Chapter 2 : Rank Up Test and The Value of Money

Part 1

Six years had passed since my reicarnation.

Six was the age where a child of a noble or royalty would be introduced to public.

That was why tonight which was my six birthday, a big party would be held in the castle.

Nobles, officials, merchants, and many other people would come to celebrate my birthday.

The preparation had started since a week ago, everyone in the castle was very busy.

But still, their busyness ware far better compared to my hellish training with Helena.

Even though today was my birthday and there was gonna be a party tonight, my hellish training with Helena still continued like usual.

In this past two years, my training had far surpassed or rather had reached an impossible level, for a normal child of my age was capable of.

We also had changed the location for my training ground.

It was all because when we were sparing, we sometimes accidentally cut some trees or stepped on the flowers in the garden. One day, the gardeners who took care of the garden blew up their tops and yelled at us.

Well, no wonder they would mad.

We almost destroyed the whole garden because of our intense sparing.

And It would take them a whole week to restore the garden to its former glory.

Whitstar family was a very easy going noble family, they treated everyone who lived in the castle like their own family, so the workers could joke around or even mad, without getting any reprimand from anyone.

So we changed my training ground to a small clearing next to the small lake in the back of the castle.

It was a small clearing around 100m between the lake and forest.

This is my training menu:

10 laps running along the castle wall (1 lap = 20 km)

200 one finger push up (10 fingers = 2000)

2000 squats on top of a very thin ropeway, at the height of 10 meters from the ground.

100 laps swimming around the lake (1 laps = 1,5 km)

1000 full power sword swings.

2 hours sparring nonstop.

Moreover, since a year ago, Helena gave me a pair of wrist band enchanted with gravity magic, which would increase my weight and everything I touch to 6 times of its normal weight.

She also told me to always wear it even if I am not training.

In my opinion, those menus isn’t for human.

But thanks to my body special constitution, those impossible menus became possible.

Every direct descendants of Whitestar family had a body that far surpassed a normal human.

This special constitution was known as Gift.

There were many types of Gift in this world.

And our family Gift is called Superhuman Growth.

This Gift allowed our body to grow stronger beyond normal human as we trained our body.

“Good, you can rest for 15 minutes, after that we will start your test.”

I was just finished my training menus and was lying on the ground when Helena said that.

The test she mentioned was about the test for me to rank up my swordsmanship to saint rank.

Yeah, I had ranked up to advance rank since last year.

With my previous life skill “Perfect Memory”, I have memorized all sword moves which Helena had showed me once, I then repeated those moves till I reached perfection, perfectly the same as what Helena had shown me.

It only took me 2 , 4, and 6 months to rank up from beginner up to advance.

Just like magic, martial arts in this world were also had rank.

Depending on your style, you had a different condition to pass the rank up test.

The sword style which I learned was my family style (Seven Stars)

And this is the rank:

Seven Stars Sword Beginner.

Seven Stars Sword Intermediate.

Seven Stars Sword Advance.

Seven Stars Sword Saint.

Seven Stars Sword King.

Seven Stars Sword Emperor

Seven Stars Sword God.

And if you were wondering, Helena rank was Seven Stars Sword God.

She was one of the three sword gods in this kingdom.

After 15 minutes Helena came back while holding two swords in her hands.

“Wake up, it’s time.”

To reach Seven Stars Sword Saint, I must fully mastered 70 moves and had a full control over my fighting spirit.

After that I would be tested to fight for an hour.

Helena then gave me one of the swords in her hands.

It was a normal iron sword that was usually used by soldiers.

I took out the sword from its scabbard and then prepared my stance as I spread around my fighting spirit to my entire body.

Fighting spirit was a spirit (Mana) which you controlled and spread around to your entire body.

This fighting spirit would increase your overall abilities by 3 to 4 times or even more, depending on how much your fighting spirit was.

Helena also took out her sword and prepared her stance.

We stared at each other, looking for an opening to attack.

A gust of wind suddenly blew and because I was on the opposite direction where the wind from. I narrowed my eyes for a moment, but in that instance Helena swung her sword to my left side. I barely parried her sword and countered her with a slash to her right shoulder, but Helena suddenly disappeared.

I then sensed someone was behind me and jumped to my left as I moved my sword to cut whoever was behind me. I felt my sword clashed with something. It was Helena’s sword.

Helena then attacked me with a flurry of slashes, but I could read her slashes and parried them all without any problem.

I concentrated my fighting spirit on my wrist and slashed at her, almost at the same time, a dozen of other slashed suddenly appeared and started attacking Helena from all sides, but she used the same move, a dozen of swords appeared and parried all my sword slashes that were attacking her.

We moved with an unbelievable speed, in which normal people eyes wouldn’t be able to follow.

We continued to exchange blows for more than 2 hours.

Many trees near the clearing area was cut down, many traces of sword energy were left, cutting the ground surface and some were large enough to make a very deep slashed mark.

Even thought the test should have ended a long time ago but Helena kept attacking me, so I didn’t have any choice but to continue.

The test had turned into a real battle.

Helena suddenly increased her speed and her sword disappeared, I couldn’t see her movement at all, but my instinct of survival told me to dodge to the right, so I moved and after the ground where I was standing before were cut with sword energy.

Shit. This crazy old hag is seriously trying to kill me!

I increased the intensity of my fighting spirit to 3 times of what I normally used and jumped backward a few tens of meters away from her, I wanted to make some distance but Helena saw trough my intention and threw another sword energy at me. I dodged it by twisting my body and threw my own sword energy at her, she dodged it easily by taking a half step to her left and then charge at me.

She wouldn’t let me make a distance at all, so I didn’t have any choice but to fight her head on.

I kept increasing the density of my fighting spirit every time Helena increase her speed, and every time she did that, I would always did the same.

It was an endless cycle completion of speed.

Meanwhile In the castle, everyone could hear the sound of sword clashing and sometimes were followed by explosions. And as the time passed, those sounds became louder and louder.

Richard was looking at the forest through the window in the living room, and next to him were Jessica and Leon.

“How long are they going to fight?”

Jessica asked with worried look on her face.

“… I don’t know, the test shouldn’t take this long, maybe grandma want to see Ariel’s limit. But still this level of fight… it isn’t on the level of a saint rank anymore, it’s almost on the level of emperor rank.”

“Father is that mean big sis stronger than you?”

Leon with an innocent look asked Richard as a few other loud sword clashes and explosions occurred.

“Ha ha ha ha… your father is a sword king rank, of course I am stronger than your sister.”

With a strange expression, Richard then patted Leon’s head.

He then muttered to Jessica who was next to him.

“Honey… Now I understand how the magic tutor was feeling when he left. Right now, I also want to cry…”

Jessica who saw Richard was about to cry, patted his back as she smiled gently, trying to console him.

After 4 hours of fighting, I used up all of my stamina and then collapsed to the ground.

“Fuu… nice fight Ariel, it’s been awhile since I have a good fight like that. Well, congratulation, you have passed the test and now you are a saint rank swordsman.”

“Aaa…”

I replied her with a very small voice, almost like muttering to myself.

What else can I do but that.

I didn’t have any stamina left and my whole body was hurt like hell because I used too much fighting spirit.

Even if I had a large amount of spirit, that didn’t mean I could use all of it as a fighting spirit, there was a limit on to how much your body could handle it and if you passed that limit your whole body would hurt, and worse you could die if you kept increasing it.

There were a few way to increase your body capability to hold fighting spirit, but the safest way was to train your body.

Ah maybe I can’t attend the party tonight.

Part 2

The scenery around the clearing area had turned into a mess, many trees were cut down, countless shallow and deep mark of sword energy slash on the ground, and s few small craters here and there.

I wonder how long the gardeners will take to repair all of this.

I guess we will get yelled again by them.

Helena than took my limp body like corpse onto her shoulder and then walked toward the castle.

If someone who didn’t know Helena saw her right now, she would surely be mistaken as a kidnaper who was kidnapping me.

As we got closer to the castle, a girl wearing a maid outfit and a little boy approached us.

The maid girl was around sixteen years old with short red hair, black eyes and white skin, she was smiling as she walked towards us.

“It seems you guys have a fun time fighting for that long.”

If you thought when a fight that was supposed to be a simple fighting test became a real killing match was fun, then your brain must have lose some screws.

Like hell its fun!

The only one who had fun was this crazy old hag!

Oh yeah, I hadn’t introduce this girl yet, she was my personal attendant, her name was Cecil, she had been working as a maid in the castle since she was seven years old, and last year she was tasked to be my personal attendant.

“Ha ha ha ha it’s been awhile since I have a nice work out like that.”

Helena handed my limp body like corpse to Cecil.

“Oh my, it seems princess overdid it.”

This girl… how many times did I tell her to stop calling me princess.

Because of that everyone else also started to call me princess.

The little boy who was with the maid looked at me with a gentle smile.

He was Leon, his short black hair, a pair of sky blue eyes, white skin and a cute but handsome face.

He was the splitting image of Richard.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Big sis, are you okay?”

“Ahh… hungry… whole body hurt… Cecil food.”

That was the only thing that came from my mouth.

I usually took something from the kitchen before my morning training, and ate it while I was on a short break between each training menu.

But today, unluckily, when I was heading to the kitchen, I met that old hag in the hallway and then she brought me directly to the clearing area.

She was too excited about my test.

“Ha ha ha ha okay, but first let’s go to the infirmary and take care of your wound, after that take a bath, change clothes and then you can eat as much as you want.”

Is this girl wanted to torture me?

“I have healed myself… so give me food.”

I had use saint rank healing magic when I was on Helena’s shoulder, though the pain had been lessen quite a lot but my whole body was still hurt.

The side effect of using too much fighting spirit couldn’t be healed completely by any healing magic.

“No, you still need to be check. Let’s go young master.”

The three of us then went to infirmary.

The doctors and healers there couldn’t find anything wrong with me, though it was useless because I had already use saint rank healing magic on myself, but just in case the healers cast advance rank healing magic and the doctors gave me some recovery medicines.

After he sure I would be fine, Leon went to the library to read some books.

Cecil then helped me to take a bath and changed my clothes.

After all of that had been done, I went to the dining room along with Cecil following behind me.

Cecil said that the chefs had prepared an early lunch for me.

After eating my lunch, I had a little bit more than two hours of free time, before I had to go to the tailor shop to take my new dress for the party tonight.

So I decided to take a nap.

Part 3

Agatha City was the biggest commerce city in the Human Continent.

It was located next to the sea at the farthest south end of Human Continent, which made this city into the shortest sea route to the other continents, which were Nature continent to the south east and Beast Continent to the south west.

Its strategic location also turned this city into a transit city for many merchants, travelers, and adventurers from all over the continents.

I was now in the horse carriage along with Jessica and Cecil.

We were heading to the tailor shop to take my new dress.

We had been travelling for about 2 hours now and we still hadn’t arrived there yet, which turned me into a bad mood.

I am bored… really bored…

I didn’t know that it will take this long to arrive at the tailor shop, so I didn’t bring anything to spend my time on.

Moreover… It’s too damn slow!

This horse carriage is too slow, no maybe it’s not slow for the people from this world, but for me who was a reincarnated person from another world that had car, bus, subway, and many others fast transportation. This is slow!

Why the hell this world didn’t have any of my world transportation!

Haaa… If I know where that tailor shop is, I can just use teleport magic and tada! I will be there instantly.

“What’s wrong sweetie? You look so depressed.”

“No, it’s just… I am bored.”

What else can I say but bored.

I am pretty damn bored right now.

What I do is just looking at the people on the street through the carriage window.

“Just wait for a little bit longer sweetie. We will arrive there in about an hour.”

What!?

An hour!

Are you kidding me!?

I don’t want to wait for another hour without doing anything!

“Can we stop somewhere to take a break for a while?”

“But sweetie, we will be late for your party if we do that.”

“Don’t worry, I will teleport us back at the castle on time.”

No way in hell I am gonna ride three more hours to get back to the castle.

They were surprised when I said that.

“Eh!? Sweetie… just now, did you said teleport us back?”

“Yes, actually I wanted to teleport us to the tailor shop, but I didn’t know where the shop is, so I can’t do that. But I can use teleport for the return trip to the castle.”

Jessica shook her head.

“No, no, that’s not what mommy meant, teleportat magic is a Wind Emperor rank magic, can you really can use it?”

I nodded and then used teleport on Jessica and myself.

“Wha!?”

Our seat now had changed.

Jessica was in my seat and I was in Jessica seat.

Jessica and Cecil mouth and eyes were wide open in surprise.

“I have heard that princess can use magic without chanting, but I never heard that princess could use Wind Emperor rank magic.”

Well yeah, I never really have any use for other magic than healing magic to heal myself after Helena hellish training before, so I never use any other magic.

If I am not wrong the last time I use magic other healing, was when I was three, when that Mr. nice guy magic tutor was teaching me magic.

“Can we take a break?”

“Ah yes, but where did you want to take a break?”

I looked through the window.

There were various shops, hotels, restaurants, cafes and many other business shops where we could take a break.

I want a place that isn’t too crowded and too extravagant.

“How about thst shop?”

I pointed my finger at a small cake shop about 15 meter from our carriage.

It was a small cake shop with not to many costumers.

“Hmm… Alright then.”

Jessica nodded after she inspected the shop for a few second.

Cecil than told the horseman to stopped near the shop and we entered the shop.

Inside It was clean and neat, with many nicely arranged flowers, stuffed dolls, and other girly decorations decorating the shop, causing it to had an atmosphere of girl only shop.

There were 8 tables paired with 4 chairs on each table, and two of the tables had costumers on it.

There were 3 teenage girls on the first table near the window.

And the second table was on the corner of the shop with one man sitting on it.

I frowned when l saw the man.

His image wasn’t suited for a place like this.

He was around 30 to 35 years old with a long scar on his face, wearing a shady black cloak and I also could see a long sword hanging on his waist.

I could tell from the aura emitted from his body that he wasn’t just a normal costumer.

Maybe he is waiting for someone.

Also he is strong, a normal knight won’t stand a chance against him.

When I was observing him, he noticed my gaze and stared at me in the eyes.

I then slightly nodded at him and sat on the nearest table.

Cecil and Jessica also seemed to notice the man. They took a glance at him as they sat next to me.

A waitress then came to our table and asked for what our order was.

I read the menu lists.

Cake :

Sweet Jantim Cake : 40 Copper

High Firis Cake : 47 Copper

Seragus Cake : 55 Copper

Green Hutila Cake : 64 Copper

White Siliam Cake : 1 Silver

Special Doniac Cake : 2 Silver

Drink:

Hot Tarum tea : 15 Copper

Hot Ghuan Tea : 18 Copper

Cold Natua Juice : 21 Copper

Cold Beri Juice : 24 Copper

Cold Rabbu Juice : 27 Copper

Special Aram Blend Juice : 55 Copper

Water : Free

One of the good things of this world was, it had a lot of good food.

Because this world was very big, there were a lot of variety of plants, fruits, animals, and even monsters that could be used as ingredients, which meant a lot of types of cooking receipt and skilled chefs.

I was thinking about what I should eat.

It seemed the name of the cake came from the main ingredient that was used to make it.

I knew about it because I had eaten some fruits with the same name as the cakes.

Jessica and Cecil had given their orders and the waitress was waiting for me.

“I want white silam cake and cold beri juice.”

I choose those two because never ate fruits with those names before.

I wonder how it taste.

The waitress wrote my order and then left to the counter.

“Princess this is your first time seeing the price of food in the city, what do you think about it?”

Out of the blue Cecil asked me

What I think about it?

I tilted my head in puzzlement.

“Umm it’s cheap.”

“Ha ha ha ha It seems I was right, princess didn’t know anything about Sylfania Kingdom currency.”

What did you mean by that?

I know that there are 5 types of currency that is currently used by Sylfania Kingdom.

Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Royal Gil.

100 Copper = 1 Silver

100 Silver = 1 Gold

1000 Gold = 1 Platinum

1000 Platinum = 1 Royal Gil

The first three, Copper, Silver and Gold are the one that are commonly used by merchants and normal citizen.

And the last two, Platinum and Royal Gil are usually used by very rich people like high rank nobles and royalty.

And Copper is the cheapest among all.

So I should be right that the cake price was cheap.

Jessica and Cecil smiled knowingly at me.

“Princess, did you know how much my salary per month is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s 10 Silver per month and before I become your personal attendant it was 5 Silver per month.”

I was surprised when I heard that.

“Isn’t that too little? I thought it was around 1 or 2 Gold.”

Cecil shook her head.

“No. It’s actually already very generous, but if mistress Jessica want to pay me 2 Gold a month, then I will gladly accept it or rather please do so.”

Cecil smiled teasingly at Jessica.

“Ha ha ha ha I won’t stop you if you want to quit your job as a maid.”

The waitress came back while bringing our orders and then left again after putting our orders on the table.

As we ate Cecil and Jessica started explaining about the value of Sylfania Kingdom currency.

Even though Sylfania Kingdom was small, but its currency was the most expensive among all other currency in this world.

This was thanks to Agatha City.

As the biggest commerce city in the Human Continent which was located in Sylfania Kinhdom, Agatha City used Sylfania Currency as the only legal money that was used for trading, and this caused merchants from all over the continents to exchange the other kingdoms currency they had into Sylfania currency, increasing Sylfania currency value to the level of becoming the most expensive currency in the world.

That was why Cecil salary of 10 Silver per month was actually already very high considering she was only a maid attendant.

The standard salary for a worker who worked in this city was 3 Silver, and for a normal family household, one husband, one wife and two children, that much of money was more than enough for their living that month.

“it means the price of the cake in this shop is quite expensive for normal family household. By the way 2 Gold is the salary for a high rank official.”

Cecil ended her explanation

I nodded in understanding.

After we finished eating our cakes, we went back to the carriage.

Before I left the shop, I saw the shady man was still in the corner of the room.