The shame of the public rejection was the most potent fuel Jace had ever known. It surpassed even the terror of the debt and the ache of his weak body. The memory of the Royal Lion's contemptuous stare, the calculated refusal delivered not as a roar but as a personal dismissal, burned away any residual self-pity. He retreated to his small, dreary apartment, locking the door and sealing himself off from the judgemental city. He didn't collapse onto the bed. He sat cross-legged on the bare, worn floor, and plunged his consciousness deep into the mental structure that was Prince Aerion's legacy. He wasn't looking for solace or comfort. He was looking for information.
The mental archive wasn't a library of scrolls, but a massive, chaotic confluence of data. Battle tactics, planetary mineral composition, bloodline arts and complex cultivation sequences. It was the collective, instinctual knowledge of over four thousand years of his family's Sovereignty, compressed and imprinted onto his soul during the reincarnation. He focused on what he needed immediately. A way to circumvent the statistical limits of this world.
He waded through the mental flood, filtering out the complex Monarch and Sovereign tier blueprints that were currently impossible to execute. He was looking for the foundational knowledge, the secrets used by his family's earliest ancestors to rise from powerful but isolated bloodlines into rulers of nations. I need to understand the relationship between a summoner's blood and the beast's performance, he commanded his own mind.
The archive responded instantly, surfacing a dense, complex series of theorems regarding spiritual anchors and external advantages. The concepts would be advanced for any other scholar, but to the Prince's mind, they were basic arithmetic. He'd studied these at the beginning of his previous rise through the summoning ranks. He spent hours absorbing the texts, his eyes open, but his mind focused inward. The world outside ceased to exist. He was lost in diagrams of energy flow and spiritual synergy. The core truth became terrifyingly clear. His family hadn't just been powerful. They'd technically cheated.
The knowledge led to a deep understanding of his bloodline's unique mechanics. It wasn't just a generic royal lineage. It was a System Manipulation bloodline, designed to grant inherent advantages to its host and all connected contracted summons.
He confirmed that his royal bloodline manifested in two primary ways.
First, an active talent, which he'd glimpsed earlier: Insight of the Tactician.
System: Talent Unlocked
Talent: Insight of the Tactician (Dormant)
Tier: Rare (Initial State)
Effect: Grants the user the ability to instantly perceive the most critical tactical information and weakness in any single enemy entity (beast, summoner or structure) within the user's sensory range.
The Prince's mind immediately saw the utility. It wasn't a damage buff or a spiritual boost. It was raw, unadulterated battlefield intelligence. The talent was currently dormant, meaning he could sense it, but not actively use it until his Spirit stat was stabilised.
Second, the passive advantage, the truly earth-shattering secret: The Royal Stat Floor.
System: Passive Effect Confirmed
Passive: The Royal Stat Floor
Effect: Due to high-tier royal bloodline resonance, the summoner and all contracted beasts gain a permanent, inherent 20-30% performance advantage over the statistical maximum of their current Tier equivalent. This is a foundational, hidden talent built into the lineage.
Jace froze, his body rigid. The Mythic Lion had been correct. Jace was a pathetic Common Tier summoner. But any beast he contracted, even a Common one, would perform as a High Common, nearing the performance limits of a beginner Rare tier beast. It wasn't a stat increase. It was a performance boost that bypassed the normal rules of the universe. It was the hidden talent that had allowed his ancestors to dominate nations whose sheer numbers dwarfed them.
The realisation injected pure, cold confidence into Jace's veins. The Lion was wrong. His tether might be weak, but the beast he contracted would possess an inherent power multiplier. The Lion judged the stats but missed the bloodline's most crucial, hidden function. Jace allowed himself a small, triumphant smile.
He continued to probe the archive, but the personal memories remained locked. He knew what the bloodline could do, but he still couldn't remember how his family fell or the exact identity of the traitor. The Prince's mind concluded: The knowledge of the fall must be tied to a higher threshold. Likely the Epic Tier. The system is rationing my personal history based on my current power level. I must ascend to remember.
He had a clear mission now. Contract: find a beast. Due to limited resources, he might have to turn to unconventional methods to obtain one. Academy: use the contracted beast to ace the trials. Ascend: push his stats to the Epic Tier to unlock the next fragment of the truth.
Jace was ready to bring on the next part of his revised plan, no longer thinking like the weak reject he'd assimilated, but the reincarnated Prince, armed with the most in-depth knowledge possibly in the region. He was going shopping. He was going to find a beast, even if it was a reject like himself, and he was going to make it into a Sovereign-killing machine.