There were many dozens of cursed-bloods species, all looking more or less like ordinary humans. If their ancestors had been human, that would explain why it was possible to conceive a child between a man and a cursed-blood but in that case, what kind of atrocities had their ancestors done to be transformed like so?

Either they were beasts or their ancestors had been cursed but either way, they stayed abominations in the eyes of most. They occupied a foggy and confusing zone in a society that didn't know what to do with them. Should they invite the beasts at their tables running the risk that they would end up on the menu or should they lock them up even if they may be more respectable than many a man?

In this world where danger lurked at every corner and behind every tree, where people died by the hundreds everyday at the claws of monsters, most people chose to take no risks even if it made them appear unkind. Since everyone acted this way, what wrong was there to crush the cursed-bloods beneath your boots? After all, they weren't even human.

"If they are that afraid, Why not just kill them instead of letting them inside as slaves?"

"Because we need their hands. There are not enough people for all the work that must be done. Not only that but there are some jobs that no one wants to do, it is easier to sacrifice cursed-bloods to those than to convince honest workers with a huge payment."

"I see."

Since emperor had never seen a real monster nor a cursed-blood before, he did not know what to think of them. Chinui felt like they were a bad thing but that did not make it the truth. Chinui didn't entirely believe Emp's story either. Emp felt like he needed to see for himself to understand better like how Chinui required proof for his story. At least, he would keep Chinui's distaste of them in mind.

Ordinary people had all grown up while being told repeatedly that cursed-bloods were bad, scary and bellow them. Emp did not feel the same as them, all he had been told was to become an emperor and that they counted on him. He felt like those people would not understand this just like how he had a hard time picturing how exactly where the cursed-bloods evil. Anyway, it didn't matter, he wasn't a cursed-blood and whatever he thought of them would not change their situation.

Going back to the monster talk, there were as many ways to defeat them as there were varieties of beasts. Swords and bows where widely used but the most effective way to kill them was by far magic. Not many could use magic but those that could use even the simplest spell could gain enormous benefits in fame, money and of course survivability. There were many magic types in this world but they all fit into three great group. There was the magic of the body, mostly called self magic, the magic of the mind and the magic of the soul.

Self magic was the simplest and was mostly used by warriors. Every magic that was classified as a magic of the body would let the user influence his own body. It could let someone see further and in more details, let them lift impossible weights, run faster and so on. The power of self magic seemed to be directly linked to the stamina and muscle mass of the user. The more healthy and vigorous body someone had, the better his self magic would be.

Mind magic was the kind of magic people usually referred to when they spoke of spells. With specific words, gestures and ingredients, magic users could influence the world around them to make almost anything happen. Fireballs, stone walls sprouting from the ground, controlling plants and healing serious injuries in an instant where all things that were possible with mind magic. To use this magic, the spell caster had to draw the necessary power from the world itself instead of from his own body which let them do much more than self magic could. The only real limitations were the talent of the caster and his supplies of ingredients.

The last type of magic, the magic of the soul, was the most mysterious and the rarest. It was a strange magic halfway between self magic and mind magic. The goal of this kind of magic was either to let the world influence the body or the body influence the world. That magic could make someone invisible, prolong the life of someone, boost regeneration, metamorphosis and even a certain control over life and death. Aside from the rare few who knew how to use this magic, no one knew were the energy it used came from.

It was sometimes hard to see the difference between soul magic and the other two types. Chinui tried to explain it to Emp with an example about a sword slash. Someone using self magic would be able to make his slash stronger and stronger because of the magic amplifying his physical strength. Soul magic on the other hand would not make the slash stronger but could let you throw the energy of the slash away from the sword across long ranges. A soul magic user could then cut his opponent in half using his sword without ever getting near him.

The difference between mind magic and soul magic was much harder for Chinui to explain. He tried his best but in the end, it was clear that even him had no real idea on how it all worked. In the end, the best he could muster was that both could make you invisible but the mind magic would force you to not see them while the soul magic would let you see through them.

After all that magic stuff, Chinui went on to explain things he described as "actually useful knowledge". He had a whole lot of customs and beliefs that everyone knew about and applied without thinking to explain. There were so many that Emp was certain he would end up forgetting some of them. Chinui probably forgot to mention some too because of how simple they were. Many of those were rules about the roles of everyone and how to behave with others. The rules about how to behave with nobles were especially complicated but Chinui told him that there would be an entire class about the subject in school mixed in with etiquette. Emp already dreaded them.

Chinui was afraid for Emp reputation, after all, he wasn't doing all this so that Emp would disgrace himself first thing after entering a town. At least he hoped he would remember enough basic things to hold a normal conversation without looking like an idiot. He needed to not ask crazy questions like why did that guy have three wives or why that one forced his kids to take care of the horses instead of letting the slaves do it. Everyone had a place and a task and everyone expected the others to mostly conform themselves to these roles. Emp was expected to know them as well. He understood most of them but he had a hard time with all the exceptions. Why could they not all follow the same rules? Emp had a very good memory and did not have a really hard time remembering everything but all those exceptions seemed to be overly complicated.

For example, it was customary to hang fresh fruits over entrance doors to scare evil spirits away unless the door was facing the north in which case, it would instead stops said spirits from getting out of the house, trapping them inside. He thought it sounded somewhat strange but luckily, other rules made much more sense to him. In case of an attack, it was the duty of the men including nobles to defend women and children with their life on the line unless their work was judged essential like the only blacksmith in town making weapons for the rest. The women also had the right to fight but most preferred not to and those that did have the strength and courage to fight often became famous.

Since catastrophe often happened, the dead piled up really quickly. This resulted in two things. First, they had to do something with all the bodies. In the Steelwood empire, the dead were buried in the woods and saplings were planted on top of the graves. It was believed that the spirit of the dead would then inhabit the trees and help the future generations through the objects made from its wood.

The second thing was that because so many men died all the time, there were many more women than men. Women usually lived at least twice as long as their husbands and most took over the trade of their dead partner. Wherever you went in town, most shops and workshops were manned by women. Chandlers, bakers, butchers, carpenters, shop keeps, merchants and even smiths were dominated by women of all ages.

With most men dying so quickly, people had taken two habits. They married young but waited after the man first fight to do so. The first battle was the most deadly, if a man survived his baptism of blood, his chances of survival greatly increased. Families, to protect their daughters from bad choices, often chose to keep away suitors who had not spilled blood yet. After all, it was really easy to verify with the help of the hunting card.

Apart from that, a bunch of small rules and customs applied to couples. A couple should not be more than one degree of nobility apart from each other but the rule was often ignored. It was usually the women who chose her husband with the approval of her family and the would be husband. Nobles sometimes went at it in reverse and let an important male heir choose the girl he wanted or offered their daughters for some political or territorial benefits. Polygamy was common as well and encouraged since without it, more than half the women would never get married and more importantly, the population would quickly dwindle. A woman could only bear one child at a time but who knew if their partner would live long enough to give them a second one? And even if he did live long enough to sire more children, many of them would die in tragic fashion before reaching adulthood and then, nearly half the surviving boys would die in their first battle. Depending on the place, it was sometimes more and sometimes less but overall, only forty out of every hundred kids survived with thirty of them being women.

The age of adulthood wasn't a fixed number. A boy became a man after he spilled the blood of a monster or another man for the first time and a girl became woman after she bled for the first time. It was really convenient for Emperor since he had no idea of what was his physical age and, if he started counting since the day he was created, it would take a long time for him to reach adulthood. Once someone became an adult, it was expected of him to make his own place in the world but it did not change much for Emp since he had to take care of himself from the start.

Once adult, a lot of things you did not have the rights to do became possible. Most importantly, it gave you the rights to buy weapons. Emp thought it was somewhat strange that to have the right to buy any weapons, you had to kill something first. Chinui told him that the rules didn't forbid someone to make his own weapon and didn't forbid parents to lend weapons to their kids to complete the test. They just didn't want a bunch of kids running around town with blades waving for no reason.

"But what about the orphans?" Asked Emp.

"It's simple." Answered Chinui. "Either they are extremely lucky and talented or they become slaves willingly to escape death."

It felt a little unfair to him but since there was nothing he could do about it, he quickly forgot and asked his next question. How did they know if someone did or did not pass the test? It was a very simple answer, it was once again because of the hunting card. It was often used as a identity card since it was mostly foolproof.

Chinui told him all about it in details. The first thing he told him was that he had no idea how it worked but it did. Mankind mostly believed that the gods had gifted this to them but weren't sure why aside from the obvious convenience it presented them. It was impossible to cheat the hunting card, impossible to falsify and the thing was really smart. If you won the title of best cook of the empire as a result of a contest, the card would display it, no need to do anything at all. You have the noble title of baron, the card knows and displays it. You tell people you are actually the king in disguise, the card will stay blank revealing your lie.

Bellow the titles section there was the main point of the hunting card, a list of every kill you ever made sorted in chronological order. The thing itself was divided in two, a side for harmless prey and the other for everything else. Every kill was represented by a small picture and the written name of the creature. In the case of Emp, the first section was slowly filling up with fishes and rabbits and the second section stayed empty. For Chinui, in the second section, there was a list so long that it seemed to never end. Most of the kills were cursed-bloods but besides them, there was mostly other human beings and strange creatures Emp didn't recognize.

Chinui told him that the hunting card always knew to which category a kill belonged, even if you believed otherwise. For example, a young noble could want to cheat the test easily by paying people to tie up a creature and present it to him defenseless. But, if he did kill it like that, the card would register it in the harmless prey section for the noble and put it in the other section for the group that had captured it for him.

Finally, Chinui told him that even if the card itself could not be cheated, people looking at it could. The card allowed some secrecy by letting you hide some information like part of your name or titles but never to change them yourself. For example, Emperor could hide his full name and only keep his nickname Emp written but could not change his name to something else entirely. It was also possible to trick someone with illusion magic, making him see something else entirely but if you had enough talent to do that, there would surely be many easier way to go about your business than casting complicated spells to trick the minds of onlookers.

To answer the question Emp had first asked, shopkeepers only had to ask for the hunting card and if there was anything at all in the second section, it was proof you passed the test and were considered adult. It was also quite useful for death seekers to prove their hunts had been successful.

Emp absorbed this information and everything else Chinui said like a sponge. He loved to learn new things, he felt compelled to expend is knowledge. It was to complete the task his creators had given him of course but also because he genuinely enjoyed it. Or, had he been created to enjoy it to compel him to reach his goal? In any case, even if he had not enjoyed it, he wouldn't have the time to complain about it nor the energy to do so. He felt tired all the time but still did everything Chinui asked him to do knowing that it was a great help for his future.