Underage

Donald had always thought Lucia might share the same status as Roger—the child of some duke, or if he dared to guess more boldly, she might have royal blood. But in the end, the truth was more astonishing than any speculation.

Lucia was the princess of the Feymont Empire, the only daughter of King Auston.

Roger's mother was the queen's sister, and every prince and princess of the empire followed in the footsteps of Emperor Louis Fermont, beginning their magical studies at Tris Magic Academy.

In recent years, Tris Magic Academy had failed to produce outstanding students, yet it still maintained the extravagant luxury of having almost all classes taught by Formal Magicians, and its quota of Magic Crystals had never been cut. This was precisely because the academy held a special significance for the Feymont Empire.

Of course, Donald knew none of this.

On the way back to the magic academy, Captain Kaz politely asked him about the bandits, and Donald told him the truth. He didn't mention his suspicions that the kidnappers might have been soldiers in disguise, or that their target was likely Lucia. He simply recounted everything that had happened as it was, leaving the Captain to draw his own conclusions.

Donald knew that if an army-backed kidnapping of a princess occurred within the empire, it could mean something serious. So he made up his mind to only report what he had seen, without letting his imagination run wild.

After hearing Donald's account, Captain Kaz's expression didn't change, nor did he ask for Donald's opinion. In his eyes, Donald was probably just an ordinary student who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only when he heard that Donald could cast magic without chanting did he show a flicker of surprise. And when Donald described their escape, he didn't forget to remark that they should have released the horses while fleeing.

In the presence of the Crimson Knights, Donald finally saw Lucia display the demeanor of a princess—her graceful posture and slightly distant smile were completely different from how she usually acted.

For Donald, the kidnapping incident ended once he returned to the magic academy. As for Lucia, the investigations that Captain Kaz and the academy would inevitably conduct, or even the undercurrents that might stir across the empire, none of that concerned him anymore.

He immediately returned to his familiar routine, continuing his studies and training at his own pace.

His self-created Meditation Method still increased his Fire and Water Elements by four Divine Crystals each day. The seemingly futile Rune drawing persisted without pause. In Alchemy class, he diligently identified and recorded the characteristics of different plants. In incantation class, he mouthed the words without actually chanting. The Magic Array class he was interested in wouldn't officially start until his fourth year.

In his spare time, besides continuing to practice the Six-Element Attack Magic, Donald began attempting to construct the Twelve-Element Defense Magic (the Six-Element Nesting Model). After succeeding on his first try, he had a sudden whim and tried combining multiple Divine Crystals into the nesting model. The experiment predictably failed.

Almost all the models collapsed the moment they were released. The only one that didn't collapse was the most dangerous of all. The model nesting Fire Element into Water Element produced a tiny ice ball that burst the moment it left his hand.

Even though Donald's resistance to the Fire Element was much stronger than that of an ordinary low-level Magic Apprentice, the explosion still injured his palm. He had to ask the Alchemy professor to apply a magical ointment, costing him a Magic Crystal in the process.

Since Wesley obtained the new Meditation Method, he had successfully advanced to Intermediate Magic Apprentice. His previously idle attitude had also somewhat restrained itself, and he seemed to have become more diligent. Whether this was spurred by Donald's progress or because he was thinking about the beauties of the Magic Continent was unclear.

During the early April holiday, Donald saw the twin girls in the lab, ecstatic. An alloy of Devil King Light Iron and another slightly rarer lightweight metal, at a certain composition ratio and cooling rate, showed much higher strength than Devil King Light Iron alone. Even the dwarf Aidaruy was amazed by it.

After witnessing Donald's alchemy-like creation, the twin girls' attitude toward him shifted from curiosity and doubt to complete trust and a hint of admiration. The nickname "Devil King Donald" was firmly established.

And because they had grown familiar, the two girls began to reveal their chatty nature. Whenever they started chattering endlessly, the dwarf Aidaruy would flee to avoid them. But Donald, tasked with guiding the experiment, had to grit his teeth and listen to their rambling.

"Devil King Donald, what should we call this synthetic metal?" Ailimanda poked her finger into her dimple, her big eyes looking upward as if pondering an important question.

"Yeah, yeah, what should we call it? Hmm... how about Devil King Light Iron?"

After Ailimiya said the name, the more she repeated it, the more fitting it seemed. Her sister seemed to feel the same way. Their eyes met, and they both made exaggerated smiles. To them, giving a good name to an invention seemed more exciting than the invention itself.

Donald worried that if that name got out, and someone later connected it to him, it would truly earn him the title of Devil King. So he deliberately put on a serious expression, asked the twin girls to bring over the experimental result, and then asked, "When was the strength tested?"

The sisters replied that they had tested it right after the experiment, about four days ago.

"Test it again now," Donald ordered.

"A test this simple, even a gnome couldn't mess it up," said Ailimanda, the elder sister.

"Yeah, yeah, why test it again?" Ailimiya, the younger, chimed in.

But under Donald's insistence, the two girls had to pout and test it again. When the results came out, their nearly identical faces lit up with a mix of excitement and embarrassment.

"Wow... how did it get so hard? Hey, we really messed up last time..."

"Yeah, yeah, so embarrassing, we tested wrong. Manda, you said it couldn't be wrong!"

"Didn't you say it couldn't be wrong either!" The elder sister tapped the younger on the head, who pouted but couldn't argue.

"Alright, you didn't test wrong. This is normal. Some alloys harden over time after cooling."

The twin sisters immediately asked if it would keep hardening if left longer.

Donald gave a negative answer. Although age hardening in alloys could occur over a long period, it generally approached its peak within a few days.

Ignoring the little blunder, the test results still made the two girls' faces flush with excitement. The hardness of this alloy had increased significantly after three days, approaching that of ordinary steel.

Then came something even more thrilling: Donald had new tasks for them.

This time, they were to continue adding other components to this alloy, focusing on various expensive rare metals, especially those with excellent strength or toughness, such as Dwarf Fine Steel or the even more costly Mithril. The addition ratio was to be kept very small, ranging from one ten-thousandth to one percent.

Since the density of these additives differed greatly from Devil King Light Iron, Donald instructed the sisters to stir rapidly after heating to high temperatures to help them fuse.

After arranging the lab work, Donald chatted with the dwarf Aidaruy and mentioned that his younger brother was studying at the Knight Academy. Aidaruy scoffed at the Middle-earth method of training knights.

"Your Middle-earth way of training knights is complete nonsense!"

"Why?" Donald didn't know much about the Knight Academy's curriculum, but he was curious to hear the dwarf's opinion.

"Don't you know that Middle-earth has never produced a knight above the seventh rank? I've heard that here, a Formal Knight under eighteen is considered a genius. Ha, at that age in the Knight Federation, you'd need to be a Level 2 Knight to be called a genius. And our dwarf warriors in the Extreme North Country can reach Level 4 Knight by the time they're fifty."

"Fifty?" Donald thought the comparison was clearly unfair.

"Hey? Didn't you know that we dwarves don't come of age until fifty, and we live at least four hundred years? ... But those dwarf miners..."

Hearing this, Donald remembered the sad expression on Natia Vida's face when she spoke of the dwarves' fate. But then another question came to mind.

"Then at what age do gnomes come of age?"

Aidaruy couldn't help but smirk, his expression seeming to say, "You're only asking this now?"

"Gnomes come of age at forty, with an average lifespan of five hundred years, hehe."

"Then those two are just kids!" Donald pointed toward the closed door of the room where the twin sisters were, unable to hear their conversation.

"I never said I wasn't—you only asked me their ages, and they really are sixteen!"

Donald was left speechless by the other's cunning. He never imagined that the famously straightforward and hot-tempered dwarves could have such a sly side.

Adarua was still holding back his laughter. In truth, with his beard-covered face, even if he did laugh out loud, Donald might not have noticed. But the way he suppressed his amusement made his expression even more exaggerated and obvious.

Only then did Donald recall why Adarua always slipped away whenever he started an experiment. He must have found it amusing to see Donald earnestly conducting experiments with two kids in tow.

"Did they really attend the Engineering Academy?"

"They did. Natia Vida's two children are famous prodigies in the Extreme North Country. They graduated from the Engineering Academy a year ago, while most kids their age haven't even enrolled yet. They both clamor to do experiments every day, but who would actually take two children to run experiments?"

That dwarf even covered his mouth on the last sentence, as if afraid Donald wouldn't notice he was laughing.

"What level knight are you?" Donald asked through gritted teeth.

"I'm not a knight. Though we do cultivate Battle Qi, dwarves aren't called knights."

"Ah, you know what I mean. Equivalent to what level knight?"

"Level 5 Dwarf Warrior!" Adarua puffed out his chest as he said this, finally stopping his laughter.

Donald was stunned by the answer. He knew that Kaz, the leader of the Crimson Knights—almost the symbol of the empire's top military might—was only a Level 4 Knight. The dwarf before him was actually a full level higher. He couldn't help but scrutinize the dwarf as if seeing him for the first time. Adarua grew a bit uncomfortable under his gaze.

"What do you want?"

"Can you teach my brother?"

"Our dwarven training methods—he won't be able to handle them."

"Let's give it a try."

The next morning, Donald brought Richard and Kelly to meet Adarua. From that day on, they began attempting the dwarven method of training warriors.