Lyra von Argentis did not stay long after her power was so casually negated. She offered a stiff, formal bow—a gesture so out of character it was more shocking than her initial hostility—and departed without another word. The look in her eyes as she left was a maelstrom of confusion, frustration, and a sliver of something that Kael's code-vision identified as [Terrified Respect].
The following weeks were a blur of calculated preparation. The Baron, true to his word, provided Kael with everything. Tutors came and went, their lessons on history, geography, and etiquette proving trivially easy for a mind that could literally read the world's data. Kael absorbed books in minutes, not by reading, but by laying a hand on them and [Executing] the information directly into his memory. He learned more about the world of Aethelgard in two weeks than most scholars learned in a lifetime.
He learned of the great human kingdoms, the sprawling Demon Continent, the enigmatic Elven woods, and the Celestial Sanctum where the "Gods" supposedly resided. He learned about the Royal Academy in Veritas, the capital city, a melting pot of the continent's most powerful and promising youth.
Throughout it all, he practiced. In the privacy of his chambers, he pushed the boundaries of his ability. He learned to [Edit] the properties of his food to make it taste however he wished. He [Debugged] a tear in his tunic, causing the threads to re-weave themselves perfectly. He [Create]-d small, simple objects from thin air—a wooden cup, a silver coin, an apple—by writing their code from scratch. It was mentally exhausting, like writing a complex program from memory, but each success made him stronger, his control more refined.
His Ravager, whom he'd unofficially named "Glitch," became his constant companion. He tweaked its code slightly, reducing its size to that of a large mastiff to make it less conspicuous, though its C-Rank power signature remained, a constant warning to anyone who got too close.
Finally, the day of departure arrived. The Baron had arranged for a grand carriage, emblazoned with the Thorne family crest, pulled by four powerful, armored destriers. It was a procession designed to announce the arrival of someone important. Valerius, who was also heading to the academy, was assigned to a separate, less ostentatious carriage. The silent, public demotion was not lost on him, and the poisonous glare he shot Kael could have curdled milk.
To Kael's mild surprise, Duchess Lyra and her retinue of silver-clad knights were joining their convoy. She claimed her diplomatic mission was over and their destination was the same, making it a matter of "efficiency." The excuse was paper-thin. Kael knew the real reason: she was sticking close, unable to let the anomaly that was Kael Virein out of her sight.
The journey to Veritas was a ten-day affair across the rugged landscapes of the continent. For the first few days, a tense silence permeated the convoy. Lyra kept to herself, observing Kael from a distance, her face an unreadable mask of ice.
The peace was broken on the fourth day, as they passed through the notorious Bandit's Pass.
It was a classic ambush. Boulders rolled down the cliffs, blocking the road ahead and behind. A horde of nearly a hundred bandits, clad in mismatched leather and iron, swarmed from the rocks, their faces contorted in vicious glee. Their leader, a brutish giant of a man with a jagged scar across his face, brandished a massive, enchanted axe.
"Well, well! Look what we have here!" the bandit leader roared, his eyes glinting with greed as they fell on the Thorne and Argentis crests. "A couple of fat nobles out for a stroll! Hand over all your gold, jewels, and that pretty little ice princess, and we might just let your guards live!"
Lyra's silver knights instantly formed a defensive circle, their swords drawn. They were elite, each one a solid C-Rank, but they were outnumbered nearly five to one.
Lyra herself stepped out of her carriage, her hand glowing with a chilling blue light. "You have made a grave mistake," she said, her voice dripping with cold fury. A storm of ice shards began to form in the air around her.
"Feisty! I like it!" the leader laughed, hefting his axe. An ugly red aura flared around the weapon. "This here is a B-Rank [Armor Shredder] axe! Your fancy knights and ice tricks won't save you!"
Kael watched from the window of his carriage, Glitch growling softly at his feet. He analyzed the situation.
=== SCENARIO: Bandit Ambush ===
ENEMIES: 97
AVERAGE RANK: E+
LEADER: "Grak the Skull-Splitter", B-Rank Warrior
THREAT LEVEL: Moderate (to the convoy)
THREAT LEVEL: Trivial (to Kael)
================================
Lyra and her knights could probably win, but it would be a bloody, drawn-out fight with potential casualties. Kael found the prospect... inefficient.
He sighed, stepped out of the carriage, and walked calmly to the front of the convoy, drawing the attention of every bandit.
"Who's this skinny whelp?" Grak sneered. "The noble's manservant?"
Lyra's eyes widened. "Kael, get back! This is not a situation for..." She trailed off, remembering who she was talking to.
Kael ignored them all. He looked at the hundred or so bandits, then up at the steep, rocky cliffs on either side of the pass. He raised a hand.
He focused on the fundamental code of the area. He wasn't interested in the bandits themselves. They were just data points. He was interested in their environment. He found the core variable for the pass.
GRAVITY_CONSTANT = 9.8m/s²
A slow, wicked smile spread across his face. It was the smile of a programmer who'd just found a global variable they could play with.
He reached out with his will and edited the value, but not for the whole area. He applied a localized modifier.
LOCAL_MODIFIER_FIELD (Bandit_Cohort_Area)
GRAVITY_CONSTANT = 98m/s² (10x Multiplier)
The effect was instantaneous and brutally effective.
For Kael, Lyra, and the knights, nothing changed. But for every single one of the bandits, the weight of the world suddenly increased tenfold.
The hundred-man horde collapsed as one.
Their legs simply gave out from under them. Bones snapped with sickening cracks under the sudden, immense strain. Those on the steeper slopes were flattened into the ground, their armor creaking and groaning as if struck by a giant's hammer. Grak the Skull-Splitter, who had been roaring in triumph a moment before, let out a choked scream as his B-Rank [Armor Shredder] axe, now weighing over a thousand pounds, fell from his grasp and pinned his arm to the ground, shattering it. He tried to push himself up, veins bulging on his forehead, only to collapse back down, his own body an unbearable prison of weight.
There was no battle. No fight. Just the collective groans of a hundred men pinned to the earth by an invisible, insurmountable force.
Kael walked forward, stepping over the writhing, helpless bodies, until he stood before the pinned bandit leader. He crouched down, his face a mask of casual curiosity.
"It seems you miscalculated the gravity of the situation," Kael said conversationally.
Grak stared up at him, his face a mask of terror and agony. "What... what sorcery is this?! Who are you?!"
Kael simply smiled, then stood up and walked back to the convoy, leaving the bandit leader and his entire horde crushed and whimpering on the ground.
He glanced at Lyra. Her face was chalk-white. Her mouth was slightly agape, her A-Rank mind once again struggling to comprehend what it had just witnessed. She had been preparing for an epic battle, ready to unleash a blizzard of ice that would paint the pass red. Kael had ended the threat in five seconds without throwing a single punch or casting a single spell. He hadn't fought the enemy. He had turned the world itself into a weapon against them.
Her silver-clad knights stared, their swords half-drawn, their professional training utterly failing them in the face of such a physics-defying reality.
From the other carriage, Valerius peeked out the window. His face, which had held a hopeful expression, expecting to see Kael get killed, was now a sickly green. The sheer, effortless dominance was a poison to his soul.
Kael climbed back into his carriage as if he'd just gone for a stroll. "I believe the road is clear now," he announced to the stunned convoy leader.
As the carriages began to move again, leaving the crushed bandits to their fate, Lyra walked over to Kael's window.
"That..." she began, her voice barely a whisper. "That was not a skill. That was not magic as we know it. You... you altered a fundamental law of the world."
Kael looked at her, his expression unreadable. "The world has many rules, Duchess. I'm just learning which ones are suggestions."
Lyra stared at him, and for the first time, the [Arrogance] tag in her status flickered and went out completely. It was replaced by something new. Something he hadn't seen before.
STATUS: [Awe].