Chapter Thirty-Five: The Sleeping Prince's Game

"Young master, I poured you some water!"

"Young master, I've peeled an apple for you!"

"Young master, is my shoulder massage comfortable?"

That evening, in the castle’s dining hall, the royal mages enthusiastically attended to Linley, leaving the three maids with nothing to do. Linley lounged lazily in his chair, opening his mouth for others to feed him. He hadn’t expected that, in pursuit of cultivation, these mages truly would do anything!

"Well, you’ve all performed admirably," Linley decided, his stomach a bit overfull, that it was time to put his plan into motion. "I could teach you... but you must agree to play a game with me."

"What game?" The mages were overjoyed—any game was worth it for the sake of cultivation!

"Well, the game goes like this..." Linley began, "Once upon a time, there was a king and queen who had no children..."

He told them a fairy tale. The royal mages looked bewildered as they listened, but a few clever ones caught on immediately.

"Young master, do you plan to be Sleeping Beauty?"

"Sleeping Beauty? I’m going to be the Sleeping Prince!"

"Give it up, young master. Don’t struggle!"

"The Crown Prince doesn’t allow you to use the Moon Goddess’s Scythe. Without it, can you really sleep that long?"

"Hmph..." Linley smirked, clapping his hands. A maid approached and handed him a dagger. "Look, what do you think this is?"

The royal mages looked over in confusion. Wasn’t this just an ordinary fruit knife? Or so they thought, until Linley suddenly stabbed a mage with the fruit knife. The mage’s defensive shield flared instantly, but the dagger’s thrust didn’t slow at all—it slid easily into the mage’s chest.

"Y-Young master..." The mage collapsed to the ground, his face a picture of disbelief.

"Young master, what are you doing!" The other mages’ defensive spells activated, flooding the dining hall with brilliant light.

"Calm down, calm down!" Magic glimmered all around Linley, each spell radiating enough power to kill him outright—who would have thought these old men were always just pretending to be feeble.

"I didn’t kill him."

Linley pulled the dagger free. There was not a drop of blood on its blade, nor was there any wound on the fallen mage—not even a tear in his clothes.

"What’s going on?"

The mages lowered their guard a little, staring at the dagger in Linley’s hand as a wild idea took root.

"Could this be the Moon Goddess’s Scythe?"

"It’s a fragment of the Moon Goddess’s Scythe," Linley said, twirling the dagger skillfully. "It’s the same as the fragment in the royal treasury. My big sister gave it to me."

Big sister?

The mages exchanged glances. Some among them who knew the inside story at once used magic to alert the others.

"Big sister is the Queen of the Night Elves. A year ago, she tried to assassinate the young prince."

A year earlier, the newly crowned Night Elf Queen had visited the royal palace under the pretense of a diplomatic call. She’d approached Linley, and suddenly both of them collapsed in the garden, causing the royal mages assigned to protect Linley to panic. Afterward, both Linley and the Night Elf Queen awoke and were suddenly on the best of terms. At the time, the mages had wondered if the fainting spell was just an illusion.

But now, they understood—the Queen must have used the Moon Goddess’s Scythe on Linley. The weapon emitted no magical energy, so it had escaped the mages' detection.

"If my guess is correct, both the Queen and the young master were drawn into a dream by the scythe fragment."

One mage surmised that the Moon Goddess’s Scythe could send people into slumber because it was itself a vast dream, capable of sucking others in. Apparently, when the Queen attempted the assassination, she accidentally cut herself, so both she and Linley collapsed together. Something must have happened within the dream to suddenly change her attitude toward Linley.

"That explains it..." the other mages nodded, though one was still confused. "But if she tried to assassinate him, why does the young master call her big sister?"

"...He never realized it was an assassination."

"Surely not..."

"...I suspect he just thought it was a game."

The mages all turned their gazes to Linley. This young master’s way of thinking was truly unique; he very well might have mistaken an assassination attempt for a game.

But what was he doing, stabbing mages with the Moon Goddess’s Scythe?

They were about to ask when Linley, judging the time right, stabbed the fallen mage in the chest again. The mage cried out and leapt to his feet.

"Ahh!" He stood, drenched in sweat. "How did I come back?"

The royal mages were dumbfounded, then crowded around him.

"What happened?"

"I—I went to the most amazing place," the mage replied, running over to Linley in delight. "Young master, what was that place?"

"You’ve never seen anything like it!" Linley looked at him as if he were a country bumpkin. "Have you played My World? That place was my creation—it took me half a year!"

The mage was excited. "Was that a scene from a multiverse?"

"Well... just a street in the multiverse," Linley replied. The fragment contained a vast space. Ever since he and his big sister had defeated the demon dwelling within, he’d used it as a sandbox game.

"This dagger has recognized me as its master," Linley continued. "I can go in or out as I please, and I can take others with me."

However, the Moon Goddess’s Scythe had no storage function. If it did, Linley wouldn’t need to wear earrings anymore.

The mages understood his meaning. "Young master, does that mean you can control your own dreams?"

"Of course not," Linley shook his head. "But I can fake sleep."

So long as he stabbed himself with the dagger, he could stay in the fragment for as long as he wished.

He looked expectantly at the mages. "So? Want to play the game?"

Now the mages fully understood: Linley could use the dagger to put himself into a dragon’s sleep—one he could control. He was truly a master of laziness.

"Are you sure you want to do this, young master? That could be ten years..."

"I’m not sleeping that long." Linley said, "You’ll set up traps in the castle, and the beautiful girls will have to break through them to rescue me. As soon as someone succeeds, I’ll wake up!"

No way was Linley going to stay in the fragment for ten years and go mad. But since he had the opportunity, he wanted to play the 'beauty saves the prince' game.

"......"

The mages were awed by Linley’s wild imagination.

"We have no objections." They found his plan highly amusing. "We’ll play along, but what about the academy? You’re the headmaster, and it’s just been founded!"

Linley waved his hand. "You all can handle the school. You’re the first batch of students."

They thought about it and agreed. Since they hadn’t yet learned cultivation, the school could just put up a sign for now—after all, the headmaster was the young master himself. If he wasn’t worried, why should they be?

"Don’t worry, young master, we’ll spread your story to every beautiful girl in the land!"

"But you must teach us how to cultivate."

"No problem, I’ll write it down for you when I get back."

"What about the queen and the others?"

"That’s simple." Linley didn’t answer; instead, his earring spoke up for him. "Linley can control who enters and exits the fragment. If the queen or the others wish to see him, they can just come in."

It thought Linley’s plan was perfect.

As long as entering the dream wasn’t troublesome for others, they could go see Linley whenever they wished.

This way, Linley wouldn’t miss out on his studies or cultivation research in the dream—in fact, freed from outside disturbances, he could focus even better.

The only question was how long he’d be able to keep playing this game...

Linley’s patience for games was not long—let alone ten years; even lasting a year would be a miracle.