Cassian’s life in the castle
'When can I get out of this predicament' thought the frustrated maid standing in the kitchen preparing food for Cassian. She was the emperor's maid with peak foundation establishment cultivation. However, she was also assigned to be the maid of Olivia and Cassian the moment they came to the castle. Her only duty to them was to clean their chambers once every month (dust is scarce) and provide food for Cassian as he still cannot cultivate. She was counting out days when Cassian would become eight and she no longer needed to serve them. She had no hopes for Cassian being highly talented as she was one of the few who knew the truth of his origins. However, she hoped that he could at least cultivate so that she can be free of her duties to serve him.
People's compulsion to eat reduces with increase in their cultivation. They gain their nourishment via qi which is available everywhere in this world. However, the meat of a beast can aid in their cultivation progress. An individual can only eat the meat of a beast which has cultivation not greater than theirs by a major realm. That is, an individual with 1st stage golden core can fully digest meat of peak stage golden core or lower. When such an individual forcibly eats higher grade meat, it can be extremely painful as it will pass through the entire digestive system without being digested. Even shitting it can be horrendous. In fact, this is one of the most common torture techniques in this world.
In the world of Altheria, people start cultivating from their eighth birthday. It starts with body becoming receptive to the qi in the air and starts absorbing it involuntarily similar to how a drowning person inhales air when brought out of water. When this event starts, colors ascribing to the talent of an individual are shone out of their body and slowly recedes as the night approaches and the body gets used to cultivating. This happens only once in the lifetime of an individual. There are no techniques to cultivating in the Qi accumulation realm. Once the qi is accumulated to the limit, it coalesces and a dantian is established. By forming a dantion, a cultivator is said to be have established foundation and is typically refereed to as cultivator in the foundation establishment realm. There are various techniques to cultivate from this realm. The proficiency of these techniques will determine the speed of cultivation and also if a cultivator can progress beyond nascent soul realm. It can be understood that the techniques of Numidia are mediocre based on the fact that no known cultivator beyond nascent soul realm exists.
Cassian was in the royal court presided by Erik and all his wives and children, including Olivia who wore a veil on the eve of his eighth birthday. Erik already cleared the air that Olivia was pregnant when they wed and Cassian was born premature. And after eight years, no one bothered about that matter as they took the emperor's word for truth.
Just as the morning rays shone, Cassian's body involuntarily showed signs of absorbing qi as intense red colored light reflected from his body. It came as no surprise to anyone in the court as they were already aware of Olivia's red level talent as she mentioned that she emitted a red light at her initiation. However, most of them at least expected that the boy will inherit some part of his father's talent not knowing that he was adopted. Only Erik, Gareth, Olivia and Erik's maid were an exception.
Erik wanted this charade to quickly end and harshly ordered Olivia and Cassian to their chambers. They quickly took their leave amid murmurs from the crowd as Olivia looked disappointed while Cassian looked unperturbed. However, when they were on their way to their rooms, they were told that they have been relocated to new chambers. Olivia was distraught about the fact that Erik who used to spend hours with her everyday could no longer find time to even meet with her. Her only companion is Cassian who was trying his best to uplift his mother's mood.
--------------------------- Ten years later:
Even though they lived in a castle, it felt like a prison to both Olivia and Cassion. They were afraid to roam around as both of them were bullied and treated as worse than insects. The other five wives of the emperor would constantly ridicule Olivia for her horrendous face and cultivation talent. She would seldom come out of her room in order to avoid facing them.
Cassian was treated even worse. He was taught by instructors who used to teach the children of maids and servants instead of special instructors for princes and princesses. And even the servant children used to ridicule behind his back. However, they became increasingly obvious about it as no one reprimanded them. In sparring classes, he was often a practice dummy for all the students and as an individual with lowest cultivation, he was beaten up frequently. In fact, he had features like black eye or bruised skin perpetually.
Whenever a prince or princess come across Cassian, they would beat him up quite badly just for their entertainment. Even the oldest prince who is 132 years old who is in the 5th stage of Golden core regularly beats up Cassian simply because he was irked as he remembered Cassian being a prince. He found that to be especially humiliating.
Olivia and Cassian especially dreaded the events where their presence as a royal prince and as sixth empress was required. Regardless of the nature of the event, it would ultimately turn into a bashing of the 'clown prince and his beastly mother'. Due to their powerlessness, they must bear with it with extreme humility. Even the servants indirectly humiliated them during such events.
There were several instances where he sought to impress upon his instructors, his siblings, Gareth and even the emperor himself with ideas from his past life. Several of them were locomotives, cars or healthcare system. But he quickly realized that, in this empire, people in power cared little about the needs of a mortals. Moreover, cultivators with higher level do not need transportation amenities and healers with capabilities wish to serve only in exchange of resources that improve their cultivation – which a mortal can seldom afford. Although, the population of mortals in this empire is humongous their survival is solely looked through the lens of resources. There are only a few employment opportunities for mortals – maintaining the herbs eaten by the beasts that are reared for the intake of cultivators, mining for qi stones which are used by cultivators to increase their speed of cultivation, and agriculture which is the least rewarding as cultivator families only procure food until their children become eight years old.
The only way out for mortal families is when their progeny luckily emerges with a talent to cultivate. Even then, they are restricted to red level talent who under normal circumstances will find it extremely difficult to establish foundation. However, they are better off than the mortals as they can now rear beasts that are eaten by cultivators. Merchants and traders typically have orange level talent, that is, they can establish foundation and technically increase their cultivation to even reach nascent soul realm. However, most of them would die before they could even form a golden core as they require vast amount of resources. Rich families own conglomerate(s) and usually have yellow level talent among their numbers and would at most reach the mid stages of golden core with extreme difficulty and burning of resources. Nobles, however, usually possess green level talent and would easily reach the peak of golden core. With difficulty, they can even form nascent soul. However, it is extremely difficult for them to reach mid or peak nascent soul. The royals however have blue talent that can easily reach last stages of nascent soul. A truly talented royal can even reach the peak of nascent soul like every emperor would at the end of their lifespan and could even try to break into the next realm.
Despite being an old soul, Cassian after learning all of this information from his classes found his situation extremely pitiful. His previous life memories are of little help to him. He detested such cruel world where people are basically fit into certain sections and can never break out of them. Every human would long for improvement, at least for their progeny if not for themselves. But in this society, even if a mortal could awaken their talent to cultivate, their progeny would depend on their parents talent. In such societies, those with higher talents would seldom partner with those who have lower talents thus restricting the very notion of improvement in society. He did not know if this situation is the same in regions other than Numidia, but he did not have any expectations.
Cassian lamented about the fact that he was born into a world that had such restrictions placed upon its people. While dying in his previous life, he wished to have a more debauched life. However, with the reality settling in that even surviving luxuriously depended on talent, he removed any expectations of having such a life.