"No way! Damn it, this world is utter bullshit! The channels for class ascension have been almost completely sealed! For a commoner to claw their way into the nobility, even with good fortune, it would take several generations!"
Three-and-a-half-year-old Henville hurled the book to the floor in a huff.
By now, Henville could remain awake and think clearly for up to ten hours each day.
His body had grown strong and healthy—slightly ahead of other children his age.
A week after his first birthday, his father returned from the battlefield.
The War of the Six Kings had ended in what amounted to a draw.
From the conversations Henville overheard, he pieced together that the war had been fought for living space.
Thus, this was merely a temporary truce.
There was good news, however: Henville's father, Obian, had come home whole and unharmed.
Moreover, Obian had saved a baron's life several times on the field.
This earned him the nickname "Lucky Obian."
The rescued baron, however, knew Obian's survival was more than luck.
He could tell Obian was no ordinary conscripted farmer; the man had received proper combat training.
Obian hailed from a merchant family.
Trade had begun with his grandfather and continued under his father as a joint caravan operation—several partners pooling resources to buy and sell goods.
Caravans meant long, perilous journeys.
In a feudal kingdom, expecting safe roads was naïve.
Every caravan member had to be ready—and willing—to fight for their lives and livelihood.
By Obian's father's generation, the family had saved a modest fortune.
In his youth, Obian's father trained for years under a mercenary.
When Obian himself was a young man, his father hired a knight's squire to teach him formal combat techniques.
That squire later fell in battle; otherwise, Obian would have gained a valuable knightly connection.
Thanks to his merchant upbringing—good food and systematic training—Obian had always been robust.
He had even considered enlisting and drilled regularly with weapons.
Had his father not been gravely wounded on his final trading run, forcing Obian to take over the shops and swear off the roads, Obian would surely have sought adventure.
With this foundation, Obian did not report for war empty-handed like most peasants.
He brought his own longsword, a leather-wrapped shield, a set of repaired second-hand leather armor, and even a broken-down destrier bought from the army.
These possessions caught the baron's eye.
Obian was kept in the baron's personal retinue instead of being thrown to the front as cannon fodder.
Trained in orthodox knightly techniques, Obian fought nearly as well as the baron's own bodyguards.
That was how he earned merit multiple times.
Yet after a year of life-or-death combat and more than a dozen enemy kills, Obian's social station remained unchanged.
He accepted it philosophically: "If nobility were that easy, the streets would be full of nobles!"
Obian was delighted with Henville's healthy growth.
When he noticed his son's precocious intellect, he immediately procured books—knowledge was exorbitantly expensive here.
Henville proved a prodigy.
He mastered the official script of the Kingdom of Ika in no time.
Convinced his son was exceptional, Obian spared no expense.
On Henville's fourth birthday, he paid a fortune and called in his favor with the baron to enroll Henville at the nearest knightly manor.
There, Henville studied alongside the knight's own son, receiving a noble education.
For a child hungry for knowledge, this was no hardship.
He studied daily, ate meat at every meal, and grew strong.
He ate so much that the other children nicknamed him "Little Rice Bucket."
Henville did not mind.
I'm not freeloading!
My old man pays handsomely.
Every month, Obian sent three gold coins to Sir Cookler's household.
To common folk, that was a fortune.
In the town of Diversion Bay, a family of five lived on two gold coins a year.
The family owned several shops, two mills, and ample farmland—among the wealthiest in town.
Still, three gold coins represented a quarter of their monthly income.
Spending that on a four-year-old struck the townsfolk as insane extravagance.
Henville spent a full year at the manor.
He did not waste his father's money.
He learned to write fluently and mastered noble etiquette.
That was only what he revealed.
In truth, he had progressed far further: he began studying the continental common tongue and devoured every book he could touch, mapping this still-foreign world in his mind.
Most crucially, he secretly observed and mimicked Sir Cookler's training regimen.
Sir Cookler was the younger son of an Ika viscount.
Barred from inheritance, he had nevertheless earned a knight's title and a modest fief through sheer ability.
His tiny village east of Diversion Bay was real, taxable land.
The Cookler family method was an internal secret, never taught to outsiders.
Sir Cookler personally oversaw his second son's practice.
Henville always "played" nearby.
No one guarded against a five-year-old—children that age were lucky to stay dry at night.
The exercises were basic: calisthenics, tendon stretching, and coordination drills.
Yet even these were beyond the reach of commoners or merchants.
Of course, true douqi required secret potions and meditative visualizations later on.
Only then could one be called a genuine knight.
Henville looked no further than building a strong body first.
His plan was set: in his teens, he would modernize the family business, amass capital, then plagiarize inventions left and right.
He never intended to fight his way up. Money worked just as well—if you had enough.
But never plan too far ahead.
That little bitch, Lady Fortune, loves to leap from the shadows and slap you across the face the moment you grow smug—just to remind you how fickle and cruel fate truly is!