The Alchemy of Power
The morning suns of Aethelgard—the twin giants, Solis and Luna-Prime—cast a bifurcated light over the Thorne Estate. One side of the morning was a brilliant, searing gold, while the other was a haunting, pale violet. Alistair Thorne stood on his private balcony, his eyes closed as he performed his morning mana-circulation.
Most seven-year-olds in the Aurelian Empire were still learning to feel the "itch" of mana beneath their skin. Alistair, however, was currently mapping the complex ley-lines of the entire floating continent.
"Administrator," the voice of 0-RA echoed in his mind. The AI core had been integrated into a sleek, silver cuff on Alistair's left wrist. "Atmospheric mana density is currently at 14.2%. I have successfully cross-referenced the Imperial Alchemical Database with your memories of 21st-century molecular chemistry. The Thorne House's primary export, Grade-C Aether-Fuel, is currently 34% inefficient due to impurity crystallization."
Alistair opened his eyes. They were no longer the soft blue of a child; they were a piercing, metallic silver. "In short, my family is throwing away millions of credits because they don't understand the distillation process at a sub-atomic level."
"Correct. If you implement the 'Thorne-Kelvin Cycle,' you can increase potency by 200% while reducing production costs by half."
Alistair smiled. It was a cold, calculating expression that would have terrified a grown man. "Money is the blood of war, 0-RA. And I intend to make the Thorne family the heart of this Empire."
The Forge of the Ironfoot
Before tackling the Alchemists, Alistair had an appointment in the subterranean levels of the estate. This was the domain of the Dwarves. The Thorne family had held a contract with the Ironfoot Clan for three generations, a partnership that provided the House with the finest enchanted steel in the sector.
The air in the forge was thick with the scent of molten metal and ancient earth. Huge, steam-powered hammers—relics of a pre-Void era—slammed down with rhythmic thuds that shook the very foundation of the floating city.
Thrain Ironfoot was waiting for him, his massive, knotted arms crossed over a leather apron. Beside him, leaning against an anvil, was the practice sword Alistair had nearly shattered the day before.
"You're late, lad," Thrain grumbled, though his eyes twinkled with a respect he rarely showed to 'long-legs.' "Or perhaps you were just busy being a hero at the crash site?"
"A hero is just a man who didn't have time to run, Master Thrain," Alistair replied, walking toward the anvil. He picked up the sword. It had been repaired, the silver etchings glowing with a more stable, subdued light. "Did you make the adjustments I suggested?"
Thrain let out a hearty, booming laugh. "Adjustments! Listen to the whelp! A seven-year-old telling a Master Smith of the Union how to balance a blade. I did it, aye. Two percent more silver-alloy in the pommel to stabilize the draw. But I tell you, lad, no child should be able to feel the weight-shift of a milligram."
"I'm not a child, Thrain. I'm the future of this House," Alistair said, his voice dropping an octave. He swung the blade. The whistle it made was different today—cleaner, sharper. "I need you to prepare something for me. Not a practice blade. A real one. Aether-Forged Obsidian."
Thrain's smile vanished. "That's a Knight-Commander's weapon, Alistair. Your body can't handle the kickback of an obsidian core. It'll shatter your arm the moment you channel a Tier 5 spell through it."
"My body is developing faster than the records say it should," Alistair said, stepping closer to the Dwarf. He reached out and touched the anvil. A faint silver pulse emanated from his hand, and for a moment, the heavy metal glowed as if it were white-hot.
"My mana-circuit is expanding. I don't need a sword that grows with me. I need a sword that challenges me to catch up to it."
Thrain stared at the anvil, then at Alistair. He saw the conviction in the boy's eyes—a gaze that reminded him of the ancient Dwarf-Kings who once carved cities out of the hearts of stars.
"Fine," Thrain whispered. "I'll forge it. But if you kill yourself trying to wield it, don't come haunting my forge."
"I have no intention of dying twice, Thrain," Alistair said with a wink.
The Alchemical Coup
Leaving the forge, Alistair headed toward the Eastern Wing, where the Thorne Alchemical Laboratories were located. This was the engine of the family's wealth. Hundreds of Alchemists worked here, brewing everything from basic healing salves to the high-grade fuel used by the Imperial Navy's warp-drives.
The Lead Alchemist, a tall, spindly man named Master Belasco, was currently berating a group of subordinates when Alistair entered. Belasco was a man of high standing, arrogant and set in his ways. He viewed magic as a ritual, not a science.
"Master Belasco," Alistair called out, his voice echoing in the sterile, glass-filled hall.
Belasco turned, his lip curling in a sneer.
"Young Master Alistair. This is a laboratory, not a playroom. Does your father know you're wandering among volatile reagents?"
"My father knows that our profits in the third quarter have dipped by 8%," Alistair said, walking past the stunned alchemists to the central brewing vat. He peered into the bubbling, iridescent liquid. "And looking at your distillation process, I can see why. You're using Star-Moss as a stabilizer? How quaint."
Belasco's face turned a mottled purple.
"Quaint? That is a tradition handed down from the founding of the Empire! Star-Moss is the only way to prevent the Aether-Fuel from exploding during the condensation phase!"
Alistair turned, a cold light in his eyes. "It's also why your fuel has a 30% residue rate.
You're clogging the engines of every ship we sell to. It's inefficient, it's expensive, and it's an insult to the Thorne name."
"You dare?" Belasco stepped forward, his hand twitching toward a vial on his belt. "You are a child! What could you possibly know of the Great Work?"
"I know that if you replace the Star-Moss with a concentrated solution of Frost-Aura salts and run the mixture through a centrifugal separator at four thousand rotations per minute, you will eliminate the impurities entirely," Alistair said, his voice as sharp as a scalpel.
The room went silent. The other alchemists looked at each other. The "centrifugal separator" was a concept Alistair had introduced from his past life—a machine he had already sketched out and sent to Thrain's forge for construction.
"Nonsense!" Belasco laughed, though there was a tremor of doubt in his voice. "Such a machine doesn't exist!"
"It does now," Alistair said. He snapped his fingers, and two Thorne Knights entered the room, carrying a strange, spinning device made of brass and silver. "This is the Thorne-Mark-1. We are going to run a test, Belasco. If I'm right, you will resign your position as Lead Alchemist and serve as my assistant. If I'm wrong, I will never set foot in this lab again."
Belasco looked at the machine, then at the confident boy before him. His pride was his undoing. "Fine. But when this contraption fails, I will be the one to tell the Duke that his son is a delusional fool."
The test took thirty minutes. Alistair personally oversaw the mixing of the reagents, his Arch Mage-level mana control ensuring that the temperature remained constant down to the thousandth of a degree.
When the machine stopped spinning, a single vial of liquid sat at the center. It wasn't the murky, iridescent blue of standard Aether-Fuel. It was a clear, brilliant diamond-white. It hummed with a purity that made the very air in the room feel energized.
Belasco's knees buckled. He fell to the floor, staring at the vial. "It's... it's 99% pure. This is... this is impossible. This is the Philosopher's Grade."
Alistair picked up the vial, holding it up to the light. "No, Belasco. This is business. And as of today, I am taking over the Thorne Alchemical Division. You will report to me every morning at dawn."
He turned to the rest of the alchemists, who were now looking at him with a mixture of terror and religious awe. "We are going to change the world. And we're going to get very, very rich doing it."
The Guardian's Devotion
As Alistair left the lab, he found Elowen waiting for him in the shadows of the corridor.
She had been watching the entire exchange.
Her expression was unreadable, but her heart rate—which Alistair could detect through his mana-sensing—was elevated.
"You handled him like a veteran commander, Alistair," she said softly, stepping into the light.
Her green eyes were fixed on him with an intensity that bordered on the uncomfortable.
"But you are making enemies. Belasco has friends in the Imperial Capital."
"Let them come," Alistair said, walking toward the gardens. "By the time they realize I'm a threat, I'll own the ships they use to travel here."
Elowen fell into step behind him. "I watched you in there. The way you looked at that vial... you didn't look like a boy who found success.
You looked like a king who had just reclaimed a lost province. Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?"
Alistair stopped and turned to her. He reached out and touched the silver ring on her ear, a gesture of familiarity that made her breath hitch. "Because, Elowen, I know what happens to those who stay small. I've seen empires crumble because the heirs were too busy playing in the dirt to see the wolves at the door. I won't let that happen to you. Or to Seraphina. Or to my father."
Elowen leaned into his touch, her eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment. "You speak of protection... but who will protect you from yourself? You are burning your childhood away in a furnace of ambition."
"I don't need a childhood, Elowen. I need results."
Elowen's hand went to the hilt of her bow. Her voice was a low, fierce whisper. "Then I will be your shadow. If you are to be a King, then I will be the one who ensures no one ever breathes the same air as you without your permission. I will kill for you, Alistair. I will burn the stars for you if you ask."
Alistair noticed the slight tremor in her voice—the hallmark of the "yandere" devotion he had begun to sense in her. It was a dangerous level of loyalty, one that could turn into a cage if he wasn't careful. But for now, he needed her. He needed that absolute, unwavering ferocity.
"I know you will, Elowen," he said, his voice a soothing caress. "That's why you're the only one I trust at my back."
A Night of Stars and Secrets
That evening, Alistair met Seraphina in the estate's observatory. The young lady of House Valois was dressed in a gown of midnight blue, her silver hair braided with small, glowing mana-crystals.
"You've had a busy day, my Silver Sovereign," she teased, though her eyes were bright with admiration. "The servants are saying you've invented a machine that turns lead into gold."
"Only figuratively, Sera," Alistair said, joining her at the massive telescope. "I've simply improved the efficiency of our fuel. It's the first step in a much larger plan."
"Always a plan," she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Can't we just look at the stars tonight? I heard the astronomers say that the 'Lost Gate' of the Orion sector is flickering. They think it might be a sign of a new Void-Tear."
Alistair looked through the telescope. He didn't see flickering gates. He saw coordinates. With 0-RA's help, he was already mapping the fastest routes to the outer rims.
"It's not a Void-Tear, Sera," he said softly. "It's a signal. The universe is waking up. And I want to be the one holding the leash when it does."
Seraphina turned to him, her face inches from his. The romance between them was still in its innocent, childhood stages, but the bond was deepening every day. She saw the genius in him, but she also saw the loneliness—the burden of a man who knew too much and felt too much.
"Promise me one thing, Alistair," she whispered.
"Anything."
"When you finally own the stars... don't forget the girl who sat with you in the dark."
Alistair took her hand and kissed her knuckles, a gesture of old-world chivalry that made her heart skip. "I'm not building this empire for myself, Seraphina. I'm building it for us. You will be the Empress of everything I conquer. That is my vow."
As the twin moons reached their zenith, Alistair felt a sudden, sharp pain in his chest.
His mana-circuit was pulsing.
"Warning," 0-RA's voice rang out. "Hostile entity detected within the estate perimeter.
Energy signature: High Knight Level. Intent: Assassination."
Alistair's eyes narrowed. He didn't panic. He simply reached out and pulled Seraphina behind him, his hand already reaching for the training sword he had kept by his side.
"It seems," Alistair said, his voice dripping with a cold, predatory joy, "that some people didn't want to wait for dawn to meet the new Master of the Thorne Alchemists."
"Alistair? What is it?" Seraphina asked, her spirit-sensing picking up the dark aura approaching them.
"Stay behind me, Sera," Alistair commanded, his mana beginning to flare in a silver aura that illuminated the entire observatory.
"Elowen! To me!"
From the shadows of the rafters, Elowen dropped down, her bow drawn and an arrow of pure light aimed at the door.
"I'm here, Master," she hissed, her eyes glowing with a feral protectiveness. "No one touches you tonight. No one."
The doors to the observatory shattered inward. A man in black, shadow-weave armor stepped through, a jagged dagger dripping with Tier 4 paralytic poison in his hand. He was an elite assassin, a "Void-Stalker" sent by a rival house.
He didn't speak. He moved like a blur.
But Alistair was faster. He didn't just move; he predicted.
"Vector identified," 0-RA whispered.
Alistair swung his sword, not at the assassin, but at the floor. He released a burst of concentrated gravity-mana, creating a localized "Crush-Zone."
The assassin, caught mid-leap, was slammed into the marble floor by a force equivalent to ten times his body weight. The sound of snapping bone echoed through the room.
Elowen didn't wait. She released her arrow, pinning the assassin's shoulder to the floor.
Alistair walked toward the fallen man, the tip of his sword glowing with a terrifying silver heat. He looked down at the assassin with a gaze that held no pity—only a cold, analytical curiosity.
"Who sent you?" Alistair asked.
The assassin spat blood. "You... you're a monster. No child has that much mana..."
"I'm a Thorne," Alistair replied, pressing the blade against the man's throat. "And you are a trespassing error that I am about to delete."
With a swift, clinical strike, Alistair ended the threat. He didn't flinch. He didn't tremble. He simply wiped the blade on the man's cloak and turned back to Seraphina and Elowen.
"The first lesson of business," Alistair said, his voice calm as a still lake. "Competition must be dealt with decisively."
Seraphina stared at him, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and an intense, newfound devotion. Elowen, on the other hand, was looking at the dead body with a satisfied smirk, her obsession with Alistair's power reaching a new peak.
The night was far from over. The news of the failed assassination would reach the Imperial Capital by morning, and the name "Alistair Thorne" would no longer be whispered as a mere prodigy.
He would be known as a threat. And Alistair wouldn't have it any other way.