Chapter 39: Nobles And Relics

The Inanis family had grown through the ranks of nobility one by one. The first rank granted to the son of Arthur, being Knight. From there it took two generations for the Inanis family to reach the rank of a baron, two more generations to reach Viscount, and then three more to reach the current rank of Count.

The count was the fifth highest rank in the nobility and above them were the Earl, Marquis, Duke, and finally the King himself.

Usually, a noble family would follow the hereditary rank of the male leader of the family, but some of the family had more ranked nobles underneath them. For example, the sons of a Viscount could be barons or knight themselves, thus gaining more power for the family.

Currently in the Inanis family, there was only one person to have the status of a ranked noble, being Count Gabriel himself. Similar to his father, he was not blessed with more children and only had a sole son.

This greatly restricted the growth of their family and due to Asher not having a gift, it was hard for him to gain merits through the military route, too. Before Lucius had taken over Asher's body, Asher wasn't really considered to be academically good.

He was decent, but not good enough to gain merits that way. That was the reason why Gabriel had chosen to train his son in the military arts. But then his son turned out to be more reckless than expected and rushed headfirst into the battle, wanting to prove himself.

Gabriel watched his son, who was sitting close to him, his expression calm. He did not know what was going through his son's head, but he was now starting to like this version of this.

'If he really does prove to be better at academics, I may as well send him to the Royal university.' Gabriel thought.

Gabriel's attention then went to lieutenant John and his wife Alessa, who was carrying their child Cia in her arms.

'That child too… The epic ranked gift 'Thorn mistress' never would have thought it would appear here. It's a shame… if this happened fifteen years ago, I would have asked for a betrothal right away.' Gabriel thought.

Each Epic ranked gifted was an important person and had the potential to greatly benefit a noble family. They were in fact the basis on which most noble families were formed on. Oftentimes, most noble families faded away into history after a generation or two, just because their descendants were not able to inherit the gift of their parents.

This was in the case of uncommon or rare ranked gifts as while they had good potential, they could not be kept up if the next generation did not have them. But in the case of Epic rank gifts, even if they were not inheritable, as long as both of the parents had an epic ranked gift, their child would definitely have an epic ranked gift too.

Since Asher was unable to inherit the Gift of the Inanis family, Gabriel knew that the family may not last another generation unless he did something quickly.

His attention then went to his beautiful wife Lita, who had borne through all the difficulties with him.

~sigh~

'Please goddess Etara, bless us with another chance…' Gabriel wished.

The feast eventually ended, and the people left one by one. Gabriel stood up and bade his son farewell for the night before retiring to his chambers, where he was shortly joined by his wife for a night of pleasure.

***

Lucius though, headed straight to read the books he had picked out in the evening. These books were suggested by Kain and were related to Gifts, history and everything in between.

"Hmm, so gifts have different consumptions depending on their rarity and their power. Some can be low ranked but have high consumption due to their power being greater while some can be high ranked but still have a low consumption." Lucius read.

It took him a while to read as he had to cross reference between multiple books so as to get their meanings. He still didn't know many words, but Kiana was there to help him read them out. This way he was also learning ahead of the scheduled plan.

He had been told that he could at most stay awake till midnight and not a minute more by his mother. Kiana too was insistent on it and was thus closely monitoring him, not wanting him to exhaust himself when he had barely recovered.

"So there are a total of seven ranks in gifts…" Lucius learned as he looked at the page of a book.

The seven ranks were:

1. Common

2. Uncommon

3. Rare

4. Epic

5. Legendary

6. Mythic

7. Divine

There were also examples of some famous gifts given in the book as well. But Lucius's attention was caught by the second highest ranked Mythic gifts.

"There are three known Mythic gifts in the Grantz kingdom and all of them belong to the different Churches of the gods. And are considered to be holy relics bestowed by the gods themselves." Lucius read.

It was here that he learned there were even objects that could naturally have gifts in them. These objects were different from Artifacts as in that they were actually not manufactured though certain modifications could have been made so as to make them easier to use. The items that were bestowed by gifts like these were called relics and were incredibly rare.

Their value was way beyond a person that had the same rank gift as a relic could last for hundreds of years to come while the person will eventually disappear in the annals of time.

The Church of Alana had the mythic ranked relic called Scepter of Alana. It was said to be able to call forth holy light that could erase sinners from the world.

The Church of Etara had the mythic ranked relic called Tome of Etara. It was said to be able to reveal the secrets of any person that it was used on.

Then there was the Church of Duran that had the mystic ranked relic called Sword of Duran. It was said to be the sharpest sword ever created and could cut through anything.

Reading all this information only made Lucius look forward to the future.