The present-day Pendragons had nothing on the Synapse Circle. Not a scrap of intel. But that didn't mean the old blood was clueless.
Elder Rooney knew them.
He knew their name, their secrets, and the family sitting at the center of it all.
He even knew the Valdeiro line—the same family that had steered the Synapse Circle from the very beginning.
"Valdeiro run that clan," Elder Rooney said. His tone dropped, steady and heavy. "They're the ones born with that… let's call it the all-knowing Bloodline power."
He lifted a finger, like he was pointing at the weight of the words themselves.
"Their Bloodline lets them understand anything they see. Anything. A dangerous gift when you think it through."
He paused, letting the idea settle. Stan and the others stayed quiet.
"But power always has limits," he continued. "Even theirs. They weren't different from the rest of us in that way."
Rooney shifted his stance, like he was stepping back into an old memory.
"At the start, the Valdeiro power worked like this: if they only looked at something, they got basic information. Simple notes. Rough outlines. Nothing deep."
He tapped his own chest with two fingers.
"But to know more, they had to touch it. Physical contact. That's how they pulled in the detailed knowledge. And as you can imagine, that slowed them down. Not everybody wants to grab unknown objects or creatures. Even the brave ones hesitate."
He shook his head.
"And that wasn't the only problem the Valdeiro faced."
"Just like every other Bloodline, the Valdeiro gift doesn't stay steady," Elder Rooney explained.
"It goes on and off through generations. Some generations wake up with nothing. No spark. No ability. And then, a few generations later, the power appears again—maybe in one person, maybe in two if they're lucky."
He let out a slow breath, like he was remembering the story piece by piece.
"So there came a time when only one Valdeiro still had the Bloodline power. Just one. He grew old with it… and none of his children unlocked the gift. Not a single one."
Rooney raised a hand and tapped his temple.
"And if he died without passing that power on? The Bloodline would vanish with him. The moment he took his last breath, the Valdeiro legacy would disappear from the world."
Stan frowned. Peter leaned forward. Caspian stopped fiddling with his fingers. Everyone was locked in.
"So he looked for a solution," Rooney continued. "Not a grand one. Not some miracle. He was simply trying to survive long enough to keep his family alive—at least on paper."
Rooney's voice dropped.
"And his Bloodline led him to us. The Pendragons."
Silence took the room for a full second. No one blinked.
"What happened after that… well, it's a long story," Rooney said. "Complicated too. But the short version is this: the Pendragons agreed to help the Valdeiro. And in return, we took something from them. A piece of their ability."
Caspian squinted. "So the Inspection Skill is basically the Valdeiro Bloodline? I always thought everything we had came from the dragon bloodline."
Rooney gave him a dry look.
"Sure… maybe a Pendragon from a thousand years ago would wake up today knowing the name of a man born only thirty years ago." His voice dripped with sarcasm.
"The Inspection Skill was trained with what our ancestors saw," Elder Rooney said. "Everything they touched. Everything they faced. That's the knowledge sitting inside the system today. But what about the things they never saw?"
He lifted a finger like he was pointing at a gap in a wall.
"We didn't copy the Valdeiro Bloodline. Don't fool yourselves. What we took was tiny compared to their full ability. Our version only gives surface information. A name. A description. The basics. But their Bloodline? When they touch someone, they get the deep truth. The kind of detail that can make a grown man sweat."
Stan leaned forward a bit. "What about the Valdeiro? What did they get out of the deal?"
Rooney didn't respond immediately. He looked down, collected his words, then continued.
"Using the laws of equivalent exchange, a bit of borrowed magic, and the combined technology from both families… we built something. A system. And the head of the Valdeiro family transferred his entire Bloodline power into it."
His voice dropped a little.
"It destroyed his physical body. Burned it clean. But his mind… and his power… were preserved inside the system."
The room went still. Even Caspian stopped tapping his foot.
"Today, that system is tied to every single Valdeiro," Rooney said. "Not only their direct bloodline—some of their clan members carry it too."
He gave a slow nod, like he expected them to connect the dots.
"You know what that means."
"It means they fixed their problem," Peter said. "Their Bloodline doesn't fall asleep anymore. No more hibernation. No gaps between generations."
Rooney raised a hand. "That wasn't the only thing solved that day."
He looked around the room, meeting each of their eyes.
"With the system, the old limitation vanished. The Valdeiro no longer need to touch something to know it. They get the same deep information—just by looking."
A cold weight settled over the room.
"Well… I keep thinking about one thing," Caspian said. He scratched his cheek and leaned back a little. "What if they decide to use that power for something bad?"
Elder Rooney gave a small nod, like he had heard that fear a thousand times.
"That's what most people would think. A power like theirs? Easy to imagine all the wrong uses. But since the beginning, the Valdeiro have only used it for good. They've discovered things that saved lives—not just in the Paragon Realm, but in the normal world too."
He closed his book softly.
"But of course, they kept their Bloodline hidden. You can guess why. If the world found out what they could do, everyone would want a piece of them. And not for noble reasons."
Peter folded his arms. "But if they were our allies, why didn't they help us during the war?"
Rooney sighed, a slow, heavy sound.
"The divine beings didn't only attack us. They attacked anyone who tried to stand beside us. Every ally we had was crushed. The Valdeiro included… or so we thought." He paused. "Then they returned calling themselves the Synapse Circle."
The room shifted with unease.
"I'm being careful with them," Elder Rooney continued. "Because I don't know what happened in that missing time. I don't know if they defeated the divine beings… or if they reached some agreement with them. Until we know, trusting them blindly isn't an option."
Peter tapped the table once. "Or maybe they really did defeat the divine beings. Something we failed to do. Maybe that's why the divine beings keep their distance—they're scared of the Valdeiro."
Rooney raised a hand gently.
"Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it's a dangerous gamble. If there's even a tiny chance the Valdeiro are working with the divine beings now, and we approach them… our fifty percent chance of survival drops to zero."
His eyes sharpened.
"You've seen what their power can do. You understand the risk."