‘Daaaaamn! I’m so gonna hate this part!’ The next morning Alex cursed to himself after getting out of the bed early. The sun was not up yet and he guessed it was at least an hour till the sunrise.

Normally doing the research and planning before the job was one of the most interesting parts, but this time he’ll have to keep up the pretense of an early and devoted bird for at least a year or two. Or course, contrary to a ‘normal’ job in his first life, there was no other way to acquire any information but to do everything by himself.

Currently he didn’t know anything, except for the goal – the golden seeds and the college layout. Alex needed the exact location of the storeroom and its security details, as well as the details of habits of everyone in this place. In addition, he had to figure out a clear plan on how to smuggle the goods out of here and the most important part – how to do it without getting caught.

It was important for Alex to keep in mind that this was a long-term project. He had to take everything step by step and rushing at any time wouldn’t do him any good.

The first objective was to become a likable weirdo for the elders here. And since he was ‘the Lord’s chosen’, he would become a special one. To his disappointment he could not postpone it since later a sudden change in his behavior would be too suspicious.

Thus, after throwing on the black robe that was a couple of sizes too big, he tiptoed out of the room and house, washed up and went to the church. On the way there he picked up a broom he noticed yesterday and, to a great surprise for the priest who, probably, was guarding the place overnight, began to sweep the floor.

At first the man curiously watched him, but soon lost his interest and began dozing off. Alex heaved sigh of relief. This was a relatively important part of the plan that had to provide him a good start.

The church had just few candles lit and it was quite dark, but Alex’s objective was only to sweep the floor, not to make it clean. Still, the church was in a size of a basketball court and Alex was himself small. He finished the job only when the first people came for the morning prayer and immediately joined them. From the Urid’s explanation yesterday he knew the priests came first and the bishop, chosen and highpriests arrived later.

For now he intended to sweep church’s floor every morning and pray together with everyone in the college. Of course, while the rest were praying, he would simply cultivate, thus there was no loss for him. In addition, he decided to think of floor sweeping as a physical exercise in the morning and the only downside would be the scornful looks he would get from the other chosen. Of course, their opinion didn’t matter at all, in fact, if anything – it could only help.

Obviously only a couple people saw him with the broom and when bishop Phelippe arrived he assumed the kid was simply earlier here than others. After noticing Alex, bishop immediately came over.

“Lord, guide us!” Seeing him Alex bowed and prayed.

“Lord, guide us!” Bishop responded, “Good morning, come with me. Let me introduce you to your teacher.”

This time he didn’t take Alex by hand, but beckoned at someone. After a moment another old man, a priest of a very large stature, probably over two meters tall, with a gray beard and hair joined. Next to him Alex felt like he suddenly shrank to half oh his previous size.

“This is Alfons, Alfons, this is highpriest Kiril. He’ll teach you the basics during the next year.” Bishop said with the usual smile, but then left abruptly.

“Lord, guide us!” Alex bowed towards the priest, but latter only nodded, sat next to him and began his morning prayer. One had to say that even sitting he was taller than some other grown men.

Approximately half an hour later chosen and their teachers began to leave. Highpriest Kiril brought Alex and three other younger chosen to something like a classroom in one of the houses in the inner circle. From their whispers he understood they also arrived to the college recently, but before he could ask anything, Kiril spoke spoke in a very deep, but pleasant voice.

“Alright, let’s make the use of the time we have till breakfast. Alfons, I was told you know how to read, so – take this and read out loud.” He passed Alex a small stack of parchments, but latter almost burst out in laughter.

“The Lord created this world with the Holy power. Everything in this world consists of the Lord’s Holy power. He who feels it early, becomes the …” Alex read, but highpriest interrupted him.

“You are reciting, not reading!” He stated with a frown.

“Yea, probably.” Alex nodded realizing the simple mistake, “But you can’t blame me for this. You see – I wrote this thing therefore …”

“Blasphemy!” Kiril exclaimed, but his voice sounded like a blast of thunder for the kids.

“Your honor, you misunderstood.” Alex quickly added, “Those are, obviously, words of our Lord, but I wrote them on this parchment. Allow me …”

Under the highpriest’s angry eyes and curious looks from his fellow chosen, Alex walked over to the desk, grabbed an empty parchment and from his memory quickly wrote the whole thing down.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Then he passed the freshly written parchment to the highpriest and said, “I was tasked to copy the prayer books last year for several months straight. I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was not allowed to know the contents.”

Of course, he said some nonsense in the end trying to sound more childish.

Highpriest Kiril silently stared at him for a couple of minutes. The other three chosen already became nervous, when the giant old man finally spoke.

“How old are you?” He asked.

“Four. I’m just bigger than the other children my age.” Alex replied in hopes Kiril would relate because of his own stature, but the old man ignored the hint.

“So you wrote these when you were three years old?” Highpriest asked and seeing Alex nod plucked his beard for a moment and then said, “You three, go eat breakfast.”

‘Alright! Private lessons. Not bad.’ Alex inwardly grinned in satisfaction.

Unfortunately, contrary to his expectations, the old priest didn’t start teaching him some advanced knowledge, but interrogated for half an hour. Then with the words ‘I’ll have to think about it’ sent Alex to also have breakfast.

“Brother! You’re amazing!” When Alex stepped out the building, he was greeted by the other three boys who contrary to the priest’s orders didn’t leave and probably overheard their conversation. Two of them had dark green and one – dark blue robe.

“I’m Josh. Seven years old” The one in blue robe continued, “They are Otto and Sandril. They are also my age.”

“Sigh, Alfons.” Alex nodded and forced to say out his formal name.

“Brother Alfons! How come you know all this stuff already?” Otto grabbed Alex by his sleeve. Apparently he was too excited to control himself, “Children before the age of seven are taught by their mentors and only after reaching our age they come here. Why are you so young, but look as big as us?”

Alex awkwardly scratched his head. He didn’t really know how to interact with children and Reino in his last life didn’t really count.

“I think I saw some younger than seven years of age in the church.” He said trying to divert their attention.

“Oh, yea. There are few belonging to cardinal Francis, but they were brought here already last year when the grand preparation began.” Josh explained.

“The grand preparation?” Alex repeated in a form of a question.

“Of course! You also wear the black robes, so you must already know this. All cardinal Francis’s chosen will accompany him in the next expedition to the west in few years. Everyone talks about it!” Otto said with a hint of envy in his voice while the other two energetically nodded.

“Is this something good?” Alex asked.

“You really are new here! Everyone wants to go on the expedition!” Otto said.

“Why?” Alex’s next question was logical. Even if these were only kids, they were at least some form of information source.

“I …” Otto stuttered in confusion.

“Our oldest guys said so!” Sandril came to help, “They surely know why.”

“Surely.” Alex copied him and inwardly sighed. Nope, turns out children were only children after all.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot!” Otto grabbed Alex’s sleeve again. It was getting on his nerves, but Otto was just a boy and he couldn’t bark at him for such a silly thing.

They currently were about to enter the kitchen and Otto stopped him few meters from the entrance.

“Each cardinal’s chosen mostly stay in their own groups. Of course, we can still hang out during the lessons, but you probably will have to go through the initiation ritual and then …” Otto’s explanation was interrupted when few older chosen in dark blue robes came out the kitchen, but after throwing a glance at the four kids went on their way.

“What kind of initiation did you guys have?” Alex curiously asked.

He had witnessed quite a few such ceremonies. While in few more casual newbies only had to drink loads of alcohol, there were some initiations in darker circles where people had to sacrifice their fingers or even relatives.

“That’s a secret!” Otto blushed all over.

“Just don’t argue with the older chosen and they will protect you later. Let’s go.” Josh said and entered the kitchen. With only two meals per day children were probably starving.

‘The kitchen’ turned out to be a large dining hall with three long rows of tables in it. In the far side of the hall was a door to, probably, the actual kitchen and near it stood a priest with several large pots and distributed the meal. Alex immediately recognized the smell of the tasteless porridge they had in basilica, but was not really disappointed – he didn’t have high hopes in the first place.

“Lord, guide us!” He greeted the priest with a prayer.

The man in the stained gray robe froze for a second in surprise, but then nodded with a ‘mhm’ and poured him some of the porridge.

The four found an empty spot and everyone, including Alex began wolfing down their breakfast. The process continued in silence until a boy in black robe, around the age of eleven or twelve came over.

“So you are the new one?” He asked Alex the obvious.

The latter nodded and continued to eat while the other three looked at each other and pretended to not hear the conversation.

The newcomer became a bit irritated at the lack of attention from the kid who was half his eage, but held himself back and said, “Tonight, after the sunset come to the training grounds.”

Alex, of course, ignored him, so the boy in a bit louder voice asked, “Did you hear me?”

But only received a ‘uhu’ and a nod as an answer.

“You’ll come if you know what’s good for you!” He snorted and left, but Alex continued to carelessly eat.

These were literally ‘children games’.

“Why did you have to piss him off?” Josh whispered, “Now your initiation will be worse!”

Alex grinned back and said, “Didn’t you hear him? He said I don’t need to come.”

The other three looked at him in confusion. Few minutes ago they were admiring their new friend for being smart, but it turned out he was dumb as a wood.

Needless to say, after a boring day that Alex spent listening to the highpriest Kiril explaining the very basic holy energy principles to the trio, Alex went back to his room, cultivated and slept.