Herald of Steel

Alexander's resistance to the pleasures of the flesh that had been so willingly offered to him came to, in a sort of unintended way, actually gain him some popularity among the nobles.

"Haha, the pasha is so young, yet so disciplined! If I was in his shoes, I would have lost my pants long, long ago." One of the noblemen could be hence chuckling cheerfully to his comrade, as the second man quickly nodded and added enthusiastically,

"Mmmm. It is very reassuring to see him not fall into the trap of the follies of youth. The number of men who have been done undone by the allure of women in their younger years would be enough to fill an entire cemetery."

"Yes. I had been worried that 'that country's' rotten culture did not infect him. But I'm glad to see that not happening. The pasha might be young, but it seems he does not let himself get swayed by women. That's good." The first nobleman lastly concurred in a relieved voice.

"Or men. Hehe." While the second man waged the joke, although the undertone of appreciation in his voice was still unmistakable.

And like him, most of the nobles, even whose daughter's advances Alexander had shunned, were impressed by him, praising his stalwart mind at not nibbling at every 'pie' presented to him and controlling himself.

Now, one of the main reasons why many of the nobles were so impressed by Alexander's abstinence of the flesh here in Tibias whereas there was no such impression in Zanzan where Alexander too had done something similar was mainly due to a prevalent idea about masculinity that permeated among the people of the country.

It was called Stoicism.

And it contained at least some parts that matched the idea of stoicism from Alexander's past life.

The idea, first proposed by a famous philosopher named Zaitus, proposed, among many other things, that men should not burden themselves with too much emotion.

And by men, he meant only 'men', i.e.- those that were of the masculine gender.

Towards that proportion of the population, Zaitus posed that the reason for one's suffering was feeling and caring too much.

And so he instructed that one must strive to limit one's sensation, such as by neither celebrating nor mourning too loudly, by not becoming either too excited or depressed, by not enjoying oneself in merriment or drowning oneself in untold sorrow, etc. reasoning such allures blinded oneself to all the things around one, letting danger and an 'ill state of mind' creep up on one undetected, thus inflicting one with a lifetime of pain.

And amongst all these allues and danger, the man of course mentioned the pleasures of women as being one of them, even going as far as to call it the greatest allure- even exceeding the joys and decadence of good food or the satisfaction and corruption of great wealth.

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Hence, influenced by his teaching, many Tibian men, noble and peasant alike, followed that one particular advice quite seriously, shunning, or at least limiting their sexual experiences, even when it came to enjoying their own wives.

This however then had the unintended consequence of giving birth to the practice of pederasty, i.e.- sexual activity involving a man and a child boy or youth, as the forceful suppression of their natural urges caused many to then seek release in unnatural ways.

Now, it had to be said that this practice was also present in Zanzan or Adhania, and they had no Zaitus.

But it was nowhere near the scale that was here in Tibias.

At least there, only the rich and powerful like the nobles engaged in this very immoral act,

While here it was so common that almost every Tom, Dick, and Harry seemed to do it, be they friends, casual lovers, and even relatives like cousins.

Nobles, peasants, and even slaves did it.

It had to be also noted that Zaitus himself was an avid 'practitioner of this art', almost having a literal harem of pubescent boys that he very openly enjoyed his time with.

And due to this example, many men also sought to follow him, thinking such practice was also part of Stoicism, as a way to suppress one's desire and appear more manly.

And while Alexander did not appear to follow the latter part of the teachings, seeing Alexander at least follow the first part about abstinence, many nobles were pleased, counting the man as one of them.

Although Alexander was not even a tiny bit aware of these newly made impressions of him.

And even if the words did enter his ears, he would have most likely not cared.

For in his mind, this Tibian concept of Stocism was deeply flawed.

Sure there were some nuggets of genuinely good advice sprinkled here and there, but when taken as a whole, it was all mixed in a heap of toxic garbage that made the whole thing asinine in his eyes.

Thus Alexander even planned to slowly root out this filth from these lands now that he was in charge.

Thus it was probably for the best that the nobles could not read Alexander's mind, as they would have indeed been very disappointed.

And be even more disappointed if they were to ever come to know the real reason behind Alexander's abstinence- which was simply because he had better options and thus thought those women would be too much baggage.

And most definitely be disappointed if they could see what the young man was currently doing inside his room.

For currently, the young Pasha was not practicing any kind of abstinence but was in fact in bed with his wives.

Two of them.

For among many of the guests that had decided to tag along with Ophenia, one of them was- Gelene.

Currently, with night having fully descended and they having finished their supper, the trio were just getting ready to start their raunchy time together, as Alexander found himself lying completely naked on his bed, being attended by the two women.

He had his head resting on Ophenia's soft bare lap, as her large fleshy globules with their piercings hanging above his head, already leaking milk.

While Gelene, equally threadless was imperiously sitting on his tummy, her bare back and large fleshy ebony ass directed towards him as she used her delicate hands to skillfully pleasure her 'little master.'

'How was your day, master?' The dark lady mellifluously sang as Alexander felt his lower half being slathered with some sort of warm oil before it started to get pumped those dainty digits.

The touch was exquisite and the speed soft, slow, and very delicate, as she started the foreplay light and gentle, to let Alexander enjoy himself fully.

Clearly, Gelene knew what she was doing,

"Aghhh! Made me wish I was mute and illiterate." While towards the made inquiry, having recalled all the troubles he was made to go through, Alexander let out this half frustrated groan, before quickly starting to ramble,

"All these nobles just keep hounding me day and night for every little thing."

"If there's one that wants more land, then another pleads to me to protect his own land from plunder."

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"If one has enough land, then he wants to change it."

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"Winning the war was easier than dealing with these greedy fuckers… every one of them." In a rare case of losing his temper, Alexander vulgarly cursed with a displeased scowl, as he finished mumbling.

The division of the lands had not been an easy ordeal for the young and 'inexperienced in these affairs' lord.

The pasha had to suffer through a great deal of headaches as he tried to balance the prospect of upsetting his newly conquered Tibians nobles and properly rewarding his retainers.

For taking too much of their captured lands, and the Tibians would see Alexander as being too harsh on them, punishing them too heavily.

But take too little, and Alexander would not have enough to give to his retainers.

It was not an easy task to find the exact balance, with Alexander having to enlist the help of Philips and Lord Theony, to determine the total contribution the various Tibian nobles had made in the war, and based on that came to a reasonable agreement over which houses deserved how much of their lands to be taken.

And they even had to come up with a rule of thumb for this.

But even then the task was not easy as many of these nobles had their wealth generation concentrated in a single or few individual large population centers.

So dividing was tricky as the whole thing was kind of like a package.

To give a very simple example, imagine a noble's territory being famous for fishing.

There, one village produced expert fishermen, another produced very good boats, and the last one produced very durable nets.

Take any of them away, and the other two fall apart.

It was problems like this that Alexander and company had to spend a lot of time to work out a solution, with most of the time helping the old and new noble come up with some sort of compromise or guarantee.

It was quite tedious but still necessary work.

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