Orion had known this moment was coming from the start. His success in creating the Computing Crystal alone should have raised Elder Yue’s suspicions about his true skills, so the only surprise was that it had taken so long.

  Before he could reply, she continued. “I have seen many, many prodigies in my life. Most of them are gone now, but I remember vividly what it was like to watch them leap from concept to concept. How absurd it looked from the outside, to see them progress through topics that should have taken months, if not years, to master, in just a few days, constrained only by their attributes.”

  Her dark eyes bored into his, like gaping voids from which no truth could escape. He knew then that he couldn't lie, or she would know.

  “I’ve seen geniuses capable of redefining an Age walk the earth, reach into the Heavens themselves. Brilliance is not something I’m ignorant of. But you… intelligent, that is without a doubt. I could see it from the very beginning, and the reports I received from the Sanctum only made that clearer. But for all that, my old enemy is a callous one; she wouldn’t have chosen you as the sticking point if you weren’t actually sticking out. So, now that it is only the two of us, no one else will ever know your answer. Tell me. What are you, to so eagerly grasp and develop concepts that are alien to all I know?”

  That was when Orion realized that even the faint light of the few visible stars had disappeared, and the city of Valderun had gone completely dark.

  No, that was wrong. It was they who were no longer in the embassy.

  Only the silver moon shone down on them, larger than he could ever remember seeing it.

  Oh, how he longed to get lost in the complexities of whatever spell this was. He could feel it pulling at him and knew he would learn a great deal from studying it.

  Yet, Yue’s eyes never left his, and he simply couldn’t pull away.

  “What do you expect me to say?” He asked, his tone so bitter that she twitched despite his attempt at a more neutral approach. Frustration boiled inside him, sharp with the sting of betrayal and exhaustion.

  Almost every moment of his new life had been spent under the watchful eyes of others. He had to monitor his words, behavior, and even his reactions to injustice.

  Suddenly, it became overwhelming. He thought he’d been keeping a lid on it, but clearly, his emotions had been growing in the dark, waiting for a moment like this, and now he couldn’t hold them back anymore.

  “That I am some kind of experiment my father concocted while he lay with my mother? A monster wearing the skin of a child? Some kind of secret project from an enemy meant to undermine the Sanctum?!” His voice rose as he spoke, and by the end, he was almost shouting in Yue’s face, teeth bared.

  “I was born inside the Sanctum. I was blessed by the High Priestess, just like every other child. I saw and lived the same things they all did. It’s not my fault that I’m the only one asking why things are the way they are. It’s not my fault that I am the only one trying to make them better, who is not satisfied with what I’m handed by those who came before!”

  He was panting by the end of his rant, but he still had to get something off his chest. It was painful, like a thorn he just had to remove, or he would go insane.

  “I am not ashamed of who I am. You should be ashamed! All of you, for barely questioning the incredible gift you have been given! Incurious, lazy, prideful! A ridiculous society, built by idiots, for idiots, and only capable of understanding idiocies! The moment someone actually asks why not do better, everyone fucking freaks out. Tell me why?! Why must I be the one put on trial all the time? Why aren’t you, foolish, primitive monkeys, the ones who have to answer for your crimes?! Why?!”

  Tears and snot streamed down his face, and Orion felt empty in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. Not since that last confrontation with his old parents, at least.

  Considering how little emotional attachment he had to Yue, no matter how important she might be to his continued survival, that was enough to clue him in that something was very wrong.

  “What did you do to me?” He whispered, clenching his fists to stop another wave of bile from escaping his lips and revealing too much.

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  Although she seemed surprised by the intensity of his anger, Yue quickly returned to her neutral expression. “Something to make you be truthful. I admit, I wasn’t expecting that, but perhaps I should have. No child can possibly endure what you have without feeling resentful about it.”

  She appeared completely unaffected by his accusations and the potentially blasphemous thoughts he had expressed. Instead, now that Orion was watching her, searching for any microexpression, he thought she seemed relieved.

  Why, he couldn’t possibly tell. He’d just accused her, her culture, faction, and nation of being savage primitives, incapable of change and improvement, yet she seemed almost happy!

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” he finally admitted, too emotionally drained to poke and prod like he usually would.

  Yue smiled, genuinely smiled, at that. “I know. But I do, and my worries have been relieved. Do not worry, you’ll feel better after a long sleep.”

  His vision went black.

  Waking up felt like pulling himself out of a thick swamp. Consciousness came in waves, first giving him enough wherewithal to realize he was no longer sleeping, then gradually reminding him of everything that had happened over the past few days.

  Orion knew that forming bridges with other factions and bringing his name into the spotlight would mean facing resistance, but he hadn’t expected it to be so sudden and intense.

  He seemed to have passed whatever test Yue had arranged for him, but that only increased his confusion, a feeling he was growing to despise.

  “Good morning, moonbeam,” Asteria said as she entered his room, a silver tray full of breakfast floating behind her.

  “Mornin’,” he groggily replied, still trying to gather all his faculties. He was missing something about what had happened, he knew. But what, exactly…

  “A spell! She used a damn spell on me to make me spill everything I was thinking!” He shouted, jumping out of bed, and immediately regretted it as the world spun around him.

  Fortunately, Asteria was there to steady him and quickly lowered him back onto the bed. “Careful!” She warned.

  “Ugh, that damn… witch,” he groaned. Did she really have to go that far? He knew there were simpler ways to distinguish between the truth and lies. But then again, those methods have their own loopholes. People can speak the truth about unrelated things and never be perceived as liars.

  Whatever spell or potion she used to trigger such an emotional outburst from him had rendered him unable to lie and incapable of holding back.

  It was only luck that he was so genuinely annoyed about his current troubles that he only spoke about them, rather than revealing who he really was.

  “Elder Yue made a mistake,” Asteria murmured, and Orion’s head snapped up, ready to tell her off too, when he saw the expression on his mother's face.

  Calling it frigidly cold would have been an understatement. Asteria’s face was frozen in a mask of ruthless wrath, and he had to hold back a flinch upon seeing her usually warm features so warped.

  “She will never repeat it again. I told her that if she ever needs anything from you, she can ask me. But if she ever does something like this again, I will leave the Sanctum without hesitation.”

  Orion watched her in silent awe and had to fight back a lump in his throat at the thought of someone being completely on his side and so willing to fight on his behalf.

  “I—I still don’t get why. I know I surprised people with my body enhancement spell, but to go that far…”

  Asteria sighed, thawing from the winter frost into a more tired appearance. “It’s not your fault, moonbeam. But what you need to understand is that most factions have what we call foundational skills—abilities on which their entire tradition is built. For the Sanctum, that’s external Light mana manipulations, ranging from healing to bolts of light and more. For the Radiant Vigil, it’s body enhancement through Light mana. These skills are jealously guarded, and while it’s understood that no faction can prevent another from discovering at least the basics of how they work, the fact that you developed your spell so quickly after sparring with the Vigil’s squires… It’s clear you managed to grasp their secrets in just one day. That’s not something anyone can boast about, not at your level, at least.”

  Orion opened his mouth to argue that it really hadn’t been that impressive. He’d only observed their spells with [Verification Principle] and used his understanding of robotics and biology to derive a new magic, but the words died in his mouth.

  It was, if he were honest, a bit of a stretch, even for him. Only thanks to the incredible computational power of the CC had he been able to accomplish that, and even then, the spell was built on countless studies and discoveries from a different world.

  For someone whose entire understanding of magic should have come from the Sanctum, it was not just hard to achieve. It was outright impossible, at least without a dedicated teacher or months of hard work.

  That thought led to another, much more urgent concern. “Did I start a diplomatic incident? I was so excited about my success that I didn’t pause to consider whether I should use it against Jordan.”

  The excuse was pretty flimsy, but it was the truth, and given Asteria’s gentle smile, she knew it as well.

  “You didn’t. Elder Yue went to speak with the Vigil’s Ambassador, and they cleared up the matter, especially since your friend, Squire Jordan, caused a commotion trying to defend you and saying you were no thief. It was a bit tense, but luckily, the worst was avoided. The Paladins even asked you to return so they could compare your methods, but I took some time and told them they would have to wait until you felt better.”

  The chance to officially study another faction’s methods, especially if higher-ranked warriors were involved, was frankly worth salivating over. Still, Orion had the good sense to know he couldn’t just jump into it without understanding what boundaries he should avoid crossing.

  “I’d be happy to, but maybe it’s best to take a few lessons on inter-factional diplomacy first. I don’t want to cause another incident like this,” he admitted, and Asteria gently stroked his hair with a proud smile.

  “That seems like a wonderful idea, moonbeam. Magistra Kissea was just telling me how she was planning to do exactly that, so you can expect her to come by in the next few hours. I’ll go tell her now that you are awake.”

  “Ah,” Orion’s hand reached up to stop her, but Asteria was already walking away with a mischievous smile, and he knew that while she’d fought for him without hesitation, she was also taking the opportunity to punish him for his recklessness.

  Considering what had happened, maybe she was right to do it.

  Orion turned to the breakfast she left behind and noticed that, at least, she remembered to include some mou with a separate pitcher for milk, along with the honey-apricot porridge and sausage.

  “She can’t be too mad, then,” he decided, tucking in.

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