The System Compendium.

There was a book that detailed all that the so-called System functions and it was the only book that was in every library in the world. No one knew how they got there nor who wrote them, but many theorized that it was a gift from a God.

“Milady, don’t you think it’s time to learn the alphabet?” asked Iris as Eliza flipped yet another page of the absurdly long book.

“I’m not done with the System Compendium,” bluntly said Eliza and fixed her glasses. After insisting that she look as studious as Iris, Eliza managed to bully her father into having a carpenter make the wooden frame for her.

The System Compendium was written by someone with the Polyglot Skill. Anyone could understand it but no one knew the language it was written in. There was no letter and each one of the square shapes had a certain meaning, which morphed into a different phrase depending on which two were paired without a space between them.

“But milady, you’re almost four years old. Your father will have my head if you can’t reach a moderate level of education by next year,” said Iris as she combed her hair which had now reached her shoulders. It was uncomfortable to have it be combed when it was all tangled up but she was too busy reading the book to bother yelling, “And only the first three chapters are practical knowledge.”

“Do I really have to learn each language separately?” asked Eliza.

“But that’s how you learn languages,” said Iris slowly, as if tasting each word. It was obvious that the last four years had taken their toll on Iris.

Eliza was what you’d call a problem child if she could be called that. As a newborn, she’d made a language that consisted of groans and hums that could be understood by everyone. Before she learned to walk, she’d managed to perfectly master the spoken language of Vanaris.

Those from Vanaris were known as Vanarians and the language was called Common Vanarian.

“That’s such a bother. Why doesn’t the world have one common language?” she mumbled underneath her breath.

“Because there are countless cultures across the world, milady. Even within Vanaris, there are seven different ethnicities and over fifty different cultures,” instructed Iris and Eliza rolled her eyes at that.

Iris was a master of turning anything into a learning opportunity, which Eliza didn’t hate, per se, but it tended to grow old.

“Fine, I’ll learn the alphabet starting tomorrow,” grumbled Eliza and closed the book.

She’d finished the first three chapters of the book last month and that was perfectly natural for the child of a noble. They had enough time on their hands and the System Compendium served as a good starter book for children to pique their interest in literature before they even learned the alphabet.

Eliza hated when Iris was correct and this was one of those cases.

Anything beyond the first three chapters was useless, which was around a couple hundred pages but really, it had enough content for a book with several thousand pages because it was far more condensed than Common Vanarian.

On the topic of languages, it was possible to learn a language’s structure, letters, and grammar, which granted them a Skill. Everyone had a limit of up to 20 Skills so it wasn’t suggested to learn a few languages but once you learned more than 5, they all integrated into a Skill called Linguist, which was a poor man’s Polyglot that granted the same bonuses, provided that they studied the bare minimum of the language.

Integration happened when 5 Skills of the same nature were learned. For example, learning 5 Skills related to a sword would mean they’d be integrated into a Swordsmanship Skill that had passive benefits while still providing the benefits of its parts.

It was factually impossible to get more than 16 Integrated Skills, which was a hard cap on how powerful someone could get.

Then there was the Class System, which granted people access to various Classes such as Swordsman or Blacksmith. Everyone could have up to 5 Classes and they were akin to Passive Skills but were far more potent. The Fire Mage Class, for example, could grant control over fire whereas the Healer Class could grant someone the ability to heal.

Each Class had 5 different Tiers and one could attain something known as a Prestige Class after reaching Tier 10, which was the maximum. It operated as an 11th Tier rather than a whole new Class, oftentimes unique in nature.

Everyone could freely abandon or take up Classes or unlearn Skills, at which point they’d lose all knowledge and capabilities pertaining to that particular Class or Skill but the minimum was 1 for both.

 

 

It was for this reason that she had the Noble Class, which was determined from birth. The generic classes that everyone gained at birth were one of the three: Peasant, Hereditary Noble, and Royal. How the System knew it was a mystery but Eliza wouldn’t put it past whoever created a tool as great as the System if it was created at all —it seemed to be a part of the world itself.

 

 

It seemed that the Bonus applied whenever the Tier of a Class went up. It was unknown how exactly it did or what the conditions were but it seemed that being a proper Noble would grow it. If she proved herself as a proper Noble, the Hereditary Noble Class would be upgraded to Noble, in which case the Tier progress would be reset to 1 and she’d be able to reap the Bonus further despite the hard limit of 11 Tiers.

Evolving a Class was by far the best method of increasing her attributes with the least amount of physical work.

From what Eliza could gather, Subjugate was one of the four methods of control that a person could enforce on another alongside Conquer, Enslave and Dominate.

Subjugate was the weakest of the four and could be used by Nobles to suppress a Peasant’s will to fight if their Willpower Stat was lower than the Noble’s. It was the most humane and least potent of the four whereas the others bordered on mind control and binding them to one’s will.

Royals could use Conquer, which was a far more potent version of Subjugate that not only suppressed the target’s will to fight but made them fear the very concept of resisting the user.

The fact that the Peasant Class was mandatory to all those that didn’t have a version of the Noble, Royal, or Rebel Class seemed disgusting. At least within the confines of Vanaris, and considering it was an island continent that spanned over a quarter of the world didn’t help.

“Iris,” said Eliza after several minutes of daydreaming.

“What is it, milady?” she asked.

“What happens if I use Subjugate during an attempted assassination?” asked Eliza.

The System Compendium taught many things but it didn’t teach the details of what Subjugate did. It was merely one of the many facets of the System and it seemed the Imperial System, which was what this particular portion of the System was Called, wasn’t used by many.

“It wouldn’t work. If they’re attempting to assassinate a Noble, they’d already be Rebels,” said Iris and looked at her with pursed lips, her head slightly tilted to the side, “I'd assumed it was obvious.”

“How exactly do you become a Rebel, then?” she asked.

The System Compendium said that what defined a Rebel was different from nation to nation so it was impossible to explain it.

“When you start to harbor vile thoughts for the nobility or the Crown, milady. You’d then be offered a choice to remain a Peasant or Noble, or to become a Rebel,” said Iris, the last part hushed. She fixed up her glasses and continued, “That is why all Rebels must be executed, without exception. It was their choice to rebel against the Empire, after all. They reap what they sow.”

It was too much of a black and white view but Eliza kept the thoughts to herself.

“That said, milady. Why would you ask of something like that?” asked Iris, her brows furrowed and a scowl on her face.

“Because I wanted to know,” said Eliza and hopped down from her bed. She grabbed a cookie from a plate full of sweets and downed it. She then looked out the window that overlooked a stone path that led from the mansion to the outside world and sighed.

It felt like she was a prisoner in the castle.

“Iris, how many days until I can leave the estate?” asked Eliza.

“Exactly seven hundred and three days,” she answered.

“Still two years, huh?” Eliza mumbled and collapsed on her king-size bed.

She wanted to talk to someone other than her parents and the servants. Anyone other than Iris would suffice, in fact, but not many seemed to want to talk to her. They averted their gazes when she got close and Eliza could feel a bit of worry from them.

“Iris… do you feel emotions?” asked Eliza.

It was common for her to ask peculiar questions and this one was no different.

The reason was simple: Eliza couldn’t feel anything from the woman.

“Of course I do,” said Iris and raised an eyebrow, “Do you find my expressions lacking, milady?”

“Forget it,” mumbled Eliza and closed her eyes.

She wanted a nap.

“You still have your etiquette classes, milady,” said Iris, and Eliza crawled up to her feet, rolling her eyes.

That brought her to the downward-facing triangle near her Class: it meant that it could be extended down and she could “feed” it Skills, but that wasn’t a very accurate description.

It was more along the lines of associating Skills with it, which was the official term, but she liked calling it feeding more.

By irreversibly linking a Skill to a Class, up to the Tier of the Class, you could save Skill Slots. That meant if she had a Tier 10 Class, she could assign 10 Skills to it and not have them count for the purpose of counting the number of Skills. The disadvantage was the fact that the linked Skills could be locked away if the Class evolved, at which point it’d be reduced to Tier 1, and that if she ever abandoned it, all linked Skills would fade along with it.

The only one she’d linked to Noble was Dancing, which was common practice for Nobles and its mastery was now at 3%. It was her second-highest Skill in terms of mastery, with the first place belonging to Empathy, which was now at 4%.

How they rose in mastery, Eliza didn’t know.

The frequency with which she used it couldn’t be it, since she was taught to properly use Appraisal and it didn’t go up by even 1%, which was mysterious.

Maybe it had more to do with comprehension.

Chapter title is a meta jab at the amount of exposition I had to do in this chapter. Sadly, it was necessary.

Random Worldbuilding Fact 3: In the world Starfall is set in, humans didn't evolve at all and were created as Homo Sapiens due to divine intervention.