George finished work and before long it was time to go to class, he went to Levy and got his daily payment and left the winery, he wanted the winemaker skill but didn’t think that Levy would give it to him. George didn’t feel like going to class but he had promised Tyler and was a little curious what Tyler wanted him to see so badly that he even would waste a credit and visit the class a second time.
Tyler had told George to meet him in the cafeteria to eat something before they went to class and he was waiting there for Tyler to arrive. Tyler worked at the wine fields and it took them a lot longer to finish work, but George liked moments like this and was sitting there enjoying the day. It took a long time for Tyler to arrive and they had to eat fast because the class was going to start, George asked Tyler what the class was about but Tyler told him that he could better wait and hear it from the teacher.
After eating the two stood up and walked toward the classroom, George could see people looking at him and giggling. Tyler had a big smile on his face and hit George’s on the shoulder.
“You are pretty famous, there are even rumors going around that the general kicked his son out because he couldn’t accept your love for each other.”
George stopped moving and was just staring at Tyler with his mouth wide open. He couldn’t believe how fast the wild rumors were spreading and didn’t know what Martin would do if he heard people talking about him like this. Tyler seeing George standing there couldn’t keep his laughter in and started to laugh out loud, it was funny to see George having no answer for the first time since they had met. George followed Tyler to class and was deeply in thought, he didn’t like people talking about him but he had to admit that there was also an upside to all of this, the more people affiliated him with Martin the smaller the chance of people bothering him or trying to steal his possessions.
It didn’t take long before Tyler stopped and George found himself in a classroom with only a couple of people. George took a seat and waited for the teacher to arrive, and before long a young man who looked in his twenties entered the room with a big smile on his face. What surprised George the most was that he was wearing a green outfit and George was wondering why a member of the gully clan was teaching them personally.
“The gully clan is a little different from the other clans, They don't look down on commoners and even volunteer their time to give free lessons at the academy, a class like this costs at least four to five credits but we only pay one to the academy for using this room.”
George didn’t believe for a second that a big clan like the Gully's were doing this out of kindness, his life experience had thought him that everyone has an agenda, you only had to wait long enough to find out what it was.
“I’m master Tod and I will teach you a little about how the world of Nash works, this is a one lesson course and you will receive a book with information and a map courtesy of the Gully clan. Later when you need to get a better maps or supplies you can just go to the Gully market and get everything you need, use my name and they will give you a five percent discount.”
George rolled his eyes and couldn’t believe how the man didn’t even try to hide his intentions, and the worse thing was that everyone was eating it up without understanding that it was all a ploy to make them use their stores. But George didn’t care, he was smart enough to see what they were trying to do and didn’t mind the free lesson. The teacher went on for another ten minutes advertising about their shops before he started the lesson.
“Nash was made in a really complex way to make sure that everyone has a chance to become someone great, this is done by separating the different areas and let newcomers develop. This means that when you leave wine village and go to the next area you will never be able to come back unless you’re bought as a slave or a city worker. And even then, there are restrictions, slaves will lose all their abilities and will only have the power of a normal human. City workers, on the other hand, will get a restriction on their power, the limitation installed in Wine village is the first level of the spirit stage. The only thing Nash doesn’t put any restriction on is your insight but even that has its limits because of the amount of energy you can use.”
The teacher moved his hands and a golden card appeared in front of him, it had some strange patterns on it and he could feel natural energy surrounding it.
“Everything build in any settlement is made by people, these cards are the deed to the buildings and the owner will get the profit when someone uses their services, the academy, for example, is owned by the Hooper clan and all the profit will go to them at the end of every session month, over the years almost every building in Wine village has been taken over by one of the three clans. But Nash has put in a couple of rules in place to protect newcomers, the first rule is that Nash doesn’t allow free trade between settlements and there are only a couple of standard trading agreements created by Nash itself with a fixed prices, this has been done so that clans can’t buy their own products for a high price and flood Wine village with money you couldn’t dream off and to make sure that the Cities can’t sell high-grade cultivation resources to make newcomers so strong that they could easily complete the dungeon. You can find the prices and products you can buy at the auction house in the book you will receive later. The other rule that has been made is that the property cards can’t be taken outside to the next settlement, this to make sure that everyone has the chance to obtain them even though the chance of doing that is really small. Every clan has multiple strong city workers like me working for them protecting the property cards, but you can imagine that it would be completely impossible if you had to steal it from a clan lord.”
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The teacher put the card away and had a proud look on his face, George didn’t know what the reason was for him to be so confident but it didn’t look like he was afraid of the card being stolen.
“But there is another card you need to watch out for, every settlement has a black card that gives the person ownership of the whole settlement, Wine village, for example, is ruled by the Trust clan and they get a percentage of the profits made by every building, you can see it as a kind of taxation, therefore they make the most money and are by default the strongest clan in Wine village. Black cards are really important and are protected by very powerful people, the trust clan has given this task to one of their retired generals and it will be almost impossible to obtain it, even for me. But don’t think of this as unfair, to buy city workers like the retired general the clans have to pay a high price and almost lose seventy percent of their yearly income, we spend this money because we value Wine village and don't want it to fall it into someone's hands that would hurt the people, this is the place we find new talent and who knows, maybe one day you will be part of the Gully clan and be a brother of mine.”
Everyone hearing the teacher talk had a smile on their face and desire in their eyes, but George didn’t buy the story. The reason all the clans were spending so much money on protection was because of each other, he had read about old times before Nash and how countries would spend a lot of money on the military because there was always a chance of being attacked. George didn’t know about the relationship between the three clans, but with the money, they were spending it didn’t look like they trusted each other completely.
The teacher waited a while so that the information to sink in and used his high-grade bronze storage ring to make a book appear in front of every student.
“This is a book with the map of Wine village and the route you need to take to the first dungeon, it also contains the rules I explained and a lot of smaller once you need to read for yourself. I’m not your martial arts teacher but I will give you some advice on the dungeons, do not try to do a dungeon before you reach level nine and are almost ready to enter the spirit stage, also the dungeon can be done with one to eight people, make sure the group is not too weak but also not too strong, the dungeon will adjust the strength of the magical beasts to fit the group so going with too many people is not always the wisest decision. The magical beasts and the test are different for everyone and you never know what the test is going to be about. And if you want to buy any maps or tools to make sure you are going to pass, make sure to visit the auction house owned by the Gully clan of course.”
The teacher clapped his hands and called for the end of class, George didn’t know why they called it geography class and didn’t just call it a sales pitch. But he had learned a lot of new things and understood why Tyler had urged him to learn martial arts, but he didn’t know if he wanted to leave Wine village for a big city, the cities are filled with big clans and people like the principal and it would be a lot harder to be left alone.
After they left class and were on their way back to the dorm Tyler tried to convince him that he needed to train hard so that they could leave wine village together, George nodded and didn’t disagree with him. He didn’t think that telling Tyler that he didn’t want to leave Wine village right now would be a smart move, Tyler would decide to leave Wine village one day and George would decide then if he was ready to leave with him or not.
George went back to his room and was thinking about what he had learned today, the information he got made the situation with the clans more interesting and there was so much more to gain and lose. He didn’t know if they shared such important information with him because they were forced to by Nash or if they wanted to use the lesson to show commoners that they owed everything and that there was nothing they could do about it. George felt like the clans were telling them to accept them as their rulers or try to obtain the deeds themselves.
It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, someone was knocking on the door and it was still five in the morning. Martin got up angry and opened the door only to find the principal's secretary waiting on the other side, he waited for her to say something but she didn’t say anything. She reminded him of George and Martin got angry, he hadn’t slept for a couple of days and was just enjoying a good night’s rest. He went back into the room and grabbed George by the collar.
“Let’s make a deal, I will take you to the Hooper mansion next session day and in exchange I want you to answer the door from now one.”
Martin started to walk back to his bed and was cursing underneath his breath, but George didn’t have time to worry about him. Why was the secretary of the principal looking for him at five in the morning?