The king pondered why his third son had asked for such a request as he saw the dishes extravagantly being spread over the long, elliptical table. All of his family members had assembled here today. All nine of his children, all six of his currently alive wives, including Ivor himself.

The king just couldn’t figure it out. Was the boy perhaps going to make some dramatic declaration during the lunch? Point fingers at one of the two princes who had crippled him and say, ‘You were the one who sent the mage to torture me!’

He could have stopped it if he wanted to, refuse the third prince’s request, but… The king wanted to see it, to see what happened.

He felt it was going to be entertaining.

And entertainment was something he never refused.

The king took in the faces of all the members present. All of them, even his wives, looked uncharacteristically nervous as they peeked at Ivor. The king wondered why. Perhaps they were afraid of what ruckus or mess Ivor was going to create? There was no other reason to assemble for a family lunch, after all. Not after all these years.

Once the maids fully laid the dishes, Ivor turned to look at the maids.

“Leave,” he ordered.

The maids looked at each other and then the king, who nodded. So they did. Ivor got up and approached the doors, before… locking them with the metal plank lock only used for emergencies or when matters of absolute secrecy were being discussed.

Now, the king was truly curious about what Ivor was going to say.

Without even sitting back down at the dining table, the third prince turned back to look at the king with a smile, and said, “Father, I found myself with a peculiar ability after waking up.”

“Oh?” the king questioned. “What ability?” Perhaps the third prince had found himself being able to use a different kind of mana with his new circuits. Oh-ho, perhaps even light mana. Now, wouldn’t that be interesting? It would give him a better claim to the throne than he currently had, since the third prince would then gain the support of the church of the Inheritor of Light.

Now, that’d be very, very interesting.

The prince approached the table and grabbed onto one of the knives, stabbed himself with it in his right arm, and placed the bloodstained knife on the table gently. Then he spread his left palm over the injured area and spread mana over his injury.

And the injury vanished.

Like it’d never existed at all.

The king paused. Remarkably powerful mana. That was definitely not the mana of a beginner light mana. It was probably level three minimum.

Suddenly, almost instinctively, the king felt that there was something wrong with the whole situation. The locked door felt wrong, and the gathering felt wrong, and most of all, his son’s expression seemed wrong.

The third prince then flicked his hand once more, and the chandeliers began burning with black flames. Balls of flames popped up all around them, and the king recognized this spell quite well. It was something only level seven black mages could use. At least, on this scale.

The king stared at his son with a steely expression. “Level seven, hm? How very interesting.”

At his words, all the spectators—his children and wives—paled, looking at the third prince with wide eyes.

“Isn’t it?” Ivor asked playfully and grabbed an apple from the table, biting into it. “I find it immensely interesting too.”

However, it took a second before the king joined both the displays together and connected the threads. That was how distracted he had been by the level seven display of magic… He’d completely forgotten about the previous display of light magic. “Wait… You’re… dual attributed?”

“Indeed!” Ivor declared, like he was a teacher whose student got an answer right. “You finally figured it out, dad!”

The king stood up, using mana to push his chair far away. 

“...what do you intend to do, Ivor?” he asked, looking at his son with a cold, calculating gaze.

“Why do you think I intend to do something? Couldn’t I just be displaying my abilities?”

He got no answer from the king, instead the first prince opened his mouth to reply, “In a locked—”

The first prince’s tongue flew out of his mouth, severed completely. The king turned to Aran, his eyes wide, and watched as blood leaked out of his mouth like it was a broken faucet, watched the first prince’s desperate attempts at stopping the blood as he covered his mouth. Yet it still leaked out of his hands, dribbling down.

The king raged.

But Ivor seemed to be done playing, for he didn’t even give the king the time to say anything or respond with his mana. Instead, Ivor swished his hand, and blades of mana found their way to the members present. Even as the king tried to dispel the blades with his mana, he failed.

Why was his son stronger than him?!

All of his wives and sons were beheaded.

Their bodies collapsed to the ground at almost the same time, and the king’s mind went blank. He turned to Ivor, only to see that Ivor was… smiling.

“So you… planned to kill us all. That was why you called for lunch,” the king muttered, a barrage of emotions flowing through his heart.

Ivor shrugged. “I wanted to convince you, but you hardly responded positively to my revelations.”

The king felt a tear dripping down his right eye as he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Why…? Why? We—I… treated you well. Except for your first two brothers, the rest of them did nothing. Nothing.”

“What did you do when my mother was poisoned?” Ivor questioned, and the king couldn’t answer.

And then, Ivor leapt at him, both his hands flaring with mana, and the king let loose with his own mana.

—

Winston looked at the sight in front of him and shivered, his eyes wide.

Half the castle had been blown apart. The rest of it was barely standing. And the center of all the chaos, the mana, the explosions, the fallout of a fight between two powerhouses, two level seven mages, was the dining room—the dining room which Winston was currently staring at.

There sat Ivor.

King Ivor, the young boy he once knew, the young boy he thought was kind, a young boy sitting on the floor, one of his legs on his father’s charred corpse. The new king had seemingly not found it within him to give his father even the basic respect—the respect given to enemies, to not descerate their corpses.

Around him lay destruction, chaos, the dining room a black, ashy mess, barely recognizable.

The new king himself was barely recognizable too. He had ash smeared on his face, over his clothes, and his once blonde hair now looked fully black, but yet, none of that caught Winston’s attention.

What instead caught Winston’s attention and focus was a very simple thing.

The new king’s crazed, endless smile. And the fact that, as soon as he saw Winston, he began… laughing.

On.

And on.

And on.

Ivor laughed… welcoming a new era for his kingdom.

—

Only after he had a long, long bath and changed clothes did Ivor meet Violet. She seemed shaken by his actions, but also seemed to understand. She gently hugged him, and they sat there in one of the few bedrooms mostly unharmed from the chaos, leaning onto each other.

“Could you truly have not spared any of them?” Violet asked gently, and Ivor shook his head.

“You know how it goes in the royal family, V,” he gently explained to her. “Which king has ascended without bloodshed? Both of my brothers would have killed me if they ascended to the throne, too.”

“I mean your other siblings, Ivor. The younger ones.”

Ivor sighed. “No. They could become threats, liabilities. They would have the right to the throne, and they might cause a revolution. If not now, then later.”

Violet nodded, looking at the floor. “I guess so.”

“Can you spread the rumors, V? Disguise yourself, feed information to the information guilds. The chaos was a battle between the past king and his son, and his son won. The new king is the third prince, the kind one, and he is a dual attributed mage in the seventh realm.”

She nodded.

—

Ivor looked at the saint with a gentle smile. The saint had, surprisingly, been one of the first people to visit him, just a few hours after the chaos, and was staring at him with an indecipherable expression.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” the saint declared, and Ivor nodded.

“Greetings, saint. What brings you here?”

The saint seemed to struggle to reply for a few seconds, after which he sighed and said, “I heard you could wield light mana, Your Majesty. I simply wished to...”

“Verify?” Ivor finished his sentence for him.

“Indeed,” the saint said, looking at him with a fiery gaze. “Could you show me a light spell, Your Majesty?”

Ivor smiled and nodded. “I could, saint. However, could you show me a light spell in the seventh realm, first?”

The saint nodded, visibly confused by his request, as he spread his right hand, a burst of burning white flames appearing on top of his hand. “Your Majesty, these are—”

“The flames of the righteous.” Ivor nodded. Then he spread his own hand, imitating the saint as best as he could, and a burst of white flames appeared on top of his own hand.

The saint gasped, looking at the white flames in Ivor’s hands, before saying, “Your Majesty is indeed in the seventh realm of magehood, that too with light attributed mana… I see.”

Ivor smiled kindly at the saint. He could understand a lot from the saint’s tone and the reverence present in his eyes. The saint was undoubtedly thinking that he was blessed by the Inheritor of Light himself. Hell, perhaps Ivor was chosen as the king by the Inheritor of Light himself.

Or perhaps Ivor had met or gotten a vision from the Inheritor of Light. Lots of possibilities.

Naturally, Ivor had no interest in confirming any of those theories for the saint. Doing so would make the saint undoubtedly force him to join the church of the Inheritor of Light, and that would become a pain. Associating with them and helping them occasionally, sure, but the lifestyle and restrictions that would appear with him joining the Inheritor of Light’s church?

Not worth it.

Not when he could just be all hush hush like right now, and the saint would worship him anyway, thinking secrecy was a necessity for him to fulfill whatever vision or prophecy the Inheritor of Light had given him. Or that Ivor would naturally fulfill the fate the Inheritor of Light had set for him.

The saint wouldn’t dare risk prodding him to join in such a case, especially unless events led to it ‘naturally’ and ‘fatefully’.

Either way, the saint was right where Ivor wanted him, so Ivor said, “You’ve come to meet me at just the right time, saint. I had a proposal for you.”

“A proposal?” The saint tilted his head, looking confused.

“Indeed,” Ivor confirmed. “I must ask you, do you not think the prices the higher priests charge for healing services are ludicrous?”

The saint blinked. “Well, I wouldn’t go as far as saying ludicrous, but they are indeed costly… But to run the church, and for various other expenses, it is necessary—”

“I can see why it’d be necessary, saint,” Ivor interrupted him, “However, what if you could get all the required funds from another source? More funds than you require. Could you make access to healers as cheap as possible then? Pay them directly from those funds, a monthly salary, and train new healers. Make your lower priests into higher ones and scout for those with a talent in light magic.”

“That would be splendid.” The saint nodded hesitantly. “But where would we get these funds from?”

“Why, the nobles, of course.”