33 Risen#re

Edith shook her head but did as she was told.

"The advanced worlds, are the spear of exploration into the unknown, they conquer new worlds and bring them into the fold as lower and lesser worlds,"

"The super worlds support the advancement of advanced worlds while protecting what belongs to the empire and constantly reporting all findings that can help and aid in the growth of the empire,"

"The high worlds are the backbone of the empire; they handle all the daily affairs of the empire while guiding the lower and lesser worlds into the ranks of the advanced worlds,"

"However, in every star zone there are ten high worlds that hold a sacred duty of guiding the future leaders of the world, this is known as the candidate's trial,"

Just as she was about to continue her mother stopped her, "Do you have any idea where the headmasters of the academies come from?!", it was a rhetorical question everyone knew the answer to that, it was the ten Paragon families.

All ten of them were sworn to forever serve the Clovis emperor and empress, it was impossible for any member of these families to betray the empire, and even amongst the super worlds, they were on a completely different level, every member of those families are second accord combatants.

It led to their numbers being small, but their might was legendary, a single unit from them could bring a world to its end.

"It's impossible for them to set even one toe out of line, let alone betraying the empress," she said with incredulity.

"If you don't tell me, we are just going to buy the information from someone, without giving them all the details of course," Edith said before her mom could cut the call, she added quickly, ", hopefully, we can pay them enough to keep their mouths shut, but you know info brokers anything can be bought with the right price."

Milan forced herself to control her breathing, her daughter was literally threatening her with her own safety, 'This is why we are not supposed to get close to them, they use our emotions to their advantage, and make us give them things that they have no right to have.'

She looked at Edith with a sullen expression, "I'll tell you what you want to know, but this will be the last time we talk like this until you complete your trial, that will be your punishment for doing this," she hissed through clenched teeth.

Edith's heart sunk, she had expected this, but it still hurt anyway, "What about before I leave?" the words tumbled from her mouth before she could think.

"That will be your punishment,", Milan answered sternly not giving an inch into her desires, she had spoiled her daughter a little too much and now it was time to discipline her.

"Now, listen closely I will not repeat myself," she began to tell Edith what she asked in as much detail as possible before their time together ran out.

---

Lirian took a break and was lounging on his bed listening to the history of Emperor Albert, it was a history topic he rather enjoyed, after all, it wasn't very often that a very successful leader committed suicide.

His story was one that could not be told without his identical twin brother Alfred, they were born to one of the Paragon families.

They came from the Dao family and they were celebrated during their time, in fact, the widely played game of rock, paper, scissors, that seemed to exist in every world that Lirian ever visited was renamed because of them, in the Clovis empire the game was called 'The Emperor's Gambit'.

After passing every test that the world threw at them the brothers had never been closer and the empress before them didn't know who to pick as her successor, that's when the two of them said that they'd come up with a solution and went on a journey for ten years.

When they returned, they walked the isle of crowning together and when they came before the throne in front of the entire world, they played a game of rock, paper, scissors.

When Albert won, he walked forward and took the throne, baffling everyone even the old empress and emperor.

Seconds later his brother took a solemn vow on his soul to serve as his brother's guard until his reign came to an end, there were still recordings of the events, Lirian sighed at the fact that he couldn't watch it and see the crazed expressions of the nobles present.

Emperor Albert went on to explain, that after over a thousand years of hard work, both he and his brother wanted a nice long holiday, so they lied about the gambit and kept telling the nobles everywhere that they visited, that they were having a secret contest between the two of them on every world they visited.

They went so far as to say that on the day they set of, they decided that they were going to play a game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who would become the emperor and that the loser would be the emperor's guard.

Lirian felt it was such a pity that such an eccentric emperor killed himself, he was nonchalant and carefree, 'It probably had something to do with the death of his brother,' he made a mental note, 'Or some woman, yes definitely a woman that betrayed him and ruined his life,' Lirian added that possibility, 'It always comes down to love and betrayal,' he mused to himself.

But as he read further, he discovered that emperor Albert actually never took a wife, and only ever had a few concubines to produce his heirs.

It was at that point that his communicator rang and he received a long message from Edith, in which she only stated what she learned but said nothing else.

'Huh,' he was puzzled the info was very long, as it turned out the perks of being a headmaster were numerous but what puzzled him was that Edith said nothing else, he waited for a while but she still didn't add anything, it was actually odd that she didn't call him to tell him what she learned.

She usually called for small things, while dressed in very revealing clothing and she'd go on for hours on end, showing him her new clothes, getting his opinion about her make-up, and almost always, she'd find a way to speak about those useless marksmen rifles, that can leave a person choking on smoke after firing a single round.

He was going to miss looking at her long legs and her cute belly button, "Maybe something came up so she didn't have the time to chat.' he muttered to himself, bringing his thoughts back on track.

"I'll just talk to her tomorrow," he said putting the matter to the side, and he continued to listen to the history of emperor Albert, the part in particular that he was paying attention to now was the Uldwin rebellion, it was a very important part of history, it was also these events that lead to the death of Alfred Dao, the emperor's brother, his history class had vaguely brushed over it.

There were a lot of important pieces of history that lead up to the Uldwin family's rebellion and they had only begun to touch the surface in the academy.