CG Chapter 69: Three letters
After Tom left the restaurant, he quickly made his way back to the church.
During the carriage ride, his mind was filled with thoughts of everything that just happened.
He touched his right earring while thinking, "Crown Prince Alexander de Astrial, you're interesting, really interesting. However, that's just it."
"Your schemes and whatever reason you have for inviting me doesn't matter, for when the cards are revealed you… Well, we will see where things go when we get there."
Once he entered the church, Tom grabbed three papers.
The first was, of course, the invite that would be sent to Alfred, and for the other two, he did things to them that would make no sense to anyone other than himself.
If anyone had seen him while sending them, then they would have thought of him as a madman.
The letter for Alfred had:
"How are you doing, Alfred? I hope that you are doing well. It's been a while since we last met. I am sending you this message to alert you that you will accompany me to an important event. I have kept my promise. Like I told you, I made a name for myself in Sollaria, and now I have a high position. Things are getting interesting here. Oh, on a side note, I hope that you have improved your cooking skills while we have been apart. I think they will really come in handy during our journey."
As for the second letter, Tom grabbed the second paper before burning it to ashes and placing the ashes in an envelope.
These two letters were both sent to the Castle of Flameheart by a courier.
These couriers have multiple locations across the seven kingdoms and use a special kind of bird that travels from one location to another at an astonishing speed.
It only takes them a matter of days to go from one kingdom to another. They pride themselves on their "Seven Kingdoms in Seven Days" motto. From there, the letter would get sent by hand to the Castle of Flameheart.
The final letter, however, wasn't sent by a courier. Instead, it was sent by a white giant wolf that leaped alone, traveling through kingdoms and mountains to deliver this single message to an unknown place.
…
After he sent all three letters, Tom was finally able to make time for his breakthrough.
In this world, two giant walls stood in the way of knights; these walls stopped countless knights from advancing.
One was the wall from an apprentice to a formal knight. This wall acted like the chasm that would separate the lowly soldiers from the high nobles.
Those who were fortunate enough to become a formal knight after arduous training would have their whole status transformed. They will no longer serve a noble household but instead, go on to become lords of their own territory.
However, this success would only last for as long as they lived, as these titles wouldn't get carried down to their descendants. For this reason, many knights would choose to serve extremely high-ranking nobles.
If they were lucky enough to join the race alongside a royal prince and survive, then they may acquire a hereditary title that would separate them from the peasants for generations to come, creating their own households.
The second wall was the cursed shackle that made many knights die in hatred while trying to shatter it.
The way to break through this wall was a well-guarded secret of the royal families that they guarded for more than six thousand years, and even then, they would only have a couple of knights every generation.
Of course, even after knowing about these two walls, many would still have the foolish idea that they might become the next lucky person to make it across.
A few of them would even think they might find the way beyond Grand Knight.
Unfortunately for them, even if reaching a Grand Knight was possible, going any further wasn't something any of them could or would achieve.
If they wanted to curse anyone then they should curse their own luck for being born in a rank one world.
At least they were more fortunate than the people who were imprisoned in rank-zero worlds.
Understanding all of that Tom didn't care about the wall he was going to face, for the last year, he has built an incredibly strong foundation.
In his isolated room where no one could see or hear anything that was going on inside he took off most of his clothes as he sat on his bed.
In his hand, he held a bottle that he had been working on for a long time.
That was a bottle of pure concentrated poison that could take out a grown man in seconds, the flesh-tearing poison named 'Flesh Rot' by him.
Once it reaches your bloodstream, it acts like an acid causing pain that would cause you to wish for death instead of feeling it.
This poison wasn't something any man could make; it was the creation of the devil. The pain and suffering of feeling every muscle in your body tear part by part, the feeling as if you are being dissected alive from the inside.
Unfortunately, due to the rare resource this vile was made of, Tom could only make this one bottle, that he made specially for himself.
Knowing that Tom was neither a madman nor a fool one question arises why? Why would he consume a poison by his own hands and choice?