“Kingsmate! Kid, hah you’re getting good but still, no match for old Oli” Oli rambunctiously said, having defeated him for the 5th game of the day.

“it won’t take too long old man,” Ethan said back calmly, knowing he was slowly but surely getting better at Magess and its intricacies.

“hah, we’ll see,” Oli said, setting up the board for a sixth game.

It was about a month after he had started studying at the Chief’s house, and he spent some of his Seventh-day playing Magess with the old man who had given him the knowledge of the academy that led to his current course.

Although he spent most of the day at home with his mother and father or reading through the only other book in the house beside the farming book, which turned out to be the second volume of ‘The History of Diam Kingdom’ which focused on the more mundane events that happened through the first 100 years of the countries founding.

Like new tax law implementation.

Less said about that book the better, as while it had necessary information that Ethan had to learn, it was far dryer than the first volume, that volume at least had interesting events happen in it.

As Ethan pushed forth his first piece, he tried to reflect and focus on all he learnt this past month.

The math was easy, coming from a high school level 21st century level of knowledge to the average educated math level of a pre-modern society was child’s play. He simply had to confirm that they both used the same numeral method using 10 as a base, thankfully that was the case, truly it was fortunate that their ancestors in both worlds chose to use their hands as a guide for when to stop counting numbers, Thank you, glorious dumbasses.

Economics was dry but understandable, it went over the demand and supply for certain products and how certain countries created laws for selling and buying using a coin as a medium, truthfully it was a lot less difficult than the modern equivalent in his old world, but there were plenty of technical laws and rules he had to understand, which made it much more of pain to study for then maths.

The book on the nobility of the country was a bunch of propaganda by the country, while it did tell useful bits of information to know, especially as Ethan would attend an academy where these people would be, it largely stated the noble family, what their ancestor did to earn the title, and what they mainly focused on, It basically said “our family is so great we are superior to you peasants” was the vibe he got from the book.

The important ones to know were the Royal family and the 4 Ducal houses.

The Royal family, direct descendants of the warrior-mage king, were the Diam family, of which the country was named after, said to all possess incredible earthen magic, they had the most power in the country.

The Kilbra family, who ruled the western fief, were said to be capable generals and warriors, as they commanded the fief that shares a border with Ragnor, a country that has had hostilities with Diam, since both countries conception.

The Valot family, who ruled the southern fief, were said to be immensely powerful with their water magic, which they actively used to fight off pirates from attacking their coastal city and bandits from attacking the fertile lands there, an oddity considering most nobles tended to rule behind a desk and not get their hands dirty.

The Brahman family, who ruled the northern fief, and managed the mines in the low storm mountain range, were said to be the wealthiest beside the royal family, due to having control over the only mines within the country.

And finally, the Klaus family, who ruled the easter fief, in which he lived, having the most peaceful fief, were quite lax with governing as Gerald explained, although apparently, they were fantastic magicians of some kind.

There were many other noble families either within the Capital of Diamond city or under the four ducal houses, they were not as important to remember besides a few.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Tch!” Oli Tsked, as he foiled his trap and got a leg up, it was the first time Ethan had come up on top in an exchange, and it seemed to have annoyed the old man.

“You’re still not winning this game; it’ll take a whole lot more than that to beat the best player of Magess in Shortbeck! (self-proclaimed)”

“Bring it old man!” Ethan taunted, getting into the game.

That game would bring a lot of attention as the townspeople cheered on the weekly spectacle of a kid finally going toe to toe, with the largest sore winner of all of Shortbeck, even if he lost.

~~~

Looking at the map he had gotten permission to take from the Chief’s house, Ethan couldn’t help but marvel at the differences between his old and new worlds difference in geography.

It wasn’t that the new world had some bizarrely shaped continents or land, it was that there was so little information available.

The map covered seemed to portray that the continent they were on was vaguely Rectangular shaped, with an archipelago of islands to the south-east, he says portrays because it was not known whether it was the sea or more land to the north of the Human countries.

Because it was immeasurably more dangerous in the northern half of the continent, finding out that not only was the terrain more dangerous, but actual monsters and beasts lived in those areas, was shocking.

No human has strayed further than 300km, from the so-called northern front, where the land got immeasurably more dangerous.

On the eastern side past an immeasurably dense forest, was said to be a desert, with only a few recordings of by several high ranked guilders to verify its existence, since the immeasurable heat, was too much for them to travel through.

North of the Diam kingdom, existed the impassable Storm mountains, immeasurably tough to scale, with the peak of each mountain reaching the clouds that are said to be in an eternal thunderstorm, while one mountain has been scaled, the effort to do so worn down the group that did it, and the sight of several mountain ranges to pass, kept their spirits down, and thus discouraged they turned back to spread the tale.

On the western end of the mountains, there were a large number of plateaus and valleys inhabited by monsters and a giant race of intelligent beings known as the Oarfolk said to be immensely powerful, and capable of crushing mountains with their fists.

Thus, it wasn’t worth the effort for the human countries to expand north, as any attempt would simply lead to massive loss of life for little known value.

Although speaking of the Oarfolk, discovering that humans were not only intelligent life was quite a shock to his world view, having lived in a world, where the was no intelligent life besides humans, he had to get Gerald to verify the information was true.

Although quite amused by Ethan’s disbelief, he then let on that there were two more known races to human’s knowledge, first being Nightwings, a group of humanoids with bird-like features and wings big enough to fly, they were only known to live on the Kato archipelago to the south-east. Which had massive jungle trees in which they built their homes and society.

It was also the only race known to be friendly with humans, as they frequently traded with the country of Gracie, which was the only country east of Diam.

There was also the Fey, holding dominion in what was said to be a paradise of natural resources, they were said to jealously guard the land they inhabited on the very western coast of the continent under the steppes, and viciously used their nature magic, in which no mage of any kind had been able to imitate, to destroy pillaging humans.

The one time the country of Westorn, a country on the northwestern border of Ragnor tried to pillage the domain, not only was their army routed, but the neighbouring city had been overtaken by a forest and no one had heard from it again, despite attempts by Westorn to re-establish control of the city, until they spent too many resources and had to give it up before they were in danger of attack by the war-hungry Ragnor.

So yeah, the moral of the story, don’t fuck with the Fey.

Considering the unexplored extent of the map, Gerald did remark that perhaps they’re more undiscovered races within, the continent, and while there were always rumours of some kind or another, none had been proven to exist except for the aforementioned races.

While as immensely interesting the knowledge of other races was to Ethan, he was much more interested in the unexplored corners of the map, and couldn’t help but wonder what was waiting in those areas, was it simply inhospitable land like so many thought, were there perhaps more tribes waiting to be made contact with, or were their new sights, that none in both his old world and this world had ever seen.

Besides magic, this was gripped him the most in this world, the thought of unexplored lands, and while he immediately wanted to explore these unvisited horizons, he was still only six, and had so much more to grow and learn, before he was even capable of leaving the village, let alone these harsh environments, that even high-ranking guilders would hesitate to plunge into.

Thus, he cooled his enthusiasm and set aside these goals till he was capable of even getting to the edge of them in the first place.

Instead, he grabbed his history book, and he sat there reading on the revision on cattle tax, of 232 years ago.

God, he had a long way to go.