The days passed and winter came to Darter, which meant longer nights and even shorter daylight hours. Some would say it was the perfect environment for a good heist and Seth had to agree.

As he was doing his magic control training, using the method he had found in that book and using Serene Mind, he found his gains over the days had been surprisingly good.

No ward skill was gained but he did gain a new spell that was pretty good, Enhanced Disguise was an enchantment spell that made any disguise he wore more believable and was overall a pretty useful skill.

The heist was set for 3 days from now, so Seth was starting to bring in his fellow members of Fortune’s syndicate. Amelia and Liam were both now in their level 20s but neither had evolved like Seth had.

Seth had also been preparing his plan, but he wanted to obtain one last piece of information: where the vault was specifically.

He still wasn’t sure about it being on the 3rd floor and Seth wanted to be sure but how would he test where the vault was in the secured Manor?

Seth had a rough idea of what he wanted to do but he needed a craftsman to create an item that would fool the Baron.

So he went to where anyone would go if they wanted a skilled craftsman, the industrial district. Here was where most people made their wages, around 60% of the Darter populace worked here and it wasn’t hard to see why.

Large buildings with carriages of raw resources queuing into them and a large flow of outputted items flowed out. Darter wasn’t known for its productive capacity but as a medieval city, it needed to be somewhat self-reliant.

Here was where the second most numerous class lived, the Worker was arguably the worst class one could get. At least as an Adventurer, you had a chance of making it big but unless you evolved your Worker class well it was the most lacklustre class one could obtain.

Although there were some benefits: you were guaranteed employment the pay wasn’t dreadful, and maybe if you got a good skill you might end up rising to the middle class but in general you were destined for poverty.

Seth needed to find the best the city had to offer, so he went to the upscale part of the district where special and more expensive wares were made. Ranked weapons were the most obvious example of a high-class object and other things like clothing and accessories were sold on mass for large amounts of coin.

Tax obviously went to the Lord and Seth hoped that money would soon be in his hands, Seth drooled at the thought. `Like Scrooge Mc Duck...`

Blasting Seth back to his attention was another high-speed carriage. It made Seth wonder how many died from the sort every day, they were practically weapons at this point!

Moving away from the road Seth entered a store which sold and made accessories. Seth wanted to make a lovely necklace and he wanted to add a special something inside.

Obviously, it was a man a beacon, but he needed this one to be discreet. He didn’t want the Baron finding out after all.

So he explained his demands to the shopkeeper who thought nothing of the item. It was oddly common, for people to add tracking equipment to accessories so they had a decent amount in stock.

Seth had to buy the most expensive one as he needed to guarantee that the Baron wouldn’t sense it. The cost burned his heart, but the thought of reuse made him calm down.

Now he needed to make the Baron place the necklace into his safe and the way he was going to do that was by using politics, but first, he needed to learn about some of it.

So he made his way to a school which was a place where people where people learnt about a certain class. Instead of physics, you signed up for smithing and instead of English, you were taught cooking. It was for people who didn’t want to give their own children their class and for people who couldn’t, due to a lack of time.

This was mainly used by Worker parents, oddly enough the evil classes and orphans were the last of the main 3.

Seth was looking for a teacher who knew a lot about politics, so a Scholar or something of the sort.

As he strode up to the gate he saw many people entering and leaving so he followed the crowd and made his way into the school. To be fair to the security Seth was still 18 and schooling was from the years 17 and below so age-wise the difference was minuscule.

The school itself was extremely large and hosted enough room for a near 10 thousand students, it was enough for the entire city to use.

Walking around Seth saw several play areas and practice areas for the many games people played and the jobs people worked. You had cutting and crafting competitions, you had sword tournaments and everything else the City made and did was done here on a minor scale.

Except they missed the evil part, no one here dared to train to become an evil classer or at least on the surface they didn’t.

It made the entire place feel calm and peaceful, there was a large competitive spirit to get better, and some people pushed themselves daily. Some others sat on the grass and stared at the sky. Likely unable to choose what they wanted to become.

It was all good that they helped those who knew what they wanted to do, but the school did little but sleep on those who just hadn’t a clue. Ultimately they would get what they got and either live a life of happiness or more likely live a life of unwillingness, working for somebody that was ungrateful.

Truly a fair system, they were set up to lose.

Seth couldn’t help but think of the parallels to Earth. There was even the semblance of chance, you could strike it rich, and get a great class, but you were far more likely to end as a Worker droning your life away in a factory.

`Life, how fun`. Whilst Seth loved to laugh at the inequality of the world, it made his productivity plummet, so he got back to work and went back to looking for Scholar.

The campus was separated into districts, much like the city, and Seth eventually found the small Scholars section inside the school's own library.

Here he found a dwarfish man teaching a small number of students about politics, more specifically the history of the politics of the kingdom. Seth was surprised as this was his first encounter with a demi-human.

These people were heavily suppressed in the Kingdom of Historia due to a belief that they were descended from beasts and since the Era of Beasts, humans absolutely hated the Beasts.

Demi-humans usually bared resemblances to humans and yet they almost always also bared resemblance to the beast they were descended from. Dwarves were a cross between a beast called Titans and humans. Somewhere they lost their gigantic stature, but they gained the Titan's affinity with metallurgy, so they usually were blacksmiths and talented ones too.

To see one as a Teacher, or a Scholar was a rare sight to see and so Seth could only sit down and listen with fascination.

The man spoke in an electrifying way, with such passion even Seth was drawn into his speech.

“Everyone knows the Baron of this city, the Blackwords have been ruling this city since its creation almost 400 years ago. What you don’t know is how much effort they have gone into making this fact true.

300 years ago, there was a war with a neighbouring kingdom and the Blackword family found itself without a successor. A conundrum indeed, luckily using some connections they drew a young prodigy into the role with a marriage and the problem was over, or was it.

The nobles at the time were unhappy with a commoner gaining such status so quickly and for nearly nothing so they argued to the king that the Blackword successor must perform an action worthy of his privilege. Now as hypocritical as the argument was it stood on solid ground and the king decreed that the prodigy turned successor had to commit an act worthy of knighthood.

Connection had brought down the conditions, but they still were tough, so what did the Blackwords do? Did they either allow the successor to do the act normally or did they falsify an act of another to cement their successor’s status?”

A show hands came up and it showed most thought that the act would be rigged. Seth knew it was politics and the words politics and rigged were basically a couple at this point, so he voted on his knowledge.

“In terms of history, you would all be wrong. The prodigy was documented to have entered an unpurged dungeon and once he came out the dungeon was purged so as far as history is concerned you are all wrong.

Obviously, you were all actually right. It came up later that the whole act was rigged but by this point, the perpetrators were all dead and nothing came as punishment for the descendants.

Now what is the lesson to be learnt here?”

Seth wondered himself and thought that there was a good lesson about crime here. Who cared about if the thief was dead, Seth gained an idea for a heist and so thanked the professor in his mind. Although Seth knew it wasn’t the lesson he was meant to learn, it was likely some boring thing about history.

Eventually, someone got the lesson right and it was a lesson on how history dictates if one was right or wrong and once it was written it was unlikely to change.

The teacher clarified his lesson, “At the time of the news that he had cleared the dungeon many thought it was bollocks but once it had been clarified everyone calmed down. The history books were written that they were innocent, and everyone moved on. Come 150 years and they find out it was a lie and people no longer care anymore. It wasn’t their generation, so the anger just wasn’t there.

The best bit is that the history books are expensive to change so they don’t and from that point onwards people forget the truth and the lie continues. Once all those that learned the truth die all of a sudden your family did nothing wrong in their history and they can say with pride that they ruled the city for 400 years.

History itself is a weapon of the nobles and they use it very well so take notes on their best moments and use them when you all become assistants to them later in life. My time is up so same time tomorrow and we’ll be learning about how the dungeon break 100 years ago affected politics, See you then!

With that, the man jumped off a small stool and walked away. Seth was puzzled for a moment before he ran after the little man. Seth quickly caught up and suddenly found himself with no idea as to how to start a conversation.

Weirdly Seth ended up following the man around the library for a bit and finally, after going round several bookcases, the man turned around.

“Why are you following me, also in the future just say professor or something to get my attention?”

Seth took a breath from the chasing and said something which made the professor take a double take.

“I’m not a student though.”

“WHAT?”

The angry professor was immediately hushed by the students around him, and he had no choice but to calm down. He then said in a hushed tone, “What are doing here then? And why are you looking for me?”

“I’m trying to get a lesson on the latest politics around Darter, specifically around the Blackword Baron.”

The dwarf thought about it and said in a quieter tone, “How much?” After Seth gave him a confused look, he clarified, “Are you going to pay me.”

Ah, Seth wondered if he meant how much he wanted to know. This entire conversation was rather confusing for the two as they were forced to whisper.

Once Seth did get his message through and offered a reasonable amount of payment, the professor happily took him to a backroom where he began a quick course.

“The Blackwords are a family that has ruled the city for 400 years,”

“Yeah, I got that part I need to know their relations to other nobles.”

He mumbled “Youngsters are so rude nowadays,” before returning, “Yes so the Blackword family has been in rough times recently. They are politically estranged and so find friends where they can. The people they have the best relationship too are the Viscount family Dalia which rules 3 cities to the east of here.”

Ignoring his earlier comment Seth asked, “Do they have a daughter?”

“Not that I know of.”

That wasn’t helpful to Seth's plan, so he decided to narrow down his questioning. This professor was interesting but was getting on his nerves.

"Do the Blackwords have any friends who may have a daughter eligible for a potential marriage alliance with the Baron?"

“Let me think” he started counting on his hands, “no, definitely not, maybe, nope and that’s it. Closest is the Yolido Family of the North which has 3 daughters and the youngest could hope to potentially marry a baron and at a stretch the second youngest.”

Great sounded perfect for Seth's plan, now he just needed one last piece of information. “What are their names?”

“Not a clue.”

“...”