Chapter 3: Mustafa
The great naming ceremony of the Sultan's first Sehzade, which lasted for the next few weeks, left everyone in Istanbul, Edirne, and possibly the empire as a whole with one name on their lips.
MUSTAFA! If the boy can live through adolescence, the first prince can almost certainly sit on the Imperial throne. Raining as caliph of the Muslims and Padishah of the Ottoman Empire.
The boy on everyone's lips is now just a tiny and feeble creature suckling at his mother tit. From the day he was born, his mother, Gulnus Sultan, noticed this child was different, as every so often there was a light of intellect in the baby's eyes.
Leaving the mother and her servants perturbed at the intelligence and calm demeanor of this newly born baby. As time passed by, Mustafa would act less and less like a baby.
A young servant responsible for the boy when his mother is busy with her daily duties, Zeliha, was reading to him for the past few hours. To her, this was maybe the most boring book she had ever read, and she constantly had to be awoken by the baby to continue her duties as a "court scholar".
Her torture was interrupted by a welcome face, another servant apart from the court of scholars, and one that had reached a greater level than her, known as the "head scholar," Elif!
Zeliha screamed to the newcomer with a tone dripping with sarcasm, "Oh, grand and great head scholar Elif, you have saved me again and just at the perfect time! My brain cannot take in any more information, I must postpone my studies until tomorrow's first light."
Elif now grown used to the sarcastic remarks and inside jokes about the young Sezade's court of scholars… and her having read the most hours, only lagging behind the legendary grand Mufti, baby Mustafa's own mother, Gulnas the wise!
After Elif finished her quick thoughts, she responded to her fellow servant with a tone that oozed even more sarcasm than her friends.
"You haven't a scholar's bone in your body, young lady. You hold great promise, and if you manage to change your mindset, you may one day hold a prestigious title such as mine. No one more devoted to his highness' court than I, the forever loyal Elif."
She ended her comedic rant with a ceremonial bow given to the baby, Mustafa. He surprised the two young ladies by letting out a loud and cute baby laugh, ending shortly after in a bout of hiccups.
The young lady closest to Mustafa didn't reach into his cradle to help him with his hiccups. Instead, having been released from her cruel duties, she scampered out of the room with all due haste.
Elif, having been left behind to care for the overly perceptive child, sighed as her thoughts lingered on the supernatural intellect the baby shows. If it were once or twice, everyone would find it normal, but now it is all too common for the baby lord to show a sense of understanding far beyond the realm of possibility.
All the Servants in the palace harem are already slaves, but this baby knows no mercy! He has now practically enslaved all the literate young ladies, forcing them to read day and night.
The 6-month-old baby, Mustafa runs a tight ship; his schedule has been pretty much the same for the past 3 months. Holding the young maidens hostage from sun up to sundown, making them read him the books in the Edirne Palace library.
But the baby faces a serious dilemma: the books have begun to be reread. He isn't absorbing any new information, this isn't the Topkapi Palace, this is the old palace in Edirne where Mehmed II held court until the conquest of Constantinople.
Meaning the library here is practically barren, considering it's been about 2 centuries since the dynasty packed their bags and left for the city. Baby Mustafa, who is now, after hours of reading from the so-called "head scholar," is supposed to be asleep.
But he is now wide awake in his crib, thinking hard about how to make use of the time given to him in his baby years. He feels it is such a waste to have a chance given to him like this and not take full advantage of all his opportunities.
He began listing all his advantages in his head. 1.) I am the only one in this timeline who knows the future and a few key technologies that will give me a good advantage in many aspects. 2. I am an expert on certain aspects of Ottoman history and have a firm grasp of the subject matter. 3.) I get to basically hold a crown prince position, getting to know my parents and servants before the modicum of other claimants!
His little body wriggled around in excitement, thinking about the future. Then he suddenly stopped and stared into the distance blankly for a brief moment. Then he thought to himself about the fourth and final absolute advantage he held, the mystical power granted to him by the process in which he came to this timeline, a system.
He again stared into the distance blankly, but in his eyes, he can see a small translucent screen appearing to be a pop-up ad but zapped directly into the brain and viewed through the retina.
This system was unlike any others his nephews and nieces told him about that were in their web novels, comics, and games. This was as simple as it could get! Especially grateful for this was Mustafa, as he wasn't very tech savvy nor a hardcore gamer.
The system only displayed 4 bars of data:
Name: Mustafa Osmanli
Occupation: Blessed Baby Sezade
Level: 15
XP: 3/6
Mustafa has to thank this system, as it allowed him to become fully conscious while still in a baby's body. He went through multiple levels whilst he was in and out of consciousness, only gaining semi-autonomy of his body at around 3 months.
This is when he discovered the real advantage the system gives, which is to allow someone to upgrade their occupational skills and knowledge! You do this by just going about your daily routine in your occupation, as always, making it extremely simple.
The more you work, the better you get, theoretically, but Mustafa harbors doubts as to the heights one human can reach. They say human growth is infinite, but in reality, that isn't true; it is finite, possibly even determined at conception.
Even if it were infinite, the benefits wouldn't be that major, as just improving yourself when you hope to not only save a critically flawed empire but even expand it to achieve or eclipse the dreams of the empire's founder, Osman!
Before his untimely departure from his timeline, the machine imparted to him a mission and a manual of sorts on this system and its various functions. Most were only theoretical, so as not to be proven just yet, but some were set in stone!
The most important feature he quickly identified after regaining full consciousness was that he could view others' levels! Not just view them, he could even somehow influence their growth in their respective occupations.
The only negative, which is a positive, is that the person he wants to allow to improve must have a certain level of trust or loyalty to him. He cannot view the levels or improve the levels of people who hold either neutral or negative views toward him.
All those possible to add to the system will be added automatically into a sort of queue, shown on the system's bottom right corner as a sort of notification box. Once the notification box is acknowledged by his consciousness, it is opened and reveals a list of candidates to be added to the roster and also the active roster and its free slots.
As of now, he can only have 12 members on his roster, but he hasn't managed to add that many. Just a few slaves who soothe his soul with their beautiful reading voices.
Over the past few months, his mother is the only one on the roster who has raised their level and achieved a breakthrough in her occupation. Her occupation changed from "Powerless Haseki Sultan" to "Haseki Sultan", then, not even a month later raised to "Experienced Haseki Sultan".
Mustafa himself doesn't know why her occupation changed so fast, as her levels weren't reaching the threshold of a breakthrough. He can only guess it has something to do with her actual political career, not the abstract levels of the system.
Which makes sense as a woman to have given birth to the first heir of a sultan is going to hold some political weight with the baby tied to her side. But not just her occupation changed, from Mustafa's perspective, his mother herself changed.
She has been more and more regal, and the servants more and more servile in her presence. The few Servant girls who happened to be literate and therefore qualified to read to the young lord were added to the list, as what young lady doesn't trust and love a baby initially?
The woman changed fast, clearly after reading months' worth of educational material, even at the level of 15,16,17th century scholarship would lead to at the very least an increase in knowledge on the subject matter.
But it seems with the help of the system, these women though they joke about being scholars… Have really become "Oblivious Scholars" at least according to the system. If Mustafa wasn't a baby and was able to communicate and command these servants, he would love to test their knowledge on the subjects they studied accidentally through his reading sessions.
As he continued to try thinking and planning… Mustafa drifted off into a deep sleep! Forgetting his lack of learning materials for the night.
As Mustafa sleeps comfortably, the sultan is now busy dealing with the aftermath of the fourth Austro-Turkish war. The war ended in a year, and the Ottomans lost not decisively, but a loss, nonetheless.
Though when all is said and done, the Holy Roman Emperor would sign a peace treaty with terms favoring the House of Osman, not the relative victor, the Austrians.
As time breezed by, Mustafa, stuck in the harem, would continue on his path of gaining localized knowledge from the scholarly works of this era… as he continued to age day by day… month by month… year by year… Soon, he would quickly pass through his toddler years and into early adolescence.
-Next Chapter, we can begin to have some fun reading... Comment on the hopes you have for the novel..