“I don’t know. The way I see it, they may have meant this to hurt us, but the physical skills will be freshest in our mind, and we don’t have to go any harder during training than we want to,” Jackson said.

  Gianna spoke up. “That is one way to see it. Personally, I am glad to have this schedule for another reason.”

  “Not this again. You know they won’t let us get out, Gianna,” Milessa protested.

  Both boys looked at each other and then at Gianna, who said, “I will help you however you want, but I want you to help me sneak out of the city and help me level up. I don’t want to go into the physical challenges as a level zero.”

  Tabor said, “I’ve been meaning to ask about that. How is it that you are royalty and your parents didn’t make sure you were leveled up?”

  “In Miromar, it is customary not to do power leveling until age fifteen even for royalty. We believe that children should be allowed to be children and not have to fight.”

  “My dad would say that is a luxury that Miromar has because Albia is a bulwark against the goblins and other beasts of the north.”

  “I understand that, but in the south, things are pretty safe except for an occasional minotaur raid. Our griffon rider elites patrol the borders from the air, and it has been more than a century since the last orc was seen in my homeland.”

  “It’s like my dad always says, ‘Different strokes for different folks,’” Jackson said.

  “Baron Nelson is the only one who has more crazy sayings than you.”

  “At least I keep you laughing. But seriously, how would we get you out of the city, and what if something happened to you? I mean, we would be responsible for starting a war.”

  Gianna flashed a smile at him. Jackson’s heart skipped a beat. He had only recently started to notice girls, but still had been more interested in baseball than anything else. Then they had ended up in Eloria, and he didn’t exactly have time to think about them. Leyna and the way she moved had made him reconsider a bit, but mostly only when he was alone. He supposed that Gianna was pretty, but honestly, he wanted a friend more than he wanted to think of her as a girl.

  “I will give you a letter saying that I ordered you to take me out of the city. It may not get you entirely out of trouble, but my father will know that you didn’t do anything malicious.”

  Tabor said, “I wanna help you. I mean, I really understand what it must feel like to you being the only level zero. Hey, that does make me wonder, why was Milessa allowed to level up?”

  “I’m not just the daughter of a count and her lady companion. I am also her bodyguard, in a way. I have a good amount of talent in Essence Magic to heal her, and I have a couple of protective spells. I’m also not half bad with a staff. That doesn’t change the fact, though, that Tabor is right.”

  “I don’t know. I’m willing to help. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to go through this as a level zero, even if she isn’t getting picked on. I just don’t know anything about the area around the city. Not sure where we would have to go to level her up.”

  After a few more rounds of a heated exchange, first Tabor and eventually Milessa threw up their hands and agreed to at least try to sneak her out to level up. They spent the rest of the morning trying to come up with a plan before they had to go to the dining hall and then their afternoon practice session in history and politics.

  All four of them were sitting in the classroom. Naturally, it was far more full when their entire class was there, but this was their designated time with Master Jurgen, who taught history and politics. Precisely as the bell sounded, a tall, slender man walked in. He had a severe demeanor, and Jackson had always thought the man must feel slighted by being the one who had to teach them the non-skill-related subject. To his credit, though, Master Jurgen had always brightened up anytime that a student asked him a genuine question, and he seemed to have a great interest in the matters he taught.

  “Welcome to your prep time for history and politics. This is the only class that will cover two tests, so it is essential that you heed my instructions,” the instructor said.

  “Two tests?” Tabor asked.

  “Yes, did I stutter? I know it isn’t as interesting as your fighting or magic classes, but one-third of your scores will be based on these subject matters.”

  Tabor grumbled, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Spoken like a true western soldier. Not every problem can be solved with the swing of a sword. Even your father knew the power of politics and the importance of learning the lessons of the past when he was here as a student,” Jurgen said.

  Jackson whistled. The teacher must be older than he had thought if he had been an instructor here that long ago. Tabor’s father was at least as old as his own father, which would mean Baron Eikhorn had to have graduated at least twenty-five years ago. A part of him wanted to ask just how long he had been a teacher here when he realized that wasn’t really important now with their limited time.

  Gianna must have thought the same thing because she said, “We really need to let him teach us what we need to learn.”

  “Thank you, Princess, now if I may continue,” Jurgen said. “This history test will focus on the founding of Albia, as well as the recent treaties and trade agreements with neighboring nations. These texts will cover the basic material you will be tested on, but there is only one set per group, so you will have to share.”

  “Are we graded collectively as a group?” Milessa asked.

  “No, Lady Milessa, while you may and are even encouraged to study together, each of you will be graded individually. Now we should go over the key points.”

  Jackson did his best to stay alert throughout the next two hours of the lecture, and truthfully he found the material to be interesting. It was like a story in many ways because the names and places still sounded like far-off lands from a fairy tale to him. Yet it was just a lecture for two hours, and questions weren’t allowed.

  At some point, he found his mind reviewing the fights he had experienced in the dungeon. He started thinking through each punch, kick, and slash of the axe. Then it broke down even more finely to the position of his feet, the angle of his hips, and the extension of his arm. After a while, it was almost like he was viewing film footage from the outside, like professional athletes did back home. There was a subtle voice in his head, speaking not so much in words as in sensations.

  With each movement that he focused on, he would get a running stream of positive and negative impressions. Those helped Jackson form opinions about how he could improve and which parts he should perfect. It was almost surreal, but Jackson tried to get as much out of each review as possible.

  He was so distracted that he didn’t respond when Tabor tried to pass him a note. His friend had to kick him lightly to get his attention. When he looked at it, the note wasn’t in Tabor’s typical block printing but was in the flowing script of a more polished hand. He was thrilled that his language mastery allowed him to understand the spoken word and all the written forms of the common human tongue, whether in print or script.

  The note read, “This is so boring. We need to start planning for tonight.”

  Jackson could tell that Master Jurgen had seen them passing notes, but he chose to ignore it, unlike a teacher back home. Rank wasn’t supposed to matter, but if he was learning anything about the people in Eloria, whether in Eris’ Rise or Konig, whether serf or noble, they never forgot their relative social stations. It must not be worth the potential fallout for Jurgen, with a class composed of three nobles and a royal.

  It didn’t matter, though, because, about that time, the history portion of the lecture ended, and Master Jurgen said, “Now it’s time for the more hands-on portion of your testing. Politics is, at its core, the art of learning how to work with other people. You will need perception, critical thinking, persuasion, and leadership to make the system work. It is important to know how to push the people you work with to do the things that you want them to do.”

  “Everyone knows these things. It is what separates us from the beasts like goblins,” Milessa said.

  Thinking of his sister’s friend Krinnk, Jackson said, “You might be surprised about how complicated goblin society can be.” As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted it and wished he had them back. All his fellow students and the teacher alike were staring at him.

  “And how do you know about goblin society?” Gianna asked.

  “Yes, Master Nelson, I would be curious about this as well,” Jurgen said.

  Jackson didn’t really want to share his sister’s secrets, and thankfully Tabor came to his rescue. “Life in the wilds is not all you think it to be, but aren’t we supposed to be learning about what is involved in our test?”

  “Very true, Master Eikhorn. I applaud your focus. This year, you will have two tests, one next week and one at the end of the school year. The same applies to next year. Each test will help you prepare for one of the political interactions you will have to deal with. The first test is how to deal with your subordinates. The second how to deal with those possessed of more political or social power. Next year’s tests will focus on how to deal with your peers, both those with shared interests and those with divergent interests.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Jackson said.

  “No, it doesn’t have to be. You will not know the specifics of your test until immediately beforehand, but know that it will involve you learning to control your subordinates.”

  “You mean like an officer ordering the soldiers under his command?” Tabor asked.

  “No, it will most definitely not be military based. I can’t go into too much detail, but I will give you some simple possibilities based upon previous tests. You could be tasked to serve as a magistrate deciding between two craftsmen, or you might be put in charge of getting funding for a building project. Of course, it will all be simulated, but it will be informative all the same.”

  After that, he ran through lists of social skills and how they might be used in the examination. Jackson was glad that he had unspent points but wasn’t sure how much he wanted to spend them on persuasion or truth-detection type skills. It felt like a waste if it wasn’t moving him closer to his goal of the ironwood monk class. Still, he had learned enough from his sister and parents that he realized he needed to stop and think it through.

  When Master Jurgen finally left, Tabor and Gianna both said over the top of one another, “I thought he was never gonna stop talking.”

  They looked at each other and chuckled. Jackson chuckled too because they had undoubtedly said the same words for very different reasons. Milessa just sat quietly watching. Finally, Jackson said, “So what’s your plan for getting out of here?”

  “Well, I was hoping you could help with that. As you know, students are not allowed to leave the academy without a pass,” Gianna began.

  Tabor chimed in, “And those passes are seldom given out.”

  Both girls glared at him for his interruption, but Tabor just laughed it off. Then able to continue, Gianna said, “But I have it on good authority that you are an exception.”

  “Me? Oh… you mean because I am allowed to visit the Church of Shanelle if I want to ’cause of my mother. It’s not like I have ever done that before. They haven’t really done anything for me, and my mom may be some kind of chosen one, but I don’t really want to go to the church,” Jackson said.

  Gianna got a perplexed look on her face, and Milessa looked apoplectic. Tabor leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Miromar is a very religious country. They are all like the original people in Eris’ Rise or worse.”

  The princess smoothed her dress and then, seemingly having gathered her thoughts, asked, “You don’t honor the true gods?”

  “It isn’t anything like that. I just figure if I do the things they teach—you know, second chances, justice, and sacrifice—that I live the way they want me to. I guess that is the best way that I can honor them. I mean, it isn’t like Shanelle talks to me like she talks to my mom.”

  The two girls leaned in and whispered back and forth furiously before Gianna looked at him with that pleading face that he had seen from his little sister far too often, “Would you please do it for me? I would be eternally grateful. I don’t know of any other way to get out of the academy. It is going to be hard enough to ditch my bodyguards.”

  Somehow the puppy-dog eyes from a pretty girl were so much more effective than when they came from his little sister, and before he knew what he was saying, Jackson had agreed to bring them all with him on a trip to the church.

  Perhaps it should come as no surprise that brief objections from the boys about whether it was wise to evade her guards as well as the difficulties they would face once out in the city were quickly overcome by smiles and batting eyes. Gianna assured them that as soon as they got out of Konig, she had access to a perfect place for them to help her level up.

  The boys followed them back to the enormous suite that the princess and Milessa shared. They were stopped outside the door by a guard who wore the colors of Miromar. He wore the studded leather armor of the elite griffon riders corps. For him to be here showed the importance that Gianna’s father placed upon her safety. Buckled to his belt was the slightly curved saber customary to the group. Of course, missing was his barbed spear, but those things were far too long to carry around inside, as they were meant to be used in midair atop a griffon.

  “Stop right there. Thank you for escorting the princess and Lady Milessa back to their room, but no boys are allowed past this threshold by order of King Leonor.”

  The guard was very stern, and given the squad he was in, Jackson assumed he was Tier 2 and probably well trained. Indeed, it wasn’t worth trying to make a point of this now, especially given how the plan didn’t even call for them to meet in her room. He absentmindedly wondered if Gianna’s chambers were something like an embassy back home and considered to be sovereign soil of Miromar. He shrugged, as he hadn’t paid enough attention to Jurgen’s class to know the answer.

  He waved goodbye at the girls as they entered the room, and then turned tailed with Tabor in tow. The two of them moved quickly to their room to grab their gear and then get to the rendezvous point.

  Chapter Four

  “The best-laid plans of rats and men… er, was that supposed to be ratmen?”—Konig sanitation worker

  Konig, Capital of Albia—Jackson Nelson

  Half an hour later, while the rest of the students were in the dining hall, Jackson stood at the stable corner where they could see the front gate but not be seen by them. The girls should have been here by now. He was beginning to worry if they had gotten caught by Gianna’s bodyguards.

  He tried to calm himself. Breathing in the way that Master Daichi had taught him. Slowly and purposefully, he took in each breath. He envisioned the life-giving properties of the oxygen he took in, and with each exhale, he focused on pushing out his anxiety. In the back of his head, he heard that voice, which had been quiet for a while now, say, “Malarkey.”

  Jackson stopped and listened. He waited. Still, there was nothing more. It was a little unnerving to wonder if he was hearing his own thoughts or something else. The voice didn’t sound like him, and it most definitely had information that he didn’t have. Now what to do with that—that was the question.

  Instead of merely trying to breathe in life and breathe out anxiety, he had the idea that perhaps if he combined the meditation with his esoteric sense, it might produce better results. So this time, as he drew in his breath, he worked on focusing on that strange sense of things around him.

  Esoteric Sense: Has a passive sixth sense out to 1 foot/level. Has an active sixth sense, which requires 5 mana/sec to use out to 20 feet/level. Has an extended range of 500 feet/level for a cost of 50 mana/sec.

  For now, he simply focused on the passive sense. Trying to breathe and relax while letting the substance of things around him permeate his sense of being. He wasn’t sure if this was exactly right, but it sure felt like the thing to do. So he relaxed till the point that the breathing exercise became second nature.

  He tried to open his perceptions without focusing on anything in particular. It wasn’t as easy as he might have wished. Tabor’s breathing, a swish of a horse’s tail, or even the bugs crawling on a fresh pile of dung—all of it would draw his attention for a moment. Each time that happened, he lost the ability to equally perceive everything within range and instead felt like he was scanning from one motion to the next. That was how his dad said he used the skill, but somehow Jackson knew it wasn’t right. His guess was confirmed as that eerie voice said, “Very good.”

  The voice disturbed him so much that he almost didn’t sense when two people were almost upon him. He spun, hands up in a defensive posture, expecting to see Michael or another of his tormentors. Instead, he saw nothing. His eyes told him no one was there, but his esoteric sense screamed that there were two human-shaped people less than five feet from him.

  Then, making his heart skip a beat and causing Tabor to actually leap back, both Gianna and Milessa appeared as they pulled rings from their fingers and became visible. Jackson smiled as Tabor whispered excitedly, “Whoa, rings of invisibility. And two of them. That’s cool. Can I try one on?”

  Jackson shook his head. At least his friend had remembered to keep it to a loud whisper. “We don’t have time for that. I don’t know exactly what the princess’ plan is outside the city, but if we want to get any meaningful leveling done, we only have a few hours. I am not going to be able to use this excuse again, especially if they find out that I didn’t really go to the temple.”

  “Okay, well, moment of truth. Can you sell this to the guards?” Gianna asked.

  “I will just channel my inner Mira,” Jackson replied.

  When both girls looked confused, Tabor added, “That’s his older sister.”