“What we should talk about,” the Sovereign smiled at him, “is how you turned to stone and survived three years under a river.” Yun Vorthe wanted to know this, but not at the expense of ruining the future. He dipped his consciousness slightly into the river of fate for a moment just to be sure.
“Huh, I guess so,” Jerome answered uncomfortably. Truth be told he was curious as well, he just didn't like being an experiment for others to poke and prod at. It was the sum total of his previous life. He didn’t want a repeat of it.
“That stone of yours, is very likely the source of your petrification, and mayhap the reason why I cannot sense visha stirh’aun on you,” the Sovereign said contemplatively.
Jerome flinched. He had thought hiding his thoughts from the Sovereign was enough. But the man was a Transcendent, a Realm that was a mystery to him. The Sovereign clearly understood the mysteries and principles of this world better than anyone around him and Rihal had said sacred artists could perceive things through walls. So seeing through his physical form would not be an issue, right? What would a sacred artist as powerful as the Sovereign be able to accomplish with such a powerful perception?
He almost expected the Sovereign to respond to his thoughts, then remembered he’d said he couldn’t read him anymore. Which was probably the work of the mind-calming stone too. Jerome smiled to himself at that.
“What do you think about our world today, Jerome,” Yun Vorthe asked, having lost interest in Jerome’s miracle stone. It was something he had no clue about — which was a rarity in itself — so he’d rather investigate the owner for clues rather than ask questions Jerome clearly didn’t have answers to. And his investigation into the river of fate yielded no results.
Some things were more important than a mysterious stone, however. Things like Jerome going to Terra Praeta. For the first time ever, they were sending the fated Dark One to Terra Praeta. Yun Vorthe knew his predecessors wouldn’t approve. But the future had revealed itself to him. Jerome had to go.
“Today?” Jerome asked, confused.
“It should be far different from what you once knew, should it not?” The Sovereign asked, confident that the level of advancement in Jerome’s previous life could not compare to what existed in the kingdom of Vorthe at present.
“Forgiveness, Sovereign, but my previous life wasn’t here,” Jerome pointed downwards, “on this planet.”
The Sovereign glanced his way with a straight face, his expression calm, but Jerome saw his pupils dilate, just for a split second. He quickly turned away, lest the Sovereign see him smile and be offended. But he quickly chided himself. The Sovereign wouldn’t be offended by something like that, he was the Sovereign.
“Tell me about this world, then,” Yun Vorthe said. Things were getting rather interesting. If there were more worlds out there, it could mean trouble. If he didn’t want a repeat of the past, he’d best learn what he could…and fast. He settled into his high-backed chair to give Jerome a sense of safety. There was no need to make the young Sprout feel threatened.
This was one of the perks and one could say, bane, of being a Transcendent being. Every gesture or word had to be made or expressed with great care else he ended up overloading the senses of the people around him. His presence was as vast as an ocean in the minds of lesser beings, bearing down on them with a colossal amount of pressure! He had killed people with a look because of this.
“Ahem. One thing that stood out there was measurement,” Jerome started. He had brooded over this for a while so it wasn’t hard to come up with something interesting to say on the spot.
“Measurement?” the Sovereign repeated, not fathoming Jerome’s point.
“Measurement of everything. It made life and discoveries, experimentation and whatnots, easier.”
The Sovereign said nothing, so Jerome continued.
“We measured time, distance, heat, cold…pressure, as minutely as possible,” somehow he missed his old world: the technology, art — even though he spent most of his life in a hospital bed.
The Sovereign looked up at him, his mask of calm almost faltering. “These could not be the most important things in your previous world, could they?”
“Oh, but they were important,” Jerome said. “ We had no sacred artists, couldn’t see very far with our naked eyes, couldn’t wield the elements… the list goes on.”
The Sovereign nodded in understanding. Without the extraordinary gifts and perception of sacred artists, it would have been difficult to do almost anything without the use of tools. With that, he relaxed completely. Jerome’s former world could by no means be a threat to this one.
“Measuring time,” Yun Vorthe muttered absently.
“...in durations shorter than a breath,” Jerome added.
“How did you achieve that?” the Sovereign asked, his interest piqued again. He never expected this to be a far more interesting topic than he had thought.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“I don’t know all the details, but it had something to do with the rotation and revolution of the planet,” Jerome paused to gather his thoughts.
The Cesium atom had more to do with it. But he couldn’t remember much about it. So he just went with the next best thing. He tried recalling all he knew about the cesium-133 atom but he didn’t remember much. Cesium atomic clocks operate based on the principle of atomic resonance. And the cesium atomic resonance frequency was over nine billion cycles per second. But he didn’t remember the exact number.
“Where you taught that planets rotate?” the Sovereign asked. This planet of Jerome’s was beginning to sound interesting. He had a lot of questions; like how they figured out the revolution and rotation of the planet. Clearly, they must have found a way to leave the surface to study all these.
He could’ve just taken the answers directly from Jerome’s mind but it seems fate wasn’t being fair to him concerning Jerome. He stopped playing with his orb and cast his gaze on Jerome, making him flinch back a bit. Yun Vorthe sat back in his chair, lessening the burden on Jerome’s senses a little.
“Ahem. Yes, Sovereign, and that planets are round,” Jerome said, regaining his composure. The system of education in Vorthe was so archaic, that Jerome could only laugh at their ignorance. “Education was permitted for everyone in the time period I lived in, not just those of noble blood.”
“Fascinating,” the Sovereign muttered, turning his gaze away from Jerome. It was getting harder to hold himself back. Just a bit. “We educate our children by exposing them to specific Paths, with specific disciplines. And ‘everyone’ cannot afford such education. It is beyond expensive.”
“In my previous world, we had schools,” Jerome stated, “institutions where children go to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic. There were also higher education institutions where specific disciplines were taught. This helped everyone become contributing members of society.”
The Sovereign shook his head slowly with a smile. “The Great Clans would fight against that with a vengeance. No one would take to educating those not of their bloodline.” Jerome’s world was sounding like a utopia. Something that was impossible in Vorthe.
“The same strategy can’t work in this world, obviously,” Jerome stated. He’d be a fool to expect powerful families like the Feis and the Alvrics to give their millennia-old knowledge — gathered, preserved, and sustained — to those not of their bloodline. Perhaps they might be willing to give an offshoot of lower standards to their disciples.
“The knowledge and skills of powerful families are more like powerful inheritances linked to their bloodline. In the hands of an outsider, it may be abused. But…,” Jerome said, claiming back the Sovereign’s attention. “You could create groups — sects and schools — that’ll accept disciples through multiple screenings, and raise them as part of a collective.”
The Sovereign smiled. The child clearly grew to be an adult in his past life. It would be unwise to see him as a child at this point. “That has been tried before but it did not work out quite as planned. Bloodline it seems, holds firmer and lasts the test of time,” he said as though in reminiscence of the past. Various things have been tried. That was what led to the creation of the Diviners. And now they had too many factions, many of which had become cults and participated in unlawful and questionable activities.
“That was from Zama’el Vorthe, the 3rd Generation Sovereign of Vorthe,” the Sovereign said.
“Bloodline holds firmer and lasts the test of time,” Jerome repeated to himself as he nodded. It was a nice quote. Very ‘sage-like’. But he didn’t see how sects and schools could have failed. It wasn’t his place to question the Sovereign, though — or a long-dead ancestral Sovereign at that. If he’s even dead. Jerome glanced at the Sovereign, wondering how old he was. The Sovereign didn’t look a day older than twenty-five. But how was it that sects and schools could have failed? It wouldn’t hurt to ask.
“Forgiveness, Sovereign, but how is it that schools and sects failed to work?”
The Sovereign was quiet for a while. “The Diviners, a group of people who were brought together thousands of years ago, were the first idea to institute something of the sort. Other schools would have also risen to compete with them in that capacity but the Great Clans saw the potential of the Diviners for what it was: a chance to raise another power in Vorthe.
“They swooped in, taking up every available sacred artist that awakened during Mehn Agrh’ur, and leaving the Diviners without many disciples. They sabotaged other avenues through which they could gain disciples and power as well. There is so much I could tell you about this, Jerome, but I believe you see why it didn’t work, and why it wouldn’t work even now.”
Jerome was flabbergasted. “So, Mehn Agrh’ur was for the Diviners?”
The Sovereign shook his head. “It was created with the Diviners in mind. But the Great Clans corrupted it. Those were not times the Royal Family is proud of. We were — for the lack of a better phrase — new to politics. We had power but knew not how to wield it.”
It all made sense now. “I see now,” Jerome said. “The power difference…is the very reason for that. Sacred artists wield what in my previous world would be called absolute power. Who could go up against them?”
“And the Great Clans have so much power,” the Sovereign said, “and have been in power for a long, long time. Alvric, for one, is the oldest in the land. They’ve been here 17 generations before the first Vorthe ever was born.”
“Incredible!” Jerome muttered. He had always thought the creation of Vorthe was also the establishment of the four Great Clans. No, the books he read made it seem so. There were no explanations on the actual timelines for the establishment of the Great Clans, only their annexation.
The Sovereign dropped another bomb on him. “Not 17 generations by human standards, Jerome, which is 1700 years. No, 17 generations by sacred artists’ standard — 17,000 years!”
Jerome gaped. That long?! He never knew that was how sacred artists measured time by generations. It may not compare to the amount of time Vorthe had been in power, but it was still a long, long time. Alvric was beyond ancient! Then what about the other Great Clans like the Fei? “If I may, Sovereign, what about the Fei?”
The Sovereign smiled. He was smart to ask. “They have existed for even longer, but not on these lands.”
Jerome nodded at that. The Feis came from the Eastern Continent so it stood to reason that they would have history there.
“So tell me, Jerome. Who would give up that kind of power?” Yun Vorthe looked at the orb in his hand and stated, “It is about to begin.”
The orb in the Sovereign’s hand erupted with a soft golden glow and the wall in front of them started to evanesce, startling Jerome. He looked around and found that the room they were in was slowly but visibly changing, or more like vanishing. Soon, they were hovering in the air, above a massive and glamorous hall!