When he walked into Theoretical Tactics, the first thing he noticed was the armor. It looked like some sort of Divine Steel, though it was hard to tell what kind due to his lack of experience. He only knew about the stuff because of Mr. Lapenbaum’s stories, and Johnseph’s battle with the Blaze Elk had been the first time he’d ever actually seen the stuff. It had gold filigree, though he wouldn’t be surprised if the armor was covered in some sort of disguised Essence Runes, just from the design. It covered every part of his body, leaving nothing visible. It was clearly the armor of an incredibly wealthy person, even beyond what a Journeyman would usually collect. It reeked of nobility.
The second problem about his teacher was his name. Upon the plaque on his desk, three simple, yet powerful words had been inscribed.
Alexander Illysius II.
===
The Eyladian government was simple in structure. It was a blend between a democracy, a republic, and a monarchy. The 7 noble families ruled over the 7 high cities. Jexticar handled the nation’s glasswork and many of its scientific endeavors, especially relating to astronomy. Rholumni focused on producing high-quality steel and buildings, as well as Eyladia’s mass production. Winarea was home to the best crafters within thousands of miles, with a focus on weapons, armor, tools, and Essence-forged items. Hulendorn was home to the country’s military forces, and made vodka in its off-time. They were also the primary source of arkovini meat, with the arkovinus species being a weird cross between woodpeckers and bears. Arkovini meat was supposed to be some sort of delicacy, but Arik just couldn’t see it. They had the colorful feathers and wings of woodpeckers, while having the sheer size and shape of grizzly bears. Apparently, killing one with nothing but your bare hands was considered a rite of passage for young Hulendorians.
Crazies.
Wendown was, obviously, known for its Shapers and Pedagogues. If you wanted to learn something, you went to Wendown, hence why the Spartan Citadel was there, rather than somewhere more central, like Illysius. Quethbrill handled Eyladian agriculture. If something went down your gullet, chances were it came from Quethbrill. Their terrain was considered perfect for potatoes, so they ended up making a lot of those, which is why Hulendorn, their neighbors, make vodka, and not beer. Most of the alcohol in the country was actually in Hulendorn, which was probably why they wrestled monstrosities for fun. The last high city was Illysius, which was where most international affairs were handled and where domestic deals were struck.
Each of the high cities had its own noble family, with a matching last name. For example, the current head-of-house for the Quethbrill noble family was Gregorios Quethbrill. Each family got to rule their city in whatever fashion they desired, and that was that. However, that wasn’t actually where the chain of command ended. There was one more step. The Eyladius family was the ruling family over all of Eyladia. The current King Eyladius was the unopposed ruler until the day he died. If he said something had to be done, it would be done and that was all. His family– that is, his wife and children– constituted the entire Eyladius family. While most noble houses included anyone who the head-of-house wrote on the official ledger as part of the family, the Eyladius family was restricted to the ruler, their partner, and any children they had with that partner. Whenever the leader of the Eyladius family died, the heads of the 7 noble houses would gather together and vote on a new King or Queen Eyladius. This person would always be from the house Illysius. The current leader of the house could not vote on the matter, but could weigh in on each option. Ties were decided by duels which would last until death, incapacitation, or surrender. The winner would be the new ruler of Eyladius.
When Arik had been 6 years old, Queen Julicius Eyladius had fallen ill, and passed away. A vote had taken place, and there had been a tie between two brothers, the current King Linus Eyladius and one Alexander Illysius the First. It had been a long and bloody fight. Linus and Alexander Illysius had both been 5th Degree combatants, able to fight with the power of approximately 81 peak 1st Degree Classers. Most people who didn’t focus too much on leveling up would get to the middle of 1st Degree in their lifetimes. People who cared, but didn’t do it professionally, would get to around the peak of 1st Degree. People who did do it professionally, but didn’t have the backing of a noble house were expected to stall out towards the end of 2nd Degree, with the more talented individuals reaching 3rd Degree. Noble Journeymen would usually stop at around peak 3rd Degree or the start of 4th Degree. The 5th Degree was utterly insane. They’d had to take the battle out to the desert above Hulendorn to avoid glassing the surroundings.
In the end, Linus had put too much force into one of his signature moves, Diode Punch, and Alexander, already worn out from the battle, had died. Linus’ first command as King had been to declare a week-long mourning. From Yadoh to Yunhi, the streets had been completely empty. Linus Eyladius had spared no expense, and paid recompense to Alexander Senior’s family, going so far as to erect a huge Essence Stone statue of his dead brother in the center of Ilysius.
It hadn’t been enough.
Overwhelmed with grief, Alexander’s wife, Roxanne, had thrown herself out the window of the highest oriel in Illysius palace. She hadn’t survived the fall.
TL;DR, the man standing at the front of the classroom had more reason to dislike the monarchy than anyone else in the country.
===
Alexander noticed Arik’s entrance, and waved a hand at him. Arik waved back, then quickly made his way to a nearby seat. Alexander went right back to talking to his fans. From their bearings and varying ethnicities, I’d say that most of them are either nobles or rich kids. It would make sense for powerful people to try to suck up to Alexander Illysius. Many people thought that he’d be the next king, even at his young age. Some other people think that he’s going to lead a rebellion against the monarchy. Arik decided that it would be best for him to keep his distance and try not to stick out too much in class.
After a while, though, Alexander seemed to push them away. Once they arrived at their seats, he started the class.
“Alright, so everyone in here is here for Theoretical Tactics, correct?” He gazed up at the class. Arik looked back too, and found that there were a surprising number of students. His previous classes had maybe twenty kids in them, but this one had about twice that. Hopefully that doesn’t cause any issues.
The Illysius noble shrugged it off and started teaching. “Now, you may realize that I don’t have any teaching credentials, unlike most of your other teachers. I’m really not much of a teacher, myself, but I do know a thing or two about tactics.” He grinned and tapped his helmet. “I have experience training with the Royal Intersoldiers and leading my own group of Journeymen.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Now, the other teachers you’ll have here, they’re going to teach you various skills. They may not be the Divine kind, but they’ll be equally useful, nonetheless. For example, you might be taught about magicks and their properties, or maybe beast anatomy, or even magickal tinkering,” he explained, “but it is my job to make sure that you are prepared to put these skills into use under duress. You might know that fire is a Blood Hydra’s greatest weakness, but can you and your party adapt to put that knowledge into use?”
His smile deepened. “It’s my job to ensure that you have the proper mindset to abuse every single advantage you’re allowed.”
Somewhat surprisingly, Alexander’s class was actually the most straightforward thus fair. To be fair, Arik’s first class had felt like information overload, and about a strategy game of all things, and his second had felt like a horror movie, so maybe this should have been expected.
The first thing that Alexander had the class do was introduce themselves. He made sure that everyone included information about any magicks or weapons they could use, and what role they expected to play in a combat encounter.
“Here, I’ll go first.” Alexander Illysius smiled at the crowd of students, and pulled a sword off his back. “You all, of course, know my name, but you may not know that I hold a 3rd Degree Knight class, and I wield the longsword. I use War Chants to buff the stats of large numbers of allies, and can use a small portion of runoff from the Essence they use to empower my own blade. I am at my best when commanding groups numbering around three hundred.”
Three hundred people?? How large is the radius of that Skill?
“Now, in alphabetical order… Ah, Arik of Jexticar, no last name, please approach the stand and introduce yourself to the class.” Alexander Illysius gazed out into the classroom, waiting for someone to step up.
Arik froze up, having not expected to be called out immediately, but, after a moment, he managed to recover, and stepped up. Luckily, his seat was near the front of the class, so he didn’t have far to walk.
Once he arrived at the front, and looked out to the students. There really were all sorts of people here. Some seemed arrogant, others bored, and yet there were still some gazing at him curiously. He swallowed to clear the lump in his throat, then began speaking. “Hello. I am Arik.” He swallowed again before continuing, “I am a Paladin, and prefer to use two-handed swords. I’d like to be offensively-focused, but my Class enables me to act defensively as well. I can use some Celestial magick, but my Class is low-leveled, so I don’t actually have much at this point, just a weak light spell. That’s likely to change later on, but for now, just consider me a melee fighter.” With that, he went back to his seat, and Alexander called another person up.
Well that was simpler than expected, he thought.
===
Lunch was… weird. Most of the nobles sat together, and a lot of the other people had already found groups to sit with by the time Arik arrived. He felt eyes watching him wherever he went, though he knew that it was probably just his imagination. Eventually he just picked up some lunch and sat down alone.
Alone, until Nisha popped him in the back of the head and sat beside him.
He looked over at her with a small grin, expecting her to say something, but she just started stuffing her face. Arik shrugged, then followed suit. He was pretty hungry, after all.
Part of the reason that lunch felt different from breakfast was that, in the morning, almost everyone had been too bleary-eyed to have much discussion, or even form a coherent thought. Now, though, almost everyone was talking to someone. It seemed that all his classmates had been busy making friends.
He glanced over at Nisha. At least I’ve got one friend, even if she is a bit quirky.
Arik gently nudged her in the side, interrupting her from shoving food in her mouth briefly. She looked back at him, somewhat confused. He chuckled. “No one’s going to take your food, you know.”
She glanced back at her food briefly, then back at him. She swallowed. “I guess you’re right. I haven’t eaten this well in a while, that's all, and your outsider food is so good.”
Arik rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right, this stuff is pretty good.” The meal consisted of potatoes and ham, and was expertly cooked, probably even by a high-level chef. “If I’m being honest, this is better than what I eat most of the time, too, though I’m sure some of the people in the room wouldn’t say the same.” He took another bite, chewing through the soft, flavorful meat.
She raised an eyebrow, prompting him to swallow and continue, saying, “I’m not from any wealthy family, while quite a few of these people are the children of wealthy merchants and nobles. It kinda makes sense, in a way, since this place is supposed to be for teaching people how to hunt Divine Beasts, and the Nobles and rich people usually get better teachers, resulting in a better foundation of knowledge and better starting Classes, in some cases.” He thought for a second, but then smiled. “I guess that just means I’ll have to work harder to catch up.”
Nisha’s eyebrows creased. “Doesn’t it bother you that they start out with an advantage, though?”
Arik just shrugged. “I mean, yeah, it does, but at the same time, not really. When you think about it, all it means is that their parents worked hard or got lucky, and used the gains from it to improve the opportunities that their kids would receive. That’s great, in my opinion. I’m starting from the bottom, though. I suppose it could seem unfair, but to me, I just see it as me being the start of the chain.
“If I want my family to get the same benefits that those kids got, then all I have to do is work hard and get lucky. Now, noble families? That’s a bit unfair, but then again, some of them are actually quite good. They serve their people well, and they even extend certain noble titles and privileges to the most powerful people; the richest, the strongest, the ones with the most potential.” Arik’s grin returned. “If I work hard enough, all those benefits that I’m missing will be given to me, in addition to what I’ll get as a direct result of my efforts. If that’s not fair, I don’t know what is.”
Slate Stuff (same as the last chapter):
[Blessing of Celestial Skies]: Always have you basked in the ever-present light of the heavens, and now, more than ever, you call upon them for strength.
= +25% Efficiency with Celestial Magicks.
= +15% Efficiency with Radiant Magicks.
= +5% Efficiency with Gravity Magicks.
= You can see perfectly through any darkness or illusion so long as the light of the sun, moon, or stars rests upon you.
= You will receive additional skill offers when using relevant classes.
Name: Arik
[Blessing of Celestial Skies]
Age: 18
Stats:
Physique: 16
Limit: 14
Talent: 11
Wisdom: 10
Essence: 7
Purity: 19
Free Points: 4
Primary Class: [Stellar Paladin] (2)
Skills (3/5):
￮ [Heavily Armored] (1)
￮ [Bladework] (3)
￮ [Starlight] (2)
￮
￮
Secondary Class:
Tertiary Class:
Skill Points: 4
[Stellar Paladin]: You draw your power from the celestial bodies who have watched over you and provided you with their light for all your life. As their holy knight, you devote yourself to their goals and ideals.
= +2 Physique
= +1 Limit
= +1 Essence
= +2 Purity
= +4 Free Points
Basic Skills:
= [Heavily Armored]
= [Bladework]
= [Starlight]
[Heavily Armored]: You ignore 0% (1n%-30%) of the weight of armor, and your movements ignore 1% (1n%) of any mobility restrictions caused by armor you are wearing. This ability only functions on armor that weighs at least 35 pounds.
[Bladework]: Your Talent stat acts 6% (2n%) higher while learning to wield bladed weapons. Bladed weapons you wield act 3% (1n%) sharper.
[Starlight]: You summon an ethereal orb of Magick that sheds light for 5 (3+n) feet. This light counts as starlight. Drains Essence. Reserves 7 Purity.