Every morning, Chinui taught him all kinds of practical things. He taught him how to fish and set up traps for example. In the river, the fishes were small but numerous and Emp only took a couple of practice sessions to be able to catch enough for the both of them. The small traps Chinui taught him to set up were simple, his favorites were the snares. He did not catch many prey in them but when he did he rejoiced for his next meal. Chinui also forced him to take care of the fish and the meat by himself, be they rabbit or partridges. At first, Emperor felt sickened by the task of opening up those small animals but after a dozen times, he was almost accustomed to it.

Chinui taught him to not waste any parts of his catches. It wasn't as important for a small rabbit but for larger prey, in particular monsters, everything was valuable.

Skin and fur to make clothes, the meat, the bones, the claws and fangs all had uses. For most monsters, many of their organs also had important uses for mages, alchemists or healers of all kind due to their often strange properties.

Chinui also taught him how to take care of the garden and how to cook. Since Emp had no experience at all with food, everything he ate had a brand new taste and he loved all of them. He also tried to teach him how to use a bow but Emp never achieved to hit the target. Only practice would let him improve but Chinui still had many more things to show him so archery practice would need to be done on his own after his departure.

Finally with two long sticks, he taught Emp the basics of sword fighting. Chinui felt relieved that Emp was much better at this than he was with a bow. Every move and details he showed him where quickly understood and copied with talent. He seemed to have a fantastic memory for this kind of thing. Chinui guessed that when Emp would arrive at the school, he would definitely not be the worst of all students at it. Some that practiced since they were small would not be that far ahead of him even with their years of practice.

Every day, all morning long, Emp was driven to physical exhaustion with exercises and practical teaching but in the afternoon, it was his mind that was put to the test.

Every afternoon, Chinui taught him what he needed to know about the world. The gods had given him basic knowledge about human beings but not on how they acted or the world they lived in. Maybe, for them, the world didn't matter much since they could just change it however they pleased. He did not know anything about the world but he did know how to read, write and calculate which was apparently rare.

In fact, he was so ignorant that Chinui didn't know where to start and threw all sorts of random information at him without any particular order. He wasn't that good at that kind of teaching but luckily, Emp had no trouble remembering everything he said. Since he knew how to write, Chinui started by telling him why it was so unusual.

Reading and writing wasn't all that useful for most people. The nobles mostly knew because it was considered disgraceful to not know. The merchants used writing frequently, they taught it to their kids so they would be able to take the business over when the time came. Artisans knew how to calculate but did not learn often how to read. Some well renowned masters in their respective crafts knew and wrote some compilation of their knowledge. The rest of the population, aside from mage and those in more academic lines of work, had no time to waste on things they would never use and limited themselves to simple numbers. They knew enough to use money, count livestock and the likes but would rarely go above the hundred mark.

For emperor, it was more like an absence of disadvantage rather than an advantage. Since he didn't belong in any noble family, it was mostly useless knowledge for now. On the other hand, once he got into the school, he would blend in more easily with all those rich young people. Chinui even told him that a good half of them only learned once there.

Chinui then took his time to explain to him how the society worked from the most basic things like shaking hands all the way to what a king actually did. There was so many things to remember and so many titles and ranks to know.

Many of the empires on the continent worked in similar ways and many customs were shared as well. In the Steelwood empire, the emperor himself was at the top of everything and he had the rights to do almost anything. Since the emperor was also the king of Grandbois, a regent was named to take care of the kingdom while he personally oversaw the empire.

Next, just below the emperor, there where kings, each taking care of their own kingdom. In Steelwood, there were five of them excluding the emperor. They all had the full control of their respective kingdom and the emperor almost never intervened in their affairs. There was even a time in the past where two kingdoms included in the empire went to war against one another without the emperor lifting a finger. It all depended on the situation, politics and the relative safety of the population.

Bellow the kings were the dukes, then the marquis, the counts, and finally barons all possessing territories of various sizes throughout the empire. All of those people were expected to do a certain things related to their titles and their descendant would inherit their position. Then there were city lords charged to take care of a town for the local higher noble. Banneret and knights where the lowest of the chain having gained honorary titles and were expected to lead troops into war and monster subjugation.

The knights were both numerous and few. Most family members of noble houses were knights and a kingdom at war could send hundreds on the battlefield. Chijou had been a knight. Anyone worthy could become a knight but since they were expected to buy their own equipment including horse and armor, very few ordinary person ever became one. When a knight wasn't from a noble family, it was almost always someone from a rich merchant house. Most common folk were forced to join the rank and file or become a death seeker if they wanted to fight for what they held dear.

Aside from having to buy his own equipment, a high noble or at least a city lord had to recognize your valor and bravery before you could be recognized as a knight. Once done, the knight would enter the service of said noble. Rarely, a knight with no master showed up, sometimes having declared themselves knight. Those were either honourless killing machines or saints too concerned in the well-being of the peasants and lowborn citizens to waste time prancing around in the manor of a noble.

After the nobles, three social class made the bulk of the population. Those three all shared the same laws, rules and benefits.

There were the merchants, generally richer and sometimes almost as powerful as nobles. They were the ones who made the money flow through the kingdom and everywhere else in the world.

There were the artisans, respected for their talents everywhere, without them, no decent life would ever be possible.

Finally, there was the common folk, tavern keep, farmer, shepherd, butcher, messenger, lumberjack and all those things that made the world turn.

Still bellow them stood a last group, the slaves. Bereaved of almost all rights, they did all the chores that their masters gave them or died. Once a slave, they weren't considered human anymore, they were tools which their master could dispose of however they pleased. Usually, their ranks were filled with unredeemable criminals, war prisoners and cursed-bloods.

For the cursed-bloods in particular, even those who were not slave weren't treated much better and even a small mistake could shackle them to a collar. When Chinui was speaking of cursed-bloods, Emperor could clearly see the hatred in his eyes. He obviously disliked them and approved of their unfavorable treatment. Such hatred couldn't only be explained by the death of his brother in the battle against them. It seemed rooted in the depths of his mind from a very long time ago.

Aside from all those, sometimes, a very poor family had to offer one of theirs in exchange for enough money to save the rest or, even more rarely, a group of slavers attacked a small village and took everyone for profit.

Three other groups of people stood on the side and protected the rest from other empires and the world itself. There were of course, the soldiers, duty bound to protect the empire, the kingdom and the town where they were keeping watch. They also served as peacemakers, guards and law enforcement. Since the dangers they were expected to face each day was enormous, they were amongst the most paid people in the empire.

Then, there were the mercenaries, tempted by the gold but not the duty. They preferred to be paid for a specific task and be free of refusing insane commands or free of following whoever they liked in a war.

The last group was mostly made up of freaks who liked to bend the law or completely ignore it. Instead of working in large armies, they preferred to believe in individual strength and worked in small groups or even in solitary. They were known as the death seekers. Described as adventurers, sometimes hero, sometimes vagabond or flat out criminals but most of the times, suicidal. Everyone appreciated their presence because they took care of any and all problems.

When the army could not deal with some monster terrorizing an out of the way village, they were the ones who would put their lives at risk for a hefty sum of money or a barrel of ale. Most of their adventures ended up badly for the unprepared. Some chained quest after quest, hoping to save the world before dying of exhaustion. Some went hunting in the most remote parts of savage lands and never came back. Most had the eyes bigger than the stomach and took a mission way to dangerous for them thinking they would come back to live in glory and luxury.

They were jackasses, even those who survived were usually feeling the irresistible call of danger and took an insane pleasure of running towards their death. Rare were those that made themselves a name and those were so powerful they could do almost anything. Some dedicated their entire life to the hunt of a specific type of creature out of some grudge or uncanny talent for killing them. Those were called slayers, they were undefeatable specialist against a very specific thing. Many found their deaths when they encountered an unexpected quarry.

Soldiers and mercenaries didn't have a lot of respect for death seekers but everyone agreed on saying that if there had not been any death seekers, every kingdoms would have fallen long ago. The reason was simple, horrors scoured the land and the army simply could not be everywhere at once. There were too many dangers and not enough soldiers, not enough walls, not enough bravery.

The monsters encountered by the protectors numbered three big types. Firstly, there were the unnameables of chaos. The common folk just called them horrors. There was never two of a kind, always a uniquely deformed and bloodthirsty monster. They made no difference between man and beast, they where unhinged and mindless terrors that killed everything in their way. They destroyed forests like villages and no one knew were they came from. They just appeared somewhere and started wreaking havoc, never stopping until they met a violent death at the hand of heroes or armies. Of the three types, they were the most feared, the most unpredictable and often, the most dangerous. Glory awaited those who managed to defeat an horror and most of the time, an entire company or rarely, a legion of soldier was sent to stop them.

Then, there were the natural beasts. They were the most numerous but also the simplest to manage and understand. They were only bigger and stronger types of animals. Each species were largely documented and lived only in a very specific region. It was dangerous to enter their territories or to anger them but with a little knowledge and precaution, even a group of normal villager could get rid of them without too much trouble. Some species had even been domesticated with time and now had a lot of uses from merchandise transportation to construction work.

Lastly, there were the unnatural beasts, those were the ones that caused the most problems. Even if the horrors where way more dangerous, the unnatural beasts compensated raw power with cunning intelligence and often, sheer number. if the natural beasts were simple to describe and stayed similar to more docile creatures, the unnatural did not follow the same limitations. For example, a natural beast could simply be a giant horned boar, they were easy to recognize and understand, they were just larger more aggressive boars. The unnatural on the other hand often had some strange abilities or form that made them much harder to deal with. In their ranks there were dragons, invisible stranglers, woodland horrors and so on.

The day Emperor listened to Chinui's explanation about monsters was the day he understood what was wrong with the cursed-bloods. Many species of unnatural beasts possessed some human traits and could even sometimes communicate clearly in human language. There were some bipedal creatures or some more disturbing like a serpent with a human head. Some had established primitive society in the depths of the earth and others knew how to use tools and weapons stolen from humans. Lastly, some even needed humans to reproduce, mostly in case of unisexual species.

Since all cursed-bloods possessed some strange physical traits and some even possessed innate powers beyond human capabilities, they stood somewhere between man and beast. How could you trust someone sharing traits with the beasts outside the city walls? Many had even hypothesized that there were in fact no difference between cursed-bloods and unnatural beasts, they were only at the most human end of the monster spectrum, at least in terms of intelligence.