Daniel.

Daniel turned toward the sound, spotting a sharp-featured academic in her middle years—he couldn’t see her name, but the sigil on her sleeve marked her as a Structural Magecraft senior.

Someone who actually worked at the central hub of the Magenet in the Imperial Capital. Why would someone like that be here?

She tilted her head slightly. “The Magenet is one of the most progressive—and restrictive—systems the Empire has. But it has major... concerns. For example, the cost of maintaining the Net rises every cycle. And the more we patch it, the more unpredictable it becomes. Which causes more patches, more problems, more failure. Lord Zhou, can you explain why that is?”

Daniel nodded once. “Mana as a source of power is only the first issue. The structure behind the Magenet—the system itself—isn’t a system. It’s a thousand isolated workarounds pretending to be infrastructure. The foundation produced smoke, not steel. So of course everything built on top of it is going to fail.”

He paused briefly, scanning the room.

“It’s not even surprising we got here. Bloodline magic works on pure intent, often without an array or activation sequence. Cultivation and battle techniques typically rely on a single array. Those arrays can be complex, but they focus on one effect—even domain spells, which can alter an entire environment, begin from a single unified intent.”

“But that doesn’t answer the question,” someone else said. “Why hasn’t it failed? It sounds like you’re trying to sell something.”

That was when another panelist—a heavyset man with a twinkle in his eye—chuckled and said, “You’re not from the southern provinces, are you?”

Laughter rippled through the hall, broader now.

Daniel didn’t smile as he didn't understand the joke, but his voice carried. “You're not listening. The Magenet hasn't failed because the Imperial family hasn’t let it fail. It’s the best you have for right now. You all act like the Net is sacred. But how many of you have had a relay crash mid-lecture? Or seen three different spell returns from the same query? The truth is it’s a bad, poorly designed system.”

There was a ripple of disbelief and quiet.

Another panelist leaned forward. “It’s not sacred, Lord Zhou. It’s just... all we have.”

“And that,” Daniel said softly, “is the problem. It is why you are reluctant to let it go.”

Someone in the back stood up without waiting for permission. “If it’s so fragile, why can’t we just reinforce it? Higher-grade casters. Better materials. That would dampen the effect of intent contamination, right?”

The speaker went on, clearly quoting school rhetoric.

“The Magenet Technicians from the Academy—like Lord Jin—believe this approach would stabilize and expand the Net. If we used divine-grade materials and had top-tier experts lay the arrays, it should work. I mean, if a Peak Human Master can release thousands of points of sword intent and destroy a city, couldn’t the same principle work here?”

Daniel shook his head. “The short answer is no. You’re comparing apples to firestorms. Let’s break that down.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “Domain-level spellcraft is brilliant in the hands of one master. But it doesn’t scale across an Empire. It’s fine for combat, for personal execution, for momentary control. It’s useless when you try to make something universal and repeatable. Besides, using a master doesn’t solve the underlying issue—it could make it worse.”

He paused for effect.

“A master’s intent is stronger, not weaker. That’s how they execute high-level spells and techniques. In theory, yes, their control should be better. But their mana is more powerful—and their intent, more concentrated. If even a fraction of that leaks into the shared stream...”

He shrugged.

“The whole thing goes tits-up.”

Ethan laughed. “I cannot believe you just said ‘tits-up’ on stage at one of the most prestigious Academies in the world.”

Daniel tried not to laugh himself.

No one seemed to notice as a moment of silence followed.

Then a voice from the center of the hall murmured, “Lord Zhou... what do you propose?”

Daniel’s tone was calm but clear—his mind threading through problems and possibilities in real time.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“If you want to fix the real problem, you need a complete redesign of the apparatus housing the Magenet. Build it like a machine, not a conduit. Use it to develop an instruction-based language. Then create a task-execution system—something that can interpret and repeat commands with consistency, apply mana and intent to the desired outcome. Once you have that, reproducible results become trivial. Iteration becomes inevitable.”

That got attention.

Still, Daniel was losing patience. He stood—for effect, and emphasis.

“You don’t fix a broken system by casting louder,” he said. “Especially not this one.”

His voice got a bit louder.

“You fix the Magenet by rewriting how it exists. How it speaks. How it interacts. Strip the bias. Filter the noise. Let the instruction flow clean. Build logic on top of truth—not power. And do it one step at a time.”

The silence that followed was even denser than before, coiled with thought.

People stared—some in awe, some in confusion, a few visibly irritated. No one spoke.

Daniel sat down again, calm and deliberate. He didn’t care what they thought.

A woman near the front leaned toward her neighbor, whispering something as she tapped a sigil interface under the table. Notes, probably. Or a live transcription spell. Half the room was already logging keywords.

A few seats over, someone coughed—pointed.

Jin Rong leaned forward, resting his chin lightly on one gloved hand. “A complete overhaul,” he murmured. “Housing. Language. Instruction. One that separates intent from structure and execution.”

He gave a slow, theatrical pause.

“How quaint.”

Daniel didn’t respond.

Jin’s smile thinned. “It’s an inelegant theory, Lord Zhou. But surely you realize: all spellcasting relies on intent. Even children know that. Without intent to bridge mana and outcome, there is no effect. You’re trying to strip the soul from a system built on instinct.”

Daniel met his gaze. “I’m trying to stop that instinct from burning everything down—and build something better. A foundation that gives more control, more consistency, and more function than you’ve ever dared to imagine.”

A ripple of laughter broke from the left wing. A few faculty members smiled despite themselves.

Jin didn’t.

He waved a hand, triggering a small illusion. A diagram bloomed between them—an array lattice, softly glowing, pulsing like breath.

“Let’s say you get your system,” Jin said. “You redesign the architecture. Build your language. Your filters work—fine. You isolate intent from mana.”

He tapped the edge of the illusion. The diagram expanded. Circles snapped into rigid lines, nodes locked into a strict grid.

“Do you know what happens next?” His voice had just enough edge to echo. “Your spells become mechanical. Dead. Fixed. You’re hard-coding fire to burn at one temperature, one radius, one duration. No variation. No nuance.”

Daniel tilted his head. “Lord Jin, for a system like the Magenet, that is exactly what you want.”

Jin’s smile faltered. Just for a beat.

Daniel stood again, slow and steady.

“The problem you have is you want to have it both ways,” he said. “You want mana to be expressive when it suits you—and predictable when it doesn’t. You want the benefits of chaos without the consequences.”

He let the silence breathe.

“But a successful structure doesn’t care what you want,” he said softly. “It only cares what you design. If you build it correctly, you can command it at will.”

From somewhere to the right, a voice muttered—low, uncertain: “What about emotion? What about identity? Culture? Bloodline legacy?”

Daniel turned toward the sound, voice steady. “You’re thinking backwards. You’re trying to preserve the ornaments before you’ve poured the foundation. Specific outcomes come later. They can be layered on top. But they don’t belong at the base.”

Jin crossed his arms. “So you would reduce the entire art of spellcasting to... engineering?”

Daniel shrugged. “Yes. I’m pretty sure I made that point earlier. But let me be clear—what you’ve been doing has always been engineering. You just gave it a prettier name. And stupider parameters.”

The room stirred—soft murmurs, scowls, a few sharply drawn breaths. Somewhere to the left, someone whispered into a transcription orb.

“You’re scaring them,” Ethan murmured in the back of his mind.

Daniel didn’t respond.

He didn’t need to.

Because Ethan was right.

Jin leaned back in his chair—visibly relaxed, jaw tight. “So what would you build, Lord Zhou? Let’s say you had your filter. Your protocol. What does that give us?”

Daniel looked around the room—dozens of academics. Some defensive. Some curious. Many still unsure.

“You want a Magenet that works. That’s reliable. That can accomplish the tasks you envision. Then you need a foundation built on protocols. Instructions that are easier to maintain. Easier to debug. A base that can be layered, adapted, and trusted to do exactly what it’s told.”

“This,” Daniel said, his voice steady as he rose to leave, “is how you stop treating spellcraft like ritual—and start treating it like a system language. One anyone can learn.”

He turned from the central platform without waiting for permission.

No one stopped him.

The debate chamber held its breath as he passed through the circle of panelists, his footsteps slow and unhurried. He could feel every glance tracking him—curious, calculating, alarmed. Not one person moved to intercept.

Even Jin Rong didn’t speak.

Nathan stood from the upper row, arms folded. He fell into step beside Daniel as they exited into the sun-drenched marble corridor.

“Do you always walk out of rooms like you just announced the apocalypse?” Nathan asked.

Daniel didn’t answer.

“That was louder than you think,” Ethan said.

“I know.”

“They’re going to start watching you more closely now. Not just your theories. Your affiliations. Your movements.”

“I expected as much.”

Nathan glanced at him sideways. “You gonna tell me what that was really about?”

Daniel exhaled. “They wanted a patch. I offered them a rebuild. It’s what needs to happen.”

Nathan snorted. “Looked like you slapped them with it.”

“They deserved it.”

“Some of them were listening,” Ethan said.

“Some,” Daniel agreed, “is enough.”

They passed beneath a low arch etched with the names of long-dead scholars—philosophers, spellwrights, architects of systems still used without question.

Daniel stopped at the threshold. Then he spoke to Ethan.

“What you built here,” he said aloud, “was brilliant.”

“What I started,” Ethan corrected.

Daniel nodded. “Time to finish it.”