A New Star Chapter 89 (Patreon)

Xera

After the…conversation with the dean of the academy, I had other things to take care of. I was also due back in the capital in a little while, though that wasn’t for anything I was doing, nor the Count was doing. It was tradition that every year, anyone with any nobility or any standing in the country that was turning eighteen that year underwent a coming of age ceremony in the capital, provided they could attend. It was an old, old ceremony, something that harked back to bygone days, but it was largely a bit of lip service these days. It wasn’t really needed as a swearing of loyalty to the crown, as it had been used before, or a place to promote a promising youth just entering adulthood. The first was taken care of by a more standardized and less ostentatious little ceremony, if such was even necessary, while the latter was covered mostly by the academies and new system of formal education.

I was going to have to undergo the ceremony in another four years, which was going to be a waste of my damn time, but before that, I was being forced to attend several other ceremonies. I had attended one of my older siblings, and I had attended Marianne’s, and now a family friend and long-time ally had a son turning eighteen and I was being dragged along, under duress I may add, to attend the ceremony this year. That was in another three weeks, and it was only the one ceremony for the whole year, thankfully, but it was going to wind up taking a few days. One didn’t simply catch the train down that morning, even if the train were fast enough to make it there in just a couple hours, which it wasn’t. We would have to head down at least a day early, if not two, and were likely to be in the capital an extra day after the ceremony was done. People did turn the ceremony into a whole big thing, but it wasn’t required to do any more than attend the main day itself, even if the whole week around it would be a big festival. For most nobles, that meant days of feasts and dances and political sniping and backbiting, all of which I cared not a single whit for nor would I engage in. If I could be there the day before, sit through the day, and walk The Dark home that night, I would do it, though I didn’t think I’d be let off the hook that easily.

That was a few weeks away, and I had some more preparations to do for a few things that I had lined up over the next year or two. I had a couple goals before my own age day ceremony, one of which was increasing my rank, though I wasn’t sprinting to do it. I felt like one of the other reasons I was so powerful, beyond my high compatibilities and high body tier, was that I was leveling many affinities in sync, not just three. The ‘Rule of Three’ that the Adventurers Guild used had puzzled me for some time beyond the basics. Sure, many people struggled with finding affinities they had high compatibility with, I understood that, and many people also just didn’t have the time or drive to dedicate to many affinities, but it was something that wound up restricting people unnecessarily. Yet another mystery to dig into in my copious amounts of free time, but I was digressing a bit.

I needed to continue to set up my backup locations and hideouts throughout the Wilds and through my family’s lands. That was an ongoing project that I had made only a little headway on in the last couple years, though one reason for that was I was trying not to have the Count, the Silver Lady, Grandfather, and everyone else and their mother aware of every location and their links. Trying to obfuscate the work from so many high-rank people, all of whom had far, far too much free time on their hands, was an extra headache I didn’t need, but the work progressed apace. I would have to push into the second range of mountains, the ones the high orcs had called the Ice Peaks, and start setting up some locations there.

That was a nice segue way into the next point, which was exploring the Wilds more, in particular the Ice Peaks. I remembered the warning about the northern elf tribe that lived beyond the far side of the mountains, so the hideouts would have to come first, but I was eager to explore. Considering I had found Gungnir by just wandering the world and stumbling on an old ruin, I was interested to see what other legendary treasures and godly relics I could just wander into blind. The city the high orcs had described also sounded very interesting, in particular because it represented a height of either technology or magical research, or both combined, that the coastal peoples, as the high orcs called us, were nowhere near. Then again, the two high orc brothers hadn’t exactly been rocking up in power armor, or with any incredible magical gear and advanced enchantments, so I was a bit dubious about their overall level of advancement.

There wasn’t necessarily a specific order I was going to do all this, and likely more, in, but hideouts were still priority one. Fortunately for me, the Count had largely concluded his education, likely because I had more than an adequate grasp of the place’s history and of the current politics. He would otherwise be teaching me the blade and how to hunt, how to command a battlefield and general army discipline, how to navigate complex intrigues and build my own network, but he had managed to ken to the fact that that wasn’t really necessary for me. Once I knew the history and the current landscape, he had largely done his job, though I had the feeling both he and the Silver Lady had some more…expectations might be the right word? The way they continued to hang around our estate, and me in particular, signaled that they had something they were still chewing on. Considering how hard it was to get anything done privately with the two of them always breathing down my neck, I was close to demanding they spit it out already, but patience was often rewarded in unexpected ways.

Setting up the hideouts was easy, other than dodging all the geriatrics dogging my heels, and I had a couple more set up in the next three weeks before it was time to head down to the capital. I wish I could say the trip was short and sweet, but even with my mastery of stealth and subterfuge, I was trapped in an endless hell of balls and formal teas for nearly a full five days. The ceremony itself was the most interesting part, though it was a bit of a disappointment for me. The main idea was that it was a proof of achievement; again, it was rather antiquated now because of the academies and the systems of formal education all five countries were working to develop, but it still had symbolic meaning in showing the strength and virtue of a house and their descendants. Luckily, it was only those of a certain standing that participated; if the common people also took part, we would need a whole damn month to get through it. As it was, just for noble children turning eighteen that year, it took from sunup to sundown on the day itself to get through everyone, and that was with it largely being a quick ceremony.

Each child undergoing the ceremony would enter into the capital’s central arena, which was packed with not just the nobility, but anyone who could afford both a day off and a ticket. The arena was a massive edifice in the northern section of the city that was older than the current country itself, a relic of a bygone era now lost mostly to time and dusty old tomes. It was still very solidly built, and the staff took good care to be sure that no matter what kind of fight or entertainment took place within, the structure and it’s secondary function were always in tip-top shape. The whole place could maybe seat close to twenty thousand people in total, which put it more in line with the kinds of arenas I was used to in my previous life, but again, the technology and magic used in its construction was more advanced than the country’s current level. The thing was probably close to three thousand years old, or so the Count surmised, and had been a centerpiece of the city for just as long.

In the old days, the ceremony would involve the child walking out, listing the few accomplishments they had by eighteen, and declaring their intent to serve. Mostly, that was to allow both young men and women to either declare intent for the military or a knightly order, and some would declare intent to go into the civil service, but the intent part was mainly lip service these days. The military was a volunteer unit that had plenty of fresh bodies available from the underprivileged looking to escape poverty, and the civil service was largely viewed as a place to tuck unruly wastrels, the Jhan’s of the world, as it were. The after the the child was announced, walked out and stated their accomplishments, declared their intent for a service or ideal, the last piece was a duel. These were all ceremonial things, at least in this day and age, though there was a certain politicking that went on even here. Large houses would sometimes push a thumb onto the scale, even if slightly, to embarrass a child from a competing house; instead of a quick few exchanges, meant largely for the fresh adult to show off, sometimes they found themselves against a shark, one looking for a little blood.

Unfortunately for my, and several others’ amusement, nobody had bothered with this year’s crop, any simmering feud being left in the background. That was good, in a sense, showing that the larger noble houses weren’t at each other’s throats, and that the children, or fresh adults, were being largely left alone, but it made for some damn boring fights. I still kept my eyes peeled, as one never knew where a little gem in the rough might pop up, but kids that were anywhere from one to four ranks behind me while being a full four years older were not all that impressive. Still, that was mostly based on power, and affinities could be raised, especially if one was willing to invest a little time and a lost of money. Lester had seen that firsthand; my old knight errant was coming along brilliantly, having reach M-rank at this point, a powerful card that I had in the city. He was very happy with his own progress, but a spar six months ago had showed him exactly where his place was, and reminded him just who buttered his bread.

The twins were developing nicely as well, the little sneaks able to go places and find things that Lester just didn’t have the skill set, or better to think, mind set to get into. I had provided them with plenty of resources as well, including some medicinal baths that had really bolstered their constitutions and improved their body affinities several grades. They were both tier two, as of now, which was not all that uncommon, but it was still a cut above most people, considering something like eighty percent of the population in the Settled Lands had a tier one body. A damn shame, too, considering that improving a tier one body to a tier two body was not all that big a hurdle, but people just didn’t buy into my wisdom on body cultivation. Not yet, at least, but I would show them; Lester and the twins were just my first projects towards revitalizing the glory of body cultivation in the modern era.

I was brought back out of my plans, or daydreams, as one allows, by just what I had been thinking of a moment ago, a rare affinity. As I had thought, affinities could be improved, given time and effort, and especially money, but upgrading compatibility was way harder. That was the real golden goose right there, being able to take somebody who didn’t have any compatibility with an affinity and get them to fifty or sixty percent, enough that they would be proficient with it. If the affinity was rare and powerful itself, then one would have a real monster in the making just by that one boost. It was, however, incredibly difficult to do, as I had already found. Every affinity I had unlocked and upgraded and changed I had done through one or more extraordinary circumstances, things not at all easily replicable. I was, however, pursing the one profession that was good at such upgrades and transformations; if only there was more knowledge on alchemy readily available. I was really struggling with a lack of documentation, not something one hears every day, but that was just another problem on my long list.

Much better was what I was witnessing now, which was a young, promising talent that already had that compatibility with a rare or odd affinity. The girl down on the field, after having rushed through her declarations, was now doing a quick duel for her showcase, and she had already garnered quite some interest with that. That interest was because of the affinity she was mainly using, some kind of spirit affinity that allowed her to phase her body through attacks. Not only that, she could use some kind of ghostly grasp, reaching through an immaterial plane to grab at her opponent and redirect his sword or even push against him directly, though the force was a little weak. Then again, the people doing the duels were often seasoned gladiators, military members, knights, or even members of the Royal Guard, so while they were there to help the candidates show off, they also didn’t ham it up and let themselves get pushed around.

Even considering that, the affinity itself was very unusual and likely highly rare. It was already close to lunch time, during which the ceremony would continue; the nobles had their own booths or viewing galleries where they would be served a veritable feast, including chilled wines and liqueurs, while the common riff-raff in the stand, well, they were on their own. The whole morning gone, and this girl was the first one of any interest, at least to me. There had been a few others that had impressed some of the nobles, but nothing that was interesting to me. A spiritual affinity, one that looked like it contained some mysterious properties of accessing a secondary plane similar to how I could move through The Dark? Now, that was far more interesting. I wrote a short note and sent it to Lester, telling him to look into hiring the girl; I certainly had the funds to pay someone like her, considering how sparse my organization currently was and how well the smuggling and alchemy had been doing. I settled in after the note was off, hoping that it would be more than just a single person recruited for this multi-day waste of time.

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