
"What rune?"
"The Adapt Rune. Speak it."
"But Esteemed Highness, that's not real. Adaptive Runes don't exist."
"Every word in the Xinoraci language can be a Rune. The world just doesn't know how yet."
Her breath hitched.
She looked up at the swarm, hesitated, then slowly said the impossible, the word her tongue struggled to even remember a second after she spoke it:
"Gelynvristraeka."
The moment the syllables left her mouth, half of the nanobots broke off formation and rushed toward her like a gentle wave. They didn't slam or swarm her. They folded around her arm in perfect synchronicity, forming a sapphire gauntlet that shimmered with layered runes embedded into the structure. It was exactly what she wanted them to do.
She stared at her hand. Then she punched the wall.
The crack wasn't just a line. A web of splinters tore up the entire side of the chamber, stone groaning under the force, yet not a single nanobot broke, chipped or faltered. Vastarael gave a satisfied sigh.
"They've all been embedded with Permanent Energy Runes we made five years ago, remember? They'll run infinitely and independent of your own energy source."
Sylveira looked down, still stunned.
"They also have Regenerative Runes. Even if you do destroy a few, they'll stitch themselves back together. And they have Shrinking Runes. They're still microscopic in their default form unless you call them."
She turned her eyes to the table where the larger prototype, the thumb-sized scale rested.
"And that one?"
"Same enchantments, but with Enlargement Runes for defense. They are for shields, barriers, or maybe even mobile armor units."
"This… this could change the way mages and knights fight forever…"
"We just solved the entire issue of combat versatility in Dynasty Richinaria. But remember, these nanobots only work because of Adapt. You can't use the Rune on anything else."
"Why? The resonance is flawless—"
"Because my innovations are singular. The Adapt Rune only functions with the nanobots because that's what it was born for. When I make something new, I make it focus on a singular activity, like my Control Circle. That agglomeration of Runes I built to connect my Tethers to Magecraft? It works for me because I built it for me. Not even my father can replicate it, even if he's an Eleventh Star Mage. So I'll call these Nanorunes."
She stared.
She had always known her monarch was brilliant, maybe even a genius. But this wasn't just brilliance. This was transcendence. He had woven science and mysticism together so naturally, it felt like they were never meant to be separate in the first place.
She bowed her head deeply.
"You truly are beyond even the scope of gods, Esteemed Highness."
That's when Vastarael finally said it almost like it didn't matter but it did. It mattered more than anything else he'd done in the last six years.
"I made them for my daughter."
Sylveira froze. The warmth of his words came like a strange breeze in this highly secure bunker, where the metallic scent of alloys and arcane circuits still lingered thick in the air. It took her a second to realize what he meant. He didn't need to explain which daughter. Everyone knew about Shimmer and Runner. The House Leaders knew he'd adopted them. It was no secret. What was a secret until now was that this project, this impossibly advanced, borderline divine swarm of rune-based nanobot scales, had been born out of love for his daughter.
Vastarael didn't meet her gaze. He looked at the golden cube instead, hands placed softly on the edges like he was holding a sleeping creature.
"Runner can't use weapons. It's her Bane. It activates the moment she intends to use something that is classified a weapon."
Sylveira listened, her eyes narrowing slightly as she felt the ache behind his voice. This wasn't just frustration. It was heartbreak. For six years, he must have been carrying this weight in silence.
"But, what if there's no weapon to wield? What if it's not a sword but thousands of microscopic scales? What if they don't count?"
He gestured toward the swirling halo of Nanorunes still orbiting him in perfect planetary formation.
"They don't form a weapon. They become action. They protect, attack, analyze, move, shift... everything, without being any singular thing. I ran every evaluation. Her Bane doesn't trigger when weapons move or have thousands of things shaped as one."
Sylveira's mouth fell open slightly. She couldn't even begin to fathom the emotional layers baked into this discovery.
"She's turning seventeen soon. This is what I'll give her. So, keep it secret."
He tapped the golden cube once again and it shrunk down into a small, palm-sized artifact. He extended it to her.
"Use this for now. Because you spoke the Adapt Rune, half a million out of the million Nanorunes I replicated are bound to you. They'll only respond to you. That can't be undone."
Sylveira took the cube with a reverence she hadn't shown to anything in her life. Not even the ceremonial mage robe she once wore in her inauguration as the Levenees Matriarch felt this significant in her hand. Vastarael continued, standing with a stretch as the last ring of Nanorunes around him were summoned onto a bracelet. He gave her another bracelet.
"Replicate this bracelet to act as the storage of the Nanorunes. And I'll need five million Nanorunes for Shimmer. Handpicked by you of course. You can also make for all the mages here."
Sylveira nodded with a sharp inhale.
"I can get that done by tomorrow morning. It's still early. I'll wake the department heads myself."
He gave a satisfied nod, already turning.
"You'll be handling distribution. Create numbered boxes, one per person. Embed a Memory Rune that's set to trigger subconsciously when they make contact with the Nanorunes inside. It will make them say the Adapt Rune without even knowing it which will activate them."
Sylveira's eyes lit up. "And then the Memory Rune activates again but this time erasing the memory of the Rune they just said."
"Exactly. No one learns the Adapt Rune consciously. No one can replicate it. Only the Nanorunes will ever respond to them. It's security absolute that I set. You know why I chose you for this project? Because even if I disappear for a while you'll treat it right. You understand what I'm doing."
She didn't answer.
The Teleportation Mystic Circle beneath his feet lit up, which was a grand symbol his father had invented decades ago. As the energy surged upward around him, Sylveira spoke one final truth.
"You're not a genius, Esteemed Highness. You're what geniuses study. What they dream of becoming. What they fail to explain. I am glad to be your student, Esteemed Highness."
He chuckled as his figure began to vanish.
"Don't overdo the flattery, or I'll start expecting poetry next time."
He vanished.
Sylveira sighed, staring at the golden cube in her hands. She had just seen a father who rewrote the limits of Rune Theory not for power but so his daughter could live without fear.