Road to the Crown

After the entire official ceremony, or rather its religious part, was over, all the nobles from the cathedral and the immense crowd from the town's square right beside it formed up. With the Great Marchal leading the whole procession with the Crown's banner raised high in the air - as compared to the procession that leads to the cathedral when it was kept low as a sign that the King-Elect had yet to officially start his duties.

While most of the nobles took the opportunity to use this great excuse to free themselves from the workload of counting the money and hurrying up their serfs, this procession was the last part where common folk actually bothered to take part in. For a single reason.

Right after the Great Marchal, a group of royal treasurers marched with their servants carrying huge chests filled with coins. Every so often, one of them would grab a handful of money and throw it at the crowd, making them praise the wise and generous king in the short moments between fighting between each other to grab just one more coin before others would take this opportunity from them.

This entire walk of pride lasted until the royal palace, located only a few stais (roughly 1 kilometer/0.6mile, the distance horse could run before resting step) away from the town's centre. Spawning on top of the greatest hill in the entire area of the mostly flatland lesser Poland, it was surrounded by a set of thick walls, separated every thirty meters by a sizeable tower.

After crossing the drawbridge that wasn't raised since the great turmoil almost two centuries ago, the entire procession passed through the majestic gate. While most of the nobles and rich citizens of the capital continued inside the castle grounds where the grand feast would take place, I followed the example of the commoners and lesser merchants and stepped aside.

There was no reason to waste the time on the feast if I could stock on the supplies that would give me any chance of improving the economy of my land! Additionally, from the detailed map of the area, I learned that my own fellowship was left in the suburbian tower along with the empty carriage. Thinking about this situation, I could only assume I used it to bring the royal gifts and taxes to the capital, but in the end, it was good I had a way to carry a greater amount of goods that what could be fitted to the saddles.

Finally separated from the crowd, I could spend some time discovering the usabilities of the system. Regretfully, no matter how much I looked for such an option, there was no way to receive voice notifications that would bring this system a bit closer to a human companion, limiting me to the various flags appearing under the top bar listing the most critical resources and information about my own realm.

The more I played with the system, the more useful quirks of it I found. Starting with the ability to expand said bar almost endlessly to check out any resource that I could come up with and way more of those that would escape my attention, to the small options window that so far escaped my sight.

And it was the best finding I could ever hope for!

Starting with the personal status window akin to those I knew from the few RPG games I played with not only my basic statistics like vitality, agility or endurance but also a variety of other statuses ranging from the complete list of titles I held and ending at proficiency in all the skills that a noble could ever need.

At the same time, the bitterness coming from lack of the overall level that I could use as the gauge of the general strength of me or others was killed by the next window that I opened from this handy toolbar.

So far, no matter how thankful I was for the chance of living the life I always dreamed off, I had to admit that outside of vast knowledge about the future events and some general information that only a powerful spy network could gather… I was actually powerless!

Yes, my ideas could bring prosperity to my realm, but all of them required some unimaginable expanses of time to start working! I knew that about fifty stais east from the Tarnow, about halfway towards the major city of Lwow, there were several modest deposits of oil. Sounds like a jackpot, doesn't it?

But for my current self and the people living under my rule, it was worth as much as all the gold that continental Americas could hold. In theory, I could organise great expedition aimed at uncovering and importing said gold, but in reality, I would have to gain the permission from either Portugal or Spanish royalty to explore those areas, find brave navigators that would dare to sail to those places, fight my way through the natives towards the hinterlands of Americas…

The list of challenges I would've to overcome to boost my economy with this foreign gold was almost as long as one filled with requirements to even start extracting the oil, not to speak about a way to make real use of it!

That's why, when I saw the word "crafting" on the toolbar, my heart jumped in joy. And when I actually saw its content, I thought that my jaw would fall as low as the bar of my excitement burst towards the skies!

With my current budget, creating any real industry that could serve as the backbone for the growth of my land, was simply impossible. Buying chickens, growing the size numbers of cows, breeding the horses… Without a specialistic knowledge in any of the fields that I would love to improve, I was limited to following the example of every other noble around me!

Not even my vast knowledge about future events would be of any real use!

The closest war in the area that I could influence would happen about two years from now, with the city of Gdansk, later known as the Danzig, rebelling against the rule of the new King, that would replace Henry after one and a half year of interregnum following Henry's escape from the country. Later on, the Muscovy would use the turmoil within the commonwealth to launch a powerful attack, aimed at conquering Latvia for the sake of gaining access to the Baltic ports… But what if I somehow informed the future King about this menace, without getting killed or forced into a monastery for heresy?

Would the Muscovy still dare to attack without the opportune chance to do so? After all, the Polish Crown was an actual behemoth in this day and age, and only constant warfare, rebellions and bad rulers not to speak about the degradation of the nobility or the diminishing of the royal power over the next two hundred years would bring the country to the point where it was unable to stand against its neighbours!

In fact, most of the historians agreed that even when compared to the tragedy of the second world war, the series of events starting with the great Cossack rebellion to the southern-east nearly seventy years from now and ending at the Swedish invasion so tragic that it ended up being nicknamed a deluge were actually far worse in the countrywide effects!

Can you imagine that? A war that swallowed millions of people destroyed innumerable cities and ended up with over fifty years of communist occupation, was still considered less harmful than what was about to happen in the next one hundred years!

But thinking about all of that was pointless right now. Armed with the knowledge of my system newly found capabilities, I looked towards the north, where a small trade city of Kleparz (Klepash for you, normal people unable to spell Polish words :D) was located.

With its fitting location at the northern gate of Krakow where the main road leads countless travellers and merchants to the Crown's hinterlands, it was one of the biggest trading hubs of the entire province.

That was where my journey to greatness would begin!