"Huh," they all frowned and looked at Lirian with incredulity, "What the hell does money have to do with the register?" Wentian frowned at him.
Even Edith couldn't understand the logic behind his words, how does money play into the register.
Lirian leaned across his seat lazily and yawned, "Don't fret so much I'll explain, and don't feel too discouraged about this, after all, I had a home-field advantage vs. All of you, well except Cole and Indra, but given their none political backgrounds it can be argued that they aren't to blamed for not figuring it out."
"So, only someone raised on Xelia with a political background would be able to use the method you did," Tobias concludes narrowing his eyes.
"Well, I wouldn't say only those people can, it's just that they are far more likely to figure it out," Lirian nodded slightly.
"Shortly after my mother announced that I'd be attending the school, I was keeping tabs on the local news and articles about the school as I did a bit of research," the others nodded it was not an uncommon task for someone in a political family to thoroughly investigate every place they set foot in.
"It was then that I discovered some donations that had been made to the school, and when I read the article, it spoke about a couple of the families that have deep friendships with the school, and their donations to the school were listed as PR stunts, an all-too-common occurrence in politics, at the time I didn't think too much of it, until last night when I went through the register of my class."
"I noticed that some of the names were the same I had seen in the article so went back and checked it out, and as I looked through, I noticed that every single name matched someone in my class."
"After that, I looked for the years that all of you entered the school and looked for donations and I found an entire list of donations that appeared shortly after your families announced your attendance of this academy."
He sent out another packet of data to each of them to show them the amounts that were donated after they entered the school.
"Tobias and I started in the same year how were you able to sort out the list of classes so accurately after all the donations don't list who they are made for?" Edith asked.
Lirian only chuckled and took a refreshing sip of his drink, "As Wentian mentioned earlier I'm from the direct royal line which makes me have a higher value, and since you are from a super world your value is higher than Tobias who comes from an advanced world."
"Did you really manage to do all this in only one night?" Median asked.
"I even got an hour of sleep," he chuckled lazily.
"I can't believe that I didn't realise every slot in our class had been bought and decided before we even got here," Edith murmured, "I thought the empire decided the families that would be involved in our development."
"I think that's asking for much don't you think, the mortality rate of a candidate is abysmally low, why would the empire waste its precious time carefully deliberating about who to put in the class of every candidate throughout the empire, they outsourced it to the families to use as a form of entertainment, and it's the best form of entertainment in the world to the families it's a game with real stakes and it could change the direction of their entire houses."
"You're saying that we are their entertainment," Cole asked with a spark of rebellious fire in his eyes.
"Why shouldn't we be seen as a form of entertainment to them?" he laughed and the others frowned.
"Can't any of you imagine how hilarious we must look from above, a bunch of children without any real power, playing a game as old as the six civilisations, I mean look at us we are taking ourselves so seriously in this school and working so hard to make a deep impression on the civilization as a whole, but two hundred years later when our trial ends, we'll be lucky if even one of us can survive, those who look down on us from above might as well be gods and we are the cattle they graze in their fields."
His laugh was like a lunatic as he thought of the scenery from above, after all, it had been his favorite pass time activity as a god to watch the lives of lesser beings as they try so desperately to make themselves great, they would betray their leaders saying they lacked ambition only to be betrayed by their own subordinates that would later claim that they lacked ambition and the cycle would go on nearly endlessly.
"The only difference is that we can stop being the cattle and become recognised as a true prince or princess of the empire," said Edith as she regained her calm, as she looked at laughing Lirian she could see why he didn't care about sitting around properly and acting as the perfect doll in front of them, it was because within his first day he took several steps ahead of the rest of them, he didn't need their approval they needed his.
"True," he calmed his laugh, "but can you picture how they will laugh when we speak all big in here like we so great only to die in the trial or worse to tap out halfway through because it was too much for us to bear."
His words left a silence in the room, it was now clearer than ever to all of them how terribly small they really were, they families with power were by slots in their classes for their descendants to enter, and since they were actually spending money on something like this it meant that they were invested in each candidate.
The students in a candidate's class were sent as spies to determine the value of the candidate, but they also acted as a form of support for the candidates, and the two-hundred-year trial, as well as the two-hundred-year course of the school, were inter-connected.
All the students in their classes have positions in their families that would either rise or fall depending on the success or failure of the candidate, should the candidate survive the trial those students would be given higher statuses in their families and it would be up to them to work with the candidate to elevate their position to higher places.
This was the first secret of every candidate; your class is your future in an extremely literal sense and it was there that Lirian had made his first mistake with his little attack on them.
The silence was heavy in the room as everyone contemplated the news, it was a completely different angle from what they used and it completely changed how they saw things.
It was Media who broke the silence after a while, "It seems that the rumors about you were severely understated," she said with a smile.
"Even rumors have their limits, eventually people will call them made-up fables if it surpasses their common understanding of the world," he responded in kind.
The rest all felt themselves going red in embarrassment for him, he was truly one of those legendary characters that knew not of shame. How could they not realise that he was praising himself with that reply.
The food that everyone ordered started to come up through platforms in front of their seats and as everyone started to eat their own meals Lirian felt his mouth-watering, he always felt that others ordered the food he really wanted and he had poor taste in his food selection.
He eyed Tobias's purple Mantri steaks and did his best to stop his drool from flowing.
Wentian was looking at his ramen with a disheartened face and didn't seem all that interested in eating it.
Tobias took a nice slice of his meat allowed the meat to melt in his mouth, he looked at Wentian, "What's got you looking so down?"
"It's probably because the slots for Media's class were worth almost three times more than his," Edith said with a playful smile.
"It doesn't make any sense we are both from high worlds why are her slots worth so much more than mine," he cried in outrage.
"It's probably because she's from six-star zones away it, since this star zone doesn't have too much interaction with the Nebula star zone her presence here is an anomaly it makes her far more interesting to watch and her attitude towards the people here represents her star zones attitude towards the Opal star zone," Tobias said thoughtfully.
"I don't see why the figure discourages you so much after all Coles is much lower than yours but he seems unaffected by it, it makes him seem a lot more princely," Lirian added.
"Easy for you to say each slot in your class was worth almost 13 billion credits, it even blows Edith's figure out of the water by more than 15 times." he cried with saddened eyes.
"A direct royal line candidate is rare so it only makes sense that the value is much higher, besides try to bear in mind that while the value of my slots are extremely high it doesn't mean that I have students in my class that are worth 13 billion credits after all they are still only ten years old, only time will tell how competent they turn to be."