The things I've learnt about the woman that brought "me" up was that she served as a maid in the Dragon palace, which was the King's palace, which had the main hall and his resting area along with this huge garden he owned. I've never been there before, but I heard the garden held many white roses. It was almost like the heavenly gates, extremely beautiful. The woman whom I call mother now worked there and would occasionally pass by there, and she'd see His Majesty. The way she described him was like how my birth mother (the concubine) describes him. It seems like the painting did him no justice, and it seemed like my theory was right. The "me" from now, is the rightful heir to the throne. I could see it from my features. The males in the royal family always had a signature silver hair paired with blue eyes. Silver hair isn't a common thing in this world, and it is rumored that the royal family came from a line of ancient magic users that carried this silver haired gene which signified their vast magical powers.
In this world, magic powers aren't common. A small percentage of people could use them, and I would say swordsmanship is the more common method of showing prowess in the world of commoners. A magic user and a swordsman at the same time was even rarer. Magic users were rumored to be weak in physical combat, though the King proved otherwise.
Magic powers work mysteriously. The more "mana" you have, the longer you live. It's as if mana is like an extension of your life, in turn, the over usage of mana could also end your life. The King is known to look awfully young for a 40 year old man, though still down in the luck with gaining a male heir.
By the time I learnt to even blabber words, I asked my mother about the 8th princess of the Earl Kingdom, and it seemed like the princess, aka, me, passed away from a terrible fever. The memorial lasted half a day, rather short though befitting the youngest princess that everybody rarely knows about. Such a pitiful death— I would curse the gods as to what I did to deserve that.
Living as a commoner, or should I say, a family with a lower income, education wasn't really a thing. I was lucky to have retained my previous life's knowledge to know how to read and write. When I was homeschooled from a young age, I've learnt numerous subjects, along with history, accounting, science, astrology. I took pride in my eagerness to learn. Hence, even though I had no education experience, I've retained the vast knowledge. However, without a certificate of education, my future would be rather hard, especially since I want to get out of the slums.
My mother who's a single mother, works in the local hospital as a cleaner, and would often fall sick. Despite knowing she's not my birth mother, I feel bad for her. Her daughter was robbed since birth but she took care of me, a boy that had nothing to do with her. I always find the sack of coins the 2nd queen gave to her sitting in the cabinet untouched, till this day. I wonder if she still missed her daughter.
Thus! To help the woman that raised me since I was young, there's only one option!
To join the royal knights!
Why not just claim back the throne, you ask? There's no way am I going back to the stuffy palace with cunning politicians stabbing each other in the back, and especially not to see the chauvinistic man that was called my father.
On the other hand, the 2nd queen seemed to be still favored. She had given birth to another princess, but who knows if there was another swap like this?
I'm Alexander Black, and I've reached 16, the age of adulthood and the right time to enter the royal knight training school— but first! To find out a way to enter, without having to pay a huge sum of money...
I wouldn't say I was tempted to steal the coins from the "secret" sack, but that would betraying the woman that raised me.
But my prayers were answered and a solution fell right in front of me— the Royal Knight sponsored rookie competition! A competition for 12-16 year olds to compete in swordsmanship, magical prowess and physical strength. There would be higher ups watching the competition and you might just be scouted into the Royal Knights academy with full scholarship! The winner even gets paid 5 gold coins.
It might just seem like the right boat to jump on.