A majestic building stood tall in the eastern part of the Royal Capital, the Royal Academy painted with purple colour and bearing the symbol of the royal family is the gathering place for the best mind in the Vertalis Kingdom. From commoners to nobles son and daughter, only the brightest mind in the Kingdom can enter the academy. The entrance test is so difficult that even the Original Cain failed to get accepted in the academy and that is why the King decide to hire a private tutor for him instead.
The Royal Academy also boast having the largest library in the Kingdom known with a vast selection of books. In his previous life when Cain visit the royal capital when the civil war is over, the Royal Academy have been burned into ashes by the flame of war.
"Welcome Prince Cain, Royal Secretary Bergen have informed of your purpose for this visit" said an old man with a long beard.
Thank you Dean Ladorf, I am sorry for taking your time, I hope that I can talk to all student in the academy, please help me gather all the student in the academy auditorium.
Yes your majesty, after a while Dean Ladorf told Cain that all the available students have assembled in the auditorium.
Royal Academy as the most prestigious academy in the kingdom holds the most student. Half of them are the son and daughters of a noble family and the other half are commoners, some of them are the son/daughters of a merchant, blacksmith, alchemist, and civil administrator in the capital.
Hello everyone, my name is Cain Aramir, the third prince of Vertalis Kingdom. As you may have heard already, I will inherit the title of a Duke and will get my own territory in the near future therefore I have come to stand before all of you to invite you to come and work in my territory. You may work as you wish as a blacksmith, alchemist, merchant or any occupation of your choice and I assure you the treatment and compensation will be the same as the capital.
A loud murmurs ensued…
Isn't Verzia a frontier territory? Who in the right mind would go to such a backward place said the son of a count.
I heard that the prince receive millions of compensation from the two dukes, if he pay well enough I might consider to go there said the son of a merchant.
All kinds of discussion ensued but Cain said another things that make them surprised.
I can accept any of you to come to my territory to work for me under three conditions :
1. Don't have prejudice against Variant Races since most of the population in my territory will be variant races
2. I don't care whether your status is noble or commoners, in my territory you have to follow my rules, if not the punishment for nobles and commoners are the same
3. Promotion and titles are given according to the merits you made
A loud murmurs ensued once more, most nobles son/daughters after hearing those rules swore they would never go that place while most commoners are excited when hearing the conditions. Some of the commoners are a mixed breeds of variant races and receive racial treatment from the Kingdom, they have a hard time finding a job especially if they want to join the Kingdom administration department controlled mostly by the nobles.
Anybody have a question?
The commoner student raised their hands one another asking more detailed information while the student with a noble lineage left the room hurriedly.
In the midst of Q&A session, Cain intend to finish this quickly.
I will give you one month of time to think. Those that are interested can go inform Dean Ladorf. Thank you for your attention, Goodbye.
After leaving the royal academy seeing the sun was about to set Cain sighed, really sometimes when we plan something the reality may differ. He can only postpone his visit to the slums, mercenary guild and military barracks tomorrow.
Back at his study room Cain already finish the list of the goods he wants that can substitute gold coins from Duke Grom and Duke Strauss based on their territory specialty product.
Duke Grom offers : Iron ore, Copper ore, Bronze ore, Lumber, Clay, Sand, Lime, Coal
Duke Strauss : Quilet Seeds (looks like rice), Swoms Seeds (looks like wheat), Variety of Food, Deyse bird (looks like chicken except their eggs are round like a ball), Moxen (looks like a hybrid between cow and pig eaten for their meat)
Looking at the long list, Cain have some doubt, from his knowledge in the previous life when he spend most of his time reading books to increase his knowledge about this world, most of the minerals in this world are the same with earth even they have minerals that are not available on earth such as magic crystal, adamantium ore, etc, except there are no animals that looks exactly like earth. All the animals look different and there are many monsters in the wilderness.
In this world there is no dimensional storage equipment like in the earth novel, from what he reads only ancient civilization once have that technology but it have been lost thousands of year ago. In his previous life Cain abused his true space rune that have 1000x1000x1000 metres dimensional space by scavenging other nobles castles and loot their treasury. It even create a legend that a Legendary thief is roaming the continent. He robs their treasury and put valuable things in his storage space and cast teleport to run away but due to his limited mana pool, he can only use it once a week.
Cain intends to sneaks to Duke Mallory castle in the near future, Duke Mallory is known as the richest man in Vertalis kingdom since his territory is the most prosperous one and he control the biggest merchant association in the kingdom that have many trade routes with other nation. Out of the three Dukes, Duke Mallory remains neutral in the civil war, he squander his money to hire many mercenary group to boost his troops and defend strategic resources in his territory and guards his trade convoy. Prince Leo and Prince David have tried to persuade him to join their faction but to no avail and said that he wish to remains neutral until the new King is crowned.
At least that is the facade that he uses to deceive other nobles, in truth he profits much from hoarding food stock during the war and sold them 5 times the normal price. He manipulates the prices of ordinary goods so that the kingdom falls into a massive famine and most of its people died of starvation. Cain only got this info after he found the Duke's personal notebook when he killed him in the previous life.
But in the previous life when Cain managed to kill Duke Mallory and found the treasury vault, most of his riches have been transferred to other nations along with his close family members and even with that, Cain can still scrap 4 millions gold worth of goods and money from his diminishing treasury.