Five years had passed since Alex had taken over Arthurs's body, and it had been a long five years. There wasn’t much you could do as an infant, he was bound by the limits of his new body and was forced to spend much of his days sleeping. It wasn’t until he was nearly a year old that he had the strength to walk, even then he wasn’t allowed to wander the house unattended.
This didn’t mean that he had spent the time completely idle. Alex spent a lot of his time rummaging through his memories to better understand what he could still do. He also tried to pick up information about his situation from conversations around the house. Getting detailed information proved difficult, people didn’t just exposition dump in casual conversation around the house. Most of what Alex heard was useless gossip, though he had at least gathered information on his house and the empire he now lived in.
Arthur’s father was the second son of a decently noble Count and had made a good military career for himself as a Lieutenant General in the imperial army. That sounded impressive but Alex lacked any good reference to determine how impressive. It was at least a prestigious enough position to allow for an estate in the capital and a fair number of servants to run it. He knew his family wasn’t at the top of the social hierarchy but they were definitely far from the bottom.
Beyond just his new father Alex had four other direct family members. His mother who he knew very little about, she spent most of her time socializing but rarely spoke of her own family. He at least knew her father was alive and she had a brother, beyond that was a mystery. All the servants in the house referred to her as Mistress Stormcrest, which was his father's family name, so far he hadn’t even heard her first name. Alex believed if he could attend some of her tea parties he would learn more, but the maids said he would be a nuisance. The rest of his family contained two older sisters and an older brother. His brother, Darnell, was significantly older and had gone off to join the Lightning Dragon sect in hopes of becoming an officer in the military like his father. The older of the two sisters, Allison, was nearly fifteen, he knew this because the maids had recently begun talking about her upcoming fifteenth birthday party. Alex gathered that fifteen was a significant age here and possibly signified adulthood, but that was all conjecture. His other sister, Sylvana, was only three years older than him and constantly pestered him while he was trying to relax. Besides Betty who was always assigned to watch him, Sylvana, or Sylvy as she insisted he call her, was the one who spent the most time with Arthur.
She was an overly hyper child with an obsession with plants and a determination to drag Arthur around the estate so she could teach him things “like any big sister should”. Sadly what she “taught” him was nonsense. While Sylvy was taking lessons, the only information she “taught” Arthur was what she “learned from the plants”. According to her, the plants whispered the secrets of the world into her ears, and as a responsible big sister, it was her job to pass this important information on to Arthur.
In an attempt to divert some of her attention away from him, Arthur tried to convince Sylvy to share these secrets with the maids and their mother, but she shot him down, “I can’t, the plants said this information was secret, I can’t tell anyone that doesn’t already know the secrets”
Arthur again tried to reason with her, “But I don’t know these secrets so why can you tell me”.
Of course, Sylvy had a response, “It’s okay, I explained to the plants that it was my job as your big sister to teach you, the plants agreed with me, they understand the importance of my position”.
This was all utter nonsense, on the rare occasion a bit of knowledge he had forgotten was mentioned around him, his old memories would come flowing back into. But when Sylvy told him what the plants said it was all nonsense. Nothing she said tugged at any of his memories. She just had an active imagination, that was usual for someone her age.
Despite the nonsense Arthur did entertain Sylvy, it wouldn’t have been a good idea to alienate himself from the only person in this estate who interacted with him without having to be paid a salary. And over time he even began to enjoy spending time with Sylvy, it was certainly better than sitting alone in his room.
That had been how Arthur had been spending his time for the past few years. Playing with Sylvy, listening to gossip, and coming up with plans for when he began cultivating. He had recently turned five and in a rare conversation with his father, Arthur learned that he would soon get a private tutor to teach him the skills required to be the son of a noble. While he didn’t know what skills he would need Arthur was excited to finally have a teacher who didn’t learn everything they knew from plants. However, he would probably still have to hear the wisdom of the plants as his few attempts to stop those lessons had not ended well.
With his first real introduction to this world on the horizon Arthur decided to solidify his new identity. The first step was to stop thinking of himself as Alex. Even in his thoughts, he needed to consider himself Arthur. If he slipped up and called himself Alex in public it wouldn’t be a big deal, but if he accidentally signed his name Alex, or repeatedly responded to the name Alex it could raise suspicions. He also needed to consider thought-reading techniques. While rarely found in the Mortal Plane techniques that could read surface thoughts could be found used by mortals. It was just safer to only think of himself as Arthur.
Another piece of his identity that needed to be defined was how he acted. Arthur couldn’t act too smart as he didn’t want to stick out too much. He also couldn’t act too dumb as that could keep him from opportunities that could help him progress. With all this considered Arthur decided to aim for the 95th percentile within the nobility. Still above most people but not at the top where all the attention was on him. He wanted to be the guy you would mention when talking about talented individuals but wouldn’t go into much detail as others were more interesting. This wouldn’t be easy to pull off, especially because he had no reference for the capabilities of other nobles, but he would start on the dumber side and slowly increase his aptitude until it felt right.
Finally, Arthur would need to be more mature. In order to blend in as a normal child he had acted childish, or at least his best approximation of childish. But now he needed to act older than most kids his age. If he wanted to speed through the boring lessons of manners and etiquette, he would need to prove that he knew how to behave in a polite society.
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Every society values respect, and while every group has a different understanding of what respect means, they differ greatly in how respect is given and received. Arthur needed to gain the respect of those in power while at the same time, gaining their respect. While it sounded easy, Arthur was nervous he would screw this part up. Alex was a God King, and not just any God King either, he was known as the Infernal Titan, the undisputed strongest fire cultivator in the multiverse, some even considered him to be the strongest cultivator in straight combat. There was no one he would need to show deference to.
But Arthur was not Alex, Arthur was mortal, and Arthur wasn’t even a cultivator yet. No one respected Arthur, they only showed respect to him as a sign of respect to his father. This would be a challenge that will follow him throughout this life. Even once he reached God King again there would still be many above him.
So Arthur needed some practice, and who better to practice than his dear older sister, someone who he should show respect to, but who really hasn’t earned it, at least in his eyes. There would be many people he would have to be respectful to despite their flaws. So it was good to start with someone who couldn’t take his head off, and who knew, maybe the flowers would have some good advice to pass along.
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Averion Stormcrest had been a Lieutenant General in the imperial army for eight years now. As only the second son of a count, this was the highest rank he could achieve, and he was proud of it.
Despite his nobility, his life had not been an easy one, Averion’s father was not a kind man, from the moment he turned five his life was filled with nothing but training and studying, once he had learned what his father considered the minimum the studying stopped and the training doubled. At the time he resented his father but looking back he was grateful.
By age twelve he had already reached the fifth stage of the Body Realm while most of his peers had only advanced a few stages in the Origin Realm. The Lightning Dragon Sect accepted him as an outer disciple despite not yet being fifteen, and by the time he was of age he had already become an inner disciple.
Averion wanted his sons to have the same headstart on cultivation he had. But when he tried to implement the schedule he used to follow, his wife stopped him. She claimed that it would prevent Darnell from developing proper social skills. He knew that was bullshit, he hadn’t had any friends until he became an inner disciple and they would have only gotten in his way.
Alas Averion could not convince his wife. He would have just gone around her, but he knew whenever he would leave the estate, which he did often, she would change his schedule. Despite his rank, the tutors wouldn’t go against his wife, she was not one many were willing to offend.
Maybe it was for the better, his firstborn had no talent for cultivation or the sword. He was still in the Origin Realm despite being twenty. Even the nobles who slacked off until their fifteenth birthday would be in the Body Realm by that age. It was an embarrassment.
At least his two daughters were turning out well. Allison was a real beauty, he was sure suitors would be lining up out the door for a chance at engagement. She was still a few years away from marriage age but many got betrothed at her age. He needed to find a strong cultivator for her, some pansy noble who relied on their guards for protection wasn’t good enough for his Allison.
Sylvana was a bit odd, but she was still young, young girls had vivid imaginations, and her love for plants may translate into an affinity for nature chi, getting accepted into the Life Dragon Sect and becoming a healer would guarantee her a comfortable life.
Then there was Arthur. He had just turned five and Averion was on his way to the Lightning Dragon Sect to hire some tutors for the boy. While there were places to hire tutors from the various sects in the capital, if you wanted the best tutors you needed to travel to the sect in person. Averion was good friends with the current sect master. The old man was one of the few people in the empire stronger than Averion, despite them both being in the Nascent Soul Realm, the Sect Master was in the late stages of the realm while he was still in the early stages. Averion hoped that the Sect Master could help him find tutors that could forge his youngest into a real cultivator; he would at least need to turn out better than his older brother. He wondered if he should visit Darnell while he was at the sect, but he decided against it. That boy didn’t need the distraction.
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Elizabeth Stormcrest sat in her library thinking about her youngest son. He was an odd child, His actions always seemed forced, like he was acting like he thought a child should act. Even today she had seen him acting overly respectful to Sylvy, and he kept changing up how he acted like he was working on a disguise to pose as a respectful gentleman but needed to work out the right level of respect to show so he wouldn’t stand out, creepy, okay maybe that was a bit far fetched, he was just five after all, she was probably just overthinking again.
At first, she was concerned the boy had been possessed, but after looking at his soul she saw nothing out of place. The only conclusion she could come up with was that he was just special. Her youngest daughter was also a bit special, but that was a different kind of special. Talking to plants was weird but not out of place for an eight-year-old.
Arthurs's strangeness had driven a wedge between the two of them. She avoided him more than her other children, and he never really sought her out. Elizabeth was not very good with kids, she had never expected to be a mother but her life had taken a drastic turn. She tried her best and her two oldest had turned out decent. She knew Averion saw Darnell as a failure but he just wasn’t cut out for cultivation, if he hadn’t been their son the Sect Master would have kicked him out of the sect a long time ago. Then he could have gone to the Imperial Academy to become a scholar, that is where his talents truly lay. But Averion was stubborn and wouldn’t let him leave the sect, she tried to convince him numerous times but every time he would shout, “Stormcrests are soldiers, not scholars” and “No son of mine will be cowering in a library”. Honestly, she was surprised that man had even bothered to learn how to read.
Hopefully, Arthur would be talented with cultivation, maybe if he turned out good then Averion would forget about Darnell and she could sneak him out of that sect. But there was no point making plans for that until Arthur had a chance to prove himself.
In a few days, her husband would return with a few tutors to teach Arthur. Unlike with Darnell, Averion would not have to leave the city often and would be able to exert more of his crazy ideas on Arthurs's schedule. But she was prepared to fight back, she had even lined up a few history and etiquette tutors in case Averion decided to only hire combat ones. Although he was a bit weird Arthur was still her son. She wouldn’t let him turn into a battle-crazed maniac like his father. She never got the choice to choose her own path in life, and she didn’t want her kids to have a childhood anything like hers.