Banquet and Goal

At night, in the dining hall of First Prince William's palace.

Candles flickered along the long dining table, leaving the entire room dimly lit.

First Prince William sat quietly at one end of the table, as if waiting for someone.

Suddenly, with a creak, the dining hall door opened and a figure walked in. The dim lighting obscured his face, but judging from his outline alone, one could tell he was a handsome young man.

"Your Highness..." The figure hurried forward to offer his greetings, his voice immensely respectful.

William raised a hand to stop him and said softly, "Sit. I've been waiting for you."

By etiquette, the other man should have sat at the opposite end of the table, but William gestured toward the seat directly beside him.

The figure froze slightly, then sat beside William in terrified reverence.

William clapped his hands, and maids immediately entered the dining hall carrying the prepared food. It was simple fare: white bread, pork chops, half-cold Roasted Hare, Mushroom Soup, and Malt Liquor.

The two began eating. The meal was somewhat silent, and the atmosphere was rather oppressive.

William did not say a word, merely focusing on his food as if it required his full concentration. Regardless of how it tasted, he chewed every bite seriously before swallowing.

The figure beside him was somewhat nervous. Though he ate with equally impeccable noble etiquette, he moved extremely slowly, cutting a pork chop into morsels the size of diced meat and placing them into his mouth one by one. In the stifling atmosphere, beads of sweat seeped down his face.

Suddenly, as if remembering something, William lightly set down his knife and fork on the table with a soft snap, then turned to look at the figure beside him.

The figure quickly swallowed all the food in his mouth with a gulp, set down his knife at once, and met William's gaze.

"Your Highness..."

"Mm." William spoke. "You should know my younger brother quite well, right?"

"Your Highness's younger brother—Prince Richard? Of... of course I know him well," the figure replied cautiously.

"Then what kind of person do you think my brother is?"

"Uh, well..." The figure hesitated. After pondering for a long while, he carefully chose his words. "From what I know, Prince Richard is very intelligent, but also very strange. He is always researching things related to Wizards, or conducting experiments. In short... he seems completely different from you, Your Highness."

"Indeed." William nodded in agreement, his eyes flickering. "Richard... yes, my brother is indeed very intelligent and very strange. He has been that way since childhood.

You should know that I am two years older than him. But you certainly don't know that he began speaking fluently and communicating with others at the same time as me—when I was three and he was one."

The figure revealed a surprised expression.

"Of course, I don't actually remember any of this. Who could remember something from when they were that young? Father told me all of it. He also told me that my brother displayed many strange traits as a child. For example, he had never cried, nor had he ever smiled. He simply did not seem like a child, as though another person's soul were hidden inside that tiny body.

He learned to read quickly and learned everything quickly. By the age of six, the court tutors could no longer teach him anything. After that, the place he visited most was the library. According to the librarian, even his reading speed was far faster than ordinary people's. Others truly read, while he merely flipped through pages. Most importantly, after flipping through them, he remembered everything firmly. I remember when I was ten and he was eight, Father tested us with some questions. Then... do you know what happened?"

William looked at the figure, who shook his head in confusion.

Colored Lights flashed in William's eyes. "The result was that I did not even have a chance to think. Before Father had even finished asking a question, he had already given the answer. Finally, Father asked him how to become a good King. Looking back, I think that if he had given Father a satisfactory answer, Father might have directly named him Crown Prince. But can you guess how he answered?"

The figure shook his head again.

"He said..." William smiled complicatedly. "He said he could not be bothered to answer that question. He said being King was a troublesome matter, and he had more important things to do, so he could not be bothered to become King."

"..." The figure did not know what to say.

William shook his head and spoke as if to himself. "Do you know how I felt at the time? Surprise, yes, and fear. Because I suddenly realized that this younger brother was far more capable than me. If there was something he wanted to do, he would definitely do it better than I could. Yet he simply did not want to do it, as if he had already foreseen the outcome.

My brother is just that strange—a strange person, a strange Prince. Especially after Father's test, he became even stranger. He began conducting all kinds of experiments, researching all sorts of things related to Wizards, and making all kinds of frightening objects. For example, acidic liquid capable of easily corroding a sharp Iron Sword, and stones that gave off tremendous explosions when thrown into water.

No one knew what he wanted to do, or what his purpose was. In the end, even Father was somewhat afraid of him. Otherwise, that misunderstanding would not have happened three years ago."

At the end, William sighed softly and looked at the figure. "I did not summon you for any other reason. I want to be a good older brother and protect his safety. No matter what he does, as long as it does not go too far, I will let him have his way. At the same time, I want to be a good King and protect this country well."

"So!" William's gaze became serious.

The figure straightened up, only to hear William say the next moment, "There is something you must do for me. That is..."

The figure's expression changed rapidly. After a long while, his gaze hardened and he answered, "Yes!"

At night, Richard's Palace.

Inside the bedroom, Richard flipped through the Chapter of Munro. His eyes flickered constantly, and he occasionally revealed a thoughtful expression.

Although he had successfully cast his first spell yesterday, he did not even count as a First Level Apprentice yet. Wizard Apprentices had three ranks: First Level Apprentice, Second Level Apprentice, and Third Level Apprentice. Only after reaching Third Level Apprentice and successfully advancing could one be considered a Wizard.

Right now, he had merely stepped into the world of Wizards. This was only the beginning. He still needed to explore and choose how to walk the road ahead. Besides, it was obviously impossible to analyze the entire world with only a single Wizard Book. He needed to obtain more things related to Wizards and even come into contact with the true Wizards and magical creatures of this world.

"The road ahead is long and boundless; I shall search high and low. A heavy burden and a long road indeed," Richard muttered to himself.

The road was long, but Richard did not think he would fail to use science to analyze spells. No matter how miraculous spells were, they still had to conform to common sense in chemistry and physics. Fire could not freeze people, and Ice Blocks could not burn them to ash.

Even if they did not conform to common sense in chemistry and physics, they still had to conform to logic and mathematics. Spells could not all be random. The combined power of two identical spells could not be weaker than one spell alone.

If that were truly the case, Archimedes, master of logic and renowned planet-prier, would surely use a lever to pry the entire planet into the sky. Or perhaps Archimedes, that mathematical genius and mad circle-drawer, would wield a club and beat to death the Roman soldier who tried to stop him from drawing circles.

All unknown things might appear unfathomably mysterious, just as things far beyond one world's understanding were often regarded as magic, but they still had to follow certain laws. Those laws were science.

Science was not some immutable thing. More than that, it was a way of thinking and a worldview.

What Richard truly wanted was to understand the science within spells, understand why he had come to this world, and understand everything.

Transmigration, conquering the world—those words sounded fine enough, but when it truly happened, he realized just how unreasonable it was.

Like an ostrich, he could ignore it as many novels described, pretend everything was normal, and live on. He could convince himself to be assimilated by this world, live according to its ways, or strive under its framework to become the strongest. That was certainly one choice.

But Richard did not want that.

In Richard's view, that was no different from an insect artificially raised inside a box. Drifting through life made one an insect; striving hard to become a little stronger, even the strongest, still made one an insect, still trapped inside the box.

What Richard wanted was to understand what was going on with this box, why he had ended up inside it, and then walk out.

The reason he wanted to become a Wizard was not to gain world-destroying power. It was to understand what this latent science, which did not exist at all on modern Earth, truly was. He wanted to grasp its core principles, master them, and put them to use.

The strongest Wizard was still a Wizard, still an insect in a box. Understanding every principle and walking out of the box would make one a god. That was a qualitative difference.

After all, while living inside the box, one could never know whether something might come crashing down upon it the next moment and destroy the entire world.

"The road is long..." Richard muttered to himself. "So I cannot waste time. I need to move faster..."