Chapter 10: Groundbreaking Vow

On a front seat, twenty something meters from the stage, an elderly female teacher stood up respectfully. "Young Lord, please forgive this old grandma, but what you said just now is unheard of". The old teacher referred to herself as "Grandma" to justify her comment and to not offend the monstrous man before her.

"Young Lord, fostering the younger generation has always been the responsibility of us, the older generation. And when the day comes, when they are a step away from attaining a body and soul enlightenment, it is the Supreme Rulers' blessing which direct them on their path of life..." Another teacher tried to reason. Listening to him, other teachers rose from their seats, nodding and sharing the same opinion.

For a short second the expression on Mortimer Dauch's face showed disdain. He closed his eyes and opened them again with a smile. "Place take to your seats". He gestured courteously.

The teachers, which most were older or at the same age as Mortimer, felt something inside them, at the lower dantian. If not their minds, then their cores were the ones which gave recognition to Mortimer's authority over them, and right after, they could feel it with all of their body and soul as well, how the demeanor of the young man on stage suddenly turned noble and imposing.

"It is very true", Mortimer started saying and lowered his head. "Each year a new generation learns up close the history of our kingdom. They then receive a sentence or two of the Martial path from the Supreme Rulers and finally try their best to earn a proper Earth's Core and cultivate it according to how they interpreted those sentences". Mortimer described the matter and abridged it so that the students could understand what their teachers fuss about.

It was not a laughing matter to him either, but in recent years he began to see it as an issue that cramped the growth of the Martial path in humanity's territory, compared to the amount of advanced experts in the beast's territory. Since birth he followed his father's teaching and those of the other two Supreme Rulers and at this point in his life he gained enough insight and encountered a new threshold in his training that allowed him to construct a new passageway that he believed, will raise in one level the potential of every generation that will decided to follow the Martial path.

"To restore the calm of the respected elders, I will let you in on this..." With a wave of his hand a long black hair pin appeared between his fingers like a chopstick. The hair pin had four golden decorations of a quill pen, an arm, an eye and a circle.

"The emissary's token!" The teachers and the Historic Center's attendants exclaimed in one breath.

The emissary's token was far more than a beautiful hair pin; it bore the insignia of Supreme Ruler Ariel Dauch. It was given to every emissary for two reasons and none was for identification process. The first reason was negligible, that is for customary purposes. The second reason, on the other hand, was to symbolize the trust between the Supreme Ruler and his emissary. When revealing the emissary's token, others must consider the presence and words of its bearer to be equal to the Supreme Ruler's with no complaint.

Possessing it now did not just mean that Mortimer indeed was sent by Supreme Ruler Ariel, but also that he got his approval to inherit his duty.

Mortimer waved his hand again and the hair pin disappeared. He had expressionless face now that everyone recognized his official position.

"Dear sons and daughters of our esteemed kingdom", it was about time for Mortimer to at last voice what he came here with in his heart and from this point on he will not permit any more interferences. "From a young age we are thought that a person is valued by his level of mastery over his or her Earth's Core. The higher the rank of a Mist User, the more his or her status grows.

"In the distant past, pre New Earth, when human beings lived above the ground, the value of individual could never surpass that of the many. Our physical capabilities were frail and unable to evolve. We were bound by a very small portion of earthly possession and understanding.

"More than five thousand years later, after much turbulence and internal and external struggles we were able to acquire a new way of life with many paths to choose from. Out of them, the path that enabled us to do what we could not in the past, physically and spiritually, more than any other path, was the Martial path".

Mortimer scanned the eyes and attention of every boy and girl in the crowd of thousands. In two steps he covered tens of meters from one side of the hall to the other, back and forward. In a second step he was back on the stage. The entire process took no more than a second, so to the eyes of the coreless children it only seemed as if they lost concentration and spaced out.

Mortimer paused, something in the atmosphere around him changed to distant and longing. He glanced at the crowed and his eyes gave the impression that they were looking past them. "The Martial path, the path of Evolution, the path of Immortality, the path of Gods ... To describe the possibilities at the end of this path ... None in our Kingdom Earth, even all of New Earth, can dare to try.

"So then, what can we do to proceed on this path that can strengthen the body and enlighten the soul far beyond what we ever dreamed of and so far we have accomplished? In our world beneath the earth there is no tunnel leading to that answer". Mortimer face became rigid after that declaration. "To realize the Martial path beyond our current achievements it is due time for a certain secret to be finally revealed".

"A secret?"

"What the Young Lord is talking about?"

"This is taking way too long than usual..."

Many of the teachers and Historic Center's attendants wondered what is going on inside Mortimer Dauch's head. In past ceremonies each of the emissaries shared, at most, five sentences. Mortimer, in comparison, did not even seem that he got to his point.

"The Supreme Rulers' whereabouts during the year 4950 until the end of the Dark Century". As the grownups in the crowed became conscious of what was said just now, Mortimer raised a hand and continued louder. "That period in time which never has been revealed to the public is here and now gonna be summarize, therefore please listen.

"After the establishment of Kingdom Earth the Supreme Rulers realized the limitations of their environment and as a result their training was impeded in a juncture they could not overcome on their own. To reach a breakthrough one solution was venturing into the beast's territory and facing the numerous experts they believed were there. Regrettably, back then the relationship between the beasts and Kingdom Earth was just founded and so still unstable. With the recommendation of one of the beasts' leaders that was in contact with the Supreme Rulers, they decided to spare the chance of damaging this new relationship by what could be interpreted as a provocative show of strength.

"The Supreme Rulers secluded themselves, pondering what to do. After indeterminate time, they have raised and agreed to the second solution. Go back to the world above the earth.

"As they predicted, he world we, human beings, lived in the past as evolved beyond what we could ever imagine. In that world the three supreme human beings learned the truth of the Martial path. There they deciphered the Earth's Core secrets to a degree where their accomplishments, thus far, have been greatly hollow. Beneath the legendary blue sky they encountered beings of incomprehensible might that in front of they could only cower-"