Chapter 14: The Science of Sabotage and the Weight of the Crown

  The training courtyard of Vermilion Manor was a rough stone arena, surrounded by statues of Imperial heroes whose granite eyes seemed to judge Ren's every move. The winter sun shone at its highest point in the sky, but it was a sterile light; it brought no warmth, only a white glare that hurt the eyes as it reflected off the snow piled on the parapets. The air smelled of ozone and the cold sweat of those who pushed themselves beyond their physical limits.

  Marth Vermilion sat on a high stone throne, wrapped in northern wolf skins. Before him, his two sons personified the flaws of the aristocracy: Eduard, the second son, roughly slashed the air with a heavy steel sword; and Julius, the third, stood motionless, his analytical eyes fixed on Ren.

  Ren felt the weight of the runic collar around his neck. The cold metal pulsed against his jugular, a constant reminder of his status. Yet his mind operated under guidelines none of them could grasp. He wasn't a thirty-year war veteran, but he possessed something the medieval world lacked: strategic process management.

  Ren carried the burden of his previous life. He spent a year toiling in the Brazilian Army as a recruit, where he learned the mystique of the uniform and the authority of the commanding voice, followed by seven years dedicated to logistics. Four years of college and three in the corporate world taught him how to optimize workflows, identify bottlenecks, and, above all, how to "sell" a project to arrogant directors who didn't understand the technical workings.

  There, before the Duke, Ren was executing his riskiest contract. He assumed the rigid posture and icy stare he'd seen his sergeants use at the barracks. To the Duke, he seemed a precocious military prodigy; to himself, he was merely a senior analyst implementing a contingency plan.

  "Stop daydreaming, brat!" Eduard growled, slamming his sword into the ground. "Show me what Zhask used. I want my mana to cross the walls of this castle before sunset."

  Ren maintained an impassive face, his mask of authority perfectly adjusted. He recalled a quote from Dom Pedro II: "Education is the most subtle weapon to dismantle a tyrant."

  "The secret lies not in brute force, but in frequency and control of the flow," Ren began, projecting his voice with the confidence of an instructor. "You treat mana like a sledgehammer. I will teach you to fire it like a heavy ballista projectile—focused and rotating."

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  The first lesson: the biological bottleneck.

  ?Ren ordered both to sit in the snow. He vividly recalled the conclusions he had reached years earlier while studying in the library with his brother Kael: mana was functional biology. It was captured by the skin, guided by proteins, and stored in the heart. To him, the human body was a logistical system with a delicate distribution network that could not be overloaded without criteria.

  ?"Close your eyes. Feel the mana in the plexus nodes," Ren instructed, walking between them with the impeccable posture of military drill. "In the Empire, you expand energy in a disorganized fashion. I want you to compress it. Imagine the mana spinning like a vortex within the protein filaments that run alongside your nerves. Optimize your internal space."

  ?As he touched Eduard’s shoulder to "correct the flow," Ren applied his silent sabotage. He knew that if he increased flow speed without reinforcing the biological pathways, the system would collapse in the long run. He induced a high-frequency vibration, forcing Eduard’s mana to spin eccentrically, generating corrosive friction against the lining of the neural channels.

  ?He taught them the "Hyperbolic Spiral Technique." In theory, it increased piercing power. In practice, Ren was teaching them to force high-pressure steam through cracked glass pipes. The immediate yield would be incredible, but the future operational cost would be the total destruction of the biological machinery.

  ?"Now, focus on that target," Ren ordered, "playing the sergeant" with an almost guilty pleasure. "Do not push the mana. Spin it against its own biological resistance."

  ?Eduard extended his hand. The wind projectile tore through the oak and exploded part of the granite wall behind it.

  ?"YES!" Eduard shouted, dazzled. "I felt the power! It’s like I have a cannon in my arm!"

  ?The Poison Beneath the Skin

  ?Julius fired his, but as he lowered his hand, he looked at his fingers with suspicion.

  ?"It is efficient," Julius commented, his voice cold. "But I felt a sharp sting in the neural network, an abrasive heat. Why does this happen, 'Professor'?"

  ?Marth leaned forward on his throne. It was the moment for Ren to use his management silver-tongue.

  ?"It is the Law of Flow Dilation," Ren lied with conviction. "Your protein filaments are being molded to withstand the new density. As the ancient sages said, the body is the first slave of the mind, and it complains when forced to evolve. The discomfort is merely your biological system adjusting to your new greatness."

  It was the perfect technical lie. The "heat" was inflammation of the runic tissues. Ren knew, based on what he had learned about the fragility of the runic channels under stress without preparation, that in three years this inflammation would turn into fibrosis—rigid scars that would rob the channels of their elasticity. The day they tried to use 100% of their power in combat, the channels would rupture like dried rubber.

  The Disguised Triumph

  Marth Vermilion let out a harsh laugh.

  "Excellent! Knowledge about Valério will be our foundation. Take the boy back."

  As he was being dragged away, Ren passed Ruby. She looked at him with deep sadness. He didn't need pity; he was merely calculating the right moment for his revenge. In the cell, while sharing a piece of stale bread with Erina, George asked why he had made them stronger.

  "George..." Ren whispered, "...there are weapons you give to the enemy to lower their guard. I didn't give them a sword; I gave them a mismanagement error that they think is power. In three years, their stockpile will be empty."

  Ren Valerius exhaled in the cold of the dungeon. He had three years to polish away that destruction. Pedro II had said that time was the best judge; Ren would be the executor, prepared by strategic planning.

  In this chapter, Ren draws inspiration from one of the most fascinating figures in Brazilian history: Dom Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil.

  Known as "The Magnanimous," Pedro II was a world-renowned intellectual, a patron of the arts, and a staunch defender of the idea that "education is the most subtle weapon to dismantle a tyrant." He once stated that if he had not been emperor, he would have preferred to be a teacher.