Parīksā

"It's a national grade exam," Iromi muttered as they entered the cloisters leading to the central Pagoda.

"What is?" Korou gave a slight shrug.

"Parīksā," Iromi mumbled. "You were asking about it during lunch."

"Oh, that." He scratched his temple. "Wait, national grade exam, as in for the entirety of the Empire?"

"That's what national means." Iromi deadpanned.

"Fair enough, but for what?"

"Higher education." Iromi cast a side glance. "The five career paths in the village are not all the world has to offer. There are professions you can find only after you step out."

"Do they have educational institutes?" asked Korou in awe. Until now, he had believed the only form of academics he could procure was through religious abodes. He had even mused on possibly picking up theology later, but Iromi's words came as salvation for him.

"Universities." Iromi finished with a swirl. Her brows raised. "Your parents didn't tell you?"

"No," Korou gave her a half smile. "Both Ma and Baba never really delved much into academics. They would prefer me to play around and enjoy childhood."

"Sounds fun." Iromi turned around and continued her walk. "Make haste, or we'll be late."

"It's terrible, I would rather study." He obliged, following her lead.

"Really?"

"Yeah. You are smart, so you probably get it."

"I wish," Iromi shot a rueful glance and pushed open the creaking door.

Naobi's class was the last to be held in the Monastery grounds. It was also the lengthiest. When Korou asked his peers about the course topic, everyone had a hazy gaze, and those moderately bright only dabbled in the abstract.

Even the prodigious Iromi seemed at a loss for words.

"I think she will teach about the cosmos." Iromi offered.

"Shamanism." Ibo jumped in enthusiasm.

"The secrets of the void." Korou snickered.

"What?" Iromi rolled her eyes.

"It means absolutely nothing." He concluded.

It was a class of contradiction, a study in imagination, a breaking of cognition and a room full of dozing kids. Even Iromi, brightest out of the forty enrolled, clutched her temples, scribbling notes. Her slate had already run out of space.

"The cosmological order of the nine Gods of the Yaldaba Pantheon was mentioned first in the texts of Shaman King Ningthou Kangba. Although it was initially oral, we believe the written source, roughly two centuries after his death, gives enough information on his understanding of divinity." Naobi tapped her chalk over the board. She had drawn a Nonagon with each vertex bearing an alphanumeric symbol. "Now, as for the why of knowing them. In the art of conjuring what common folks call magic, or by Lamphi standards, Shamanism is an intricately calculative discipline: magecraft. And the key to understanding it lies with-" She pointed at the centre of the nonagram, which had a void. "-ancient one's knowledge of the divine. Though masquerading in mythology, the classics always bore truth. The kind one can only find by reading between the lines."

"Korou, please tell me I am not the only one who can't follow her." Iromi tucked his sleeves in desperation.

"Calm down," Korou, equally confused, gave her a nod. "I am sure she purposely uses terms we can't follow."

"As for understanding all that I have said for the last hour and a half." Naobi dusted her hands, waving off the chalk powder. "I don't expect any of you to understand. It's a module advanced enough that even the final years won't follow. I only babbled for so long to test your attention span. And it makes me ecstatic to tell you," Her gaze paused at Korou. Her lips curled into a smile. "All of you failed. Welcome to the first and last class on Shamanism. We won't see each other for the rest of the term, and hopefully never. Now for the mandatory explanatory session."

Naobi walked over to the centre, her staff swaying with her gait. She then stampes it butt over the matted floor. The dozing students woke up with a start.

"How many of you here know about Parīksā?" Naobi announced.

Everyone but Korou raised their hand. For the first time since his reincarnation, he felt the sense of intellectual inadequacy. He cursed himself, then Atla and his parents, only to shift it towards society. He, Korou, the one everyone had dubbed brilliant and prodigious when it came to picking up crumbs of knowledge by simply partaking in a conversation as a listener, was being looked down upon by children. It was blasphemous and invigorating. He hated.

"And those who don't?" Naobi smiled, her scarlet eyes meeting his blue.

His jaws clenched, vision dim, Korou hesitantly raised his arm.

"Isn't that nice of you, Korou." Naobi grinned, while Iromi shot him a sympathetic look. "For the first time, you are on the questioning side."

Swallowing his pride, he bellowed. If he had gone with technicality, then Iromi's explanation would have been adequate to satisfy his doubts. However, as a scholar at heart, his palpable desire to chase knowledge always got the better of him. He wanted to understand this Parīksā; as things stood, Nabobi was the only one who could.

"Can you please explain it to me, ma'am?"

Sure."

The explanation was standard, similar to Iromi's, except the vocabulary was purposefully sophisticated. Korou, despite the impulsive wrath, found it rather nostalgic. His professors, both postgraduate and beyond, had similar holds on linguistics.

"I am not sure if you are aware of the geography or the geopolitics or even what these words mean-"

"I do, please continue." Korou abruptly cut her off, as Naobi paused, her fingers curled around the half-used chalk.

"Suit yourself then." Naobi's grey-black brows furrowed, but her lips parted into a smile. Turning back towards the board, she scribed a rough map of what Korou believed was the Empire of Ukiya.

"She is amazing..." Iromi, elated, had her eyes peeled on Naobi's silhouette. "Even my tutor can't draw the Ukiyan map that precisely."

"Have you seen the map before?"

"It hangs in my father's work chamber."

"Right", Korou said in a mumbling sigh. "I tend to forget you are the village chief's daughter."

"Your father's the warrior chief," Iromi retorted with a glare. "I am sure he has his own."

"I wonder."

The explanation of the map was hardly a challenge. As someone who dabbled with ancient and medieval alike, his eyes for intricacies were subpar. And Naobi was all for the nuances. Over the North Eastern segment were the dotted settlements within a valley of seven Hills, their home. The Lamphi village, the capital of the province called Kangleipak. Similarly, he saw four other provinces once they travelled across the meandering rivers and jagged ridges. Vanga, the gateway to the West and land of mangroves and marshes, Teutonia, the central province of sweeping plains, Raetia, the northern borders to the majestic Meru mountain range, and finally, making most of the coastline and also the Western border leading to other continents, the Mewara province.

"With an area so big, how could one test for people's aptitude to run an empire?"

"National exam? Parīksā?" Korou answered hesitantly.

"Absolutely wrong." She patted the chalk dust from over her wafted sleeves. "This is a parody, the exam, but a good one. It tests not your concepts, but the ability to retain an exorbitant amount of information and then vomit it over nine days. You can do that; you pass, you can't, and you fail. Fairly simple but a detestable method of scaling someone's intellectual devices."

"Then how?"

"The institutions." Naobi swirled around, her beaded strand fluttering as she sat cross-legged. "It is those well-funded and maintained Universities brimming with knowledge that make up those intelligent men and women who can run this Empire."

"You see," Naobi continued after a pause. "In Ukiya, we believe not in prodigies by birth, but in their cultivation. The former is fate, the latter is efficient. And that is what I love about this system."

The walk to the training grounds was easier than he had imagined. After Naobi's underhanded lecture, Korou was glad he could breathe fresh air.

"It would be nice if she had expanded upon magecraft." Korou was over the last flight of stairs when he involuntarily murmured.

"She would be deemed a heretic if she had." Iromi, at a few paces from him, rolled her eyes.

"Why? Shamanism exists."

"It's complicated." Iromi pursed her lips. "Let's just say...we don't have the best of history with the other spectrum of magic."

"But isn't headpriestess well versed in that?"

"She is…but-"

"Complicated - yeah, I get it" Korou brushed it aside with a wave.