10 Ignorance is a Sin
We left the playground to finally land in front of the school.
There's a two elders outside, discussing about something. They turned around when they heard us approach, Patrick approached them, and we followed him in the same way.
"You're finally here Patrick, you took your time to bring them back, do you think we have the luxury to wait you here?" said one elder with a menacing look.
"Don't be mean toward him, he's only a child" said the other elder with a more amiable look.
"Err, well, I'm sorry elders for being so slow...but I brought all of the dropout and the youngest kids here, as you told me" said Patrick desperately.
"It's okay Patrick, don't listen to that old fart, now follow me, we will be guiding you to the class." said the amiable looking elder.
The other elder kept his silence and simply left the school. In the first place, what was he doing here?
In this village, the hierarchical system is that village chief is at the top, followed by the elders, the hunters and finally, the merchants.
The majority of the elders are generally not in the village, apparently, they travel around the region for some unknown reasons. That's troubling.
We entered the classroom, another elder is already seated there. He's older than the other two that we saw before.
"Sit down" he said solemnly.
The atmosphere became serious, we quietly listened to him and sat down, swallowing the questions we had in our stomachs.
The other elders sat down next to him, after that, the older elder began to talk.
"My name is Gounon, I'm one of the eldest elders of the village and I will be telling you about the truth of this world, and its knowledge for now." Gounon said.
I'm quite excited to learn about the mystery of this world. I know that we will probably only learn of the surface, but that's fine.
We can learn as much from the facade than the backstage. It has a meaning for why it has to be presented that way, hence no matter what, I will not be disappointed from what we will learn today.
Gounon took a good breath and started his lesson "As you know, we all live in our peaceful village that is Kapi, in our glorious and peaceful nation that is Ekaloda too. The nation is governed by the royal family and its king, the king Stanis Meillos.
This nation was established long ago, about 150 000 years from now by the Paladin Françis Meillos, who founded then the Meillos family, who's actually governing the nation."
The elder stopped for a moment to let us breath and think about what he just said, he only said a few words, but they are in my eyes, actually as valuable as a kilo of gold.
Gounon resumed his speech and said "The royal family isn't the only one who's governing the nation. Indeed, their servants, the four noble families are also leading the nation to help the Meillos family.
They're composed of the martial family, the Londkell, the elementary family, the Boras, the war family, the Hallbard and the deterrent family, the Queypard.
Each of those family assist the royal family to their duty, that is to serve the country and the blessed royal family."
Gounon watched each of us and then said "If any of you has already a question, it's the time to said it"
An older kid named Ryan raised his hand first and said "There's four noble family but only one royal family, why don't they take for themselves the power?" Ryan asked innocently.
That's a simple but a smart question, I applaud in my mind. It might have been a little bit too weird for a kid of my age to ask that. But for Ryan, who's almost seven years old, it goes a lot better.
"That's a daring question, do you doubt the loyalty of the four noble families?" Gounon asked with a smile.
"Ah, no sir, it's not that..." Ryan said a bit stressed.
"I'm kidding don't worry, I'll explain everything soon. But before answering your question, I'll ask a last time if any of you has a question to raise".
Nothing came out this time, well it's not surprising, most of the kids are intimidated by the older, and we were actually given too little information there to even start to ask pertinent questions.
"Good, then what's your name kid?"
"Ryan sir" Ryan replied politely.
"Ryan, the reason for why the noble family doesn't take the power for themselves is for a simple reason, which is that the royal family is blessed by our god, Atonos who gave to them the blessing of blessed Ki."
"Blessed...Ki?"
"Yes, the royal family is the only family, since the creation of the nation to have been blessed with the highest class of a Ki practitioner throughout generations, Paladins." said Gounon with a tinge of respect and fear.
"What are Paladins, sir Gounon" Patrick asked this time.
"Paladins are the highest beings on this land and earth. They exceed the the peek of normal Ki cultivators. They are nearly omniscient and omnipotent beings on earth, and our god, Atonos, decided to bless our land and the royal family of eternal peace and bliss thanks to our actual and previous Paladins." Gounon said with respect.
He took his breath and then continued "Paladin are the peek of humanity and cultivators, but I will now explain the basic of the Ki system.
There are six levels to the Ki system. Each of those levels are divided in three sub levels. The first and the lower one is Apprentice, who simply learn to use their Ki. The second level is Regular. At this level, you can use internally Ki, and enhance your stamina and strength. Most of the villagers are at this level.
Followed by that, there is the third level, which is Expert. Our village chief is at this level and like regular, they can use Ki internally but this time, at an higher lever and also externally. At this point, they can truly start to use Ki techniques, also known as spells.
And after that, we arrive at the legendary level, Knight or also known as Martial Knight or Ki Knight. Those who achieve the knighthood possesses superhuman force and ability at an even greater extent, they can travel even more faster than an arrow, and are able to use Ki techniques at their true potentials. They are the hero of our nation, who vanquish evils and demons.
Then, there is the Master level. Those who are at this level are at the peek of the regular martial world. They have completely grasped their own Ki and their techniques, and even revolutionize and surpass their own arts. They are usually the heads or the big shots of the noble and royal family.
And finally, the Paladins, who completely surpasses common sense and that are unequaled in this world." Gounon posed this time to let us swallow this pile of information.
Well, this world seems way more crazy and amusing than what I thought. Paladins that are unequaled in this world? Knight who are able to travel faster than arrow, with superhuman strength? In what kind of world did I land on?
To be honest, I feel a bit afraid of how big the world seems to be, but in the same time, I'm also excited at how rich the world is.
I'll try to retain everything that he will say today.
"You have now an idea of how important and big this world is, and I've only told you a little part of it. The Knight that will be coming, the Green Fox, Alex Queypard is a Knight coming from one of the noble families, hence, it's an honor for us to even grasp a sight of him, let alone his teaching, and an obligation for us to treat him with utmost respect, never forger that kids."
We didn't know that a person from such an important family will be coming soon, we had no idea about that.
"The reason for why the adults never told you about the world is that it's a tradition in our village to tell the tales about this world only from the wisest, that is us the elders." Gounon said slowly with a smile.
That explains everything. I tried to ask previously to some of the older teens of the village of some basic knowledge of this world, but they rejected my demand, either they simply didn't know a thing about the exterior.
The adults were oddly quiet about that too, I thought that it might be me that was thinking a bit too much but that's not actually the case, it's actually because of a tradition.
But why, why don't they simply met the parents teaches the basic knowledge of this world to their kids, rather than bothering the elders at teaching everything from them. It doesn't make sense...
And also, why now ? Why not earlier? A bunch of kids that are now teenagers are still oblivious to outside world, what is going on?
The more I learn, the more questions are raised...
After that, Gounon answered some questions from the kids, he answered only some of them, and said that the others will be explained in the next lesson.
A bunch of his actual answer were tied with the religion of this country, it's named Atonolism. From what I understood, it's based on the fact that god created the world and blessed the royal family at the creation of this nation, and now, the royal family are the messengers of god and the saviors of this world, I think.
Interesting, I would like to dwell a bit more on that later. It might explains a few things about this world.
An hour later, the teaching ended, it was mainly composed of what he said previously and him answering our questions then.
Before we left, Gounon said something "The next lesson will be next week, sorry for adjourning the lesson kids, but I need to teach then the kids who are still under their training." Gounon said with a tinge of an apologizing tone.
It explains the short session we had today then.
"No elder, it's nothing, it was our blessing for us to learn from you more about the world!" said Patrick in a respectful manner.
"Right, thanks you elder, and sorry for wasting your time on us" Derek said while bowing his head.
"Haha, you are good kids. See you next weeks" Gounon said while waving his hand.
We finally left the school, and we continued to talk about what we just learned.
"So, if we have kept with the training, we might have been able to become Knights too hum..." said Derek with a depressing tone.
"Come on Derek, it's not the end for us, we can still try, in our own, our own training. I'm sure that the Knight will acknowledge our works if we show him something! It's not the end, it's just the beginning for us!" Patrick said with excitement.
As the group started to regain its confidence, we met on the way to our playgrounds with another group of kids, those who are still following the official training...
