The check-up found nothing wrong with him. Even microfractures that should be present for some days after healing were not there. This left the high-level healer confused, and he insisted on keeping track of Riwall's health for a few months, which he obliged to try and get on the good side of the healers.

On the following morning, he woke up before the others to go and talk alone with Eleanor. As expected, two hours before the sunrise, and she was already there, making sure everything was in order.

"Good Morning, Riwall! I heard you recovered in record time, that's good! Do you want to begin your training before the others?" Eleanor had a teasing smile stamped on her face, which made Friday tag her as a sadist on her notes.

Riwall flinched when she said the word "training", but recovered quickly.

"Good Morning Master Farsteel. I need to talk to you about matters related to the safety of my colleagues and I, can you spare some minutes?"

"Safety, you say? Have you been threatened in any way? Please, speak freely."

"No, it's not like that, at least not yet. I couldn't help but notice how many soldiers and guards have... reservations, toward the training we are receiving here."

"Yes, there are many who put nobles on a pedestal and quickly get on their knees to worship them. I am not one of beating around the bush. Cut to the chase, what do you want, and why should I help you?"

{She definitely is not like the other nobles. If the rumors are true, they seem to love their word games.}

"You may have noticed during our training that I quickly got many skill levels in everything we trained." He scratched his arm while considering if he should keep talking, he was still unsure about telling her so much about himself.

"I will be frank, I don't know if this information is public, but my potential is SS+, I am an all-rounder with 7 in every stat, and have a high grade bless that exponentially increases my physical and mental prowess." He said all that with a straight face in the end.

Eleanor had a hard time hiding her surprised expression. She now understood why the Lord did not allow even her to peruse the files of the three commoners. He had made a quick but very believable excuse to the nobles, saying that the kids barely had enough potential to deserve the right to be trained and that no commoner would ever be as good as their sons were. All noble houses easily absorbed this simple lie. Except for the Farsteels, for they were of a very recent commoner origin.

"This... was not shared with anyone, only Hector and the Lord may know about it. I see no lies in your words. But you have not said what do you want of me yet." She would not give him the pleasure of her begging for him to join her family, despite how much she wanted to do it now.

Riwall lamented that she did not rush to invite him, but he cared more about the results than anything else. He bowed 90° and said.

"Please, if you can find it in your heart, let me, my colleagues, my family, and their families your household. We would gladly pledge our services to you for as long as I am under the Lord's care."

It did not escape her how this whole pledge would only hold true for as long as he submitted himself to Marsastor Lord's care.

"Your mother and aunt are the Village's healers, right?" Her family was always in need of healers, as they were relatively rare even among nobility.

"Yes." He was still bowing.

"It may be possible, but I cannot make a final decision on my own." She spoke slowly. "For now, I will grant you all the status of temporary affiliates. Only my father would be able to overrule this decision and kick you out, but no one in Marsastor's land would dare lay a hand on affiliates of the Farsteel family, even temporary ones. I will bring this to my father, who is the head of the family, but you should know that the affiliation is not something that can be revoked."

He was still bowing.

"Can you at least hold the permanent affiliation process for a few years, I dream of traveling all over..."

{What is the name of this world?}

[Azula]

Cough. "All over Azula."

"An admirable and yet childish dream from someone who is more mature than his looks would say." Riwall had the impression she was teasing him for some reason; he could swear she was trying to hold off her laugh.

He was still bowing.

"Childish? Why do you think so? I am young, I will work hard to get strong, and then I will spend my life expanding my horizons and experiencing new things." His back was already starting to ache, but he persisted.

"Contrary to popular belief, no journey is ever worth without a destination. You will understand it in time. I won't fight you on this subject now. I can promise to hold off the permanent affiliation process until you turn 16-year-old. After that, I will let it run its course, which should take at least two more years."

"I accept your terms."

"After our training, I will go deal with all the bureaucracy."

He was still bowing.

"Thank you."

"Ok, it was funny in the first minutes, but it's getting embarrassing. You can stop bowing now; even my back is starting to hurt just by looking at you." She chuckled. Friday changed her notes from sadist to SADIST.

{She kept talking slowly all this time on purpose!}

"And don't think you will get any different treatment from me, soldier!" She said in her customary stern voice.

He snapped to an attention stance immediately.

"No, ma`am!"

The process of granting a temporary affiliation to the Farsteels was purely bureaucratic. There was no ceremony of any sort.

As the three kids were not allowed to ever leave the barracks, they had little to no contact with the outside, and no one bothered to explain to ten-year-olds the political consequences of a mass temporary affiliations that happened to the most influential noble family.

Riwall had a suspicion that some schemes were on the works against him and the Farsteels. For all he heard from other soldiers, the nobles were a bunch that genuinely believed to be chosen by the gods to lead. The idea of someone rising from among the commoner rabble and standing by their side was preposterous.

Nevertheless, none of his masters ever let them in on the political aspect of the society they lived in. They were, for lack of better wording, being raised in a bubble. Anna and Gregory did not mind it that much as they lacked ambition from the start and saw themselves as inferiors to the nobles.

Despite Riwall's insistence on asking questions about what was really happening around them, he had to drop the matter entirely following a harsh reprimand from Eleanor. He was neither blind nor deaf and thought that the better way for not be taken advantage of would be to get strong quickly.

About a week after the Lord officially recognized the temporary affiliation status, the kids were called to a soundproofed room a meeting with Edward and Eleanor.

"First of all, congratulations to you three on your new status as members of our family, even if it is still temporary." Eleanor began.

"I will be as direct and honest as I can be. Inside these barracks, nothing will change. I, Edward and Hector will remain your only masters for now, and you will have to pick a craft to learn after your tenth anniversary."

{I had forgotten entirely about the crafting stuff, I think Hector mentioned it when mom and I went to the Guild for the first time.}

"Originally, you would only be able to choose simple crafts that could be taught here, like tailoring, leatherworking, scribing, drawing, or cooking. But our family will build any necessary annex buildings if you want something more advanced like smithing, enchanting, alchemy or any other."

{What do you think we should go for, Friday?}

[All of them, of course.]

{Haha, you sure are greedy. But I don't think we will have time for all of it.}

[Do you have anything scheduled during your nights? Because every day you just lazily lie down in a bed.]

{That's called sleeping, and you know it is important for my body.} He thought she was joking and was surprised by how far she has come from a simple AI.

[Tsk. If you allow me to, I can make you get the benefits of a 10-hour sleep in just 40 minutes.]

{Are you serious? And why didn't you do that before?}

[Why would we do that? It's not like you had anything to do! But now we can practice the craft they teach us! Imagine if you get good at enchanting and spend 4 hours on making your gear better every day. You will be unstoppable!]

She always knew how to taunt him into doing things her way, and he would always fall for it.

After mentally sighting. {Ok, you win, we will do that. But if I feel tired after sleeping for just 40 minutes, you will not hear the end of my complaints!}

[Deal!]

All this banter between Riwall and Friday took only a second.

Edward took the lead and said some things of his own.

"Look, kids, I know you want to leave this place, run around, play with others, and do the things kids usually do. But this won't happen, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do. You better get used to it now and not dwell on this matter. When you get older, and we deem you ready, we will ask the Lord to take you to the Azure Forest for some real battle experience. Until them, carry on your training."

Eleanor and Edward looked at each other before nodding. Both fumbled with strange black bracelets they were wearing, and Riwall could feel mana flooding the room.

After a few seconds, Eleanor started talking again.

"We have just cast two powerful spells meant to make it impossible for anyone to listen to us. We will now disclose information you should not have access to until you get older. To make sure you won't tell anyone about it, we will have to make you swear to keep it a secret. But not a simple verbal oath, you will have to swear it by putting your life as collateral."

Anna and Gregory both had shocked and scared expressions on their faces, while Riwall did not understand why swearing something on your life should scare them so much.

Anna, who rarely spoke a word, surprised everyone by raising her trembling hand.

"Mama used to tell me that I should never, ever, make a life oath."

"A smart woman. But unfortunately what I'm about to say cannot leave this room. Ever." Eleanor had a conflicted expression. She hated the idea of binding a kid with a life oath.

"What is a life oath?" Riwall couldn't help but ask.

Edward was the one who answered.

"It's something simple but dangerous. If you break an oath, the worst-case scenario is that people will hear about it and not trust you in the future. But if you offer your life as collateral, an acolyte of the God of Death Falvth will manifest in front of you and take you to a court where you will be judged."

He continued hesitantly. Edward was not comfortable in pushing a life oath down some kids throat, an opinion shared by Eleanor, but their father insisted on it for some reason.

"If they find out you broke the oath by your own will, you will be tortured for years and then killed. If you broke it accidentally, you will be tortured for a few years and released back to the place you were before. It all revolves around intent, depending on the situation you may just be killed after the sentence. The person whom you swore the life oath will be informed through a System Notification about what you did, why you did it, and what happened to you."

{Man, this is harsh, what if the words of the oath are prone to misinterpretation? And what if the parties have two different understanding about the central point?} How to not be worried about something so vague with such consequences?

Riwall voiced his concerns, and Eleanor felt a little better knowing at least one of them was asking the critical questions. She decided to answer it herself.

"You are right, that is the thing about life oaths: make it simple, and Falvth won't even bother binding the parties involved; make it too complicated and a judgment will be triggered at a random act. That's why we came prepared and brought an offering to Falvth."

Eleanor took a palm-sized blue sapphire from a hidden pocket in her coat. There was an intense light emanating from it, making the kids all squint their eyes while the Farsteels did not even react to it.

{By Zeus's happy rod! Look at the power emanating from it! Friday, can you get a reading on that?}

[The mana emanating from this gemstone is just 10% less pure than your mana. But there is as much as 1000x your entire mana pool in there. It's amazing.]

"This, kids, is also something you will not be able to talk about because of the oath." She put the sapphire on the desk and put her palms together as if praying.

"Oh Mighty God of Death, we, underserving mortals, offer this soul to your Magnificence. All we ask if for is an intermediator to draft and oversee, in no uncertain terms, a life oath!" By the end of her words, Riwall felt a strange energy surrounding them. He was sweating buckets by this time, and all his senses screamed danger.

#YOUR OFFER HAS BEEN FOUND SUFFICIENT FOR WHAT YOU REQUEST!#

A booming voice sounded inside everyone's head. Suddenly, the light in the room flickered, which is strange if you know that a torch would never flicker in a closed room like the one they were now. When Riwall looked around for any changes, he noticed a humanoid creature made of shadows standing in front of Eleanor. The three kids had the living shit scared out of them, Gregory even wet himself. The Farsteels did not even flinch at that.

"LeT mE ReAd YoUr InTeNt!" The creature spoke with a voice that made all hairs on Riwall's body to stand up.

Eleanor closed her eyes and gave it a slight bow. A shadow tendril shot out from the creature's torso and touched her head. Seconds later, similar tendrils appeared and unceremoniously touched the kids' heads.

In a fraction of a second, Riwall understood everything that Eleanor wanted. In short: they were to never discuss what will transpire after the oath with anyone, not even among themselves; no situation, no matter how precarious, would allow them to disclose the information to a third party; and only the head of the Farsteel family would be able to free them from the oath.

A lot of essential details were also transmitted. Things that seem inconsequential at first but that could be the source of misinterpretation were all covered in it. For example: if the information becomes public because of someone else's actions, or the Farsteels loses their nobility or ceases to exist, the oath will be void.

The creature dissolved into the shadows as soon as it could feel through the connection with all the parties that they accepted the terms. The sapphire was nowhere to be found.

"Ok, with that you don't need to fear the oath that much. If you are about to do an action that would break it, you will receive a notification from the System."

The trio let out a synchronized breath of relief.

"Now, let's start."