The next few months went by rather smoothly. With my life as a test dummy having ended, I began to take classes with Mark, though everyone called him The Professor. He had acted as Sofia’s assistant during most of my time at Understudy and was the first non Davonion native I’d interacted with. Unlike Sofia’s grandfather, the professor was actually willing to talk about Scate and what life in the Elven Kingdom was like. Most of my knowledge had already come from the professor or his recommended books, so being personally taught by him every day sounded amazing… at first.

I soon realized that the professor had been a demon hiding among men all this time. When my parents said every day, they meant every day, and the professor was happy to oblige. Though the sessions were only four hours at a time, the homework he assigned was grueling. More than once I tried to play the “but I’m only four years old,” card, having learned more about what should be normal for a child my age. The professor never even bat an eye. We covered subjects involving math, language, and history, the final being my favorite. Though I protested initially, I eventually adapted to the new schedule and even came to enjoy it, mostly.

About six months after the daily tests had come to an end, I was laying on a couch in the cube with a brand-new set of bracers on my wrist and ankles. This was one of the rare days when I was not required to have class, so I could test a new prototype. My mother had been extra vocal about her displeasure with me needing to test anything but relented in the end after Sofia agreed to her one condition. So, there I was, sitting with my new bracers on, about ten feet from my parents.

After taking the Professor’s classes for a few months, I had come to fully understand who my parents were and what their titles meant.

“Are you sure you have time for this?” I asked my parents for the umpteenth time. “Just think about all the work you could be getting done right now.”

Over the past few weeks, I’d been taking a break from attempting to improve my wind magic to try fire. I knew my parents wouldn’t approve and Sofia would tell them if she knew, but a combination of my lack of progress and making sure to pull multiple mana from multiple elements stopped that from happening. I had a feeling today was going to be different though, I could feel I was close. Gathering the mana was easy, actually forming a spell however was not. I thought the slight difference the bracers' interference caused could be the edge I needed.

“Ben, we're here, this was the deal, you agreed to it,” my mother replied crossing her arms.

“Not that it would have mattered,” I muttered, but her mana enhanced ears picked it up, and she snapped.

“Benjamin.”

Rolling my eyes, I let my head fall to the cushion, waiting for Sofia’s signal.

***

Cale Silverose

‘What has gotten into that boy?’ I thought to myself as I stood across from Ben.

He had always been an anomaly to me, he was clearly different, but Maddie and I did our best to give him everything he needed and trust me it was a lot. I was just grateful the Elves had been so open to helping us, even though the alliance had yet to be fully formed. While their demands were a bit ambiguous, Davion was clearly the winning party in the negotiations.

“Is everyone ready,” Sofia asked through the projecting sound construct.

“We will be starting at a three with one-minute intervals until five, then five-minute intervals until ten.”

Maddie and I verbally confirmed, while Ben just stuck an arm up, thumb extended. I dreaded the day Ben would be debuted to the world, he was a prince only in name, no manners, never before seen, and an absolute troublemaker. Sighing into my hands, I thought back to the reason Maddie and I were here. Sofia had told us Ben was attempting to manipulate fire mana recently.

It had not been much of a problem before due to his lack of training and the mana restrictions, but today, the beta environment may reach full power, and Ben could even be conscious for it. The little rascal had even tried to cover it up by manipulating water and earth mana at the same time, but as smart as that kid was, he couldn’t trick Sofia. We considered limiting the amount of fire mana in the cube for the day, but it would have skewed the test results, especially since fire was one of my main elements, and it was likely Ben could inherit it. Silus had already shown promise for the element, and I preened at the thought of the three of us together.

I heard the mechanical seal release as mana began to flow into my body again. Understudy didn’t stop a person from having mana entirely. If it did, half the staff would be unable to work, their bodies suffering from at least acute mana withdrawal, not necessarily harmful but annoying enough to cause issues. Dangerous issues considering the work done here. Rather, it restricted the mana in the environment to almost nothing, which caused the mana already in your body to be siphoned out. Any mage worth their salt knew plenty of techniques to stretch their mana if not stop the drain entirely, so the siphon was even less effective. It did, however, create the perfect environment for more nuanced experiments, and Ben.

I forced my body to stop absorbing the mana flowing into the area, both because I was already nearly full and to not mess with the balance of the space. Feeling Maddie do the same, I moved my eyes back to Ben, who was now sitting in a lotus position, practicing Leven’s “basic technique.” While still first circle manipulation based on mana requirements, the control required to actually shape it was borderline second. Even so, Ben had managed once before.

After reaching a six, I took a deep breath, my heart pounding. When the cube was at a four, Ben, with the use of a self-created chant, had managed to successfully propel himself upwards. He immediately lost it upon reaching fifty percent average ambient conditions but been able to cast the spell again at a six. Managing to not only remain conscious but simultaneously sudo-levitate at sixty percent ambient mana flow was amazing. I looked over to Maddie who, despite her usual calm demeanor, had her hands behind her back, fiddling with her wand nervously. I could understand why, this was what we worked for all this ti-

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There was a sudden shift in the ambient mana after the cube reached seventy percent. My first assumption was that Ben had fainted, which, though unfortunate, was expected, but that wasn’t the case. I began to feel fire attribute mana warping around Ben’s small frame. I let out a slight sigh at the scene, he’d somehow managed to reach fire with pure intent. The mage in me was amazed by Ben’s aptitude for mana arts, but the father in me, Ben’s father, was scared. The kid was smarter than any other four-year-old I’d met, but he was still only four. Releasing my mana sense, I figured it was about time we ended this test, but before I could tell Sofia to do so, Ben caught my eye, and I realized the next issue.

Ben trying to manipulate fire mana was, well, dumb, but understandable. We could have told him not to try a fire spell, but he’d been acting up lately, and frankly, I was happy he wanted to use my element. Maddie and I had already gone over the worst-case scenarios. That was part of why I was here, seizing the mana from a spell was a high-level technique, but it was barely a first-tier spell, and with Ben’s flimsy control it would be fine, or so we thought, but nothing seemed to ever go right with that boy. For all our planning, no one seemed to think Ben would try to use two spells at once, and that’s exactly what he did.

Still hovering inches above the couch, small balls of fire began to form near Ben’s hands, then immediately proceeded to fall on the couch. Knowing this was a possibility, the couch had been warded against fire and the ground below was dirt. If this had been any other child, that would have been the end of it, but not for Ben. His makeshift levitation spell decided to pick that moment to collapse, pushing the air that lifted him down and outwards, forcing the falling flames onto the grass and nearby tree.

The fire was spreading within the second, accelerated by the rushing air. This was actually not as bad, since the lack of mana being continuously infused into the spell made it easier to control. I didn’t look over to Maddie, but I could feel her presence as the temperature in the room plummeted. A combination of water and deviant ice magic was used to instantly quell the flames, and she was already running forward to catch Ben’s falling frame. She managed to push him back onto the couch before visually slumping, then it was my turn to run forward and catch her. Madeleine had moved backward enough for me to grab hold of her before she reached the ground, but the problems were far from over.

It took me a second to notice that I couldn’t feel any mana emanating from her. Though my wife always had amazing shroud control, this was different, she felt empty. I looked towards my wife questioningly, but her half-lidded gaze was locked on Ben. His body was curled up into a ball, his expression unseeable. As I was helping Maddie back to her feet, something I hadn’t seen in four years began to shine through the violet hair on his forehead, followed by a ripple like wave of mana before everything went dark.

***

I awoke in a very familiar place with a splitting headache. After Winston noticed I was up, he called for Sofia, who arrived looking stressed as can be. Her informing me Maddie and Ben were both fine; was followed by an odd reversal of roles where the patient had to tell the doctor everything was going to be fine. After another few minutes of frantic apologies, Sofia finally got to the story.

After telling her what I remembered and when I passed out, the curly haired researcher began to explain what happened from there. Apparently, I didn’t black out immediately after I saw the symbol on Ben’s head. Rather, something Sofia referred to as a magic pulse occurred. She suspected I felt the concentration of mana building because I enshrouded Maddie and myself in both a barrier formed of wind and fire, though I had no recollection of the event. Whatever emanated from Ben had some serious power because it managed to near instantly deplete my mana and I got pelted by some of the debris in the room. Luckily, I was able to use my body as a shield and Maddie came out with few injuries while I was bruised, battered, and burned all over.

The healers were able to patch me up, but I knew I would be feeling it for days. Sofia’s mention of healers made me realize how hungry I was, so I had Lisa, who had wandered in with Maddie halfway through Sofia’s story, go order me something from the kitchen.

“So, is that the worst of it?” I asked once Sofia seemed to have finished speaking. “Besides me passing out in front of all these people.

“Losing like that. A weak King is no good to the people, luckily almost everyone here is oath bound.”

I glared at Winston; his comments would not be forgotten.

“To a little kid no less,” he said, adding insult to injury. I couldn't help but laugh, then groan at the mild pain that accompanied it.

“Well, no Majesty, there’s more,” Sofia replied softly, getting us back to the topic at hand.

I knew she wasn’t one to beat around the bush, so it had to be bad.

“More bad news? Well, get it over with.”

Sofia looked at me as if she was battle-scarred, and my heart dropped. Before my mind could begin to come up with the worst-case scenario, Maddie spoke.

“You’re going to scare him half to death Sofia; it’s not that bad… well no let me rephrase that it could be worse.”

I stared at Maddie in horror as she sat on the bed before I realized she was purposely trying to freak me out even more. Sofia, seemingly misinterpreting what Maddie was doing, decided to get it over before it got worse.

“When the prince released the mana pulse, he also knocked out almost all the equipment inside the cube, even after I hit the off switch. The Beta Environment itself is ruined. Most of the landscape and biosphere machinery is destroyed but some of the hardware is in more obscure locations and all of the data recorded until that point is fine but everything else is gone.”

I began to silently weep just thinking about the price as I asked for clarification.

“So basically, Ben went supernova and wiped-out tens of millions of petals worth of equipment.”

“Amazing!” I screamed, muffled by my hands as I leaned back into the bed.

This, of course, only made my sore muscles feel worse, and I let out a deep sigh.

“Tell him the rest.”

I opened my eyes to look back at Sofia, who had cowered back into her shell after my outburst.

“Well, I think everything is salvageable. Not the equipment that’s all gone,” she hurriedly added, grimacing at my obvious displeasure.

“The data,” her tone somewhat distracted. “I’ve only managed to skim it, but I’m sure that the information we gathered from the... Prince’s Pulse-” Sofia chuckled.

I kept glaring at the mage until she continued speaking.

“That data can teach us a lot about the inner workings of mana. Not just the bracers for Ben, it could answer questions that we’ve been trying to figure out for years.”

By this point, her shy exterior was completely gone, her green eyes twinkling, and nervousness replaced by pure glee. As I thought about it, I began to be excited as well. Sofia was one of the smartest people in her generation. If Sofia said this was big it was, but that did raise a new question.

“If Ben was the epicenter of an event that can answer questions about mana at a fundamental level. What does that make Ben?”