Karla and the emperor made their way backstage, where a select group of individuals had gathered. They were those who had completed the ceremony and now awaited their turn in the Magic aptitude assessment.

Color engulfs the world as Karla lays eyes on them. Forest green of relief and purple of sadness blend in the room; this contrast gives Karla a headache. When they notice Karla and the Emperor’s presence, the green rapidly changes to a light orange hue, the color of nervousness. A person radiating this color is a middle-aged man approaching them.

“It is my honor, Your Majesty,” said the man. “As I’m tasked with performing the test for the princess.”

He is wearing a big backpack that is almost as tall as her. Karla assumed the man was a mage. Only a mage would carry such baggage.

The emperor looks around the room. “I would like to get this done right away. “

“Of course, right this way, your majesty.”

There are many desks in this room. Karla can see other children have their magic tested in each of them. The mage takes them to an empty one, where they all sit down. Other people nearby can’t help themselves from glancing at their desks.

“First, please lend me your hands, princess.” said the mage with a smile.

Karla reached out and placed her hand on the table. The mage followed suit, hovering his palm above hers. As their hands made contact, Karla couldn’t help but notice a slight tremble in the mage’s fingers, betraying his nervousness.

Karla tactfully throws her best smile at him, trying to calm him down. It would be unfortunate if an accident occurs because the mage is too nervous to control his magic. The mage found himself at ease when he saw the princess’ smile. He took a deep breath before he went on with the procedure.

“Now I will test your magical aptitude. You will feel some strange sensations during the procedure. Please don’t be alarmed and resist, as it will affect the results.”

“Okay, you can proceed,” Karla said after she glanced at her father for permission. He merely nods while twirling three cubes in his hand.

‘Are those dice?’ Karla thought. It is such an unusual thing for the emperor to be playing with. It’s something criminals and gamblers would have.

“Then, I Will begin.”

The mage closes his eyes, his face frowning with concentration. Gone is the orange hue that speaks of nervousness. The mage is so focused on his task, Karla can’t see any color from him.

Karla was experiencing an unusual sensation in her palm — a warm, almost electric feeling. She sensed the mage channeling magic into her body, making her feel a mix of nerves and excitement. As time passed, the warmth in her hand gradually increased. It reach uncomfortable levels after fifteen minutes and becoming burning hot after another ten. It felt as though her hand was on fire, and she worry it might actually burst into flames.

Karla wondered if something had gone wrong. Before she could ask, the mage spoke up.

“That is unusual…” he said in a low voice.

“What is?” Karla asked. She saw the color of uncertainty and awe in the mage.

“You might be a prodigy; the amount of mana you can store in your body is incredible.”

This is bad, Karla thought. While she can fake the ceremony because she read it herself, another person does this test with her. Should she bribe him? But there are so many people watching. She can’t just hand the mage a bag full of gold or promise him a promotion right here.

Clack clack clack

A sound of dice striking the table can be heard; Karla and the mage look at them before turning to the emperor, who threw them.

The Emperor stared at the dice he just threw. For a while, he was silent. Then Karla can see the color of amusement radiating from him.

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Proceed with the rest of the test.”

“As you wish, your majesty.”

The mage put his hands above Karla’s again. This time, Karla can’t feel anything at all. Even the mage is radiating a thick cloud of confusion. She wasn’t sure what confused the mage about, but the mage’s face is becoming quite intense, like he was trying hard to push an immovable wall.

“This is bad…” the mage murmured.

“Proceed with the test. Don’t stop now,” the emperor said calmly, as if he was expecting this.

“But, your majesty, this is…”

The Emperor dismiss the mage's concern, “Do it”.

The mage takes a deep breath before proceeding, his eyes closed and back hunched. Karla just sits there, not knowing what to do. She looked at her hands, that were still burning hot. It seemed to show no signs of fading. After a considerable duration, the much-awaited moment finally arrived. The scorching sensation that had been bothering Karla began subsiding. However, the process was excruciatingly slow, taking nearly twice as long as last time. It took almost an hour before Karla could no longer perceive any heat emanating from her palm.

“This is… I don’t know what to say. It seems the princess is bottlenecked,” the mage stammered.

“Bottlenecked, you say? Is it not a condition that makes it difficult to use magic?” Said Karla.

“At first, I thought it was a blockage and about to urge the princess to go to a hospital,” The Mage glance at the Emperor. 

“But after I force it, I am positive that it’s a severe case of bottlenecking”

“Does this mean I’m not eligible to be a mage?” Karla asked. She had to keep herself from grinning.

“No. Which is a shame because the amount of mana you can store is incredible, among the highest that I have ever seen, I might add“

“But it’s useless, right?”

“Well…yes. It’s like you are a barrel, while most people are a chalice. You can hold more wine, but you can only use a small straw to suck it out, while other people can dump theirs immediately”

“I see, that is most unfortunate” Karla Looks down in apparent sadness. Her lips, meanwhile, are curling up ever so slightly.

“What is your name, mage?” Karla asked.

“It is Patrick, Princess.”

“Just Patrick?”

“I was born an orphan, princess”

“Ahh, is that so?” Karla smiled. “Thank you, Patrick. I’m grateful for your service towards me”

Karla spoke those words from her heart.

***

“Hmm…hmm…hm”

Inside her room, Karla was humming happily. The two maids in front of her, however, looked distraught. The Head Maid has chastised them for the incident Karla caused at her first public appearance. Anna glared resentfully at Karla.

“Well, at least one of us is happy!”

“Anna!” Sarah scolds, scandalized by her tone.

“It’s okay. We always talk like this. Welcome to the club, Sarah,” Karla chuckled, jumping down from her bed.

“Welcome, welcome” said Anna while clapping, her face placid.

After seeing how Sarah cries after Karla put on that hair ornament. Karla decided to brought Sarah into the fold from now on. Especially since Karla got her ability to see emotions, she can ascertain Sarah’s loyalty. That girl genuinely thinks of Karla as precious. Karla can clearly see the affection that was directed at her.

“Club?” Sarah tilted her head in confusion.

“The women of culture club,” Karla announced with a flair of her hands.

Sarah understandably looks confused. She glanced at Anna, who shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s a private club, very exclusive. In fact, as of today, there are only three members”

“I see, so just us then”

“Members of this club have three privileges,” Karla holds up three fingers.

“One, the full trust and confident of yours truly, Karla Dela Jan Rusta”

“Two, the right to use the club’s funds for research, hobby and projects. With the club's permission, of course”

“three, the right to use the secret lounge in the library and the secret escape dungeon”

“Wait, what about the secret escape dungeon!? Such a thing exists?” Sarah yelped.

“Want to give it a try?” Karla grinned.

As the sun rose on a new day, the scene shifted to a dimly lit basement of the grand palace. Among the musty air and long-forgotten furniture, three figures could be seen tiptoeing around with hushed footsteps. While two of them appeared to be seasoned in their movements and navigated through the obstacles with ease, the third one struggled to avoid walking into cobwebs and bumping into dusty pieces of furniture along the way.

“Achoo!…. Damn it Sarah! You keep throwing up dust everywhere”

“That is not an appropriate language for a princess,” Sarah Scolded.

“Right now, I’m not a princess. I’m Nova, an ordinary city girl! And you should’ve seen Catherine cursing, that girl can put a sailor to shame,” Karla pats down the dust on her headscarf.

Because of her imperial blood, her inky black eyes will give away her identity in an instant. Meanwhile, her white-gray hair is unusual enough to raise plenty of eyebrows. The headscarf is to hide it.

Although the Grevarian Church is the dominant religion, The Grevarian Empire itself is a secular state. There are many minority religions in the empire, and a couple of which had women wearing headscarves to cover their hair. Karla didn’t mind changing religion for convenience and thus she became the first member of the Imperial family to practice a minor religion.

Well, only when she sneaks out, of course.

As for her eyes. After extensive research, she dug out an obscure spell from the library. It’s a spell that turns a person’s skin into a lighter color, which won’t impress anyone since there are illusion spells that can do the same and more. What she is interested in is the mechanics of the spell.

The spell describes a compound in the skin that’s responsible for skin color, or rather the darkening of one’s skin. What the spell did was force that compound away from the skin and store it in the caster’s blood. She reasoned one’s eye color follows the same principle and uses it on her eyes, turning it from black into light brown.

Maintaining it requires practice, and it is impossible to maintain it while asleep or unconscious. However, it is a breeze compared to using an illusion spell. It’s like holding a small pebble in her hand. If she uses an illusion spell, it will be like carrying a barrel of water. Some mages can do it for hours, but for her, it was impossible to keep it up for more than a minute.

There is also a major benefit to using the skin lightening spell, because it uses so little mana it is hard to detect. Karla had done extensive experimentation on this. Not even those magic sensitive imperial guards can detect it.

“Dust, huh,” Mused Anna. “Nova, I think this is an excellent opportunity to show my sister how we found that secret exit”

“You really called the princess by that name?” Sarah frowned.

“Oh right, we can do that,” Karla said, holding the lamp in her hand higher.

“You see this, Sarah? The dust gets sucked into this tiny gap in the wall”

“For her complaints, the Princess didn’t fare better than you when we first explored this basement,” Anna said with a smile. “That’s how we found this secret exit”

Karla pulled a hidden cord on the floor and the wall swung open. A dark passage greeted them beyond that. After a ten-minute stroll, they stumbled upon a staircase descending into an ominous abyss.

“How far down does this go? I can’t see the bottom with the lamplight”

“About ten minutes going down, so I guess about 15 floors down,” Karla said.

“Going down is one thing. It’s going to be a hassle going up after walking for hours in the capital,” Sarah Complains.

“That’s why we’re not taking it”

Karla and Anna walk forward, ignoring the staircase. They make their way to a wooden door. Inside is a small shed with ropes dangling from the ceiling and even through the floor. It shakes a lot when people step in, scaring Sara out of her wits.

“Eek, why does this shed shake so much?”

“Because it is suspended by ropes and pulleys, Say you should weigh around the same as Anna, right?”

“We are the same height, so most likely. Hmm… if I might ask, what is a pulley? Is it safe?”

“Do you know those towers that had a wheel-like thing in their arm?” Karla said as she pulled five ropes.

“Those things on the docks? The one that used to lift heavy things?”

“Yeah, same thing. But this one is much more complicated”

A series of thuds resonated outside and, with a jolt, they went down. Anna is holding a lever tightly. When they pick up too much speed, she would lift it and they would slow down.

“As for safety, Anna and I spend a significant amount of time and energy repairing and maintaining this. We also devise safety mechanisms should things go wrong”

“I knew you two are smart, but this is beyond my wildest dreams”

“It wasn’t easy. It took us weeks to understand how it works and making plans on how to fix it. As for the labor time…well by the time we’re finished, a year already passed by.”

“Cost plenty of coins too, hence the second privilege of the club,” Anna said as they finally touched the ground.

They spent an hour going through a labyrinth. This is probably a security measure so that no one can come in from the outside. It used to be filled with traps and alarms. Karla remembers the troubles she and Anna had to go through to secure a safe route here. After an hour of twist and turns, they stopped at a wall to their right. Karla Push a brick that is sticking out. A click echoed from inside the wall. She shoved the wall open before climbing into the stairway beyond the wall.

“Where does this lead to?” Sarah asked.

“Originally, a storm drainage leading out of the walls. But I bought land that the underground passage goes through and built this basement”

Karla pushed aside the wooden ceiling. What greeted them is a storage room filled with excess building materials and tools. Beyond that, they go through a fancy but non-assuming house, the kind wealthy merchants might have.

"So you built this house just so you can go out and play..." Sarah was shocked at the extent of Karla's willingness to go outside.

“Yes, along with servants and guards to ensure secrecy and maintained this place”

They went out of the house into a front yard, where a carriage was waiting for them. Five men are also waiting on the side of the carriage.

“Lady Nova,” One of them greeted her.

“Hi, I want to meet Donovan first before deciding what to do today,” Karla said before stepping into the carriage.

“Where do you get those servants and guards, princ… Nova?” Sarah asked.

“Members of a mercenary group I hire and retired clerks from a certain company”

“You know a mercenary group?”

“I know plenty of people. It’s necessary for survival”

“So this Donovan fellow is…”

“My adopted father. The adopted daughter of a wealthy upstart merchant, that is who Nova is”

“We do this so we can fool around easily,” Anna Explained.

“The daughter of a wealthy merchant is the perfect cover story. So I cut a deal with Donovan”

Sarah didn’t speak a word after that. By the time they reached a three-story store in the capital commercial district, the sun was already high, people and horses started crowding the streets. An employee escorted Karla and the others through the backdoor.

“It’s hard to swallow. I only agree to come on this trip to scold you and show you how dangerous and bothersome it would be to sneak out of the palace,” Sarah sighed in defeat.

“But I can see that you have done your due diligence and so much more to make this possible. I’m more impressed than mad at this point”

“I take that as a compliment,” Karla grinned.

As they made their way up the stairs, they went to the office area on the upper level of the building. The space was blissfully removed from the bustle of the store below, providing a peaceful retreat for those seeking a moment of solitude or privacy. 

“Dad, I wanna see you for a sec,” Karla said after knocking on the door.

“Nova? Come in dear”

The room was spacious and stylish. Tapestry and various artworks adorn elegant furniture. At the far end of the room, facing the door, is a wide wooden table where a man sits. Karla stood before him, casually looking over his disheveled brown hair and shadows under his eyes.

“Hey dad, you look tired,” Karla said with a cheeky smile.

“Ugh, save me the charade, princess. The other employees are busy tending to the shops,” Donovan said while stretching his neck.

“The shops have been so busy these last few days, even my desk workers have to work as clerks and servants. Economic recession, my ass. People seem eager to spend money”

Sarah was about to scold the man for the inappropriate language he used in front of the princess, but Karla waved Sarah away.

“That always happens during a festive event like this. It’s a boost for the empire economy for sure. Anna, could you help out the clerks below? Take Sarah with you”

“Okay,” Anna simply said while dragging Sarah away

“Waaait!-” Despite her resistance, Sarah is out of the door in seconds.

Baam!

They can no longer hear Sarah's screams as the door closes behind them.

“She’s new” Donovan remarked

“Anna’s sister,” Karla answered “So let’s get straight down to business, I need a favor”

Donovan sighed while holding his head. “No, can you see these piles of papers in front of me?”

“Fine after this then, let’s see…wow you took on a loan in this struggling economy? How courageous”

Karla went through the mountain of documents at Donovan’s desk. The entire process is familiar to her.

Since she is hellbent on portraying herself as a useless princess to everyone around her, Karla can’t take her studies as an imperial princess seriously. But she can’t afford to be ignorant either. No matter how much smarter she is compared to her peers, Karla needs to hone her mind further.

Of course, she often studies by herself at the library, away from prying eyes. But that was far from adequate. In the stories she read, it was quite common for the main character to become a peerless genius simply by shutting themselves off in a library and quietly cultivating their mind.

To that, she would retort, ‘What a lot of horse-crap!’. She tried, oh by the gods, she tried! But she realized how impossible it is to learn anything efficiently without a good environment. Tutors to correct your mistakes and point you in the right direction, peers you can compete against, and most crucially, the time and place to put what you have learned into practice.

‘In the end, those stories are just fantasies after all’ is how Karla convinces herself. After all, there is a real possibility that she is just not as smart as she thought she is, but Karla would never admit that.

Point is, she can’t study properly in the palace. So she studies outside. Donovan has been generous in teaching her math, accounting and administration. For cultural studies such as noble etiquette and dancing, she hired proper tutors. These tutors, however, paled in comparison to the tutors employed by the palace.

For theology, morals, and philosophy, Karla opted to just attend the Sunday schools the church provides. As for history, she can study that on her own.

Karla has not stayed idle these past two years. Contrary to most people’s image of her, she is not a lazy person. The hard, bitter work she has been doing since her brother’s assassination is proof of that.

“Princess!” Exclaimed Donovan.

“What is it?” Mia glance at him. The Color of astonishment emanated from the man like steam.

“You process those documents at lightning speed!”

Perhaps the stories Karla read aren’t fantasy after all.