The tears shed by his mother and his aunt were a mix between sadness and happiness. They knew it was the best that could happen to him, but they wanted to be part of his development too. Unfortunately, it was common knowledge that the Lord was very protective of the children he trained, they were rarely seen walking the streets, usually leaving the castle only to buy materials needed for some research or to help their training.
Riwall was unceremoniously taken to the castle the next morning, two of the lord's personal guard arrived with a carriage and did not utter a single word, grabbing Riwall by his arm and tossing him inside and locking the door. Hellen took a step forward out of reflex to protect her son when one of the guards pointed the tip of his sword on her throat. Riwall tried opening the door, but with no success, he was not strong enough, all he could do was to put his best reassuring smile and try to ease Hellen's heart.
It did the trick, calming Hellen enough for her to rationalize better and understand that there was nothing she could do now, all attempts of resisting the lord's will would only make Riwall position weaker among the other children.
The carriage finally began its slow journey to the castle and only now did Riwall notice how he was not alone in this situation. Together with him, there was a small girl and a boy of his size, and they were probably commoners like him that got a potential of at least A.
The girl was of a race that seemed to be a mix between humans and foxes. She had bright red hair, long fox's ears of the same color, hazel eyes that had vertical slits, giving her a predatory look that sent shivers down Riwall's spine, and a bushy tail that he caught a glimpse.
The boy was as plain as someone could be, brown hair and eyes, unkempt hair and a scared look stamped on his face.
"Well, hello guys, my name is Riwall Madec and I am 8-year-old, what about you?"
They both took some seconds to answer.
"I'm Gregory, 8-year-old too..." The boy almost whispered.
"Nice to meet you Gregory, and you fox girl? What's your name?"
The girl snarled when he called her fox girl, but he was not flustered.
"Anna, my name is Anna Kendric, also 8-year-old. If you call me fox girl again, I will rip you apart."
{All have the same age? I have my doubts if it's just a coincidence.}
"Sorry, Anna, I meant no offense. Let's get along from now onward. I think we commoners need to stick together when near the nobles." She frowned after his wordy apology.
"Why do you say that?" Anna's interest was picked.
"We are riding in a very uncomfortable carriage and being escorted by two very rude guards. I doubt noble kids are being treated like that."
He wanted to elaborate more, but he felt like most of anything he said was being ignored by the two kids, not because they were uninterested, but because they were only eight and lacked a rich vocabulary.
{I may have to instruct them on some basic things if I want us to band together.}
The way the guards treated the three kids made it clear for Riwall that the nobles had some prejudice against commoners, which meant that Anna and Gregory would most likely be his only friends for a while as they were most likely the only ones at his age with at least A potential and from commoner origins.
-------------------------
About one hour later, they arrived at the castle, and it was a sight to behold, few buildings on Earth could rival it in size or grandiosity. Its walls had a gray color and were 7 meters high, which is the height of the Great Wall of China's. The castle itself was huge and beautiful, following an English design that made it resemble Conwy Castle, but bigger, the streets around the main building were bustling with activity as if it was a self-contained city.
{It does seem like magic affected this world's architecture; the sheer size and beauty of the buildings could not be achieved on Earth during the medieval age. Despite the existence of magic, it seems like humanity is fated to segregate itself, be it based on wealth, race or societal status, for the castle grounds are like a self-contained city of much better planning and infrastructure than the village, with houses, shops, and roads that make one mistake it for a town and not the grounds of a military building. The village of Marsastor is clearly nothing but a hub for commoners and foreigners to live and prosper under the watchful eyes of the ones living in the castle.}
The carriage went past the residence of Lord Kester Marsastor, which was surprisingly not among the biggest, and arrived at one that struck to Riwall as the barracks or something close to that. He could hear some distant sounds of metal clashing and some people shouting commands.
"Ok you three, move out!"
The three commoners wasted no time in jumping off the carriage.
"You see that white-haired fellow?" The rude guard said while pointing to another guard that was by the door of the barracks.
"His name is Joshua. You follow him in silence and obey his orders from now on. He is the one responsible for all commoners that are raised by the good grace of the Marsastors."
{So we will not be living with the noble's sons and daughters, that's a relief.}
The trio silently made their way to Joshua and just blankly looked at him, waiting for orders or at least some sort of introduction.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, Joshua frowned and sighed.
"So you don't even know how to greet nobles, huh? First lesson kids, do at least a short bow when seeing a noble, I thought commoners knew about it. Well, your files say you are all eight years old, your parents should be punished for not teaching you basic manners before your better. Don't worry, I won't pursue this matter, as long as you don't let it happen again or disobey me in the future. Do I make myself clear?"
The three nodded.
"I see your files make no mention about a few things, your masters will see to it in the future. Now, out of curiosity, do any of you have a complete mana pathway?"
Only Riwall raised his hand.
"Do the two of you without pathways have any family design?"
Both Anna and Gregory shook their heads, which did not surprise Joshua as commoners rarely had any kind of heirloom mana pathway design.
"Let's get to it then, my name is Joshua, a member of the Dewbrook family, and I am the supervisor of the students from more humble origins. For now, follow me, I will show you the building and your room, and then you will have the day off, I still need to finish the draft of your schedule. Go to bed early today so you can all be ready to begin your training tomorrow."
The trio followed Joshua in silence while he showed the place for them. As Riwall suspected, this building was indeed one meant for the training of soldiers, but much to his surprise, it was only one of three that existed. The Marsastor family opted for organizing the soldier's training in three levels.
The first building specializes in the training of low-level soldiers, usually new recruits, or drafted commoners during periods of war.
The second one, which was the one they were in now, was meant for the training of commoners with high potential like the trio, which had not appeared in the last fifteen years, and mid-level soldiers with solid combat skills and levels ranging from 15 to 35.
The last one specializes in the training of officials and high-level soldiers, whose levels were all above 35.
Riwall take on this system was not positive, he speculated that the ones from the first building would be meat-shields, meant to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers or to at least tire the enemy out for the other two classes of soldiers to finish the job.
{And the whole thing about the village having only two healers is also strange, I am sure I saw more than three healers during our tour in this building. I may be overstretching my imagination, but with healing magic, I think there should be problems of overpopulation among the commoners, maybe they keep their numbers in check by regulating the availability of healers?}
The more he saw, the more skeptical he felt about the ruling family.
{Erika has clearly overstated the Marsastor's honor and worry for the serfs. Judging by the striking difference between the castle grounds and the village, they are barely doing the minimum!}
-------------------------
Joshua quickly ended the tour and dumped the three kids in a small room with a single wardrobe and a bunk bed with a trundle. Being gentlemen, Riwall and Gregory let Anna pick her spot first, which ended up being the top bunk. None of the boys wanted to sleep in the trundle, so they agreed to take turns each week.
They chit-chatted for a while and soon went to sleep, Gregory and Anna were still kids, both physically and mentally, so talking to them was tiresome for Riwall who had a 25-year-old mind. From the few things he knew about this world, lone adventurers would always find their way to the grave sooner than parties.
Riwall could not sleep before sharing his worries about the future with his always present friend. The longer he spent with Friday, the more he saw that most of his mistakes in life happened because of his impulsiveness.
{If we can somehow shape Anna and Gregory's personalities and skills to go well with mines, we may be able to make a good starting point for a reliable party. Worst case scenario: we each go our separate ways after this whole ordeal.}
[A sound plan, but you are overestimating your influence on their personalities. They are eight-year-old like you, and their personalities are practically set in stone. It would be wiser to build an honest bond and help them mature sooner. What you need is psychologically mature companions, not people you think are cool to have a drink with.]
{Hmm, I think you make a good point, as long as the person beside me in a fight is emotionally stable and have a good head above their shoulders, other things are of little importance.}
[I will devote more attention to their behavior and progress, should I find they are developing habits that would endanger our future party or us, I will let you know and suggest a course of action.]
{Reliable as always, thank you Friday.}
[Don't mention it Riwall, we are in this together.]
Both Riwall and Friday were changing through their connection. Her machine-like behavior was becoming more human by the day while he was learning to act more rationally and plan for the future instead of going with the flow like he used to do on Earth.
-------------------------
On the following morning, Joshua woke them up a little bit before sunrise and handed them their schedule. Neither Anna nor Gregory knew how to read, so he made Riwall, the only one literate, responsible for explaining to them their daily routine every morning until one of the teachers taught them how to read and write.
For one year, their routine would not change much. The trio would go every morning to the training grounds to do some light exercises meant for raising their stamina and some stretching to prepare their bodies for the future.
As they would be warmed up, each would go to a specific instructor to take lessons about combat skills that were more aligned to their current stats.
Anna was going to take lessons on edged weapons, more specifically on how to use daggers and shortswords. Her stats were not disclosed to Riwall, but Joshua said she had more potential to fight as a harasser.
Gregory was going to take lessons on edged weapons with Anna, followed by archery. Their supervisor told him he was far more suitable to ranged fighting, both physical and magical, so his routine would revolve around catering to his strengths, the edged weapons training is meant to teach him how to fight in the eventuality of finding himself in close range to his opponents.
Riwall was an all-rounder, he was going to take lessons with both Anna and Gregory in edged weapons, with Gregory on archery, then, while they were away being taught on how to write and read, he was going to be trained on fist fighting and the use of blunt and pole weapons. After one year, they would allow him to specialize in one or more physical combat.
Every other day, they would have basic lessons on magic in general. According to Joshua, the Adventurers Guildmaster, Hector, personally asked the Lord to teach them so that he would be their first and only master for now. All the other lessons would be supervised by different soldiers each day, for all of them were overqualified to teach the basics to kids.
Riwall got exempted from the magic classes during the first three months. Hector would be devoted to helping both Anna and Gregory in creating their own mana pathways, and it would demand all his attention.
To not let him be idle during the evenings of magic classes, Hector would bring books related to magic theory with him. Riwall would have to do his best to read them in his room, learn the contents, and write a summary of it to the best of his understanding.
Needless to say, Friday was ecstatic.