Chapter 2: Little Cripple
In the village like this, people rarely used a complicated name to call each other, not to mention a surname, even their names were rarely meaningful. However due to the Empire's regulation, each citizen was given a responsibility of bearing a surname for easy documentation. Most of the rural villager like the Honey Wood Villager were rarely literate, even the name 'Honey Wood' were given by the governor of Green Wood City, thus it became a no mystery conceptions where the governor would bestow the village a name and surname for the villager upon the creation of a new settlement in the province he governed. It was also the case for the Honey Wood Village. Upon conducting a coming of age ceremony, a child would be given the surname of the village and the village would periodically report the list of the new workforce to the Governor Office. An individual of fifteen years old or above without a clear identity would be considered a refugee who can not receive a basic welfare of the empire such as access to a bigger town, permit to work under any legal organization under the name of the Empire such as becoming a villager responsible for logging or any other organizations, or even a right to avoid the fate of becoming a salve.
The social caste system of the Emerald Dragon Empire was not that complicated. The highest position would be the Emperor himself, then followed by the queen and the princes. In the third position were the nobles, followed by the position after that, the peasants. The last position belonged to the refugee and slaves.
The refugee did not differ too much from a slave, the main difference was that a refugee did not forced to work without payments by anybody, whereas the slaves worked for their masters in any manner their master desire, however usually in exchange, they would received some form protection from their master, in the contrary, the refugee would not be receiving any form of protection from anybody, technically speaking, a refugees were free slaves who, in any time, could become slaves themselves. Strictly speaking, only the peasants are allowed to get whatever jobs they wanted to do within the empire, that was only possible if the said pheasant joined an organization such as a village to become the lowest form of peasants called villagers. However, not anyone can become a pheasant, thus the importance of a surname.
A surname indicates an official position bestowed by the Empire to its citizen to live freely as a free citizen. Normally, as long as the said citizen were born and raised within the empire, they were all free citizen, unless they committed some sort of crime, they could not arbitrarily be forced to become a refugee or slave. The main source of refugees and slaves were from destroyed nations or a foreign species. Because of a rampant disaster in the continent like natural disasters or disasters caused by demons, there were many individuals who lost their homes and fled to other nations like the Emerald Dragon Empire which is a fairly strong empire, thus becoming refugees themselves.
With its rich resources and strong military capabilities, The Emerald Dragon Empire became one of the strongest Empires in the continent. Such a strong empire was where the Honey Wood located, to be specific, in the most northern part of the empire, a Hundred kilometers near the Northern Military Defense Line, one of the four Military Defense Line of the Empire. Because of its position, the villagers of Honey Wood Village were bestowed the name 'North', meaning the north most village of the Emerald Dragon Empire. It was an Unusual surname, akin to a dao name, names that were usually used by a learned individual in the way of dao. It is said that the governor who bestowed such surname came from the land far east and was a very powerful warrior who practice the way of dao, a very popular way of Cultivation in far east, rumors said that the now deceased governor crossed the vast ocean by himself, it was 200 years ago when the governor bestowed the Honey Wood Village such surname. It was unclear why he gave such a surname. As a result, even though the village was filled with brutes, their names are all poetic, like North Wind, North Bright Moon or North Red Sky. For a group of people who cannot read nor write their own names, they sure had poetic sounding names. If people from the east heard their names, they might assume that the village was filled with martial art experts.
Even though the situation was as such, one still had to be grateful, because there was still someone who was literate among the Villager and that is the village chief, otherwise how could they write reports to the governor if no one could read? That's why for every talented heirs of the village, they would be sent to at least a town to receive some sort of education, if some individuals were particularly talented, he or she would be sent to the city or even the capital city. The town mayor and the governor would receive recognitions from the Emperor if they were able to find talents, after all talents are needed in every aspects of the empire to keep its prosperity and strength, that is why despite of 200 years had passed since the day of its establishment, the amount of villager of Honey Wood Village could no become any higher. Aside from the high mortality rates, talented villagers were also sent to various places. Such was the fate of the ordinary and the talented.
From time to time, there would be some heirs of the village who could be considered as talents. Talents can be found in any form, some are able to easily remember writings and capable of becoming scholars, some even had the capabilities of leaders and as such fated to become officials, for some, talent would manifest itself in the most raw form, that is the Physical Strength, the strength of lifting a heavy axe, the strength continuously swinging the heavy axe to chop logs all day long and the strength to do all of that in the age of ten, despite being unable to see and speak, from dawn to night, he chopped more logs than all the youngster combined, such was the talent of the yet to be named, Little Cripple.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone