Ezra woke up inside the crib, It was early morning and Evan was lying down beside him in a makeshift bed. He remembered that he was lying on the table, it was probably Evan who had placed him in his crib. He was full of energy. He could not properly walk yet without magic so these times when magic capacity was high he used it to practice all sorts of experiments on his body. Magic helped him do extraordinary things within his body but he still could not use it externally. He refrained from doing his routine today because he was not finished with the book he was reading. He quickly jumped out of his crib and strode toward the table.
There was a milk bottle on the table ready to drink, he drank it as he opened the book. He was dismayed as he looked at it because he did not put a bookmark and thus had to find the page he was on as the book was most probably closed by Evan.
As he opened the back to the page as he read again. The system that the Rex Imperia was using was established six hundred years ago. He discovered that the house sitting at Rex"s and Primarchs could actually get fifty percent of the profit of the total domain once they were replaced. The succeeding Primarch or Rex would make due with the remaining half. Which was quite generous in Ezra"s opinion. House Regaledeous surely benefited the most since they have been in power for three hundred years with no signs of giving up the throne. He could only imagine how much wealth that the house has already obtained. Curiously no one had ever attempted to overthrow the house. Ezra surmised that all parties were satisfied until they found fault with the current system only then would there be an uprising of sorts.
Reading more of the book he also discovered that there were organizations outside the control of the Primarchs and the Rex. These were knightly orders headed by powerful commoners, one could also actually become a knight via these channels.
While it was true that it was rare that commoners were no match for the n.o.bles there were times where commoners would rise up and become powerhouses that rival even the princes, this rarely happened, although throughout history among the commoners there were none that were powerful enough to challenge a Primarch, be it because they were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of purebloods or just freaks of nature no one had gained enough power to defeat a Primarch and thus there was stability in the system.
The Rex Imperia had to deal with these, the empire both needed the strength of these people and a way to control them so they established the knightly orders headed by the most powerful of commoners. The biggest among the orders were Knights of the Order of the Demon Hunter, Knights of the order of the West Wind, Knights of the order of the Endless Ocean and Knights of the order of the Sacred Earth. All of them had their own creeds and they had very mysterious objectives not recorded in the book. The four knightly orders were the most well known but there were other small ones but were not mentioned.
The knightly orders had various tasks like protecting trade routes and setting up wilderness clearing missions. Also, these people were the frontline magical combatants during the various campaigns Rex Imperia organized. They could also aid the various provinces if there was a lack of manpower in a region. Overall they were organized as back up troops to be directed by a n.o.ble for a fee. These people had no land but they did not lack in money.
There were also some details on how the campaigns were formed. The legions were , basically just led by the Primarchs and the n.o.bles under them. As for the Rex, he has his own troops hand-picked from the Primarch"s forces themselves. There were times that the Rex developed his own troops but this was not the norm. The Rex was the only person privileged to have a standing army with or without war. His troops were the cream of the crop and were supposedly better than any soldiers that the Primarchs could raise. Rex, unlike the Primarchs, could add more land to a previous subordinate of a Primarch, he could then be received under Rex"s care. Each Primarch had three legions under them for the Fire Primarch they were called Legio Ignis, the Water Primarch was called Legio Aqua, Legio Terra for the Earth Primarch and Legio Ventus for the Wind Primarch and their corresponding number. The first was normally the best among the legions the Primarchs had.
The naming convention for the Rex"s legions were Legio Imperia Elita, Legio Praetorae, and Legio Praetorae Agumenti. The Imperia Elita was composed of outstanding knights and n.o.bles hand-picked from the other four Primarchs. But the true special forces were the Praetorae, they sacrificed their land and t.i.tle for the cause and prestige of protecting the Rex. The Augmenti were the only troops that were not in military service and only called when needed. Thus the standing army of Rex Imperium were only two legions in times of peace. Although there was a standing military, it was still up to the n.o.bles who ruled their domains to keep the peace and thus they had to recruit their own forces.
Ezra was happy with the new information, but he was still baffled as to what exactly the Arcanists were. From his conjecture Arcanists were anyone who could use magic but not the four sanctioned magic types. This intrigued him, the books did not mention any other country or nation aside from the Rex Imperia.
"Does that mean that this Kingdom is autonomous? Is there no trade going in and out of the empire? Does the empire have allies? What exactly are the surrounding kingdoms? Were they currently at war with them or in a state of peace,"
These were the things that Ezra was thinking. He then closed the book to ponder about what he just read, he did not finish everything and was at around three-fourths of the book. He decided that he would practice his magic at this time to get clear headed. He longed for the days he could know what exactly magic was and how it operated. He was slowly adapting to this world may be in the future he would also be able to cast his own magic but for now, at least he was content on knowing somewhat how the society around him worked.