Death Frost | Deathsworn #2

Chapter 82 ❆ Philosophy

About three days after I brought Viron to Mistress Kora's care,  I received a letter saying he was finally well enough to talk about his situation. In the letter, it seemed Mistress Veronika had gone ahead and asked him a few questions, so they already had an idea, but they wanted me to come in if I was interested in hearing it.

Since I needed Viron's talents—not to mention he owed me five thousand gold—of course I was going to come. However, some things still needed to be settled right over at the Temple. We would be reaching the end of our first year as disciples, so the Abbot told me we would be having assessments to examine how much we had improved.

Should we not be able to pass the tests, there was a chance we would be expelled.

With this version of final exams coming up, I had to make arrangements so that the shop could run smoothly even without me coming by to check on it as frequently as before. I suspected I would be holed up for a while inside the Temple in order to focus more on my training. Don't mention visiting. I might not even have time to make perfumes.

Considering how tight my schedule was, making time to visit the Mistresses' house would not be feasible at the moment. Although I wanted to show my sincerity to Viron for dropping by, I had to forgo this plan for a while in consideration of my current priorities.

Exam week was just as hellish as I expected it would be. But with the Temple being the premier institution for learning martial arts, the standards were naturally much higher and more critical. It was unforgiving to some extent, but it was feasible.

Having finally done the preliminary physical assessments, Erlan and I wearily walked out in our fresh change of clothes, intending to head straight for the cafeteria.

"You and I have the same master," Erlan said as we walked out of the training grounds together. "The Abbot tends to lower his voice somewhere towards the end when he's tired."

"Probably because he's old?" I whispered.

He laughed. "Anyway...It gets really hard to know what he's saying. Do you still take those notes?"

"Ah...is it for the common lessons we have?" I asked. "I don't think I can share my personal training notes with you."

"Yes. The common lessons are fine."

I pulled out my notebook and handed them to Erlan.

Our education had a lot of written philosophies and some arts that encourage meditation, like chanting mantras and calligraphies—overall some related arts and activities that helped us "connect with the universe." Of course, considering how solid my "connection with the universe" was, I never really had to exert any particular effort to get that part done, but admittedly, my peers were not the same.

Erlan and I sat at the same table in the cafeteria as we continued discussing topics regarding our lessons.

Lunch served was usually vegetarian, and it wasn't because meat was sworn off—but because it was expensive and had to be bought.

The monks of this world were very different in practice, it would seem. As I studied their ways, it was made clear to me that they were the more hedonistic counterpart of the ones from my world. 'Live as you were, as you were born, but do not give to the extremes and abuse what you have borrowed,' was a very common philosophy. They did not deny worldly affairs, even embraced it. However, they did everything in moderation, and made stuck by their every choice in life.

"Hey, you two."

I looked up and found Miles sitting at our table with his tray.

"Evy, do you still take notes on our shortcomings?" Miles asked.