The morning light in the Bronze Wing wasn't provided by the sun, but by flickering, industrial-grade fluorescent tubes that buzzed with a headache-inducing frequency. Ken woke up exactly five minutes before the scheduled wake-up chime, his mind instantly snapping from total stillness to a high-alert state. He spent three minutes lying motionless, performing a internal diagnostic of his Null-core.
The vacuum was stable, hidden behind the triple-layer encryption he had spent years perfecting. To any sensor in the building, he was just a low-energy biological signature—a 0.8 fluke.
He dressed in the standard brown-trimmed Bronze Wing uniform, which felt coarse and smelled faintly of chemical detergent. He didn't have his royal coat anymore; Mike and his lackeys had seen to that. But as Ken looked at himself in the cracked mirror above the sink, he saw exactly what he needed the world to see: a pale, tired boy who looked like he had given up before the race even started.
"Time for the performance," Ken muttered, slouching his shoulders and letting his gaze go dull.
The walk to the lecture halls was a grueling climb through the vertical shafts of the Academy. While the Gold Wing students traveled in glass-walled gravity lifts, the Bronze Wingers took the service stairs—a zig-zagging iron nightmare that climbed hundreds of flights. By the time Ken reached Lecture Hall C-4, he was sweating and panting, playing up the "physically frail" angle to perfection.
The hall was a steep amphitheater filled with hundreds of students. At the very front, the air was shimmering with the refined mana of the elite. Dorian was there, surrounded by a group of admirers, his golden aura practically humming with smugness. Isabella Thorne sat several rows back, her nose buried in a high-density mana-theory ledger.
Ken slunk toward the very back row, the "nosebleed" section where the acoustics were terrible and the holographic displays were glitchy. He dropped into a seat and immediately rested his head on his arms, closing his eyes. To any observer, the 0.8 Prince was already napping through his first day.
"Welcome to Mana-Dynamics 101," a voice boomed, cutting through the chatter.
Professor Vane was a man who looked like he was made of dry parchment and spite. He stood at the lectern, his eyes scanning the room with clinical disappointment. "Most of you are here because you have a spark. My job is to see if that spark is worth the oxygen you're consuming. Today, we discuss the Law of Resonance."
Vane tapped the lectern, and a massive holographic projection of a mana-circuit filled the room. "Mana is not just energy; it is a language. If your internal frequency does not match the external grid, you are useless. You are a noise in a symphony."
Vane's eyes locked onto the back row. "Vaelstron! Since you've decided that my lecture is the perfect place for a siesta, perhaps you can tell us the resonance constant for a Tier-1 shielding spell."
The room went silent. Dorian let out a loud, mocking snort. Isabella looked back, her brow furrowed in pity.
Ken slowly lifted his head, blinking as if he had no idea where he was. He rubbed his eyes and let out a long, confused "Uh..."
"The constant, Vaelstron," Vane pressed, his voice dripping with condescension. "Or is the math too heavy for a 0.8?"
Ken looked at the holographic circuit. With the Eye of Truth deactivated, he was just looking at a complex mesh of lines. But he didn't need the Eye to know the answer. He had memorized the Dominion's entire theoretical library by the age of twelve.
The answer is 1.618, Ken thought. The Golden Ratio of the grid.
"Is it... four?" Ken asked, his voice cracking slightly. "I think I saw a four in the textbook. Or maybe it was a three."
The hall erupted in laughter. Professor Vane sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "It is 1.618, you dim-witted boy. The very foundation of royal shielding. It seems the rumors were true; the Vaelstron line has produced a total void."
"Sorry, Professor," Ken mumbles, dropping his head back onto his arms. "I'll try to... stay awake."
Inside, Ken was smiling. He wasn't sleeping; he was listening to the sound of the mana in the room. Every time Vane manipulated the holographic display, he sent a pulse of energy through the hall. Ken was recording the frequency, the modulation, and the security handshake of the Professor's personal override key.
By the time the lecture ended, Ken had the master key to the C-Wing security grid stored in his mind.
As the students began to filter out, Isabella Thorne blocked Ken's path. She looked at him, her blue eyes searching his face for any sign of the boy she remembered—the one who had once looked at the stars with a strange, fierce intensity.
"You're not this stupid, Ken," she said softly, so the others wouldn't hear. "I saw you in the testing hall. You didn't even try. Why are you doing this? Why are you letting them treat you like a joke?"
Ken looked at her, his expression a masterpiece of vacant confusion. "It's not an act, Isabella. The math is really hard. And the stairs... there are so many stairs."
He pushed past her, shuffling toward the exit. Isabella stood there, her fists clenched at her sides. She didn't believe him, but she couldn't prove he was lying.
Ken didn't stop until he was back in the shadows of the maintenance corridor. He checked his wrist-com. A new message from Selene was waiting, encrypted in the secondary layer of his student profile.
SELENE: The Architect has arrived on campus. He isn't here for the curriculum. He's checking the Atmos-12 logs for 'anomalous silence.' You need to move the first relic tonight.
Ken's eyes sharpened. The "Lazy Prince" vanished, replaced by the cold, lethal gaze of the Phantom. The Architect was the Dominion's greatest tracker—a man who hunted shadows.
"If he wants an anomaly," Ken whispered, his right eye beginning to glow with silver rings, "I'll give him a ghost he can't catch."
End of Chapter 4.