An hour passed swiftly after the Empress's interruption, and Hector sat alone in the palace banquet hall, a plate of warm food before him. An omelette, fluffy and golden, sat steaming beside roasted tomatoes and a cup of dark tea.
He smiled faintly. Omelettes. He had seen royalty eat them in dozens of lives—noble courts, imperial breakfasts, mountain sanctuaries. It was odd, he thought, how so many worlds agreed on the beauty of such a simple dish.
Still, the Angelborn in him couldn't help but muse, It's a fetus. From the back of a chicken. Why do humans delight in this again?
He ate anyway.
In the elven kingdom, their meals were light—vegetable-based, herbal, minimal. This was heavier, richer. He enjoyed the texture, though the absurdity remained. He shook his head, half-laughing to himself.
When the last bite was gone, he stood, straightened his silver-collared tunic, and made his way through the winding crimson halls of the imperial castle toward the training grounds.
The training grounds were vast. Circular in design and fortified with silent magical barriers, they overlooked a cliffside where morning fog clung to distant mountains. Three figures stood waiting: one clad in robes etched with shimmering glyphs, another dressed in a simple but weathered combat uniform with twin swords at his back, and the last a mage with short platinum hair and violet robes pulsing with mana.
The runemaster stepped forward.
"Prince Hector," the man said, bowing formally. "I am Master Belian, Royal Runemaster of Kael-Terun. It is an honor to instruct you today."
"The honor is mine," Hector said politely. "Shall we begin with you, Master Belian?"
The other two instructors looked surprised. Most children chose the sword first. Or magic. Runes were esoteric, slow, and technical.
But Hector was not most children.
Belian nodded, pleased. "We will begin with the Wind Spiral Sigil—a kinetic rune that converts air into spinning projectiles. Please observe."
He stepped back, raising his hand. His mana flared—calm, measured, precise.
Lines appeared in the air, forming a floating sigil of intertwining glyphs. Three glowing spirals snapped into formation around him, drawing in wind. In a blink, three spears of air shimmered to life, humming.
But before Belian could release them—
Hector's hand moved.
His fingers traced over the air with unsettling speed and accuracy. A second set of runes appeared—not overlapping, but weaving into Belian's formation.
A counter-rune.
A disruption.
The air spears quivered. Instead of propelling forward, they began to pulse. Sound waves vibrated through them. The compression of air collapsed.
Thump.
The spears imploded into harmless gusts.
Master Belian froze.
The other two instructors gasped.
"Impossible," the mage whispered.
Hector calmly stepped forward, his hands behind his back like a scholar addressing a student. "You left the resonance glyph unbound. The stabilizer rune needed a secondary outlet. I introduced a harmonic disruption through soundwave manipulation—causing your wind compression to scatter."
Belian stared at the boy. Not angry. Not offended.
Just… shaken.
He bowed. "You tampered with my cast mid-channel. Without dispelling it. And inverted the structure. That's… I've only seen that done once in my life."
"Once is enough," Hector said with a faint smile.
What he didn't say: he had seen this done 47 times in different lives. He had been a runemaster across empires, some where rune casting was done with blood and others where it was done with sand. This was child's play in comparison.
"Would you like me to teach you the counter-resonance variation?" Hector asked, voice genuinely kind.
Belian laughed softly, humbled. "I would very much like that."
And thus, one of the top three runemasters on the continent was defeated and educated—by an 11-year-old angelborn child.
The wind carried the remnants of magic away, but the silence that followed was louder than thunder.