[Book 2 Complete] Industrial Mage

General POV

Nathan felt fucking invincible the moment he entered the Instance. It was the kind of high that came from knowing you were about to do something that would make you a legend at every party for the next decade.

"The prince is trending," he said to Darian, and god, the grin on his face probably looked insufferable but who gave a shit when you were about to bag literal royalty. "You know what this means?"

"Nat, don't tell me you're thinking what I think you're thinking," Darian said, but Nathan was already past listening.

"I'm gonna eliminate Theodore Lockheart. Can you imagine? 'Nathan Valen Takes Down Royal Blood.' The ladies at court will be fighting over me. Hell, my father might actually smile for once in his miserable life. This is it, Darian, this is my moment. That's headlines, that's contracts, that's dinner invitations. You think I'm letting that slip?" The excitement was burning through him like wildfire, making everything else irrelevant.

A Rank 2 prince wandering around Instance 7 like a lost puppy? This was a gift from the gods themselves.

Darian shook his head. "You're talking about someone who's faced down Jason Kormack."

Nathan rolled his eyes, laughing. Darian was being adorably naive. "Jason was being polite to royalty. You think the Kormacks, a merchant family, want to piss off the crown by humiliating their prince in public? Please. The prince is still Rank 2. I'm Rank 4. This isn't even a question. Two plus whatever fancy training he got still doesn't equal four."

The certainty felt good, felt right, because this was how the world worked. Ranks meant something, they were the fundamental truth of power.

Darian wasn't done though, because of course he wasn't, always overthinking everything. "But the way he moved, his stance was completely different from before, and the other high Rank competitors, they were actively avoiding him even though he's the lowest rank in here."

Nathan stopped listening halfway through because honestly, what was the point? His mind was already three steps ahead, composing the speech he'd give when he got out, imagining the recording crystal footage going viral across the empire.

"Listen, man. Whatever training he got was probably private tutors padding his abilities. You know how it works with royalty, they tell them they're doing great even when they're shit. Minimum qualification for entry, right? He scraped through preliminaries, probably had some poor bastard clearing through it for him while he took the credit." The more he talked, the more convinced he became, because it all made perfect sense. "Think about it, eliminating a Rank 2 prince equals zero risk, maximum reward. He can't actually hurt me, and the publicity? Priceless."

Nathan pulled out his recording crystal, the excitement making his hands almost shake.

"Watch me take down royalty," he said to it. "Ladies and gentlemen watching this later, you're about to witness history. Nathan Valen versus Prince Theodore Lockheart. I promise to make it quick and respectful."

Theodore didn't know Nathan was recording his own humiliation, didn't know that thousands of people were about to watch him fail spectacularly. He was just standing in a clearing, looking up at the canopy like he'd never seen trees before, and honestly, it was almost sad how unprepared he looked.

No weapon drawn, no defensive stance, just standing there like he was on a nature walk instead of in a death tournament where everyone was hunting everyone else for advancement points.

Seriously, what the hell was he doing?

Theodore heard them coming, of course he did, Nathan wasn't exactly being stealthy, but he just turned slowly, like he had all the time in the world, and the lack of panic in his eyes should have been a warning but Nathan was processing it as something else entirely.

This wasn't calm, this was resignation. The prince knew he was fucked and had just accepted it.

"Look at him," Nathan said to Darian, loud enough that his recording crystal would pick it up clearly. "Probably lost. Doesn't even know the scoring system. I actually feel bad about this."

He didn't feel bad at all, but saying it made him sound noble, made him sound like he had a conscience about destroying someone so thoroughly outmatched.

They approached and Nathan felt like he was walking onto a stage, his stage. This was going to define his entire reputation going forward. Theodore watched them come, still not moving, and Nathan interpreted it as frozen fear because what else could it be? The prince understood the danger, and that he was done for.

"Your Highness, I'll make this quick," Nathan began, and god, he'd practiced this speech in his head a dozen times already. "I want you to know this is nothing personal, truly. In another context, I'd be honored to serve the crown, to stand beside you as an ally. But this is Instance 7, this is the tournament that determines our futures, and I have to think about my family, my advancement, my entire career. You understand that, don't you? Competition demands we set aside our normal social structures, demands we act according to our abilities rather than our births. And unfortunately, Your Highness, your Rank 2 simply cannot compete with my Rank 4. It's not a judgment on your character or your potential, it's simply the reality of our current power levels. I promise I'll make this as painless as possible, and when we meet again outside, I hope you'll understand that—"

Theodore cut him off.

Mana and aura exploded outward from him and Nathan felt his entire world flip upside down because this wasn't possible, this violated everything he understood about ranks and power and the fundamental structure of reality.

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The pressure crashed down on him like someone had dropped a mountain on his shoulders, and his body just stopped, muscles locking up, sweat immediately breaking out across his entire body because his instincts were screaming that he was about to die, that whatever was in front of him wasn't a Rank 2 prince but something else entirely.

Something that could crush him like an insect without even trying.

Theodore walked over casually, and plucked Nathan's bracelet from his wrist like he was picking an apple from a tree.

Three seconds.

The entire "fight" had lasted three seconds, and Nathan hadn't even been able to finish his grand speech, or been able to do anything except stand there paralyzed while a Rank 2 took his bracelet like Nathan had offered it to him as a gift.

Theodore nodded politely, took Darian's bracelet as well, and continued walking into the forest like nothing had happened, like he hadn't just shattered everything Nathan believed about how the world worked.

"Hey, you stop!" Nathan yelled, but he was already dissolving, the elimination teleportation kicking in the moment his bracelet was gone, and his last thought before the Instance ejected him was that this had to be a mistake.

It was some kind of trick, right? Because Rank 2s didn't do that to Rank 4s, they just didn't.

Nathan materialized outside the Instance with a crowd already gathering, because of course they were, his recording crystal—which had been provided by the organizers so everyone outside could see the interesting things going on inside—had been broadcasting the entire thing and news traveled fast when a Rank 4 got their ass handed to them by a Rank 2, especially royalty.

The shock was still rattling through him, making his thoughts scattered and desperate for an explanation that made sense.

"He caught me off guard! I was in the middle of speaking!" The nervous chuckle that escaped him sounded wrong even to his own ears, but what else could he say? That a Rank 2 had paralyzed him with pure pressure?

That sounded insane, and like the worst excuse in the world.

"But you're Rank 4," someone in the crowd said, and Nathan wanted to punch them because stating the obvious wasn't helping.

"Obviously he's been hiding some technique. Probably a one-use artifact from the royal treasury. You know how royalty is, they get all the best equipment, all the advantages we have to earn through blood and sweat." The explanation felt better because artifacts could bridge rank gaps, everyone knew that.

More people were gathering now, the crowd growing as Theodore's name started climbing the rankings, and Nathan watched the scrying crystal display with increasing disbelief because this couldn't be happening, the prince should be getting eliminated any moment now, whatever trick he'd used on Nathan couldn't possibly work twice.

"He got lucky with me. Watch, he'll get eliminated within the hour." The confidence in his voice was forced but necessary because people were looking at him with something dangerously close to pity. "Who wants to bet? A hundred thousand aurums says the prince is out within sixty minutes."

People took the bet because why wouldn't they? A Rank 2 surviving in Instance 7 for another hour seemed impossible to the majority of the people. After all, it was just a fact of the matter.

Theodore didn't get eliminated in the next hour.

Nathan lost the bet, had to pay out while everyone watched, while the whispers got louder and more incredulous.

"The other competitors must be weakened from fighting each other first. He's picking off the wounded, the exhausted. It's actually pretty smart for someone so outmatched," Nathan said, grasping for anything that made sense, anything that preserved his worldview where ranks meant something definitive.

Theodore's name climbed another rank. Then another. The crowd was growing larger, people actually leaving their own viewing parties to come watch the impossible happening on the public displays.

This is... he must be avoiding real fighters and picking off the wounded. There's no way he's actually fighting anyone at full strength. But even as Nathan thought that, the excuse sounded pathetic, desperate, and ugly. That's why he hadn't said it aloud, because the looks people were giving him were shifting from pity to secondhand embarrassment already.

"Theodore Lockheart just eliminated three more competitors," someone announced, checking their personal scrying tablet.

"At the same time?! They must have been Rank 1s..." someone else said.

But everyone knew there were no Rank 1s in Instance 7, the minimum requirement was Rank 2, and that meant Theodore was taking out people at his own rank or higher, consistently, repeatedly, impossibly.

Other eliminated competitors were starting to avoid Nathan, actually stepping away when he approached, like his failure was contagious or his excuses were physically painful to hear.

The rationalization ladder he was climbing was getting more desperate with each rung, but what else could he do? Admit that everything he believed about power was wrong? Admit that a Rank 2 had made him look like a child playing at being a warrior?

So what if he eliminated me? My older brother is in there—Cassius has been Rank 4 for two years! Real Rank 4, not fresh advancement like me. Theodore's streak ends when they meet. You'll see. Everyone will. This is all just... temporary. A fluke. Cassius will restore the natural order.

Someone approached him. "Excuse me, sir. My name is Simon, and I'm with the Chronicles. Do you have a moment? We would like to purchase any recording crystals of your interaction with the prince."

Nathan wanted to say no, to destroy the evidence of his humiliation, but the Chronicles paid well and his father would be furious if he turned down good money just because of wounded pride.

"Fine," he said.

Cassius didn't know his younger brother had just been eliminated, didn't know that Nathan was outside making increasingly desperate excuses for losing to a Rank 2 prince.

He was deep in the forest, methodically hunting competitors with the efficiency that came from two years of being Rank 4, from actually earning his power through grueling training.

Cassius had already eliminated a lot of competitors, his bracelet count putting him in the top ten, and he was feeling that familiar satisfaction of dominance.

The name Theodore Lockheart kept climbing though, kept appearing in his peripheral vision on the ranking display, and Cassius found himself frowning because a Rank 2 prince shouldn't be climbing at all.

Hells, he shouldn't even still be in the Instance. Someone was playing games. Someone had to be helping him, had to be, because the alternative didn't make sense. But that was a problem for later, right now Cassius had his own advancement to secure, and whatever trick the prince was using would run out eventually.

It always did.

Reality always reasserted itself, and reality said Rank 2s didn't survive against real competitors, much less someone like him.