The Real Prince Charming!

“Fascinating. She’s very talented. It seems it runs in the family…” Elias couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, his eyes lingering from the confused Lily to the glowing sphere in his hand. It was the same one that the old master used to determine Henry’s magical talents.

Henry leaned over to take a peek, instantly noticing that the glow of the sphere almost looked as bright as his when he first got tested. Though his keen eyes could tell it fell a bit short compared to his.

Smirking, he crossed his arms, “Well, that’s weird. I sure as hell remember you telling me that my talent is average.”

Elias chuckled, “Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet? I might just start judging your observation skills.”

After getting their short laugh, Henry shifted the topic back to Lily’s situation, “So how’s it going to be? You’re gonna train her?”

Elias didn’t need to think twice for an answer, “No, I’ve long told myself that you’ll be the last student I’ll have.” Just as Lily’s face turned into disappointment, he continued, “Wasn’t one of your projects to build a school of magic?”

He gestured to Lily, “Now’s the best time to start practicing your teaching skills, and besides, you’re already a master of magic yourself, minus the experience. Eventually, all magical knowledge must be passed down before our deaths so it would not go to waste.”

Lily’s face instantly turned from earlier disappointment to excitement, much more so than before. It seems like the thought of having her older brother become her master rather than Elias sounds like a better deal.

Honestly, Henry had already been thinking of the same thing since earlier, he was even hoping for Elias to reject.

“It seems like we’ll be spending more time together than ever, little bud. Come on, let’s head to my study, you’re going to learn the basics.”

“The basics? Can’t I just cast cool magic spells already?”

“Nope. It took me a few days to learn my first magic spell.” But before Henry could leave with Lily, Elias called out to him.

“Henry? Can I have a word, please? It wouldn’t take long.”

Henry only had to look at his face to register the seriousness of the matter, so he turned back to Lily and said, “How about you go ahead first? I’ll follow you after, okay?”

Lily was smart enough to read the room and nodded her head before leaving without saying a single word.

“Something the matter?” Now that she was gone, Henry faced his master.

Elias’s tone took a grave turn as he started, “A raw vision, Henry. A raw vision of the future.” Which made Henry frown.

“I thought you stopped peeking at the future?”

Elias shook his head, “Not this time, at least intentionally. You see, unlike my future sight spell that can be cast at will, raw visions are more random and sometimes incomplete, but what separates it from the spell is the potency of the sight. Raw visions are guided by fate herself, which means what I just saw is fully determined and most certainly impossible to be avoided.”

For some reason, Henry recalled the situation he experienced last night. The entire thing was the same as Elias was describing just now.

“And what did you see?”

“A place of sand. You, standing alone in front of my students and the Coven. You look haggard, older, and most definitely went through several ups and downs. I haven’t seen the end but I doubt the vision is good. Especially, since it is a raw vision, which means it is a turning point for the fate of the world.”

Just by the first sentence he uttered alone, Elias already got Henry’s full undivided attention, and the more he explained, the more he believed him.

“…Last night, I had the exact same dream. Except you missed out a few parts.”

Henry then proceeded to tell him what he saw. About the giant lion face carved from sand and rock, along with the deep darkness consuming their surroundings.

Elias frowned, “That certainly does not sound good. I may have heard something about that lion-face carved rock. I think I have a book about it somewhere. Give me some time, I’ll try to see if I can gather information about it.” After that, he left the room.

Henry wanted to tell him that he already knew what it was but he hesitated. Not because he was afraid of the old master getting suspicious of him. Rather, he was afraid of going to that place.

Whatever made him go there, surrounded by tendrils and darkness and evil sorcerers and witches, no doubt hints at something akin to a climax of his story.

Could it be his death? Losing his loved ones once again? Or maybe in that future, he lost everything and the only way to get it back is through the wishing lamp.

For some reason, Henry felt like the latter was the most reasonable out of them all.

He paced back and forth around the room, “He said that the fight was bloody, messy, and certainly something that even his eyes can’t keep up with, and considering I looked older, it means that the battle is way out of my league for now.”

He clenched his fists, “I need information first. How many are there? Did they already get the wishing lamp? Have they already used a wish or two? I need to know first before I confront them.”

Coldness filled his eyes. He may want to take revenge against them and avenge his father but that doesn’t mean he’s an idiot who would dive headfirst like a rabid dog.

He needs to be smart, calculate his moves, and assume the worst.

He recalled an old saying from his previous life, it came from a famous philosopher.

‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’

And he’s going to take that seriously.

“But first, I still have a little sister to teach. If I could somehow train her to be strong enough, I would be at ease when leaving the Empire, knowing full well it would be in good hands.”

———

Umber Kingdom, Royal Castle.

If the King’s advisors didn’t see it themselves with their own eyes, they wouldn’t have believed it.

After receiving the reply letter from the Lioncrest Empire, it only took the King a few seconds to read its contents to choke and spat blood from his mouth.

With shaky hands, he cursed, “Outrageous! That boy is a lunatic! He wants millions of gold in compensation? Does he want to starve our treasury? Even if I gathered all the gold coins in this Kingdom, we would still be left off with a meager amount of gold!”

The Umberrian King threw the parchment on the ground. One of the advisors scrambled to pick it up before reading its contents.

A few seconds later, the advisor looked like he had lost ten years of his life.

“What do we do now, Your Majesty? We can’t keep up this war. Just sieging those ice walls alone has already burned much of our treasury and they still haven’t succeeded!”

Silence ensued upon the throne room, the people were waiting for their King’s decision.

That is until one of the Barons spoke in a respectful tone, “If I may suggest something, Your Majesty.”

The Umberrian King raised his head to assess the man who stood up. He was tall and lanky, a huge contrast to usual nobles who kept fattening themselves up, thinking being fat was a symbol of wealth.

“Speak.”

“How about we take a loan? Surely, everyone here has already heard about the rising Rothschild Bank. They give loans to anyone, and when I say anyone, I mean anyone.”

Seeing that he got everyone’s attention, the Baron straightened up and continued, brimming with more confidence than before.

“I heard that they loaned millions of gold to Lioncrest, which in return, helped fund their military. Now, I know what some of you may think, that they work under the Lioncrest Empire.” He cast his gaze around, seeing the looks on everyone’s faces which indicated that he was right.

“Guess what. Lioncrest weren’t the only ones who got a loan. Even their enemy, the High King of the North was able to get a loan of a million gold in sum. And that’s not all…”

He took out a piece of parchment and unrolled it for everyone to see, “I just received an offer to take a loan from them a few days ago, and now I’m 200,000 gold coins richer than before. As long as I pay up in due time, I get to do whatever I want with those coins.”

His words immediately got everyone thinking and murmuring. Some agreed while others were still hesitant. But their divided opinions don’t matter as the deciding power rests in the hands of their King.

“Your Majesty. I think the Baron has a good plan. We’re a Great Kingdom. No matter how long it takes, we could definitely pay the debt back, even if we don’t, what’s stopping us from destroying them thoroughly once we get ourselves out of this situation?”

Before the King could say anything, the Baron spoke again, much to everyone’s displeasure, “If I may speak again. That is a very bad idea.”

The advisor tilted his head and frowned, “Oh? And why is that?”

The Baron hesitated a bit, “Well you see, you’re not the only one who came up with that plan, and the person who did it was found dead along with his entire family. And just to let you know, that man was one of the princes of a large Kingdom in the Central Lands. For them to be able to assassinate the entire royal family in a single night without any trace speaks of a possible magical powerhouse backing the Rothschild Bank.”

His words instantly made the advisor’s face turn sour.

Even the King was surprised. Not every day you get to have an entire royal family killed in a single night, much more impressive is without leaving a single trace behind.

After a while, he finally answered, “We’ll proceed with the plan. But we’re going to pay them as soon as we get our treasury back on its feet. Have someone write an invitation for the Rothschild Bank to sign an agreement.”

Then he turned to the lanky baron, “What’s your name?”

“Fischer, Your Majesty.” The man, now known as Fischer, bowed his head in a practiced manner.

“I’m satisfied with your suggestion today. Once the Rothschild Bank gets here, I want you with me to help negotiate, do you understand?”

Fischer had nothing but a grin on his face, “It would be my pleasure, Your Majesty.”

Finally, he waved him off, “That’s all. Everyone may leave now.”

Unbeknownst to the Umberrian King, and anyone else in the room, Fischer bore a hidden condescending smirk on his face while leaving with the rest.

‘And the prey walks in the Lion’s den.’

———————————

[I’d like to announce that I’ll be leaving NovelPhoenix for several reasons. Mainly because of three things. Don’t worry, I’ll still publish this fic here since it’s already nearing its end.

First and most frustrating reason are the rankings, more than half of the fanfics on top 100 and below rankings have many bot accounts donating them power stones, leaving actual good quality fanfics behind without a way to get acknowledged. Heck, even among the top ten, there’s a translated Chinese fanfic that barely has any reviews or comments, but has hundreds of bot accounts donating to them.

Second, almost all fanfics are no longer written by human.

Last but not the least, I encountered a problem with the application I’ve been using to write, so I had to switch to a new one. Thing is, I actually loved the new one but the downside is that when copying and pasting to NovelPhoenix or even Inkstone, problem occurs with the text, the italic and bold doesn’t show up, only simple text and the space between paragraph disappears.

I tried to find a fix for this, even resorting to pasting to google docs, copying it from there and pasting it here again only for it not to work. So it’s too much of a hassle to fix the chapter everytime I copy and paste.

That’s all. I know some of you might think they’re petty reasons but not for me, who is working part-time while also pulling myself from the deepest pits of hell they call College.

That’s all, thank you everyone so much for supporting me and this book. If you’re still a fan of my work and want to read my future works. I’m still publishing on Scribblehub under the same name, and I’ll start publishing my next work on the Spacebattles forum, also under the same name (not sure since I haven’t made an account there yet.]