7 Ch 7- the royal road testing grounds (updated)
Bowing I walked up to the emperor. "My lord father live a long and blessed life." Waving his hand he told me to relax and sit down next to him. "Sigh... in all these years we have been a ruler nothing has troubled me as much as you. You keep on adding to my woes. What is it you needed? It better be important or we will raise the level of punishment we are going to give you."
With a calm cool demeanor, I said "Lord father I have been reflecting and thought about a lot of things and have decided to change my ways. I want no I need to start thinking about the empire and helping you better the lives of our people."
Shocked! The great emperor of this nation had his mouth opened up wide with a weird but comical look on his face. "Son are you okay did you eat something weird today?"
"No lord father I just want to better myself and have decided to stop being a useless wastrel," I said with a stern look on my face. Slowly releasing a bit of aura. The way the emperor looked at me changed greatly. instead of sitting with his hand on his head he straightened his back and sat up straight. "Are you sure? If you go down this ride there's no going back!"
"I nodded furiously. Going down my path with my head held high is the only way I can temper myself. Yes, lord father!" The emperor then gave me a nod of approval and slowly got up from his throne. With quite quick steps he walked up to me and grabbed my shoulders and said "We never thought this would ever happen. After so many years of trying to help you change your ways, you have finally seen the light. I'm proud of you son.
He then went in for a strong hug. I really didn't expect this but this hit actually felt right. I felt an overwhelming amount of fatherly love flooding towards me. I quickly recuperated the hug and helped the emperor sit back down on his throne. The emperor looked at me again but this time with a look full of care and love.
"In my empire, we have a right of passage for every crown prince. Only the next in line can walk it. The first high king of our nation your great great great great grandfather found a secret realm and built our empire around it. Right now only a handful of people in the whole world know what it even is. Not to mention where it is. The great high King called it the king's path but after many years and many candidates for the throne we found out its true name the royal road."
"The royal road? Why would it be called that? Don't tell me this is a shard of a world that fell down or destroyed kingdoms' everyday path." I said somewhat excited.
The emperor looked at me with a credulous look. And laughed "That's some imagination you got there. No nothing like that. This is a hidden training ground for a strong power that for some reason got lost to time. We don't know much about it
But right now we found the four main training sections. First is a simulation of a war that is never-ending. You with persuasion have to stop both sides from fighting. The second area is a palace that has a random person trying to overthrow the king.
It's your job to help or stop them. How you do it is up to you. The third section that we found out is ever-changing but when we finished that section we were forced to make an oath. Finally the fourth section, this section is the most fun and what everyone did this test for. The reward room. This area has a total of all the merits that you have gained the whole test. Using those merits you can look through the shop and buy anything you want."
Pointing at his throne the emperor said "This throne was one of the things the first emperor bought using his merits. The throne is called high suppression. It has two main powers first it pushes down a strong suppressing field into anyone that's not sitting on it and the second power might scare you a bit."
Laughing out loud the emperor said "The second power is called burning truth. No matter what you say it will find the closest path to the truth in your words. So I appreciate that no matter what you said here today everything was the truth. I can see you have really changed and tried to better yourself. Come follow me we need to go down to the wine room the secret tunnel is down in there."
I followed the emperor down as the old almost dusty head eunuch walked up and greeted both me and the emperor. The eunuch walked in front of us with quick agile steps and showed walked us down a winding path to the wine cellar. We were quickly greeted by two old men in clean gray robes Harding the entrance.
"Hello your majesty, hello crown prince, and hello head eunuch Gao. Can I see the wine seal from both his majesty and eunuch Gao." The emperor nodded and took out an intricate seal depicting a young man with a gourd in his hands and a sword in the other. Almost looking lifelike."
The emperor then bowed tears the men and walked in with me and eunuch Gao following behind him. The wine cellar I was expecting wasn't there instead of a large gate with a portal. The gate looked like it was made of clear white metal nothing I have ever seen before.
So smooth and large that it didn't look easy to make at all. The emperor signaled me to walk forward and as I was about to walk through told me good luck. "Thank you, emperor father." The small things this emperor does for me has really warmed my heart. I wish I'm my next life I could have a father like this.
