Chp 1

You know? If you think about it, life is pretty unfair from the moment you’re born.

Some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths and a crown on their head. They were simply lucky enough to be born in a rich family. While the majority of us were born in either middle or lower-class households.

While the majority of us were born in middle or lower-class families a small amount of babies that are born are given special gifts or talents. This gives them the opportunity to jump over the status quo to obtain wealth and fame.

In my previous life, I was an average man in my mid-twenties working nine to five every day in a job that hated for a measly salary that wouldn’t be enough to support a family. That was when I realized that life is absurdly unfair.

I wasn’t born into a rich family, and I had no special talents or skills. Was I doomed to live a mediocre life, living day by day, paying bill after bill?

Well, I would never find out because I died in a car accident.

Either through fate or luck I was somehow reincarnated into a new body with all my memories of my previous life. Maybe God heard my pleas and complaints and answered me.

And so, here I am as Dominic Grayson, eldest son of Count Henrik Grayson in the Morin Kingdom.

Apparently, poor ten-year old Dominic Grayson caught a rare disease and was about to die, but my soul came and entered his body and a disorienting fusion of our memories occurred which left me quite bewildered for a while before I came to my senses.

Of course, my parents were ecstatic that I was mysteriously improving in health but I spent most of my time reorganizing my memories.

Ten-year old Dominic was a young boy so he didn’t really know much except kind of read and write, but he knew much of the basic information about the kingdom because he was a noble.

His father, Henrik Grayson was an influential noble in the Morin Kingdom with the title of Count. There is a structure to the titles that nobles have and it goes as follows: On the bottom were knights. Knights were barely considered to be part of nobility and they are usually in charge a small village or something. Then comes Barons and Baronesses, who are a cut above knights. Barons have about a dozen knights serving them and they take part in governing towns and the like.

Viscounts are above Barons. Viscounts are typically in control of a city or two and a few barons that they order around.

Counts are above Viscounts, which is what my father is. My father told me that he is currently in charge of four viscounts, who govern six different cities. So he is quite the busy man as he’s always in his office or traveling to the different cities that he’s in charge of to make sure that everything’s running properly and rarely has time to have a family meal.

Above Counts are the Marquis and Marchioness. They are basically like governors of a state in the kingdom. The Morin kingdom is separated into different provinces and a Marquis or Marquess is usually in charge of that province.

I found out that there are 12 provinces in this kingdom, each one ruled by a Marquis or Marquess. And above the Marquis are the Dukes.

The title of Duke can only be obtained by doing many meritorious deeds for the kingdom and the title cannot be passed down to their children. A king from previous generations made a decree that there will only be four dukes in the kingdom because of the limited amount of land available to the kingdom.

So if the king wants to give a new noble the title of duke then he would have to reorganize all the territories and take some land from other nobles, especially dukes, which they won’t be happy about. Or the King has the option to invade other kingdoms and take their land to give land to the new duke which is unlikely to happen.

Therefore, each duke governs three provinces and they report directly to the king. Also, I forgot to mention about the archduke. He’s basically the leader of the Dukes of the kingdom, appointed by the current King, but the other dukes usually quarrel with him on decisions so and go against him a lot of times.

The real reason for an archduke is because that person is the king’s most trusted advisor and usually goes to him for counsel.

And finally, above the dukes is the King who rules the country. The current ruler is King Timothy Morin IV.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Now, enough about the social structure of the nobility. The thing about this world that got me the most excited was the fact that there is magic! And species of other races like elves and dwarves exist in this world!

My inner geek/nerd freaked out and was excited to meet one, but I found out that elves and dwarves are quite hostile to humans because the human kingdoms next to their territories constantly wage war on them because they are greedy for their resources.

This pissed me off because is significantly lowered my chances of getting to meet them.

“Young master, it’s time for your tutoring lesson.” My personal butler Hans told me.

I walked out my room and my butler followed behind and I walked toward the room where my tutor was waiting for me.

I have four tutors. One is for mathematics which is quite easy for me. The math tutor was very surprised at how much I improved at math after my illness and he started to run out of things to teach me.

Another tutor teaches me language arts, history and politics. Language arts is mainly proper grammar usage, going over how to correctly spell and appreciating classic written works which I found kind of boring. The politics side was where I found it more interesting because I learned more about how the government in this country works and how I would impact it in the future as the heir to the title because I’m the eldest son.

I also had a foreign languages tutor where I was forced to learn two different languages of the neighboring kingdoms where this kingdom has friendly relations with.

And finally I have a sword instructor who teaches me how to properly wield a sword and fight.

I’ve had the math and history/politics tutor since I was seven years old and only recently got the foreign language and sword tutor after I turned ten.

Now you might think that this is quite a huge load for a ten-year old child but apparently it’s quite common for children of nobility to be tutored like this.

And because my real mental age is in that of the mid-twenties it wasn’t that difficult for me to learn and  I did my best to learn all of the subjects that were taught to me and I learned fairly quickly which surprised my tutors because I knew that all of this knowledge would be useful in the future. Also, I’m pretty sure that commoners don’t have the privilege of getting private tutors so I’m using this opportunity to further my growth to have a more successful future.

My tutors were filled with nothing but praises for me as they eagerly flattered my parents about how smart I was.

The only problem that I had was with my sword instructor he was a complete brute. On the first day of training he told me to swing the wooden sword 5,000 times. The man is absolutely crazy, who in the world would tell a ten-year old child to swing a sword 5,000 times?

I couldn’t even make it to 500 as my arms were too numb and sore to life up. And he began to berate me and call me a pathetic weakling which make any child cry. But I have to admit, I began tearing up a little because although my mental age is in my twenties I’ve never went through any sort of situation like this in my previous life so it was quite traumatizing for me.

I think he would be quite similar to those drill sergeants back in my previous world where he takes great pleasure in making beginner soldiers cry.

After the first day, I asked my father I wanted a different instructor but my father told me to stick to it because a real man never quits. And he also told me that sword instructor David was a former captain in the kingdom’s army and was a 6-star adventurer after he retired from the army.

Apparently, my father was joined the army when he was 18, right after he graduated from the Kingdom’s academy and he and sword instructor David were good friends back in the army. My father was in the army also before he settled down with mother and inherited the title of Count from his father, my grandfather.

I think that father hopes that I join the army too. He thinks it’ll be a good experience for a man to have military background. But I think that’s complete bullshit. I don’t want to go through all of the strict military rules and annoying regulations that they go through.

I complained incessantly in my mind as I was on my 800th swing of my wooden sword as sweat was dripping down my back and my arms were already sore. My arm strength improves daily but all I’m doing is swinging this damn wooden sword all day. This isn’t what I want. I want to learn magic.

But I quickly found out that I can only begin to learn magic when I enroll into the Kingdom’s Royal Academy located in the capital when I turn 13.

I think it’s because the adults don’t think that children are mature enough to handle magic, which I completely agree with.

“Stop!” Instructor David shouts at me and I flinch.

“You don’t want to do this do you?” He asks.

I looked down at my feet and timidly nod my head.

“Hmph, then what do you want to do? I don’t want to waste my precious time teaching an ungrateful brat that doesn’t want to learn from me.”

“I- I want to learn magic!” I shout as I look him in the eyes.

“Sigh… everyone wants to learn magic kid, but not everyone can. Only one in ten people have the gift of mana and being able to learn magic. So it’s highly unlikely that you’re able to learn magic in the future.

And magicians have to spend a long time when casting spells and so if you’re able to interrupt them before they finish chanting then they’re as good as dead.

“Here, let me give you an example.” Instructor David said as he took out his sword and faced the wooden dummy 20 meters away from him.

Suddenly I felt the atmosphere change and the mood around him become more tense, for some reason I felt like he became much more dangerous.

In the blink of an eye he dashed 20 meters in less than a second and slashed down at the wooden dummy and sliced it in half. This speed far surpassed what a cheetah or an Olympic athlete could do.

I was absolutely dumbstruck at what I just witnessed. This physical ability goes beyond the logic of my brain. But I quickly came to my senses and realized that in a world with magic anything should be possible.

“Woah! How did you do that? Was that magic? Did you use magic?!” I asked excitedly while running up towards him as he put his sword back into his scabbard.

“No, that wasn’t magic, I can’t use magic anyway. I used aura.”

“Huh? What’s that?”