The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] novel Chapter 939

Chapter 939: Tip of the Iceberg

Better yet, the tip of his shaking pinky.

Honestly, the Elven Prince wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened. As he stared at his outstretched pinky, he kept wondering whether all of this had simply been a fevered dream.

Was he going to wake up tomorrow and realize he’d hallucinated this entire trip? Because at this point, it felt like he’d stepped into an alternate universe despite the fact that they were all, very clearly, in the same one.

It all started when Luca asked a question that Elior initially thought was purely hypothetical.

Luca was still teary-eyed. He was practically hiccuping in between words.

"Hic— P-Prince Elior... does it have to be the exact crystal seed for succession?"

The question came out soft. Fragile.

Before Elior could even answer, Luca stiffened slightly, as if struck by his own audacity.

"I-I’m sorry!" he hurriedly added, flustered. "That was inappropriate, wasn’t it? It’s probably something very precious to you. Like an heirloom passed down through generations, and I just—"

In his mind, Luca had already painted a dramatic image of an ancestral ceremony under starlight, elders weeping as they entrusted a glowing, very expensive relic into the hands of a chosen heir. He looked like he was about to apologize again.

Prince Elior blinked.

"There’s no need to apologize," he said quickly. "It’s not exactly something of extreme sentimental value."

That earned him a few confused looks, but he wasn’t lying. It had been given with a lot of expectations and reminders. Not exactly something heartwarming.

"So no, not really," he continued. "It doesn’t have to be the same exact crystal seed. It’s been largely ceremonial for a long time."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Earlier rulers even cheated their way through it by presenting a different crystal cluster as proof of growth. That worked back when spiritual energy was more abundant and backers prepared well in advance for the heirs they wanted to endorse. But in recent decades... not so much."

He exhaled.

"At this point, any minuscule growth that can be publicly reported is considered sufficient."

"Really?" Luca asked, a flicker of hope slipping into his expression.

Then he asked something that sounded mildly insane.

"So you’re saying that if you could obtain another crystal seed and used that instead... it would be fine?"

This time, it wasn’t just Luca staring at him.

Several pairs of eyes were suddenly shining.

Bright.

Expectant.

Elior hesitated.

"Well, yes," he admitted cautiously. "In theory. But I’m not sure how it would be possible to obtain more crystal seeds."

Luca, who seemed to be recovering earlier, now looked horrified.

"I-is it really impossible to get more?" he asked weakly. But Luca shouldn’t have been surprised, since even his Auntie Cece had said they were extremely rare.

How disastrous!

Definitely.

Because while one desperate little money-grubber thought about the worst possibilities, Prince Elior, on the other hand, could feel his spine turning to ice. Even his fiancée was looking at him as though he needed to choose his words very carefully. But how could she not? The arcade relied heavily on Lumen crystals. Moreover, Luca looked like he might topple over at any moment.

Elior wasn’t entirely sure what those stern gazes meant, but he decided to tread carefully.

"It’s not impossible," he began slowly. "And I believe there’s no point in hiding this from you, of all people."

That statement alone shifted the atmosphere.

"The difficulty in producing viable seeds stems from how hard it’s become to meet the conditions required for nucleation."

He thought that might’ve been enough.

It wasn’t.

Everyone continued staring at him.

So he went on.

"The main issue is creating an extremely pure environment with sufficient spiritual energy."

Back at the elven palace, this had once been achieved through the crystal-growing chamber maintained by their ancestors. The palace itself had been built with the deliberate purpose of protecting the cave where the original natural deposits were discovered. Even now, that cave would occasionally produce one of the key components, albeit only in trickles fewer than his tears.

"Spiritual water," Elior said grimly.

"From what I’ve been taught, it requires a delicate balance of heating and cooling, followed by the evaporation of Lumen dust within spiritual water, all within a location saturated with spiritual energy."

He grimaced.

"Unfortunately, each of those variables is problematic on its own. Using machinery to replicate the conditions results in crystals, yes, but not the kind we need. Artificial attempts typically produce polycrystalline structures, malformed growths, or contaminated samples."

He shook his head slightly.

"And even attempting the process within the original cave offers no guarantee of a viable seed—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

Because instead of the gloomy silence he expected, he was met with something else entirely.

Stares.

Wide.

Bright.

Intense.

For a moment, he genuinely thought stars had materialized around him.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify