“How is life in the city?” Judy went on to question my brother during the meal.

“It’s very different, going from a village where everyone knows each other to a place filled with strangers that look out mainly for only their own family, it took some adjustment” my brother answered.

“I look forward to seeing the way of life your brother described in the days we’ll be staying here. Thanks again for welcoming me into your home” Kate said as we finished up the food.

We had kept the conversation light while eating but now it was time to talk about more serious topics. With everyone having eaten and relaxed it looked to be a pleasant evening.

“So Tom, what brings you here so soon” dad asked the same question that went through my mind the first time I saw him.

“Well, it all started about 3 years ago, as the first year finished I took up a shift in the hunting party where a wolf took a mouthful of my forearm. It’s then that I met Kate, as she was the medical trainee for our barracks, we had both joined up at the same time yet had never met before and we both grew fond of each other.” he explained as he draped his arm across the beastkins shoulders.

“Everything went for the next year and a half, up until the point that Baron Nestor’s 3rd son took an interest in Kate, more specifically her high proficiency with healing magic and tried making a pass at her several times”

“He clearly doesn’t put any stock in the changes implemented 8 years ago and was trying to force her into his employ and when we both put up a public resistance he decided to set up an incident, the result of which got us both suspended for 1 cycle. As suspended guards we can’t take any other jobs and we are not provided with the food and shelter for the duration of the suspension and the guard can’t give us anything harsher as Kate is one of only 2 healing requirts in the last 3 years and the more talented one of them”.

“What happened 8 years ago?” I ask, everything else in the story makes perfect sense to me, a noble wanted something that was not his. He got told no so he abused his authority and connections to be petty but what was this change really interested me.

“You see Ajax, you know that we live in the kingdom of Gryndor, and the royal family, in an effort to improve relations with the Republic, went through an inquisition to ensure all non-human servitude to the noble houses was voluntary. Needless to say, quite a few of them have yet to adapt to the new idea that they can’t forcibly collect talented non-human for their houses.”

This all made sense, after all large parts of the continent were still left unexplored, there were a total of 9 independent kingdoms, 4 where the dominant race heralded supremacy over all others, one with an even mix of all ruled by a council, and 4 with a majority race and supposed equal rights for the rest.

“But then how come there isn’t a war going on?” I couldn’t figure out what stopped the Supremacy kingdoms from fighting one another constantly.

“That's easy, they don’t want to fight their own kind?” Kate said it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Why not just attack the others directly, there has to be another way to get there besides going through their own allied kingdoms?”

“There is but nobody is dumb enough to take it.” Kate laughed.

“Honey, us humanoids may be the strongest societal species, but deep in the forests, lakes, mountains or caves separating the kingdoms you can find all sorts of monsters. The mountains keeping dwarves and beastkin from each other have a dragon ruling over them.” mother explained it to me.

“Yeah, maybe they could kill a path through but nobody wants to do it because of how much it will cost in lives to do so only to open the war. As such everything has been at a standstill for the last 500 years.” dad said.

“At least for now, we are approaching a new rule” Kate mentioned offhandedly.

“What does that mean?” I am confused.

“In the next 5 years all the monarchies will pass along to the next heir, it happens every 600-900 years depending on how long the current rulers live and how strong they are.” Tom lays it out for me. “It was very risky for the royal family to make the changes they did so close to a coronation, I hope it doesn’t cause a rebellion.”

On that ominous note everyone else went off to sleep. After all, they hadn’t laid in bed for a whole day like me.

That night I was thinking of the political situation, especially in the Republic with their council of 5, you see the council had a spot for a member of each race that made up a big % of its population. While all races could interbreed with one another both dwarven and elven customs rejected breeding with other races. Not to say that there weren’t half-elves and half-dwarves, just that there were very few of them, so the council always consisted of a human, an elf, a dwarf, a beastkin and a half-human half-beastkin. So far there hadn’t been any problems with this but this kingdom was still new, less than 800 years old.

While that may seem like a lot, it translates to about 1200 years on Earth, it still has its interceptors alive, the original members of the factions that came together are still around and some of the strongest people, if not currently in power they still overlook and stomp out corruption.

As I wrap my mind around leaders surviving for so long and idealists stomping out corruption, I spot my bag of herbs sitting in the corner of the room and remember my original plan for the day, to go sell them. Confident that I will have no problem doing it tomorrow, I pull up my stat sheet to see if I got a skill for being laid out, though I suspected I didn’t.

Name : Ajax

Level :10

Experience : 4150/10000

Traits: Child, Divine Witness

Health: 70/70

Mana: 210/210

Stamina :166/180

Vitality : 7.52

Strength :15.36

Endurance : 18.9

Dexterity :16.7

Intellect : 33.84

Wisdom :25.02

Mind : 21.73

Perception : 14.14

Stat Points : 198

Skills : [Meditation Lvl 32][Sense Mana Lvl 31][Expel Mana Lvl 31][Mathematics Lvl 20] [Stealth Lvl 13][Drawing Lvl 30][Athleticism Lvl 13][Running Lvl 20][Reading Lvl 20][Writing Lvl 20][Sprinting Lvl 10][Cooking Lvl 14][Sewing Lvl 10][Cleaning Lvl 10][Haggling Lvl 2][Gardening Lvl 19][Manipulate Mana Lvl 6][Water Aspect Mana Lvl 5][Fire Aspect Mana Lvl 4][Air Aspect Mana Lvl 6][Earth Aspect Mana Lvl 4][Inject Mana Lvl 3][Mana Farming Lvl 2][Axes Lvl 14][Hammers Lvl 10][Mining Lvl 5][Lumberjack Lvl 5][Smelting Lvl 3][Blacksmithing Lvl 3]

As I suspected nothing had changed…. Until I saw it, my vitality burst from 7.22 to 7.52. Losing and regaining that 40 health gave that much of an increase. To be honest I should be kicking myself for not seeing it sooner, after all Mind goes up fastest when I spend and regen mana and the same is true for Endurance with Stamina. Could it also have something to do with the fact that I was healed with a spell?

What was that chant she used? “Alzinoth” I’ll have to try this out at some point, having some healing magic on stand by isn’t the worst idea in the world regardless how harmless living in a village may seem.

With a plan starting to take shape in my mind about somehow grilling Kate for all she knows about magic in her remaining time here I fall asleep, perhaps for the first time in 5 years with a full mana bar just thinking about all that I have ahead of me tomorrow.