Princess Luftie Pendragon went home defeated this day. Her ultimate foe had abandoned her alone in the middle of a yard… with people living nearby!
The blushing princess did not know how to answer when the concerned people came over to check up on her, and it was not like she could speak either.
Up on a nearby tree, Jim almost fell off laughing at the scene.
Fortunately, after fifteen minutes she managed to move, just as Jim promised.
The fuming princess realised that even after her ordeal, she did not know the name of the person who was messing with her.
She returned angrily to her castle and shut herself in her bedchamber without answering to anyone for the rest of the day.
The very next day, she returned to Snowdrifts’ camp to look for her bully. This time, she promised herself… at least she will get his name.
After all, didn’t someone say that revenge is best served cold? Or was it a gentleman’s revenge is never late? Well, whatever, the princess shall have her revenge yet… just not now. She’s not so confident after losing so completely the day before.
About getting her father to help her… don’t kid, this is personal. She is a big girl now and can win her own fights. Probably.
The princess did not question how quickly she got to-and-fro between Avalon and the Snowdrifts Camp. Mostly because there is a teleportation ward from within Avalon that will bring her directly to the entrance of the valley.
From there, she travels by horse to the Snowdrifts and will reach within two hours if she makes her beast trot a little.
But, if she could see the distance she travelled from top-down, she will realise that the journey should have taken her days. No, it is not possible for anyone to view that far. Even Triple S rankers could not fly that high up to see the full distance without succumbing to the lack of oxygen and the violent cold winds up there.
The reason she could cross many days’ worth of travel within a few hours is because of the strange runes hidden away from sight that starts from the camp and extends in all directions for incredible distance.
The time-space runes.
These runes once secured a tremendous win for the Snowdrifts in their struggle against the Frosthral suicidal warriors and their War God Tattoos. Those were warriors who used the forbidden technique that burn all their vitality for a short period of nigh immortality and a nightmare to fight against on the battlefield.
At that time, they used the Time runes that accelerated the body’s internal clock, causing them to lose over five hours in the span of minutes, neutralising these seemingly undefeatable foes.
With more time to prepare, the Snowdrifts erected a stronger version – Time-Space runes – that could make time and distance significantly longer or short.
From the time the Snowdrifts had arrived at this spot, they had been working to cover the surrounding fields with runes and now runes cover across several days’ worth of journey on foot, in all directions.
Do not underestimate the length that it runs. Although a horse could cross that distance on a run within two days, the work was all done by hand. Rune masters had to cast down stones with runes etched on them at the right spots about a palm apart from each other. The worst part was that the pebbles used must be picked from the very field, inscribed, and returned within minutes. This means that nothing can be prepared beforehand, and because time was of the essence, otherwise the stones would lose connection to their origins, only the highly trained could accomplish the task.
Just covering the nearby fields with runes took them months, but the results was worthwhile.
The members of Snowdrifts and their guests could travel at accelerated speeds towards or away from their camp, while a journey of days will turn into weeks for their enemies and those who come uninvited.
When the princess arrived at the camp, she was let in and immediately went to look around for Jim. She did not consider what she should say or do when they meet, but she has a secret weapon up her sleeve.
Surprisingly, she heard the same clanking noise as yesterday and the girl happily went over.
Like before, Jim is practicing his thievery on the dummy. While he is still unsuccessful with doing it soundlessly, his bolstered confidence had tremendously improved his form.
“Man, why is it so much easier after meeting her?”
A rustling sound pulled him out of his training. When Jim turned around, he found the girl from yesterday staring at him with bright large eyes.
“What are you standing around for? You wanted to learn the acupoint techniques? Where is the tea ceremony for your teacher, huh?”
The princess was startled.
T… tea ceremony?
Oh… She had heard this before. When asking someone to teach her, she should pay him respects and offer up tea?
The girl jumped up then ran away, obviously to prepare tea for Jim.
The wilful princess that had never cared for what anyone tells her to do, obediently followed his instructions. If her father was here, he would not believe that this is his daughter.
But, if King Lufter was in her shoes, it is hard to say no to learning the Acupoint arts.
The princess quickly returned with a borrowed dessert cart. On it is a beautiful teapot, a fruit platter, some dainty cakes, and other snacks.
This- uhhh, is definitely not the tea ceremony that Jim was thinking about. The traditional ritual is… Well, let’s say that there is a lot less sweets.
And the teapot is too girlish.
Still, three cakes and tea are much better than three kowtows and tea.
Princess Luftie took out two teacups that looked part of the set. Which means they are pastel blue, bejewelled, and covered with birds and flowers.
She thought for a moment, poured herself a steaming cup, then another for Jim, “Are you my teacher now?”
Jim scratched his nose but did not explain how the ritual should have been and nodded.
“Ahem, how do you like my tea ceremony?”
“It’s the best,” he said concededly while shoving whole slices of cake into his mouth.
Luftie beamed. Jim is her first teacher… At least, the first one who wasn’t assigned to her by her father but picked by herself.
Just like this, the princess of Logres started following Jim around everyday to learn Alan’s Acupoint techniques.
Later on, when everyone realised that Luftie had became Jim’s student, they were all shocked and impressed. Of course, they were curious about how Jim became the teacher when the technique belongs to Alan.
Because Alan often stands at the frontline in battle, his friends often forget how laidback he usually is. The lad claims that his special ability is none other than noticing things… As in, he recognises something happened but there is no thereafter.
The day when Jim asked if he could teach the Acupoint technique to Luftie, Alan only answered was, “Who’s that?”
And he walked away saying sure, without waiting for an answer.
…..
At the same time, the princess’ second test had arrived. This time, Tommy is to prove himself capable of managing the country. By the traditions of Logres, if he marries Luftie, he will become prince and the duty might fall on him one day.
The test is quite interesting as well. Tommy will become the temporary mayor of the poorest borough in Avalon, the Serf Quarters. Like its namesake, the place was built to house serfs. In the past, these people are bound to different lords, scattered throughout the north. But when Logres was facing imminent defeated, many of the rich aristocrats gathered in Avalon with all their belongings and this includes the people who followed them.
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With all the serfs gathered in one place, they had to build living quarters for these people who will toil their lands. Of course, the living standards of the place is built with the worst conditions, and because of this many had fallen sick. Even the threat of a plague looms in the air. Additionally, serfs do not bring in any form of income, which means any improvements for Serf Quarters is unlikely.
His task is to alleviate all these underlying problems and make the borough self-sustainable without reducing the agricultural production, in a month. Additionally, he must establish a system so that the conditions will not revert even when the population and plantations expand. There will be advisors to the king who will judge whether the framework that Tommy put in place are proper.
Given the amount of people living in the place, just cleaning up the streets would take up a large portion of the time and those that took part in making the test are all convinced that it is a nearly impossible task. Still, should the boy find the right path within all these mess, he has a chance to succeed.
However, what the ministers, the princess, and even the king believed to be a tall order brought a smile to Tommy’s face.
This will be his first time as mayor, but he is feeling rather confident. Having participated in the development of the Snowdrifts, from a small party of five to a guild that could rival a small nation, supported this confidence. Now, that the guild is trying to establish a place for everyone, the topic that became most heatedly conversed, researched, debated, and tested is none other than the social organisation system they should adopt.
This in turn means that Tommy had quite the thing in mind for this task.
The Serf Quarters borough is considerable in size, and despite its limitations, there are certain qualities that could be used. Manpower, vast experience with labour, physical strength and resilience gained from years of toiling the lands. Tommy zoomed in on the most important factor to make his task succeed, the serfs’ natural deposition to following orders.
He can make a number of adjustments without facing much resistance and this will speed things up considerably. If he had been assigned to the aristocrat’s district instead, just getting the residents’ approval for him may take longer than a month.
Things were set into motion almost immediately. Over half of the population that had been working in the fields were gathered before Tommy. They came over obediently and stood in rows according to age, gender, built, and… their interests.
The last bit about their interests were determined through a series of questions; people who liked cleaning, reading, manual labour, helping others, handcrafts, bargaining with people, designing things, or certain topics like medical, hunting, numbers, education, finance, and the like.
Lastly, after everyone was in their own groups, they were further divided according to their characters.
People who believe they are meticulous were asked to step forward, followed by the dreamers, the faithful, the sly, the adaptive, and the adventurous.
There are definitely many many more characteristics to a person, but these are the ones Tommy needed right now. Perhaps in the future he might need those who are inventive, or people who have a creative spark, or those who are natural warriors, but not now.
After the people are divided, he gave tasks to each group. Firstly, for the other half of the population that will continue to toil the lands, he gave them the task to increase the farming area. The current fields are barely sufficient and many of the plantations are not wielding enough quantity for Avalon.
Next, he targeted the cleanliness of the borough… or rather, the lack therein. Those who have a certain amount of strength, meticulous, and professed to be health conscious are given the role of health inspectors. A flashy title, and an important job, Tommy claims. This group will ensure all the filth in the city is cleaned up, either doing it themselves or hiring people. With people like this, he trusts that there will be good results.
On the other hand, the clean-up will be organised by another group. People who are likeminded in the health topic, yet instead of strength or meticulousness, they will be picked from the groups that liked reading, helping others, and are faithful. These people are a natural group of stewards. Faithfulness is a characteristic that when put simply is being obedient, but at the same time people with this quality are straight-forward, down-to-earth, and reliant. The people who will promptly follow others make great leaders themselves and are Tommy’s number one consideration for any management roles.
The group are to organise the resources going in and out of the clean-up. Yes, besides filth, there will be usable resources produced. The mountain of gunk they remove will prevent illnesses and diseases from spreading, lower the population of rats and other vermin and at the same time become useful resources.
Dirty oils are good for some machineries or turned into coating and paint after purification and refinement. Dyes could be derived, and certain materials could be recycled. Most importantly, the manure gathered will be used to make compost.
The third group he called upon is a mixture of those who are good with their hands and love designing, likes manual labour or an interest in numbers. Their first task is to create greenhouses and containers for the plantations.
The greenhouses, even if they will not cover entire plantations, can resolve most of the production issues from their arid fields. In the past, Logres had commonly used glass structures to tide over the colder winters, but there was none here at Avalon. It is understandable since the original designation for this place is to serve as a secured treasury, but they are using it as their last bastion. Yet after moving here, because there are plenty of serfs compared to the number of aristocrats, the fields were not tended like before.
This, of course, generated immense stress on the workers who had to toil the ground with twice the effort for a fraction of the produce.
Once the fields had been expanded and the greenhouses are in place, the plant composts and the containers should also be ready. At that time, they can plant potatoes in containers in every person’s home, and they can thrive together with the turnips in the green houses. The rest of the plantations will be used for leeks, kale, collards, carrots, and other hardy winter crops. After the greenhouses, this group will be tasked to rebuild the borough, prioritising on those with wobbly and old structures.
The remaining groups were given other jobs that were crucial to a community like doctors, hunters, guardsmen, weavers, and craftsmen. The few who can read and write became scribes for bookkeeping.
Several buildings were cleared out and given new designations. There are forums for the locals to voice out questions and make thoughts into action. Bathhouses with heating so no one had to freeze to stay hygiene. There is a central library so that anyone who wanted to read could access to a book.
New systems are put into place, mostly adopted from the Snowdrifts’ ideology for a new community. People with experience taught those who are new, and those who were new can be tested for a promotion. Merit determined returns while positions are given to the talented and the passionate.
This means that there are no lords or kings within the borough… at least, not officially. Instead, those who could do more and benefit the others will be rewarded more. Those who did not want to work hard or are talentless, can seek carefree jobs to maintain a living.
In a way, everyone became responsible for their own choices, and ironically, something as common sense as this is rare to be found in any system or country.
To be promoted to a role, the individual must qualify in the necessary experience, knowledge, ability, passion, and a right of mind. If there are more eligible applicants than positions, passion and right of mind will take precedence to the other qualities for consideration.
Those who succeed in a promotion will assume greater responsibilities, and in return, they may access to more resources, as well as a greater standard of living.
The beauty of this arrangement is the prevention of excess. There is a saying that a king will not rob his own treasury. Because there is no way to gain more resources or stand above one’s peers, other than through hard work and talent, what an individual stands to gain will have a natural limit. This naturally prevents a person’s greed for money, power, or fame to cause unnecessary harm to the society.
Of course, what everyone will be getting is not static but changes according to the borough’s gross domestic production. That means, while a person may be limited by what position he or she could attain according to ability, the returns can change with the community improvements. This makes everyone have a vested interest to ensure things get better rather than worse.
The rewards are classified into different categories as well, including monetary items like spirit stones, access to cultivation resources like manuscripts, weapons and equipment, or people who will be assigned to you, changing to better accommodations, and having privileged social statuses.
Each item is labelled a certain number of points and can be exchanged according to preference. Certain merits are cheaper to specific roles, for example, a guardsman will have more discounts to cultivation resources compared to a doctor. If a person has no talent in cultivating but really wants to do so, it is possible and they will be judged positively by their effort, passion, and right of mind. But because of the lack of aptitude, the position given may not be high enough to generate enough merit to progress further. This makes it more enticing for the person to take up a different role that will bring in more merit for both the individual and the society, and in turn generates greater benefits for everyone involved.
Selecting the job becomes two ways, what the society needs and what the individual wants. The Snowdrifts designed a chart for an individual to determine what roles is suitable, and guides who can help those who are confused or children who had yet to develop interests.
Lastly, legal systems are also put in place. Unlike what is currently used in Saint Empire or the rest of the world, the legislation that the guild had in mind are in accord with the offender’s social stature. Meaning, if a person of high position broke the same law that a regular person did, the punishment will be increased appropriately.
Those who think that they can do anything because they are superior to others will be vastly disappointed. Instead, because a person of privilege could do much more than his peers, he could also cause greater damage in his position. Mistakes that another person can make will not be tolerable once you stand high enough.
Inversely, if punishments disregard social stature, some penalties will become impotent for certain groups. For example, if the consequence of stealing is to return what was taken and additionally be fined, then the wealthy can potentially freely indulge in criminal activities whereas the poor who struggles to survive will starve.
Stealing millions will become the norm, while trying to hide from the law will be a rich man’s game. The poor man, on the other hand, will be worked to death for putting a hand on someone else’s bread.
Besides this, penalisations are determined by the type of crime, the intention of the offender, the damage incurred, and the scale of the crime.
The first three is understandable. The last one is determined by how large the party who is involved and how many people may be affected. For example, a thousand criminals who group up to swindle money from the community will be a far graver crime than a single criminal. Likewise, embezzlement that may cost the livelihood of thousands will be more severe than a fraudulent act that took some money from the wealthy even if both crimes are of the same amount. On Gaia, the opposite is normally true, people can get away from stealing from the masses while the cost of taking a small thing from the rich and powerful is death.
The Snowdrifts conclude that the rich and powerful can already protect themselves, if the law does not side the weak, then the strong can truly do whatever they want.
Of course, both the merit system and the legal system adopted from the guild are simplified for the Serf Quarters. After all, the guild is trying to create an empire whereas the borough is part of the Logres kingdom like a merchant’s company. Still, many things that apply to a nation can be applied here.