88 AC

  King's Landing, Red Keep, Maegor's Holdfast

  Two handmaidens whispered softly beneath vaulted stone arches, their voices careful, almost reverent.

  “The queen’s been quiet again,” one said, eyes flicking toward the chamber. “Three daughters lost in five years… gods have mercy.”

  The other nodded, her gaze fixed on the boy playing near the fire. “And now she watches over this one like a shadow.”

  The child in question, a four-year-old prince with silvery hair and wide violet eyes, was seated on the floor, arranging carved wooden figurines into mock formations.

  The chamber door burst open.

  “I’m back, Aegon!”

  A white-haired boy, seven and wild with energy, strode in wearing a tunic a touch too fine for how carelessly it was worn. A wooden sword hung at his side.

  “Guess what, brother, I knocked out three fools today! Even the instructor’s jaw dropped!”

  Daemon stood tall, chest puffed with pride, eyes gleaming.

  “Pity Father and Viserys weren’t there to see it.”

  Little Aegon blinked up at him, captivated. He watched as Daemon performed a few dramatic swings with his practice blade.

  “I want a sword too,” the younger boy said.

  Daemon grinned. “You’ll get one once you're as big as me.”

  “I have to share this with the king!” Daemon declared, already turning on his heel and striding away.

  The handmaidens giggled behind their sleeves as the prince disappeared through the hallway.

  “Time for your nap, little prince,” one murmured gently, lifting Aegon into her arms.

  “Nooo, I want to play with the sword too…” he mumbled, squirming.

  “You will,” the other reassured, smoothing his hair. “After your nap. Promise.”

  Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be tucked into bed.

  “Tell me the story of Aegon the Conqueror again.”

  And so they did, about the great black dragon, Balerion, and the flame that bound seven kingdoms under one crown. But partway through the tale, Aegon’s eyes fluttered shut, lulled by the familiar cadence.

  Soft as snow, the handmaidens pulled the covers around him and slipped out, shutting the door behind them with a quiet click.

  Silence settled.

  Then, two bright eyes opened in the dark.

  A strange gleam, part fear, part thrill.

  Shit.

  I reincarnated… into the House of the Dragon series ?

  It had been nearly a month since the memories returned, since the dam broke and the truth of his past life came flooding back.

  Before that, he had simply been a child. Innocent. Oblivious. Just another highborn babe in the Red Keep.

  But now…

  What happened after I died?

  Why me?

  Why here?

  There were too many questions and no one to answer them. Only silence, stone walls, and the weight of doubts pressing down like a second skin.

  He cursed his luck. Of all the isekai possibilities… why this? He had only ever watched the first two seasons of House of the Dragon, never read Fire & Blood. His knowledge of the lore was a jigsaw with half the pieces missing and the worst part?

  There was no Aegon, he thought bitterly, no younger brother to Daemon and Viserys.

  Which meant one thing:

  He was either a background footnote in history, forgotten and irrelevant…

  Or worse, someone whose existence had been erased.

  Either way, it didn’t bode well.

  His memories of the past four years were hazy, like looking through fogged glass. Cries, faces, milk, warmth. They bled together, indistinct.

  Still, ever since the awakening, he had played the part of a child to perfection. Watched, listened, learned. No one can know, he reminded himself again. Not in a world like this.

  He knew who he was now, at least.

  Aegon Targaryen, third son of Prince Baelon Targaryen and his sister-wife, Princess Alyssa Targaryen.

  The realization had unsettled him at first. I’m literally a child of incest. A fact he tried not to think about too often, though it clung to his thoughts like a bad aftertaste.

  His mother had died a few moons after giving birth to him. His father? Alive, but distant, riding his dragon across the realm and rarely visiting.

  So he remained here, in Maegor’s Holdfast, surrounded by stone, history, whispers… and the ever-present handmaidens.

  Focus, he told himself, exhaling slowly. He closed his eyes, drawing his mind inward.

  And then,

  There it was.

  A translucent, glass-like tree shimmered into existence before his mental eye. Its surface gleamed with spectral light, as if it were made of starlight and crystal. Roots coiled beneath it. A single stem rose and stood upward.

  The Class Tree…

  The very game feature he had been building in the final hours of his old life, right before reality fractured around him.

  He didn’t know how it had come with him. Or why. Or what it even truly was anymore. A fragment of his old world? A gift? A curse?

  But it floated in his mind like it belonged there.

  Always just beneath the surface of thought, clear, gleaming, unshakable.

  At first, he’d been terrified to touch it. He had stared at its form, lucid yet unreal: a translucent tree of glass and light, roots coiling into the abyss of thought, its branches rising like the veins of fate.

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  Was it a hallucination? A dream?

  But no… it was real.

  Or as real as anything else in this strange, dangerous world.

  And there was no time to waste anymore.

  This was not a world of comfort or safety. This was Westeros, a place of daggers behind smiles, of fire-breathing beasts, of fickle gods that answered prayers with curses.

  He had watched Game of Thrones in his past life. He knew the kind of twisted, brutal stories this world wrote with the blood of its people.

  Politics, betrayal, war, prophecy, madness…

  And now he, Aegon Targaryen, third son of Baelon and Alyssa, brother to Viserys and Daemon was caught in its web.

  But I never appeared in the show. Not once. Not even a mention.

  Only two explanations made sense.

  Either I never existed… or I died before it mattered.

  The thought chilled him to his bones.

  I could already be living on borrowed time.

  That thought had circled in his mind more than once over the past month. He didn’t know why he was here, or what forces had brought him across worlds. But one thing was clear—this place wasn’t safe. It never had been.

  He stared at the translucent Tree. It was real. Tangible, in its own strange way. A thread of control in a world where most were just pieces moved by the whims of others.

  But not me. Not this time.

  His eyes narrowed, his resolve sharpening.

  “I won’t die nameless,” he muttered under his breath, the words barely audible.

  I’ll carve out a place for myself, even if I have to start from the bottom.

  He didn’t need glory. He didn’t need fame. What he needed was to survive, to endure long enough to shape his own future instead of being shaped by the politics and power struggles of those around him.

  He forced himself to breathe, grounding his thoughts. Then he turned his focus inward, toward the Tree.

  As he concentrated, three glowing prompts hovered in the air around it like drifting sigils:

  [ Attributes ]

  [ Create ]

  [ EXP 4192 ]

  4192 EXP?

  How do I even have that? From observation? From awakening? Or maybe it accumulated passively as I grew?

  He didn’t know yet, but the number shimmered with promise. A reservoir of power waiting to be used.

  His gaze flicked to the [Create] option.

  That was the heart of it. The soul of the system.

  His finger, mental or otherwise, moved toward the [Attributes] panel.

  [

  CON 2.7

  STR 2.1

  AGI 3.3

  DEX 3.2

  INT 9.2

  ]

  Same as before…

  He had checked them more times than he could count in the last month, each time hoping they might shift, might improve. But they never did. They remained constant.

  The current attributes must be based on my natural growth.

  Ten is the adult average, he recalled. That’s how he’d designed it, back in his old life.

  Each stat anchored in realism, meant to mirror the growth and limitations of a real human being.

  Constitution (CON) – Endurance, stamina, resistance to illness and fatigue. The kind of strength that lets you survive poison, long marches, blood loss.

  Strength (STR) – Raw physical power. Muscle mass, lifting capacity, brute force.

  Agility (AGI) – Reflexes, balance, reaction speed. The difference between slipping away or dying on a blade’s edge.

  Dexterity (DEX) – Precision, coordination, fine control. A surgeon’s hand. An archer’s aim. A pickpocket’s fingers.

  Intelligence (INT) – Memory, logic, learning speed, comprehension.

  So this is who I am… physically weak, but mentally gifted.

  It made sense. This body was still a child, four years old. The physical stats were low, fragile even. But Intelligence… That was another story.

  My thoughts have been sharper since the awakening. Memories filed themselves into place.

  The mind of an adult… but the body of a child.

  Even a common squire could break my bones with a swing.

  He could hear it, the soft shuffling of footsteps just beyond his chamber door.

  He turned his attention back to the class tree. His finger, or the mental equivalent of it, hovered over the [Create] button.

  Click.

  A soft chime.

  A blank text box materialized, exactly as it had during testing.

  Yup. Still functioning like I built it.

  Let’s just hope the rules haven’t changed…

  Now came the real challenge.

  The Class Tree was flexible, dangerously so. It wasn’t just about imagination; it was about balance, limitations, foresight. He had made sure of that during its development. You couldn't brute force your way to power, not without paying a price.

  And I know every trap and bug built into this thing.

  With a steady mind and cautious optimism, he began typing, mentally feeding the Tree his idea for the first class. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t powerful. In fact, it was borderline humiliating.

  He read it twice. Adjusted the wording. Triple-checked the phrasing of the trait. And then, finally, sent it off with a silent prayer that the Tree still respected the mechanics it was created with.

  The box vanished.

  A pause.

  The Tree pulsed softly, alive, reacting. Then, from the central stem, a thin new branch sprouted. From the new branch a small leaf bud bloomed and formed a leaf symbolizing the new class and the trait associated with it respectively.

  Success.

  He exhaled slowly.

  He focused on the new branch, and a glowing panel unfurled.

  [Class : Gluttonous Child ( Tier 1)]

  [Prerequisites :

  Have three meals a day for 15 consecutive days (satisfied)

  Every attribute value > 2.5 (satisfied)

  Age < 10 (satisfied)]

  [Level 1 ( 000/510)]

  [Trait : Strong digestion]

  Gluttonous Child… yeah, sounds like a joke.

  But it’s not.

  He studied the details with a critical eye.

  His attention shifted to the leaf next, and its properties immediately became clear to him:

  [Trait : Strong digestion

  (Enhances nutrient absorption efficiency by 5%)

  (Grants minor CON bonus based on food quality/quantity consumed)]

  The Trait, that’s the real prize here.

  Strong Digestion. Not sexy, but efficient.

  Nutrient absorption means better physical growth, faster recovery, smoother development.

  He had added the trait deliberately during the class creation. In the original design, traits always scaled with class level. A 5% bonus now could become 10%, 15%, even higher, at max level, it would evolve into something truly impactful.

  And most importantly, it fit.

  Low risk, low requirement. The EXP cost will be modest. I can max this out quickly and move on to something stronger once I lay the foundation. There’s no sense trying to run before I can even crawl.

  He closed the panel, and the branch shimmered in quiet acknowledgment, its leaf, the representation of the trait, only just starting to bud.

  One step at a time.

  His thoughts were cut short by a familiar sound, “Grmmmble.”

  A soft, gurgling complaint from his stomach.

  Huh… Wasn’t expecting that.

  He blinked, mildly startled, then chuckled to himself. Guess that trait really is working.

  It was a strange sensation, being awed by hunger. He slipped out of bed and shuffled toward the hall with an innocent grin. Food, after all, was now part of his training.

  In the dining chamber, two handmaidens blinked in surprise as the young prince skipped his usual afternoon nap and plopped down, demanding food.

  “Slower, my prince!” one said with a nervous laugh as he began shoveling in small bites with almost unnatural enthusiasm.

  “Did you not eat enough at lunch?” the other asked gently.

  “No,” he mumbled between mouthfuls. “I got hungry all of a sudden… Daemon said I gotta eat more if I wanna grow big like him!”

  His voice was laced with innocent charm, wide violet eyes sparkling with the sincerity only a child could muster.

  Always sell the lie with a smile.

  After the meal, a calm clarity washed over him. His stomach settled, and there was an odd sense of internal warmth, subtle, but very real.

  Evening came, and with it, the soft-voiced shuffle of Maester Norren, bald and slow-spoken, with robes that smelled of parchment, ink and sweat.

  Old Valyrian. History of the Seven Kingdoms. The usual.

  He listened silently, nodding at intervals.

  Over the last few weeks, his studious nature had earned quiet approval among the maesters. More than once, he’d heard them murmur things like “bright boy” and “well-mannered.” Especially in comparison to his elder brother.

  To be fair, they probably still have nightmares about teaching Daemon.

  But this was fine.The reputation could help him in future.

  Night approached. Time for the most social part of his current life, the royal family dinner.

  A long stone table. Velvet cushions. Rich dishes and richer tensions. Most, if not all, of the Targaryen household gathered together under candlelight.