Dragon Monarch System

Chapter 1207: Chapter 1207:- A Long-Held Doubt

Roy, Aditya, and Rin sat together inside the former Prime Minister’s carriage. For the first few minutes, none of them spoke as the carriage slowly made its way through the Capital toward the Imperial Royal Palace.

The atmosphere inside the carriage was unusually quiet.

Aditya did not know where to begin. There were many things he could have said, yet strangely, he could not find the right words. He had always held immense respect for the old man sitting opposite him. Roy had served the Celestial Dragon Empire for countless years and had also been one of the few people who genuinely cared about Aditya when he was still the Crown Prince.

”You have changed a lot.” Roy eventually broke the silence. Although they were currently pretending to be distant relatives, those words were not directed toward Aditya’s false identity.

Roy was speaking to Aditya, the former Crown Prince whom he had watched grow up with his own eyes.

Aditya remained silent for a few seconds before replying. ”Everything that has happened in my life until now has reshaped me into the man that I am today.”

Roy quietly stared at him. He could only imagine what Aditya had experienced after being exiled. The innocent and energetic boy who once ran around the Imperial Royal Palace had disappeared.

Sitting before him now was a completely different person, a young man carrying the presence and maturity of someone who had experienced far more than someone his age normally should.

”Are you really sure about this plan?” Roy eventually asked in a worried tone. What Aditya was attempting was extremely dangerous.

The National Treasures had chosen to remain neutral in the ongoing civil war. They would not interfere simply because Aditya and Ren were fighting over the throne of the Celestial Dragon Empire. However, that neutrality had its limits.

If Aditya was discovered secretly infiltrating the Imperial Royal Palace and attempting to free his parents, the situation would be entirely different. At that point, he would no longer merely be participating in the civil war. He would be an intruder who had broken into the most heavily protected place in the entire Empire.

Even the National Treasures would not simply stand aside and allow him to do whatever he wanted inside the Imperial Royal Palace.

Aditya simply nodded. He offered no explanation.

Seeing the calm expression on his face, Roy understood that Aditya had already thought about the risks and had no intention of turning back.

”It seems you have a plan.” Roy said with a sigh. His expression softened as he looked at the young man before him.

”Just be careful.” After a brief pause, the old Prime Minister added in a much quieter voice.

”I don’t want to hear the news that you got yourself killed.” Hearing this, Aditya gave a small smile and nodded his head.

”I can’t sense your cultivation.” Roy suddenly said while carefully observing Aditya.

”So I assume you managed to reach Beginner Sixth Order. Though I could be wrong.” Roy was mostly guessing.

He still clearly remembered just how poor Aditya’s cultivation talent had been when he was younger. Yet according to the rumours that had recently reached the Capital, the exiled Crown Prince had somehow become a Mid Fifth Order cultivator.

Even that alone had been difficult for Roy to believe. ”I reached Beginner Sixth Order around an hour ago.” Aditya replied with a small smile.

”What!?” Roy could no longer maintain his calm expression. His eyes widened as he stared at Aditya in complete shock and disbelief.

”Seriously?” Aditya simply nodded with the same small smile on his face.

Seeing the former Prime Minister’s stunned expression, Rin covered her mouth and giggled in amusement.

”But how?” Roy asked almost immediately.

He genuinely could not think of any reasonable explanation.

Roy knew Aditya’s cultivation talent better than most people. After all, he had watched the former Crown Prince grow up. Even if Aditya had never been exiled and continued receiving the enormous amount of cultivation resources available to the Crown Prince of the Celestial Dragon Empire, Roy believed that it still should have taken him centuries, if not thousands of years, to reach Beginner Sixth Order.

Yet only around five years had passed since Aditya’s exile. In that short amount of time, the boy who had once possessed extremely poor cultivation talent had somehow climbed all the way to Beginner Sixth Order. No matter how Roy looked at it, such growth simply did not make any sense.

Roy remained silent for a while. He tried to suppress his curiosity, but in the end, there was one question that he could no longer hold back.

”Tell me, Aditya.” Roy looked directly at him.

”I have been hearing rumours from various people within the Empire that you are claiming your cousin Ren has placed your parents under mind control. How much truth is there to these rumours?” Roy was extremely interested in knowing the answer.

In fact, this was one of the reasons why he had ultimately agreed to help Aditya. Of course, he wanted to see the young Crown Prince again after so many years, but Roy also wanted an opportunity to verify several things that he had recently heard in the form of rumours.

The claim about Alen and Elena being under mind control was one of the biggest among them. Hearing the question, Aditya smiled faintly.

”The rumours are one hundred percent true.” Aditya replied.

”I am not making things up simply to turn people against Ren. I have no reason to do something like that.” Roy remained silent and allowed him to continue.

”The evidence that eventually led me to believe Ren was involved in controlling my parents goes back many years. We obviously don’t have enough time for me to explain the entire story right now, so I’ll keep it simple.”

Aditya leaned back slightly in his seat. ”You knew my parents personally. You saw how they treated me when I was younger. They weren’t always cold and distant toward me.”

Hearing this, Roy’s expression became more serious. ”But during the last few years before my exile, they suddenly began changing. At first, the changes were small. Slowly, they became colder toward me. They became distant. Eventually, they started behaving almost like completely different people.”

Roy slowly nodded. He had noticed it as well.

Back then, Roy could never understand what had caused such a drastic change. As the Prime Minister, he had spent countless years around the Imperial Family and knew Alen extremely well. Yet despite noticing that something was clearly wrong, he had never dared to directly question His Majesty about his changing behaviour toward the Crown Prince.

”At the time, none of it made sense.” Aditya said.

”But now, if you look back at everything that happened inside the Imperial Royal Palace from that point onward, so many things feel completely out of place.”

Aditya’s expression became serious. ”You served my father for centuries, Uncle. You know what kind of man he was better than almost anyone outside our family.”

”Do you truly believe that a man like him could suddenly change so drastically within only a few years without something happening to him?”

Roy did not immediately answer but Aditya continued. ”You saw how he treated me before. Then suddenly, he became cold enough to exile his only son without looking back. And years later, he suddenly handed the throne to Ren and disappeared from public view without giving anyone a proper explanation.”

Aditya stared directly into Roy’s eyes. ”Does any of that sound like the man you served for centuries?”

Roy neither agreed nor disagreed. He merely gave a slow nod before falling into deep thought.

The truth was that similar suspicions had crossed his mind before. For a brief period, Roy had even wondered whether someone was secretly influencing His Majesty’s decisions. Those suspicions had become much stronger when Alen suddenly handed the throne to Ren and withdrew from public life without offering any proper explanation.

Alen had almost completely disappeared from public view. He stopped appearing for many of the activities that he had previously enjoyed doing during his free time. Things that had once been part of his normal routine were suddenly abandoned without any explanation.

The same could be said about Aditya’s mother, Elena. Elena had personally taken care of one of the gardens within the Imperial Royal Palace for decades. Growing vegetables and looking after the plants had always been something she genuinely enjoyed. Yet one day, she suddenly stopped visiting the garden altogether.

Even when the vegetable plants began dying from neglect, Elena did not appear even once to take care of them. Roy had also heard some strange things from the palace servants.

According to them, Alen and Elena spent nearly ninety percent of their time inside their bedroom. They rarely came outside unless there was an important reason to do so.

At the time, Roy had possessed no evidence to prove anything. But now, after hearing Aditya’s words and looking back at everything that had happened over the years, those old suspicions were beginning to surface once again.

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