My dear Jerome,

I was so glad to get your letter after so long. I thought maybe something bad must have happened. Or worse — that you had decided to forget about us. I’ve been speaking with Doti, Dreamer, and Whisper. All three of them have been taken in by some of the best families out there, and by the looks of it so have you. I can’t almost believe you became a disciple of the Royal family, Jerome. It feels like a dream and I fear I would wake up to find you here in the orphanage.

The other children miss you so much. Old Wen is becoming frustrated daily because you are not around to help explain things to them.

Jerome snickered at that. Old Wen could care less if they asked for explanations. The kids would probably nag him to death for it but he wouldn’t care. Which meant they’d take their questions elsewhere.

Moss would get frustrated, but he’d push them to Ms. Tara. And Ms. Tara wouldn’t have the heart to tell them away. Which meant, she was the one frustrated by his absence. Well, he missed her too. He missed them all. Jerome got back to reading the letter again.

After hearing about your adoption, Ash has become inspired. She now does all the activities you do with the boys to get stronger. The other children that are going to be having their initiation after her are also joining in. It's a joy seeing them all come together to do something. But it is different, Jerome. I wish Ash was good at being a leader like you.

Anyways, thank you for the instructions on how to make the soap. I have been making and selling a lot more than before. The children don’t starve anymore and have better robes to wear. Even Moss is not as bitter toward you for all the times he wasn’t able to smack you in the face — or in the butt.

Thank you so much, Jerome. I cry tears of joy as I write you this letter. Know that your efforts were not in vain to help give us a fighting chance against hunger and diseases.

The soap has reached more customers as I said. We make as much as forty copper cuts every tenday. If I can get to sell our soap to inn owners, I’m sure we can make a lot more than that. My customers are suggesting that I shape it better, however. I am not a Shaper, Jerome. What do I do? Old Wen has no idea what to do and Rihal has stopped coming over. He is the only other person I can ask.

With love,

Ms. Tara.

Jerome breathed a sigh. But what the hell did she mean by Shaping? Was that a skill of sorts? He quickly took his quill out of the inkwell and started writing on a new sheet of paper.

Dear Ms. Tara,

How are you and everyone? I hope you are all doing well. Your letter reached the Royal Estate a while ago but Rihal refused to let me have it until I completed a special training.

I don’t get what you mean by Shaping. I know it’s quite easy to cut the soap into shapes when it hardens though. And as I said before I left for Mehn Agrh’ur, the floor would be a better area to let the soap dry out.

After preparing the mixture and it starts to thicken, you take it off the fire and into a room where there is much air but little to no sunlight. Pour the mixture on the cleaned floor and leave it to harden. This should take at least a day, depending on how much water you use in the mixture.

I advise you get a knife for this particular purpose. Said knife would only be used for cutting the soap into bars to avoid the risk of poisoning. After that, you stack them up to cure, leaving a good amount of space between the bars of soap so air can flow in between them to cure them faster. Leave them to cure for at least three tendays. This way, they would remain hard during and after use.

Please do not dry them in the sun. That would be a recipe for disaster. That said, I hope competitors aren’t sabotaging your business. I’ve spoken with Rihal and he assures me that he would look out for you.

I’ll be going for Pilgrims’ Keep and will be there for a year at most. It’s one of the most exciting adventures I’ve ever had the privilege of going for. I wish I had the boys with me. That would have been the best. But I know very soon, I’ll be able to see them and we can share our stories with one another.

I promise to come back stronger, Ms. Tara. I’ve seen some very scary and powerful people — Rihal included. And I can say, I have a long way to go to achieve that level of power. One of these days, I’ll pay the orphanage a visit and bring lots of goodies with me. Till then, extend my greeting and love to everyone. And stay safe.

Sincerely,

Jerome.

Was teleportation a thing in this world? If he had that kind of power, he’d be sneaking out of Kilian’s Palace every opportunity he got, but no such luck. Jerome sat at his desk as he read and reread Ms. Tara’s letter. He was very happy for the orphanage. Things were gradually becoming better for the kids and it was all because of him. He felt pride swell up in his heart and a bright smile split his face.

This was his doing. For once, he did something for others. Something substantial that could change the direction of a group of people — his family. And thanks to Rihal, they had protection too. He couldn’t wait to see them. Maybe after Pilgrims’ Keep, he’d ask Rihal — or Lord Kilian, yes Lord Kilian would be the proper person to ask — for a break so he could visit the slums.

He felt like it had been ages since he left the slums but only forty days had passed since he came to the palace. Jerome chuckled and stood up. Tomorrow, Pilgrims’ Keep began. He was so excited to finally leave this chunk of stone they called a palace behind and explore the wilds. Maybe he’d get to fight and kill one of those powerful magical beasts. Now, how would that feel?

He took the back stairs up to the fifth floor to get to the falconer, taking care not to annoy those stupid birds this time around.

~~~

“A few of the Blanks participating in Pilgrims’ Keep will come from Great families in Vorthe,” Rihal said while Jerome picked up a box containing his new leather armor from outside his door. The day had finally come to head to the mountains with Rihal so he could participate in Pilgrims’ Keep.

“Many of these Blanks would be stronger and faster than you,” Rihal continued. “They’ve been Blanks for longer than you’ve been. Your training won’t make much of a difference if you were to go up against those who’d been Blanks for at least seven years. They’ve had time to hone themselves. You’ve not…

“Don’t embarrass me,” Rihal stated flatly. As his disciple, it would make Rihal look bad if he caved to someone just because they were stronger. Jerome scoffed at that.

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“And don’t even think about running away if you sense any of them, because if you can sense them, they can sense you. Even if they’re hostile to others, they’d thread carefully with you,” Rihal said.

“You think so little of me, Rihal,” Jerome said, scrutinizing his master’s leather armor. He had never met another Blank — except for the librarian — and this new experience gave him the jitters. It also kept him awake all night but he wasn’t going to tell Rihal that. He wondered what they’d be like — the other Blanks, that is.

“Well, I trained you,” Rihal quipped back.

Rihal wore tight black leather armor, exposing his thick muscular arms that were covered in tattoos. His cloak was held in one hand — a more decent cloak — and his stick in the other. Jerome observed the tatts on his master’s arms once again.

This wasn’t his first time seeing them but he wasn’t able to scrutinize them carefully back then. The tatts were strange. They looked more like figures — maybe letters — instead of tattoos. Like there was a strange significance to them.

He thought back to what he knew of ancient warriors and their scars and how they wore them proudly like a badge of honor. They didn’t look like scars, nor did they look fancy. If he were to assume anything, it’d be that they were functional.

The way the strange symbols crawled out from underneath his leather vest and wrapped around his upper arm before trailing down made it seem as if they represented something.

“The Royal family’s crest can protect you, but only from some Blanks,” Rihal continued, folding his arms across his chest as he rested by the door, “Others would still try to pick a fight with you. You’ve got to be smarter than them. Pilgrims’ Keep doesn’t just test your strength and will, it also tests your adaptability and wisdom.

“Do you like them?” Rihal asked all of a sudden.

“What?” Jerome looked up at the blindfolded face of his master.

“You keep staring at my ‘Ajanai’. Do you like them?”

That sounded ancient. Like it’s from the old tongue.

“And what does…‘Ajanai’ mean?” Jerome asked. “I’ve read some words in the old tongue — words scribbled down by apprentices as side notes in the books so they could remember the words to use to batter with elderly eccentrics who still lived in the past; those who didn’t know some of the new vocabulary floating around the current times.”

“You read a book with words in the old tongue?” Rihal asked incredulously. “In the library?”

Jerome shook his head absently. “The words I read were far from adequate to be called a proper lexicon. They were only units of measurement that correlated to the ounce, pound, and ton Vorthe uses now.”

“And what words did you read?”

“A dervanis is a unit of measurement in weight. And so is a vanis which is smaller, and a luvanis which is bigger. Basically, 1000 vanis equals 1 dervanis and 1000 devanis equals 1 luvanis. Each corresponds to the ounce, pound, and ton respectively.”

Which he found to be ludicrous because 16 ounces should equal a pound, right? That was how it was in his old world, and 2000 pounds equal a ton — one of the few dissimilarities he had noticed. It felt wrong as well, like the whole world had made a blunder.

Jerome shuddered at that thought. They may very well have a reason for it. It wasn’t his place to question how they went about creating units of measurement.

Rihal stayed silent for almost five breaths before he answered. He walked up to his table and sat on it before speaking. “‘Ajanai’ is from the ancient tongue — the Aramanai. There is no word for it in the common tongue. But these…” he pointed to the strange shapes tattooed on his upper arm, “are characters from a dead language. They function like scripts on a formation.”

“Is the dead language the Aramanai?” Jerome asked, wanting clarification. The way Rihal said it, he would have missed it. But thinking about it again, it sounded like the dead language Rihal was talking about isn’t Aramanai.

Rihal didn’t answer him after that. Jerome waited for him to continue but Rihal just kept looking at him, processing whatever information he had in that thick skull of his.

“Is that all?” Jerome gestured with his arms apart. “You were just getting to the good parts. Is the dead language the Aramanai, or some other language?” he asked again.

Rihal cleared his throat. “No, it’s not. But that’s all you get for now — and don’t meddle. As your master, I forbid you from finding out about this. You’ll learn about it in time. Don’t go to the library to ask for codices on the ‘Ajanai’. You’ll get yourself in trouble — I mean it.”

Jerome deflated. Then he perked up again. “Codices?!” he said in excitement. If they had ancient manuscripts…

Jerome felt Rihal’s aura hit him for the first time in forever. His knees went weak and a terror he had never known filled him before he could contemplate what was happening. He fell to the floor shivering like a leaf.

“You don’t listen, do you? This is as much as you can be told right now. What part of that was so difficult to understand?” Rihal said tightly before the aura dissipated. “That’s a warning Jerome. There are some things you can’t go asking around for. The punishment would be far worse than what you experienced just now.”

Jerome gulped in a breath as the heaviness in the air dissipated. He felt like he had been inside an iceberg and had broken out for the first time after a long while. Rihal picked him up and laid him on his bed to give him time to calm down. Embarrassing. But he couldn’t lift a finger as it were. The shivering didn’t stop. The cold didn’t go away.

So this was the power of a Spirit Realm expert.

~~~

Jerome admired his new leather armor with a lot less fervor as he had when he rose to prepare for Pilgrims’ Keep. Rihal was a killjoy. He just came in and sucked the life out of his mood. He thought it best to not give the man a piece of his mind, lest he did something even more egregious.

The armor was made from hard-boiled leather to protect him. It was a fitting armor. The leather cuirass was inlaid with soft foam-like textile padding. Jerome observed that the padding wouldn’t be able to withstand the impact of a spear tip that was made from purer steel.

The weapons from the training hall were fair on average. Their metals were filled with impurities and the frequency with which he had had to clean and oil their blades was a testament to how impure the metals were. Pure steel would still rust, but not as quickly as the blades in Kilian’s training hall. And just as the weapons weren’t perfect, so was the padding in his armor.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Still, Jerome wondered how they made foam in this world. Did they even know it was called foam? Scratch that. It was unintelligent of him to expect them to call foam, ‘foam’. They had called elevators, ‘elevators’ though and they measured weight the same as he knew from Earth.

However, did they even get petroleum to extract polyols? Plants would be a more viable source, but Vorthe lacked the technological efficacy to do such a thing. He may just be assuming, however. He remembered the crystal used in identifying him. That was far beyond anything he had assumed Vorthe was capable of making. And it had much to do with essence.

Essence. It always came back to that. Essence made the impossible possible for sacred artists, so why wouldn’t they have figured out how to extract oils, add catalysts and blowing agents in the mix, and voila. Foam!

Yeah, right. Well, Vorthe had been in existence for thousands of years, so plenty of time to research — if they even had researchers. Rihal had said they had scholars. Maybe these meant researchers — or tutors really. Tutors sounded more like the right thing in his mind.

As he thought about how they came up with something like foam, he could only surmise that they must have observed frothy liquids like the bubbling water of the oceans, and the foam formed during fermentation. Soap making was also a good way to observe the formation of foam. What with the agitation of the mixtures during the soap-making process.

But somehow, Jerome wasn’t convinced. Societies grew and developed with whatever nature gifted them and Vorthe — this world in fact — had essence which must have turned their eyes away from consistently trying to find a way to get a particular product through the process of reproducibility. There were no industries in Vorthe after all, or he hadn’t heard about one so far.

The armor carried the Vorthe family’s crest on the breastplate — a golden sun with a single eye at its center and had sleeves and a skirt. The sleeves were tough yet flexible. Very good quality leather, probably the best he had seen so far. The leather breeches were of the same quality and so were the knee-high boots. Jerome strapped on his vambraces last.

A special spear had been made for him. One that could contract to shorten its length. And a special holder was also made for it so he could strap it on his back. Finally, he was ready.

Pilgrims’ Keep, here I come, he thought as he stepped out to await Rihal.