"So, you sent them off safely?" Valerian asked, walking beside Azuma with a renewed, lighter step. The profound understanding they had reached two years prior—where fear was replaced with a shared, deeper purpose—now gave Valerian's step a renewed lightness.

  "Yes, Father," Azuma confirmed.

  "Good. They'll reach their destination. Now, let's begin your training.

  Should you train with Leo this time?"

  "No," Valerian said, stopping abruptly. "You're training with me. I'm going to teach you a completely new field."

  Finally, Azuma thought, his eyes lighting up with anticipated silver dust. Runesmithing! It has to be runesmithing!

  "You are going to learn finance," Valerian declared, puffing out his chest with self-importance.

  "Yesss.. Fin... what, now?" Azuma exclaimed, his enthusiasm collapsing into utter confusion.

  Valerian quickly straightened his posture. "This is imperative, son. You possess many hard skills, but soft skills are equally crucial. To run an empire, you must know how money moves. Finance and budgeting are the unseen gears of civilisation, and I am going to teach you how they turn."

  Azuma crossed his small arms and squinted at his father. "Father, are you just trying to offload your work onto me?"

  Valerian choked on his words but recovered quickly. "No, dear. Magic alone doesn't sustain a city. You must master trading, finance, and the art of negotiation."

  Azuma held the strange, accusatory gaze.

  Ignoring it, Valerian produced a stack of ledgers and consolidated reports, dumping them unceremoniously on a desk. "Consolidate these. When you're done, we'll discuss the economic flow of Oasis." He then left the city hall, whistling merrily, eager to greet Boris, the sole merchant brave enough to trade with the Cursed Lands.

  "Boris! What unexpected pleasure brings you all the way here?" Valerian asked, embracing his old friend with a genuine, warm smile. He settled Boris down, and a glass of local brew and fragrant meat pastries were soon served.

  "The trade Vikram finalised was fine," Boris said, setting down his glass. "I came for a different, and far more serious, matter."

  "And what is that?"

  "The Empress Armada visited me personally, right after Vikram left. She bought every piece of equipment marked with your forge-signature and ordered me to sell Valerian-made products only to her."

  Valerian frowned. "That is unexpected. Surely, increased demand from the Empress is beneficial for you?"

  "Wrong!" Boris slammed his hand on the table, causing the brew to slosh. "If I am forced to sell only to her, I cannot inflate the prices based on market demand! I am getting desperate requests for your work! After you left, the quality of magical trinkets in Raventhorn plummeted. The wealthy are fleeing to other empires, taking their gold with them. The empire now survives solely on taxes and agriculture. Simply put, Valerian, the empire you and your brother built is crumbling."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Boris leaned forward, his voice dropping to a desperate rasp. "The other kings respected your brother's strength, but they were invested in your intellect. You were the foundation. Now that you are gone, they are having second thoughts. This will lead to civil war. Valerian, I beg you, return to the empire. Challenge your brother, take the throne. Only you can hold the Big Three at bay."

  Valerian sighed, his smile fading. He slowly placed his glass on the table. "It's difficult to convince people to follow me, Boris. I have always preferred the background. If I took the throne, there would definitely be a civil war, as even the kings who know me believe that I am weak and easily bullied. They abandoned me during the exile. Besides, my brother protected me, and his wife, the Empress, holds immense influence. They can maintain control for at least an aide or so." (An aide is twenty-five years.)

  "And then what? The dream we built—it includes my fortune,val, and it will all crumble without its foundation!" Boris cried, pointing at his friend.

  "Don't worry," Valerian said, his voice quiet but absolute. "In twenty-five years, my son will become the emperor."

  Boris froze, his expression turning into a mask of stunned silence.

  Valerian looked straight into his friend's eyes, an intense, proud light shining in his own. "The empire I built includes my dreams, Boris, and my son will complete them."

  "But he is a fallen st—"

  "Rest now. We will talk business in two days."

  Two days later, Valerian dragged a dizzy Boris toward the city's teleportation building. "Come on, come on! Wait until you see this!"

  With a flash, they landed in the hunting ground.

  "Wait!" Boris exclaimed, clutching Valerian's arm and steadying himself. "I despise teleportation! It turns my brain into soup."

  "I know, I know," Valerian said, his voice giddy. "But look! Look at how we collect our materials!"

  Boris looked, and what he saw eclipsed his dizziness. The hunting ground was a marvel of automation. He watched, stunned, as a monster was lured, culled, butchered with surgical precision, and segregated into neat piles of meat, skin, bone, and Heart Stones—all before being flawlessly teleported back to the city. The formation then cleaned the area, refuelled itself, and reset.

  "This... this is enormous, Valerian," Boris whispered, walking closer. He pulled a monocle from his pocket and pressed it to his eye, his professional instincts kicking in. His jaw slowly dropped.

  He saw fifteen interlocking formations, layered upon one another with complex power nodes that provided redundancy. He couldn't distinguish the fake nodes from the real ones. This was not the work of a master; this was the work of an architect of magic—a wholly new, incomprehensible system.

  "This is impossible," Boris muttered, staring at the interwoven lines of power.

  "My son created this formation from scratch," Valerian said.

  "What?" Boris asked in a hushed voice, still in shock. He thought he had heard wrongly, as he was sure that this was not possible for a five-year-old child to build.

  Valerian looked at him with a proud face and repeated, "My son made this formation, Boris."

  Boris was even more shocked because this time he had heard him correctly. Still, he couldn't believe what he was hearing and said, "Huh? You mean he helped you build it, right?"

  Valerian looked straight into Boris's eyes with a beaming smile.

  Seeing the smile on Valerian's face and the pride of a parent reflecting in his eyes like a dazzling light, he finally understood the meaning of the words uttered by his friend. "WHAAATTTTT?" Boris screamed.

  "Boris, are you having trouble hearing?"

  "NO, you idiot! What you said is unbelievable!"

  "What?"

  "What do you mean, 'what'? You said a five-year-old boy built this formation!"

  "No. He built it two years ago."

  Then the realization hit him. He had been trading with them for the past two years, which meant this formation was built two years ago. That meant this formation was built by a three-year-old child. No, a three-year-old baby. A baby built this. That was an impossible concept for anyone to understand. Maybe the shock was too much for him to take. Maybe he was hungry. Whatever the reason, he fainted right on the spot.