The next twenty minutes passed in a flurry of action. For Skaya at least, Alex was mostly bored. He watched her type furiously on the interface of her bracelet for fifteen minutes, then he was then led through a series of halls into a massive hangar.

Inside the hangar were a series of golden ships. A dozen of them appeared to be single person ships shaped vaguely like hawks and there were additionally two very large ships the size of small apartment buildings. The larger ships were shaped like two bladed war axes laying on their sides. Spaceships, Alex assumed. He did his best to contain his excitement. He was going to go into space!

One of the larger ships was surrounded by a flurry of active workers, some loading cargo onto the ship and others inspecting different sections of it. Skaya immediately strode towards that ship and Alex followed. He glanced back to see two dozen armored soldiers forming into two columns behind them, with a stone-faced man in gold and black armor heading the two columns..

They paused outside the ship, and Skaya turned to address the man in the lead.

“Commander Askren, this is Alex Skaya, heir to house Skaya.”

The man slapped his right fist to his chest in what Alex assumed was a form of salute.

“Emissary, sir, how may this one serve?”

“As you know, we are heading to the capital. For the duration of our travel, you and your men will see to the heir’s every need. I will explain in detail once we are on our way. In the meantime, have your men load up and we will be off.”

They entered the ship through a ramp that jutted out from the intersection of the two blade-like sections of the ship. On the inside, the ship reminded Alex how much he hated the Empire’s decorations and designs. Did everything have to be gold and gaudy?

Skaya pointed out different sections of the ship as they passed through it.

"Barracks. Armory. Training rooms. Mess hall. Kitchen. Recreation center."

The soldiers, with the exception of Commander Askren, split from them and entered the barracks. He and the Commander followed her into a large room at the center of the ship, at least he thought it was centrally located based on the path they’d followed. The room was surprisingly spartan, decorated only by a golden plinth that was supporting a green jade orb. Skaya stepped up to the plinth and grabbed the orb.. As her hands landed on the orb, the walls surrounding them lit up, displaying the world around the ship as if it weren’t there. Smaller holographic interfaces popped up around Skaya, with text written in a language Alex didn’t recognize. He assumed it was the standard language of the Empire. Skaya immediately began tapping and swiping at the interface in a rapid flurry.

“Ma’am,” Commander Askren spoke up shortly after the interface appeared, “All preparations are complete and we are cleared to leave.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Skaya responded, “We will depart shortly.”

The emissary turned to Alex, “Our trip to the capital should take us a few weeks. For the duration of the flight you will split your time between cultivation and combat training. For an hour a day I’ll also try to fill in a few critical gaps in your knowledge.”

The Commander visibly flinched behind her when she mentioned cultivation. Alex glanced over at him, but the man’s face quickly returned to its prior stony expression. He decided to follow up on that at a later time.

She continued to speak, seemingly unaware of, or ignoring, the Commander’s reaction.

“As the heir to house Skaya, you have a great deal of history and etiquette to learn. You are also woefully ignorant to the ways of the realm. This is not your fault, you’ve been raised on a backwater planet with no connection to the greater multiverse as a whole. I will try to ensure you do not embarrass myself or our house in your brief stint at the capital.

“Commander, please escort Alex to the barracks. You will be in charge of his introduction to modern combat. I trust that you can provide him with sufficient training for one of his status.”

The Commander bowed, “Of course, emissary. Sir, if you will follow me.”

He gestured to Alex, and the two of them walked out of what Alex was mentally labelling as the bridge of the ship. Askren wordlessly began to guide Alex towards the barracks.

“So, what should I call you?” Alex asked, trying to start up some form of conversation.

“Sir, etiquette would dictate you refer to me as Commander or Commander Askren, however due to your station, you may call this one whatever you please.”

Alex was a bit taken aback by that, apparently being heir to the niece of the Emperor had some major perks. There wasn’t room for any additional conversation as they quickly arrived at the barracks. It was a long, narrow room, with bunk beds lining both walls. The soldiers were gathered around the first six rows of beds, packing away their belongings. There appeared to be six additional vacant rows of bunk beds beyond them.

“Officer on the deck!” Shouted a massive soldier as Alex and the Commander entered the barracks.The man towered over his peers, standing at least seven feet tall and more thickly muscled than a champion bodybuilder. When your muscles stand out even in scale armor, you’re definitely a beast.

The soldiers quickly shifted into neat rows along the beds, standing at attention and slamming their right fists into their chests. Alex mentally noted that there were both men and women in the group of soldiers.

“At ease,” the Commander said after a quick return salute, “Marines, this is Alex Skaya, the emissary’s heir. We will be escorting him and the emissary to the capital. During our travels we are responsible for his combat training. We have approximately three weeks to turn his lordship into a warrior, let’s show him why Roc Imperial Marines are one of the most feared fighting forces in the galaxy.”

That got a cheer from the soldiers.

“Permission to speak, sir,” shouted a short, bulky woman.

“Granted,” the Commander responded.

“Could the Commander please clarify the chain of command?”

The man tensed up at the question and looked to Alex as if asking him for his input. He scratched the back of his neck, Alex sure as hell wasn’t comfortable leading a detachment of marines.

“I’ll defer to your best judgement, Commander.” The tension immediately left the man’s shoulders.

“The emissary is in charge of this expedition, with myself as second in command. Consider the heir a third party to our chain of command,” Askren said as he turned back to his unit, “Obey his commands outside of combat situations, provided they do not countermand the emissary or my orders. This is an escort mission, so during combat we will do everything we can to keep the heir alive, irrespective of his wishes. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” came the thunderous response.

“Heir, if you do not mind, Sergeant Orsk here will lead you to your quarters so you can change into an appropriate outfit and so we may immediately start on your training.” Akren gestured to the behemoth that had first noted their presence. Upon hearing his name, the man stepped forward.

“Lead the way,” Alex said.

---

His quarters turned out to be a small cabin with a twin bed, a short desk, and a small bathroom with a cramped shower. He didn’t mind, it wasn’t too much smaller than the room in his apartment on earth. On one of the walls was a window, and Alex could see swirling lines of neon pink and blue flowing by. Without him realizing it, it seemed they had already taken off.

He looked down at the clothes the Sergeant had provided him with, a simple black t-shirt with a golden roc clutching three bolts of lightning in its talons on the right breast and black sweatpants. The material was soft and relatively thick. Not too different from any exercise clothing you’d find on Earth. They’d also given him a pair of soft black shoes that were like a combination between slippers and tennis shoes.

Alex quickly changed into the clothes and stepped outside of his new home. The Sergeant was waiting patiently for him outside the door.

“Sir, I’ve been told to escort you to the armory. If you’d follow me…”

The two of them walked quietly to the armory where the Commander was waiting for him. He stood at the entrance to the armory, and behind him Alex could see a cramped room loaded with several racks of weaponry. There appeared to be a variety of melee weapons and rifles.

"The Empire," Askren began as they entered the armory, "Utilizes two different types of weaponry. Essence foci and essence capacitor discharge weaponry, what we typically call ECD's."

The man led Alex over to a table that had been set up along the back wall of the room. On the table were four weapons, two swords, a pistol, and a rifle. Commander Askren picked up one of the swords.

"Standard issue Roc Marine ECD blade. Utilizes essence stones to power miniaturized formations that produce combat effective techniques. This specific weapon generates a field of plasma around the blade that can cut through steel like it isn't even there," Askren pulled a trigger on the handle of the sword and a bright blue light outlined the blade briefly, before he let go of the trigger and it vanished. "Difficult to design, cheap to manufacture. One standard essence stone can power the blade for approximately six minutes of cut time, give or take a few minutes depending on the amount of strain put on the weapon."

He set the blade down and grabbed the second sword, "This is an essence focus. Weapons like this are typically custom made utilize essence provided by the user to produce an effect. This one charges the blade with lightning that discharges upon striking its target."

"Why would you have both?" Alex asked, somewhat confused. The ECD's seemed better in every possible way.

"To an extent it is an issue of power scaling. ECD's are great up to a certain level of power. Lower quality essence stones are cheap, higher quality ones less so. Above tier three threats, ECD's aren't economically viable. Above tier five, they become largely useless."

Askren took in Alex's confused expression and sighed, "We have a lot to teach you. There are a number of paths to immortality. Mages, shamans, cultivators, demons, every imaginable utilization of essence leads down a path to one goal, immortality. Each unique path has different names for different stages of advancement. The Empire, and most of the developed multiverse, has simplified things into defined tiers of strength. To keep things simple, tiers are defined in multiples of ten.

“Tier one is equivalent to a standard human in strength. A single tier two would be able to take down approximately ten tier one’s without much difficulty. A tier three could take on ten tier twos, etcetera etcetera. As you can imagine, power is a spectrum, so each tier is generally broken down into early, mid, late, and peak strengths.

“To provide you with some useful context, the body transformation stage of cultivation typically ends around peak tier three.”

"What tier are you?"

The Commander tensed at the question, glanced at his men, and then looked back at Alex, "If you command me to tell you, I am honor bound to reply, however that is generally considered a very rude question to ask."

Alex felt his face flush, and looked down at the floor, "Sorry, I'm just trying to get a feel for things. My whole world has been upended in the last week and it feels like I'm drowning in a lack of knowledge."

Askren gave Alex a confused look, "What happened to you in the past week?”

Alex scoffed, “More than I’m mentally equipped to handle, but lets start with being named heir to the Emissary.”

“That just happened?” Askren asked, eyes widening at the revelation, “Were you not nobility before your appointment?”

“I was not,” Alex replied.

Askren took a moment to consider the information.

“If I may so bold as to provide some advice and a solution to your conundrum…."

He paused once more, as if considering something, then continued, "You've been named heir to one of the most powerful people in the Empire. A powerful person who also happens to be royalty, fifth in line to the throne to be exact."

Alex's eyes opened wide, he'd known Skaya was important, being the Emperor's niece and all, but fifth in line for the throne? And one of the most powerful people in the Empire? What the hell was she doing on Earth?

"Everything you say from now moving forward will be overanalyzed or zealously acted upon. On even worse occasions, both might happen. With a single word to the right people, you could end my career or my life without even knowing it.

"If you plan to act informally with my unit, it would be helpful if you established boundaries or guidelines on what sort of behavior you expect out of us."

The Commander stopped, clearly waiting for Alex to process what he'd been told.

He hadn't realized the position he was now in. He thought back to how important the concept of face was in cultivation novels he'd read. When power differences between people were akin to gods against ants, only a thin veneer of civility protected the weak. Things didn't seem that extreme in this Empire, but he had only gotten a glimpse of their society.

Moving forward he needed to be extremely careful with his actions. He didn't think he'd be able to live with himself if he got the Commander and his men killed.

"Commander, based on your suggestion I'm going to propose we treat our relationship like that of student and teacher, with your unit acting as teachers as well. Teachers are responsible for correcting their students, and not worried about saying the wrong thing. They have only failed if their student remains ignorant. At this point in time, all I’m interested in is filling in gaps in my knowledge. Do you find this relationship to be acceptable?”

The Commander visibly relaxed, “More than acceptable, sir. I will make sure my team does not fail in the task you have appointed us.”

“That is all I could ask for, now could you fill in some gaps for me on the Empire’s essence systems?” Alex felt that was one of his biggest blind sides at the moment. Cultivation he had a feel for, but he’d only been given vague bits and pieces of information about how mages operated.

“In due time, that is a very complicated and lengthy subject, and it would likely be best for us to finish with martial matters first” Askren replied, “Just suffice it to say that on average, cultivators have the highest combat potential of any essence user, but are generally lacking in terms of pure utility. Mages are one of the more balanced in terms of their capabilities. The Emissary can provide you with more detailed information during your one on one sessions.”

Alex nodded his assent, Skaya did say the marine was responsible for his combat training, not general knowledge sharing. The Commander picked up the rifle in one hand and the pistol in the other.

“Our ranged weaponry are all ECD’s. Standard issue rifles and pistols can take down tier two threats with a single shot. Tier three threats generally need four or five rounds to take down. Each weapon can fire at a maximum rate of thirty rounds per second, for a sustained firing time of one minute per essence crystal. This technology is the backbone of the Golden Roc Empire." The Commander paused after saying that, seeming to reconsider his words.

"I suppose that isn't strictly true. In reality the strongest essence user of any nation is the true backbone of that nation. What this weaponry and technology allows us to do is expand far beyond what any other nation of our strength should normally be capable of.

“The Emperor could easily fend off a horde of millions of low level beasts. What he cannot do is be everywhere at once. These weapons allow us to equip lower tier people with the ability to kill higher tier creatures. Couple worlds like yours with an abundance of people, and the economic might of the Empire, and we can span galaxies.”

That at least partially explained the Empire’s interest in his ‘backwater’ home, but not why the Emissary was there.

"What about threats greater than tiers three or four?" Alex asked, drawing the conversation back to the rifles.

"For long ranged attacks we rely on direct attacks from mages. They are cheaper and more powerful than ECD's at tiers four and above."