Something Good and Bad gained

After the first successful test flight Green did a couple more to see if he oversaw anything. Unsurprisingly nothing came up and he booked an appointment with the examination board of the academy. They litteral canceled all their plans just to be there for Green's presentation as soon as possible.

So two weeks after the first flight Green was once again standing in front of the, on the side lying, basket. Green did not know every high ranked person in the Royal Academy but from the amount of people assembled in front of him he guessed that everyone was there. His father also took the day off to watch his presentation.

He just finished his presentation about his "findings" about hot air going up(A.C: I litteral had 2,5k words full technical presentation written out when I realized that nobody wants to read that). Then to illustrate why he came up with the hot air balloon he basically built a chinese lantern and let it flood up. The reactions towards that alone was surprising. It was known that certain gasses wanted to go up, but that hot air was enough alone was new.

So when the excitement over the lantern died down he once again started up the balloon. Green now had done this half a dozen times so he focussed more on the reaction of the people around. When for the first two minutes not a lot happened he was able to see them getting impatient. But that changed as quick they saw the balloon shell filling out. Everyone assembled here were intellectuals so they knew what would follow so it became really quiet and only the sound of the burner was hearable.

The basket, after the balloon was filled up, right itself up and Green waited a bit as his examers were still staring up at the balloon. Green fired up the burner once again and lifted up. Some people started to shoot, some stared just speechlessly at him and he even saw some faint for reasons he did not know.

He floats up to 100 meters high; he upgraded his security rope to 100 meters so that he can show off a bit more. After enjoying the view for a couple of minutes he decided to descend again.

On the ground he was welcomed by a cheering crowd. It took a good hour afterwards for the excitement to die down and Green was once again grilled for answers for the components of his balloon. The board basically threw his new title as a Master Engineer at him. When he was questioned about the burner and it came out that he designed it completely alone, they all agreed that he technically could have gotten a title for that alone.

After the presentation he had asked his father beforehand to prepare a small celebration near the balloon. He anchored the balloon down, which was still standing up so that the people could still watch it.

Despite being asked about all aspects of his balloon, Green tried to keep some answers to himself as he forgot to fill a patent for his work. His father reminded him of this after the presentation.

-{Scene Break}-

The following weeks were extremely busy for Green. So many people all of a sudden wanted to congratulate him. That was topped off when he got a letter which was an official summon from the royal family for a congratulation in person by the King of his country in person.

Apparently that was something insanely rare as the butler, after Green informed him about the contents of the letter, nearly had a heart attack from the news alone. Green was dragged to put on his finest clothes and then immediately stuffed into a carriage heading to the palace. They picked up his father and his assistant on the way from the headquarters of their family business. His father looked visibly worried.

After a couple minutes of riding the carriage silently his father started to speak up.

"Son, whatever they want in there from you, agree to nothing. Remember that in there you are a servant or underling of the person in front of you. If I knew that you would be in the spotlight this heavily I would have given you lessons in politics and etiquette. I do not know why they want to drag you into politics this early but as you probably know, our family has a lot of power currently because I had to marry the women my brothers were engaged to.

My father, your grandfather, wanted to spread the influence of our family not gain power. Originally my brothers were to marry into the other three families and I was to inherit the family business. We would have influence but not the level of power currently as we are second only to the royal family.

After the marriage contracts fell on me and I fulfilled them, one after another the members of the families had accidents which killed off the people inheriting everything until it fell on my sons. Through the laws, the women are not allowed to inherit the title as head of house as such until my sons were of age I became the head of house gaining me 3 additional Lordships and putting me second only to our King.

This would have not matter as I would had lost these Lordships towards my other sons; but because there has been some ancient law from a couple of centuries ago resurvising which basically states that the gained Lordships would fuse under the original one making me the only Duke of this kingdom after combining all assets together.

The royal family and especially the king was not happy that he all of a sudden gained a political enemy on near equal standing overnight and has been trying to attack my position with a lot of different means. That is why I am living with you here in the capital city and not in our original manor.

I did not want to bore you with these annoying politics as I saw how much you enjoyed your studies. I hoped you had time at least until your 16 birthday for when your official social depute in the high society would have been normally."

Green listened closely to his fathers explantation. A bit he feeled stupid to having not digged into his family cercumstains. He assumed that he was "just" a noble but that looked to be a grave underestimation from him. Then he realized as he is always assumed heir to his father that he is in like the top 10 most highest rated what the rare social standing looked like.

"Father how high am I actually on the social order, if I am your son and heir?", Green asked with a certain shock in his face.

"Honestly I am surprised that it took you this long to learn that. But other than the King, me and the crown Prince there is nobody higher. The other members of the royal family are either of your equal or even lower than you on pure technical terms. Of course everything badly said against the royal family will reflect onto the King as such, please remember your manners at all times but also remember that you're my heir and there is only so much they can step over you."

"Sooooooo…. Why do you think they sent me a summon?", Green asked.

"It was a slight oversight on my part, which led to this, as I only was informed about this law affecting you at the beginning of this week. A bit of an explanation is probably once again necessary. Everybody knows kids doing stupid stuff, even if they came from a noble house and this might effect negatvly onto their house. As such there is a law that states a child, which is younger than 18, can only be seen as an adult prematurely if they are either declared an adult by a guardian or if they are able to acquire an occupation." Green's father stopped for a second and looked at his son.

"oh", Green realized what that meant. As he became a Master of Engineering he officially became an adult in front of the laws of his kingdom.

"Good, you realized it. As the King is only allowed to summon adults he was not able to drag you into the petty fight they are trying to start between them and us.

So remember they did not summon you just to congratulate you, they will try something as this is just too good of a chance to use for them!"

With this warning the carriage stopped and the door opened. Green's father's assistant exited the carriage first followed by the father son duo. Green was greeted by a large castle that he had only ever seen from the far.

Green swallowed one last time and readyed is poker face.