I looked around the academy entrance to see if the clerk had returned and then opened my stats to look at them again.
Oh, baby, I was such a beast.
“Pardon me, sir.”
I dismissed my interface and turned to the clerk.
His uniform appeared as crisp as it had been before he left, and he still had that I-am-smarter-than-you look on his face that annoyed me.
“Did you find her?” I’d crossed the academy half a dozen times trying to track down Scholar Adoya before giving up and bribing this guy to do it for me.
“Yes, sir. She’s in the main lecture hall with the other senior scholars listening to the new debate on the solution to the Stagnation Dilemma. You will have to wait until after the debate to speak with her.”
“Why?”
“The debate is only for senior scholars and those with the Wiseman title. No one else may attend.”
I smiled and changed my display so the clerk could see my Wiseman title. “If you check now, you can see I fit that list.”
The clerk's eyes widened and the smarter-than-you look disappeared.
“You created an exploit?”
“I created the one they’re debating,” I said.
He started spluttering.
“Are you going to show me where this lecture hall is?”
He nodded too fast, attitude completely changed, and then hurriedly led me across campus.
The Academy of Law reminded me of Yale. The architecture had that grand feel designed to inspire you to greatness. I’d never been to the school myself, so everything I knew about it came from movies and documentaries, but I’d seen it so many times that I felt like I knew it.
The academy was part school, part research centre, from what I could gather, and its existence was what made the analyse ability I used on trolls, items, and people possible. It was the single greatest magical building in the entire kingdom, and its influence spread across all of it, not just the capital. It was like a house of scholars only far more powerful. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to select my attribute placement. In the past, scholars used to have to do this for you.
The guards at the lecture hall entrance waved me through, opening the door silently, letting me creep in.
More than eight hundred scholars were seated in the auditorium, and many of them wore robes similar to Ranic’s, in the same state of disrepair. Jeric’s father was standing on stage at the front of the room with half a dozen other scholars.
The scholar speaking was a small woman with that too-thin look I’d come to associate with their class. “I completely disagree with my opposition. There is no clear indication that this really is the solution to the Stagnation Dilemma. It may be a solution; however, until we see the results from using something so dangerous measured quantifiably, using this method again would be unwise.”
I started scanning the crowd looking for Scholar Adoya, blocking out what they were saying. A few minutes went by. Analysing this many people was not quick even if I ignored half the room. I finally found her at the very back, at the top of the raised seating area, hands folded over her stomach, taking a nap.
I crept up the stairs, trying not to draw attention to myself like I was a kid late to class. It didn’t work. Eric noticed me and waved. That caused more than half of the people in the room to turn.
I gave everyone a friendly smile and kept going.
Adoya was even smaller than the woman on the stage and even smaller than Quilly. She might have been at the very most four foot three. She was also old. Like, really old. Her face had the texture of dry clay and she was entirely bald.
The chair next to her was empty so I slid in.
She woke as I stepped past, eyeing me suspiciously. “What do you want?”
“What makes you think I want something?”
“If you were here for the lecture, you would be sitting in a chair closer to the front. If you were here because you were made to be here like me, then you would be a senior scholar. Since I know every senior scholar at the academy, that isn’t the case. Ergo, what do you want?”
Quilly was right. She was sharp.
“I’m told you are the foremost expert on the trapsmith class in the kingdom.”
“I am.”
“I’d like to know if you have passed through your third threshold?”
She snorted. “Boy, I haven’t the experience to reach my second. Why would I worry about my third?”
My excitement diminished. “I didn’t know that.”
She smiled. “I take it you have information that will allow me to pass through my third threshold and are hoping to sell it to me.”
“I do and I do.”
“Well, you are in luck. I might not be able to afford it, but the academy will pay you a small fortune for that information.”
“I’m not interested in money. I was hoping to hire your services with it.”
She shrugged. “I’m an old woman. I’ll be dead before I’m done paying off that debt. Take the money.”
I smiled. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. “What’s your constitution?”
“Why?”
“I have purchased a full set of blessing and there are 65 I can receive if I find another placeholder. They are yours if you work for me.”
The guild had already contacted an archer who wanted the ones that required six people, so with her filling the fifth spot, I could easily deliver on my promise. Giving the blessings away for free was a small cost I was happy to pay if it made me stronger.
“It won’t do me any good. Even 50 points in endurance and constitution will only buy me a few years. I might look younger than I do now, but my heart will give out. I’ve never put anything into strength, and at my age, they aren’t that helpful without it.”
“That’s still a few years.”
She nodded. “It is.”
Something occurred to me. “You said you don’t have the experience to reach your second threshold. Could you pass through it if you did?”
She chuckled. “I wouldn’t be a senior scholar if I couldn’t.”
“Good. Here is my proposition. I give you the method to pass through your third threshold and the blessings, even make you a retainer, and you take an oath to keep my secrets and come and work for me for a few years.”
“You aren’t very good at haggling, are you? That is the kind of offer that is too good to be true.”
“I’m in a hurry. The teleportation circle will link to my connection in a few days, and if you are to come with me, then I need to get you to agree now.”
“Why do you need me?”
“I think you can be helpful.”
“You need to do better than that.”
“Why I need you specifically is something I can’t explain without you taking an oath of secrecy. All I can say is that one of your old students suggested I gain your assistance.”
“Which student?”
“Quilly.”
“Did you make her take a similar oath?”
“Yes.”
“Did you offer her similar terms?”
“She’s my retainer, so they are similar but not as good.”
Adoya sighed. “Where would I be going?”
“Blackwood. It is the northeastern-most village in the kingdom.”
“So no opportunity for gaining experience is what you are saying?”
“I’ll purchase your yearly experience average annually.”
“I was joking. I’m a scholar. I gain experience when those I have taught gain experience. Being in your village won’t change that and the trapsmiths I would teach over the next few years will gain me far less than what you are offering in blessings.”
“Oh.”
She patted my arm gently. “It’s a nice offer, and if I was a couple of decades younger, I would even take you up on it. But I’m too old to leave. I’d rather spend my remaining days here with people I know and respect than cross the kingdom for a chance at a few more y
ears.”
“I can respect that.”
I actually could. Who wanted to spend their last years away from the people they knew, working away with what little time they had left?
She chuckled. “But you are going to offer me more anyway.”
“Yes,” I said grinning. “Once I work out what I can give you.”
I fell silent, searching my brain for an answer. More than an hour went by and nothing occurred to me. The debate came to a close and everyone clapped. Then the scholars in the front row rushed forward to question the speakers.
Adoya chuckled. “Have you thought of anything?”
“No. You don’t seem to care about material wealth and that’s about all I’ve got to offer you. I considered offering you experience, but the amount you would need to pass through your third threshold would cripple my funds.”
She chuckled some more. “But I would accept the offer.”
Eric waved at me from across the room again before the swarm of scholars surrounded him.
I waved back.
Adoya frowned. “How do you know the royal scholar?”
“I created the exploit that they were debating.”
She turned and stared at me with new eyes. “You’re the farmer that received the crown’s mark?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
She shook her head. “Why didn’t you say?”
“I didn’t think it was important.”
She scowled. “Didn’t think it was important! Serving you is serving the kingdom. Turning my back on you is equivalent to turning my back on our kingdom. The king does not make mistakes. If he gave you the crown’s mark, it means he has faith that you serve the people. I accept your offer, sir. Let it never be said that when Scholar Adoya was asked to serve her kingdom, she turned her back.”
I nodded, smiling, trying not to appear as ignorant as I was. The only thing going through my head was the thought that I needed to ask Jeric how important the crown’s mark was because right now, I had no idea, even after having read the book I was given on the subject.
My eyes travelled back to Eric.
He was probably a better person to talk to.
“I am ready to take this oath when you are,” Adoya said, standing up.
“Give me a few minutes. I need to talk with the royal scholar.”
She sat back down. “I will wait.”
I climbed out of the chair and made my way down. The crowd asking questions was now made up of less than twenty scholars. I eased my way through to Eric.
The resemblance between him and his son was uncanny. I still wasn’t used to seeing my best friend’s face on another man. It was the fact that they looked more like twins than father and son that was throwing me.
He smiled as I approached and politely cut off another scholar trying to ask him a question. “What can I do for you, Arnold?”
“I need five minutes of your time.”
“Is this another surprise?”
“No. I just need some information. Can we talk in private?”
Eric nodded and started walking away, raising his hand to stop anyone from following. He spoke a few words, and a bubble of magical energy appeared around us, cutting off the sound coming from outside it. “What do you need to know?”
“How important is the crown’s mark? I’ve spent the past hour trying to convince a scholar to work for me, offering a small fortune, without success. But when she found out I had the crown’s mark, she immediately accepted.”
He smiled. “She must be a patriot.”
“I don’t understand.”
His smile turned into a smirk, the same way Jeric’s did. “That’s understandable. The book we sent you on the mark wouldn’t cover this. You read it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then you understand that the only way to grow the mark is to do something that is a service to the kingdom outside the norm. What the book doesn’t explain is that many people view the mark as more than just a mark. They view it as a symbol of the kingdom. They view those who have it as a representative of the kingdom and its interests because those people are always looking for ways to significantly help the kingdom to grow their mark. Some people—patriots—take it a step further and view those who have the mark as a representative of the king. I can’t tell you who these people are, but when you meet them, they will try to help you because they believe helping you will help the kingdom.”
“Is there any truth to that? I mean, do people with the crown’s marks really help the kingdom?”
“Yes. The crown’s mark can only be given to a certain type of person. The type of person who hands over a fortune to undo the damage he has inadvertently caused to his village, the type of person who tries to help others even when he doesn't receive anything in return, the type of person who runs towards a dragon, not away from it. Now, I’m not saying all who receive the mark are loving and kind, but they are people who have the kingdom’s best interest at heart. That is why everyone who has ever received the mark has received more than a single level, and why each of them is given a small fortune. It is the king’s hope that these individuals will become a force of prosperity in the kingdom. And it is something that many understand and patriots try to assist.”
“That sounds like a lot of responsibility. You probably should have put that in the book.”
Eric chuckled. “It’s as much responsibility as you want to accept. If you feel uncomfortable using your association with the crown, that is up to you. No one is forcing you to accept help.”
+ 15 Endurance
+ 29 Constitution
+ 21 Intelligence
Chapter Thirty-Eight
CONVERSATION
I climbed through the carriage door, picked up the book I’d left on the leather seat, and then sat down. The book was one of my new ones from the incarnate bookstore in Melgrim. It told the history of an Earth and a technological empire that spanned the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Even with the author quoting what sounded like The Prime Directive at the beginning and not going into specifics about technology and ideology, it was an absolutely fascinating read.
There was so much I still needed to learn, but we were three days out from Blackwood, and I’d already made my way through most of the collection of books I’d bought at the adventurers’ guild. The improvement to my memory made learning significantly easier. Even if I didn’t understand something straightaway, I could contemplate what I had read rather than having to reread it. So I’d allowed myself a break, letting myself read solely for curiosity’s sake.
The carriage door opened and Emily climbed in, her delicate perfume preceding her. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Adoya to travel with my parents. I wanted to speak to you alone.”
“It’s fine,” I said, closing the book.
Emily shut the door and tried to get comfortable, folding her dress under herself so it didn’t wrinkle. A few moments passed, and a call came that everything was ready. The carriage started moving. The sound of horse hooves on cobblestones and moving wheels drowned out the outside world leaving us alone.
Emily folded her hands on her lap and put on what I had come to think of as her noble face. It was a serious expression that made you forget her age and think of her as an adult. The explosion of attributes she’d received had changed her as much as it had me, making her more vibrant and several inches taller, a hair less than six feet. You couldn’t look at her now without thinking fit and healthy and there was a new intensity to her gaze that hadn’t been there before.
She finished straightening the ruffles in her dress and then looked me in the eye. “I am very cross with you,” she said, her tone hurt.
“Okay,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.
“You made my father cap his level.”
I shook my head in complete disagreement. “No, he did that himself. I didn’t even know that it was possible, remember?”
“If you had not given him the idea to purchase my title, he
would never have had the chance.”
My left eyebrow rose. “By that logic, you should blame the regent. If that bitch was willing to treat us fairly I never would have had to make the suggestion.”
She scowled. “I know that.”
“But it’s still my fault.”
She nodded, lips pressed together.
“Is that the only thing your cross with me about?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I hadn’t really spoken with Emily since she’d cornered me in the king’s palace. I’d basically been avoiding her so that she didn’t get the wrong idea and think I was trying to marry her. In the past, I would have picked up my book and gone back to reading. However, now that my charisma was so high, I instinctively started talking. I was a freaking extrovert. “How do you like being a lord?”
Her face lost all emotion. “I find it satisfying.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Not anymore. I have decided that I like the idea of living in Blackwood. I will have freedom and access to experience to grow my class that doesn’t involve going to balls and garden parties every other day.”
“You seriously used to do that every other day?”
Emily nodded. “I’m told you have the services of a master farming scholar and that he allowed you to take over the construction of his house of scholars when he learned you could have it constructed by the royal builders.”
“He didn’t allow so much as write me a strongly worded letter that I was going to be the owner of his house of scholars whether I wanted to be or not.”
“Is that so?” She paused, seeming to think over her next words. “In that case, I would like to know what your plans are for my village.”
I shrugged, trying to hide my discomfort. This whole conversation felt weird. “I’m just trying to get through my thresholds and obtain a class that doesn’t involve farming. If you want to know how that will happen, you will have to talk to Master Scholar Ranic. I’m just a bystander.”
Oh Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer Page 43