Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 46 - Twelve Calamities

When the Layeq traders that traveled North-east reached the end of the desert, instead of seeing the lush plains that was most of the Hivemind's land, they were met with an infernal wasteland which perpetually burned with a dark blue fire.

Even now if one went beyond the Eastern Desert, they would see these fires silently burning the homeland of the Hivemind. They've been burning on nothing for the past 15 centuries, with no sign of doing anything else. It wasn't affected by wind, it didn't spread anywhere, and it refused to be put out by any method imaginable.

If someone touched the dark blue fire, they wouldn't feel hot, or even warm, but they would definitely burn out of existence and there was nothing they could do about it. Later research concluded that people burning because of the fire didn't feel any physical pain. Instead, they felt a terrible fear of eternal life, and many spoke about becoming one with a giant blue tree. They would beg the observers to kill them before they could burn out of existence, and if the observers didn't comply, they would go to great lengths to do the deed themselves.

Some time later, when mages learned to fly using the World of Weight, Qanatohm, some traveled towards the capital of the Hivemind, in hopes of finding out what exactly happened to the solitary race. Their flight above taught them that practically all of the Hivemind was victim to the fire. There wasn't even a ruin left behind from the Hivemind's capital. Only black ashes occasionally drifted across the landscape and even those burned dutifully with the dark blue fires.

But there was one spot in the Hivemind's capital that was devoid of such fire. It was a small circle that contained twelve platforms, which was also arranged in a circle. And in the center of it, stood a small notebook. It described the process of summoning Twelve different entities of a time before the Empress' rule.

"This little notebook which was somehow found by the Hivemind, was the reason why the Era of Twelve Races ended in the year 92 and invited in the Era of Twelve Calamities," Teouka said, sighing with satisfaction. "And, done. We'll talk about the next era in the next lecture, alright?"

Evin and the voice had many questions regarding the history of Alvox.

"So there was life before the Empress founded the Empire," he asked.

"Most would agree with you, yes. There are many magics and artifacts that just don't belong to the history of the Empire. But Two Tales' original story implies that there wasn't and the Empress herself is silent on the matter," Teouka shrugged. "Who are we to oppose the Empress' will?"

Teouka then asked the three to prepare some questions regarding the Era of Twelve Races and dismissed the class.

Evin then went towards his next subject, Social Studies. He learned that Kona and Bellaslayn was also taking Social Studies as well, and similarly to last time, Bellaslayn enrolled in the class on the last minute. Evin half expected her to speak with him again, but while she sat close to him, she seemed content to stay silent.

Evin put the girl out of his mind and spent his break time speaking with Kona. The latter apologized for acting rude towards Evin, but asked him to not stare so much if he could help it. Evin guessed it made her uncomfortable and apologized as well. At that point, the class began.

The teacher announced that he would talk about the Races and their social structures and cultures, starting with the Kingdom. The voice noticed that the teacher was posturing towards Bellaslayn and made some jokes about it, but Evin's mind was on the lesson.

There were three social levels in the kingdom: Nobility, Magehood and Commonality. Nobles were divided into divided into five tiers: from Dukes to Barons, with Marquesses, Earls and Viscounts in between. The King stood atop them as royalty.

There were four dukedoms in the kingdom and each of them had four counties inside them. So at all times, there were only four dukes and sixteen Earls/Marquesses in the kingdom. The number of Viscounts in each County varied greatly, but it usually didn't exceed six. After all, Viscounts usually acted as the mayors of towns and there weren't many places in each county that deserved to be called a town.

Barons on the other hand, were the most populous of all. The teacher explained that there were over one thousand barons in the kingdom now and each year the number would fluctuate greatly. This was mostly due to how easily the title was achieved.

One could become a Baron through bloodline, social contributions, or they could simply purchase the title outright. They could be either given a small territory, or block in a city/town to rule over and if they wanted to, they could vie for the position of a Viscount and rise up the ladder of nobility, or at least have their children take over the lands they rule and live on as a family of Barons. Or, they could refuse the lands and simply enjoy the title of an Honorary noble without having to worry about much else. Their children wouldn't be able to become nobles, but if they wanted to they'd have an easier time compared to a commoner.

Mages were also divided into five tiers: At the top of the helm stood a Mage King or a Mage Queen. This position could also be overlapped with the position of a King. The kingdom's late king, Roland Arcwall, and founding king, Judeus Arcwall, held both positions of the political king and Mage King at the same time. But the current king Seth Arcwall was not a powerful enough mage, so the position of the Mage King was held by another person, Urven Elypsis.

Under the Mage King were the Mage Ministers. They were the arms, feet, eyes and ears of the Mage King. They were each responsible for various important matters relating to the kingdom's mages. There was the war faction, responsible for training mages to be better used in wars; the research faction which was responsible for developing and creating new applications of magic; the infrastructural faction, responsible for making life easier in the kingdom with the help of magic and the educational faction, responsible for the training and education of new mages.

Next were High Mages. Only mages who could cast an Absolute of some kind could be accepted as a High Mage. They enjoyed many privileges, but the position wasn't so politically powerful as the Mage Ministers. They were more of a force of war, rather than a ruling one. Some student asked how many High Mages were in the kingdom now, but the teacher refused to answer, as that was a state secret.

Under them were the Mages. Of course, this was the most populous of group of all, and also had the most distinctions imaginable. Evin and the other students were learning about all these distinctions already, so the teacher didn't linger on the topic for long.

And finally, there were the Mage Students. Evin's kind. It was the most nebulous of all the tiers as the only way to become a mage was to graduate from the Academies, but many Mage Students, especially the nobles who receive thorough nurturing from birth. This made it so that some students were more capable than some Mages, so it wasn't very wise to disregard Mage Students either.

Evin amused himself by thinking that perhaps he fell into this category, but the voice reminded him to be more humble.

With the Mages and Nobles done, next came the Commonality. Commoners didn't have such fancy titles like the other two social classes, they were only distinguished by four numbers.

1st grade citizens were knights and distinguished members of society. The direct family of a mage was also elevated to this status automatically.

2nd grade citizens were people who either owned business properties, and soldiers. So merchants, blacksmiths, inn owners and farm owners would fall into this category.

3rd grade citizens were people who worked under others. Peasants, workers, builders... service workers in general.

4th grade citizen like Kon from before were either slaves or criminals.

The teacher then talked about the different privileges that are attached with the various roles, but most of the students were already familiar with them. From clothing to hairstyles, there was a cacophony of rules, which most children were forced to learn from a young age.

And with this, the lecture came to an end.

Evin said his goodbyes to Kona and was about to go to his room to see whether the anger issues stemming from Kent's pill had gone or not, but Bellaslayn asked him to accompany on lunch.