Kingdom's Bloodline, page 608
But he thought of something and immediately opened his eyes. Then he asked, “Wait, Gilbert, I thought you just said that there will be a total of three main types of lessons?”
Gilbert looked at him and showed him an expression that he thought that Thales was worth teaching. “Yes, there are three main types. The practical lesson is something that was decided by His Majesty…”
‘There’s still more?’
Thales said mournfully, “Practical?”
Gilbert cleared his throat and continued to make some remarks on the paper that would decide Thales’ future.
“For example, practical lessons in ruling. This is especially necessary for families with titles of count and above.
“Military commands, logistics, administrative reports and how to handle them, agriculture, business, finance, taxation, politics, diplomacy, religion, the relationship with nobles, legislation, and jurisprudence…
“These are not some subjects that can be taught by teachers from a normal academy. They usually need to be combined with real-life examples so that you can have personal experience with them…”
Gilbert remembered something, raised his head, narrowed his head, and said, “You need not worry about this first. Let us first finish with the previous content first.”
He felt excited and looked at the timetable in his hands,
“Then, grammar, logic, rhetoric…
“Next is history lessons and etiquette lessons. We need to make more slight adjustments to the cores of the lessons…
“There are two kinds of the national language of the Empire, and there is the common language of elves, I think you have forgotten the basics of the common language of elves…
“There is also mathematics, natural science, arts, and theology. So, the subjects under these lessons must be allocated based on your interest and the teachers that we can find. For example, for the arts, I would recommend…
“As for the details of the teacher candidates… I will further look into this. It will be better if each lesson has a different teacher, so that you will find it novel, and you will find a liking to attend lessons…
“We will need to make other notes regarding your practical lessons…”
Thales had changed his expression from the terrified look in the beginning to suffering, sorrowful, and gradually, it turned to numbness.
“Very well. These will be the three main lesson types for you.”
Gilbert smiled so widely that his teeth could be seen. “I hope that you will enjoy your studies.”
Thales glanced at that timetable. The entire thing had practically been filled up. His face instantly turned pale.
“Do you think that I can handle it?”
Gilbert wagged his finger and looked confident. “No, no, no. The others might not know, but six years ago, I have seen your learning progress with my own eyes. Your Highness, you are what people called genius.”
‘Hold on a sec.’ Thales felt his lips twitch.
“I believe that these lessons will be simple for you.
“Furthermore, six years ago, did you not tell me that when you were young six years ago that you loved going to lessons the most?” Gilbert blinked, and he was pleased with obtaining a good student.
Thales felt his vision black out for a moment.
‘Gilbert, did you misunderstand anything?’
If he said that his brain was damaged after being hit by the Northlanders, would it be useful?
But the Foreign Affairs Minister obviously did not understand his emotions.
“Then, I will take my leave first and come again tomorrow. You must get ready for the grammar lesson!”
Thales did not remember how he sent away Gilbert.
He only remembered that he nodded and smiled numbly, and he smiled faintly and nodded again.
When Thales snapped out of his daze, he was already standing outside the reception room.
At this moment, a familiar voice was heard behind him.
“Has it ended?”
Thales turned around numbly.
“Very good. The police station has just sent some people over here to chase away the unwelcome guests who wanted to visit you.”
The captain of his personal guards, Watchmen Mallos continued to smile calmly. “Then, you should have time now, right?”
Thales looked at him numbly and did not quite understand what he meant.
Mallos was seen grinning. The people who saw it felt refreshed.
“Your Highness, please get ready. Our training will start tomorrow.”
‘Okay.’ Thales snapped out of his daze again, but it was with the same numb look. ‘Wait.’
“Train…”
Thales snapped out of his numbness. He turned around swiftly, and he widened his eyes quickly. “Train what?”
Mallos frowned slightly. “Count Caso did not tell you?”
Thales shook his head subconsciously.
The watchman walked up, narrowed his eyes, and sized up the duke.
“Except for those complicated basic lessons, philosophy lessons, and practical lessons, there is one most important lesson for Constellation nobles.”
‘Most important lesson?’
Mallos nodded, smiled, and said, “This is the key that proves the difference between nobles and commoners since the era of the Feudal Kings.”
‘Again?’
Thales felt a bad hunch.
He heard Mallos speak with a smile. “Military skills.”
Thales did not respond to that. He was speechless.
After three seconds, the prince breathed in deeply. “No, what does me learning martial arts have anything to do with you…”
Mallos used a proper bow to interrupt him. “Unfortunately, I, Tormond Mallos have just been appointed by His Majesty as your martial arts trainer.”
Thales was stunned.
Mallos raised his head and looked proud.
“So, I need to have you give me all seven mornings and evenings of your time in a week. Let us start from tomorrow! Please come to the training field in the backyard at six o’clock in the morning and five o’clock in the afternoon.
“Follow me and train well.”
The last few words were said joyfully by the watchman.
Thales looked at him numbly and found that he could not even say anything.
And Mallos patted his shoulder before he showed a friendly smile. “Do not be hasty, Your Highness.
“We have a long way ahead of us!”
Thales breathed in deeply and walked forward numbly. He did not bother about the interested looks from the people behind him.
But Mallos called him.
“Your Esteemed Highness, while we may train moderation, weapons are blind.”
His smile was gentle and magnanimous, but in Thales’ eyes, they were totally evil. “If I accidentally hit you, please kindly bear with me.”
Mallos bowed appropriately, smiled gently, turned around, and left.
The left behind the prince while his thoughts were in a mess as he basked in the morning sunlight.
At this moment, Thales felt that his emotions were very complicated.
His mind became gloomy.
After a while, he walked out of the guest room with a pale look and got ready to enjoy his life as a degenerate for the last time.
The prince suddenly realized that while he was in Northland, he only received what was equivalent to nine years of compulsory education in this world.
Thales sighed in sorrow.
‘Now, I’m finally fourteen…
‘I should… go to high school now.’
Thales thought in despair.
Doyle shook his head from the distance when he saw the duke walk over with a numb face.
Unfortunately, this child was right there at the moment Mallos was threatened by a certain fat noble, and he was currently in a bad mood.
But…
Doyle looked at the Thales who was battered out of his senses.
‘Urk, is our second prince, the Duke of Star Lake, defeated already?’
D.D. got an idea and scratched his chin.
‘After all, the specialized female officials in the palace are waiting to give him his lessons on female and male relationships!’
Chapter 518: Discovered? |
The uproar caused by the return of the prince to Eternal Star City had already subsided (or perhaps it was merely suppressed and bubbling within the people, who were just waiting for the next commotion). At least Mindis Hall, which had shut its doors and refused to accept all visitors, was no longer crowded like the marketplace. Thales was able to enjoy a rare as well as precious moment of peace and quiet.
But, that did not mean he felt comfortable.
Since the second day began, Prince Thales had not been able to enjoy the power brought by the grand status of being the owner of Mindis Hall. The royal education group led by Gilbert, or rather, the character setting company designed to make royal fresh meat, as the indignant duke himself described them, had entered Mindis Hall in an orderly fashion.
Firstly, he had an instructor who was fluent in the national language of the Empire as well as the common language of the elves for his grammar lesson. The man was renowned in the Royal Grammar Academy as their grand scholar.
It was an evidently sweet deal to be able to hire him.
One, the sleek bald head of the Bonar Grand Scholar could reflect light, saving Mindis Hall a tremendous amount of lamp oil, which allowed them to preserve resources.
Two, his voice was soft and low, whereby he spoke intermittently as well as vaguely. D.D had mentioned in a harsh tone that he was about to die and because of it, forever dared not to speak loudly anymore. His voice forced all of Mindis Hall to maintain absolute silence when he conducted his lessons, bringing a great benefit to the environment.
Three, his broad and profound knowledge helped him to practically compress the five lessons the prince needed to receive—syntax, logic, rhetoric, the national language of the Ancient Empire, and the elven language—into one, allowing Thales to realize the answers to the following questions.
In the case of the troublesome national language of the Ancient Empire and the accursed elven language, even their subject-verb-object structure was completely different from the lingua franca. How great of a change would such structures bring to syntax? And how would they affect the principles of logic and expression? What sort of challenges would they bring to the current language and the style of speaking, thus changing a person’s habits in thought? Lastly, how did they cruelly and ruthlessly devoured Prince Thales’ precious sleeping time?
“Your Highness, y-you said y-you cannot remember it all? Th-Then just sl-sleep a little later… After all, all you youngsters lie when you say you sleep early. Once you are on your bed, you do everything except sleep… What? It is not good f-for hair? Ah, that is not important… Your Highness, do you know what a wig is? Who in the palace does not wear fake wigs and fake breasts…? What, you will not be able to grow taller from sleeping late? Sigh, Your Highness, wouldn’t you be tall enough when you put on the crown…” These were the stuttering words of the Bonar Grand Scholar, who managed to make the prince change his expression thrice with just one sentence.
Gilbert personally put himself to the task of conducting history lessons. Compared with the Bonar Grand Scholar who quoted texts from various sources and had great vision, the Foreign Affairs Minister had a simple and clear goal: turn Prince Thales into the human form of [From the Ancient Empire to Constellation: The Encyclopedia of the Comprehensive History of 2,000 Years of Two Nations] in two months.
‘Index! Your Highness, I must dismiss your joke. If you are only the index of an encyclopedia, you can only take it to sca… Ahem, it will be sufficient to show off your knowledge,” the stern Gilbert said.
As for the mathematics lesson, it was perhaps one of the few lessons that brought comfort to the Duke of Star Lake. Scholar Julio was quite surprised with Thales’ standard in geometry and algebra, especially under the circumstances where the prince had wasted six years in “that godforsaken place, Eckstedt”.
However, what gave Thales a headache was Julio’s increasing confidence in him. The excited man who had the purpose of educating an unprecedented Prince of Mathematics was passionately and swiftly expanding his course outline after reminding Thales to provide him money once Thales was crowned. At the same time, he would say that the mischievous formulae were very beautiful as well as cute, and that they seemed to be smiling at Thales, all while he gestured at Thales with his third finger pressed daintily against his thumb.
One day, Scholar Julio decided to combine algebra and geometry lessons together. He began planning to let Thales use algebraic equations to measure the trajectory and changes in the movements of astronomical objects.
“These basic equations do not fit in, do they? The motions of the Bright Star is just too bizarre… and you must think, do we stand a chance to grasp these immeasurable mechanics? A few scholars of Dragon Kiss Academy have thought that as long the motor process is separated into different parts, we will be able to get an answer if we keep separating it down again and again. Let me show you the different arithmetic expressions proposed by them separately… Uhm, Your Highness? What happened to you, Your Highness? Wake up, wake up Your Highness! You need to complete the exercise first before you pass out!” screamed the young and talented Scholar Julio. His face had turned pale out of panic.
The lesson materials they used had expanded from mathematical exercises in classical texts all the way to applied mathematics related to national affairs and people’s lives. There were even several times where Julio suggested that Thales try to calculate the future annual revenue of the country by looking at the previous annual revenue, or evaluate Constellation’s data based on the population growth in the Central Territory. Thales had reasons to suspect that if he did not pretend to be slightly stupid or slow down the pace of the lesson, it would truly be only a matter of time before some sort of terrible bell-shaped curve appeared in his books, along with a series of other mathematical concepts.
Thales thanked his lucky stars when it came to nature lessons. The experienced and knowledgeable Lord Monton was humorous most of the time when he talked about astronomy, geography, and the cultural customs of the people. It was fascinating… if the prince did not often interrupt him and cause him to feel embarrassed.
“Why is Bright Star located to the east? What is the composition of the Crystal Drop Ore? Would we be out of Eternal Oil if we killed every single whale in the entire world someday? Are werewolves and vampires really cursed creatures? Do they have any connection with wolves and bats? So, if Dragon-Kissed Land is a basin, would the weather there be a little strange? Were the great mist and the whirlpool across Two Misty Seas really formed naturally? Didn’t anyone ever doubt anything when the legends about the sea monsters in Demon Sea claim that they have been witnessed by multiple people before? How are the beliefs and temples from Sunset and Bright Moon able to coexist? So, the Cannibal Flowers are basically the same thing as the Great Dragons. How do they handle their energy consumption? Is the Capital of Triumph and the homeland of the Empire really underneath the Eye of the Sea of Eradication? How does the Blood Clan of Grand Banquet Hill rule its land? There must be different kinds of weather and geographical structures in the internal section of Great Desert, right? Is Caligri real? Why didn’t the great impact, which caused the Great Crack and Sink to happen, cause the formation of a vortex that would suck the two peninsulas in? Where did the outbreak of the plague in Three Kingdoms of the Mystery Sea begin? Why was the interval between the two eruptions of Sanlast Volcano so short? Is the direction of the ocean current the reason that affects the speed of arriving at the Eastern Peninsula from different harbors?” These were all questions from the prince.
As for the art lessons, after seeing the paintings and listening to the lute performances meticulously prepared by the Duke of Star Lake, the prestigious Master Uhran gently told Thales that there was no need for a person to be an artist to learn art. They could also learn to be an art lover. To him, Thales was very suited to be an art lover who would leave his name in history.
All in all, the refresher course that week did not give Thales any room to breathe, and he realized that he missed the life he used to have at Heroic Spirit Palace… except for that dead face.
‘Why didn’t I kidnap Little Rascal to attend lessons with me back then?’
Thales could feel his body being sucked dry every single day, and he thought about it silently while he wept in his heart.
It would have been better if they let him return to the desert.
At least the orcs would not force him to memorize the seven types of morphological rules, three types of speech parts, four types of tenses, three types of voices, four types of grammatical persons, five types of word orders, eighteen different types of sentence patterns, which changed form depending on the situation, and the complicated pronunciation rules in the national language of the Ancient Empire. In comparison, the modern language of the Empire used by that useless general in Black Track was much simpler.
He did not have to be proficient in the elven language’s twenty-two types of interchangeable tones either. Ah… that was basically a music lesson in itself.
Thales felt tremendous pressure in Mindis Hall. The situation even caused him to forget about the banquet that he was supposed to attend two months from now, let alone the power vortex in Renaissance Palace.
It was the same for some of the “special” lessons that were supposed to be rather relaxing, just like right now.
“Do you feel it, Prince Thales? As your weapon, it is so strong, straight, tough, yet it does not lose its tenacity and flexibility…”
A gentle and casual voice traveled into his left ear before it slowly reached his right ear. It made his ears itch a little.
“On the other hand, it is also extremely impulsive, wild, and has an endless desire that it is unable to hold back. It longs to release itself, to be chaotic, and to conquer… but you must not give in easily. Take control of it. Do not allow this wild horse to get out of its cage so easily…”
