The Runic Alchemist - Chapter 768: A Hand Raised for the Sanctum 2

Chapter 768: A Hand Raised for the Sanctum 2

[The City of Sanctuary – POV of a Shop owner living in the city of Sanctuary.]

Torvin looked around him, seated in the vast sanctum hall. Everyone was busy scribbling on the papers they were given. The officials called it an exam.

The candidates, Torvin had guessed, would be a lot, but seeing the real number made him feel doubtful about his chances of getting selected as a member of the House of the Lords. It was because of the announcement that declared the seventh head of the House of Lords would be one of the mundane members of the House of Lords selected through the exams and tests.

They were given an hour to finish, and already five minutes had been wasted by Torvin trying to wrap his head around what was happening. There were some 500 plus mundane people in the sanctum hall. And they weren’t the first batch—the exam had been going on for two days, on multiple floors of the sanctum and every hour of the day. Probably thousands had given the exam. Torvin was shocked to see how many people could read and write.

For the time, however, Torvin shook his head and focused on his own paper. The hour was gone in an instant. He didn’t have to write as much as he had thought; the questions ranged from simple writing tests to calculations and even some tick-mark option questions that already gave them four answers and they just had to choose one.

Torvin had read many books for the preparation. The questions of history and geography he easily answered, having prepared well. But when some weird questions like, “What is your ideal method of distributing limited supplies in cold winter as a village head?” and “You are witnessing a small crime like a man smuggling goods in the city for years, you know the man is good at heart and helps people, what would your actions be as a member of the House of Lords?”—such questions, even though Torvin answered fully, he had no idea if his answer or probably anyone’s answer could exactly be a right one.

Some questions had no right answers at all. Some of the four given options were all bad ones and made Torvin scratch his head in confusion for minutes.

At last it ended, and he reunited with his retired blacksmith friend Bramdel and the retired knight Sir Baelen Flamehand. Bramdel he had come together with, but seeing Sir Baelen was a surprise for Torvin.

“You are here too? Managing the exam?” Torvin asked.

Sir Baelen shook his head. “No, Lord Keeper announced in the House of Lords yesterday that there is going to be a Chamber-Lord in the House of Lords now, who will manage the meetings as a kind of Supervisor. A leader among the members that will have some powers and would be charged with managing the House of Lords’ proceedings. Whoever wants to apply for the job has to take part in the exam.”

Bramdel asked, “Wouldn’t the Chamber-Lord be able to influence the decisions?”

“No, the Chamber-Lord will be impartial and can neither vote nor present any ideas. It’s just a job and it will be limited for only a 5-year period. With the 75% agreement of the members, the Chamber-Lord can be changed before that too. The job comes with additional perks though,” Sir Baelen explained. Then added, “I just wanted to take the exam, not really interested in doing a simple job.”

“It was the most confusing thing ever…” Bramdel declared, and Torvin agreed as Sir Baelen laughed.

“I think it was intentionally made confusing and different…” Torvin added.

“Only Lord Keeper knows what he is doing, but the test was indeed amusing,” Sir Baelen concluded.

Two days after the exam for the House of the Lords ended, Torvin received a letter through the city guards saying he had passed the initial exam and was called for further tests. Bramdel had received it too, along with some 500 people out of thousands that had applied, coming from all parts of the Sanctuary land. The announcement had reached every town and village in the whole of Sanctuary land—another reason for so many applications.

Torvin was worried about some of the other country’s spies using the chance to infiltrate the sanctum with such far-spread open announcements. But it seemed like Lord Keeper didn’t care about that issue at all.

When Torvin and Bramdel reached the sanctum building again, they were led to another massive hall along with other hundreds of chosen candidates.

Once again the four-choice moral, history, and geography questions were asked to them—they had to answer on the spot. But it was in the open, many sanctum officials with pads and papers noted their answers, and after every hour some of them were told to leave while they received an invitation to work as sanctum officials. Torvin was impressed, seeing that Lord Keeper was not letting any person who could read and write go at all.

Torvin and Bramdel saw many people signing up to become sanctum officials and start training that very week. Torvin thought about becoming one too if he failed to become a member of the House of Lords. He could give his shop to be managed by others. As a sanctum official there might be something he could do to help their Sanctuary.

But morning turned to afternoon and that too became night, and Torvin was still there. They were allowed to leave for lunch and rest, but it shortly started again. Already over 300 people had left, many of whom had accepted the sanctum official job offer.

When finally 200 had left, the tests ended and they were given another paper to read and put their answers in one to two sentences. The questions were all quite thought-provoking—it asked their opinions on recent changes, and some of the solutions to their biggest issues, and there was even a section where they had to write a few sentences on what the biggest issues of Sanctuary and mankind as a whole were in this time.

Once they submitted that paper they were allowed to go home. They were all told they could join as sanctum officials and other suitable positions to work in the sanctum if they did not get a letter of joining the House of Lords by tomorrow evening.

Bramdel too had survived till the very end with Torvin. Actually, many questions they had answered together and had even exchanged their knowledge at times. Only the last paper was something they were told to do on their own without trying to copy others. Some were called out for doing that.

Torvin was tired, so the second he reached back to his house he ate and fell asleep. The thoughts of passing the third test made his imagination go wild, but at the end he reminded himself that only 70 members of the House of Lords were supposed to be selected out of 200 of them. There was a good chance he wouldn’t be selected, with his ideas and worldview being too narrow, with limited knowledge of war and other countries, the pathfinder life, etc.

The next day Torvin forced himself to get busy in his shop as always, even though his eyes followed every steel-armor-wearing individual that was passing near his shop—Bramdel must be going equally insane, Torvin thought. At last, when Torvin had lost all hope, around 2 PM, an armored guard finally stopped near his shop and called out his name, handing him the letter with a smile and a little, “Congratulations on becoming Sanctum official.”

Torvin could not believe it. He had done it! The chances were very, very low and yet he had succeeded. His hands trembled with the letter in them. He couldn’t open it. But after some deep breathing and realizing all his workers were watching him, Torvin opened it and read it.

Torvin Copperhand – Member of the House of Lords.

It was real.

The evening came, and his two friends came to his shop as they always did and asked Torvin if he had received the letter. Torvin smiled and showed them the confirmation letter officially making him a member of the House of Lords.

To his surprise, Bramdel had received it too! Torvin knew he would feel bad if only he was selected; hearing his friend’s success lifted a strange weight off his chest that he didn’t even know was there.

“Then tomorrow we all go together…” Sir Baelen said while congratulating them.

That whole evening, Sir Baelen told them how the House of Lords functions and what were the small and big laws and unwritten rules. All in all, they were all beyond excited to go to the massive sanctum building tomorrow.

The first day of Torvin and Bramdel in the House of Lords was anything but ordinary though—after the initial welcome ceremony and readings of rules and recent bills passed, all the seven heads of the Sanctuary entered the hall. Everyone stood up instantly, but Lord Keeper gestured for them to sit.

Once it was quiet again, Lord Keeper spoke up:

“Congratulations to all who have managed to secure the position as members of the House of Lords. But the work isn’t done yet. There is one more decision we have to make. It’s the selection of the seventh head of the Sanctuary. But before we proceed, I want a bill to pass. Seraphina will read it now.”

Torvin’s eyes widened, hearing the pretty lass reading the bill the Lord Keeper had proposed himself. The members of the House of Lords and all the officials responsible for managing a village, town, and city would only hold the position for five years. After that, reselection would happen and the people would be changed. There would be ways for the existing members to get reselected.