Chapter 199: The First Lesson

“Keeping time” was once a privilege reserved for the nobility. Only aristocrats had access to precise timekeeping tools—whether magical timers or mechanical clocks imported from the Dwarven Kingdom—things common folk could never afford. Nobles regarded punctuality as a mark of high society, woven into their etiquette and customs. Meanwhile, peasants relied on the sun and stars to roughly gauge the hours, scheduling their work accordingly. This was the norm across every noble domain beyond the borders of the Cecil territory.

But in Cecil’s lands, everyone’s life followed a strict timetable: when to start work, when to stop, when the mess hall opened, when night school began—everything was measured down to the exact minute. From officials to commoners, no one was exempt.

This was the change brought by Gawain. It was a deliberate effort to overturn the chaotic, primitive, and inefficient production methods of old. Only a precise schedule could keep factories running smoothly and instill a sense of the importance of efficiency. At first, many commoners found this puzzling, but out of respect for their lord’s great authority, they blindly followed the new rules. Now, “punctuality” was no longer an unfamiliar word in the territory; even children understood why it mattered.

Because they had to be on time for school—arriving earlier than adults, studying longer, and under stricter rules.

Gawain had yet to implement full-day schooling, so the children of Cecil’s lands spent half their daylight hours helping their parents at home. After lunch, they had to report to the “Cecil General Academy,” located in the southern part of the territory.

The school was brand new, built from brick and cement, its main building the grandest and largest structure in the territory aside from the factories. The academy’s courtyard flew the flag of Cecil’s domain, and the walls bore the imposing seals of Cecil and Ansu—symbols Gawain believed were essential to instill honor and belonging from a young age. Compared to adults, whose worldviews were already fixed, it was far more important for children to develop this sense early on. The school’s proud and solemn emblems also helped boost the community’s enthusiasm for enrollment: attending such a prestigious institution, arranged by their lord, was a source of pride for many.

Even if the children didn’t feel proud yet, Gawain was determined to teach them that they should.

Adult night classes began after work ended at dusk, but children came to school in the afternoon. They studied until sunset, then ate a free dinner with their teachers—a meal that motivated many parents to send their kids to school. After dinner, classes resumed until the adult night school finished, and then the children went home with their parents.

Adults’ minds were set in their ways, making it difficult to absorb new knowledge. So Gawain’s expectation for most adult workers was simply literacy and numeracy—enough to read machine instructions in the factories. But children were precious blank slates, not yet dulled by life’s hardships, open to new ideas and knowledge. That’s why Gawain placed great importance on educating the young.

When the territory was first established, there were almost no children in town. The refugees who fled the old Cecil lands were mostly strong adults. Although women and children had been evacuated first, many children, weaker in constitution, did not survive the ravages of the magical storms. Only after several population expansions did Cecil finally have a new generation of minors—some were slaves sold along with their parents (who, without Gawain’s emancipation policies, would have remained slaves for generations), others were homeless children rescued by Jenny and Tom. Even if these children still lived with their parents in buffer camps, they were all required to attend the academy.

Today, a special new course was about to begin.

Santis Saide nervously adjusted his worn robes in the modest faculty office. A full-length mirror hung on the wall, above which was a proverb gifted by the lord to the teachers: “Be a mirror to yourself.”

Santis smoothed out the creases in his somewhat shabby mage’s robe, feeling awkward. He glanced up at the proverb but didn’t quite understand why it was posted there. More than pondering its meaning, he worried whether he could handle this first lesson.

He was about to teach a group of poor children knowledge that even the sons of wealthy merchants and knights might never grasp. Could he really do it?

He had tutored some merchant and minor noble children before—future upper-class youth, at least—but teaching them to read was still a chore. Now, he faced the offspring of serfs, laborers, indentured slaves, and free folk. The young second-level arcanist could hardly imagine how to begin.

But the bell was about to ring. Through the window, he saw the hunchbacked old man responsible for ringing the bell carrying a small hammer toward the courtyard’s bronze bell. Hesitation was pointless now.

Santis took a final breath, straightened his collar, grabbed his notes and lesson plan, and strode out of the office toward the classroom.

He pushed open the door and was met by two apprentices cleaning the room, who stared at him in confusion—he had entered the wrong classroom.

“Sorry! Sorry!” The young arcanist, lacking the usual pride and aura of a professional mage, blushed deeply and apologized nervously. Before the apprentices could respond, he fled back into the hallway.

The bell had rung, but Santis fumbled twice more before finding the right classroom. Nearly panicked, he pushed open the door and finally relaxed when he saw a chaotic room full of ragged, patchwork-clad, dirty children of all ages.

The kids were noisy and unruly. Though this wasn’t their first time at school, the concept of “discipline” had yet to take root. These children came from all over, mixed ages and backgrounds, treating the classroom like a playground. Their parents might be serfs, free folk, slaves, or exiles, but the children had no such distinctions yet. They were a complete jumble.

Usually, the general studies teacher could quiet them with a loud voice, but Santis lacked such a booming presence—or the courage to wield it. When he first entered, the room fell silent for a moment out of curiosity, but the noise quickly resumed. This time, the children’s chatter shifted from dinner and mud to the shabby robe Santis wore.

“Look! The new teacher!”

“He’s wearing a mage’s robe! He must be a wizard!”

“The new teacher’s a magic lord! He can probably summon a dragon…”

“Shh! If he gets angry, we’re doomed!”

“But his robe’s so old…”

The older kids eyed Santis’s robe and short staff with a mix of awe and fear, but the younger ones showed no respect at all. They hadn’t yet learned to bow humbly when facing a magic lord, as their parents did. Likewise, Santis hadn’t mastered the boldness of a typical mage who might casually incinerate insolent peasants with a fireball.

He could only muster a small voice, barely audible to the front row: “Quiet… please, quiet. Class is starting…”

No one listened. As expected, the children of commoners were the hardest to manage.

Santis felt sweat break out on his face. He feared his first lesson was doomed. Then, unexpectedly, a handkerchief was passed to him from the side. He looked over and saw a girl with large eyes holding it out.

She was slight but dressed neatly in clean cotton clothes, with a small hairpin—signs that her family was relatively well-off. She pushed the handkerchief forward and mouthed “ah ah.”

“Th-thank you…” Santis said gratefully, taking the cloth to wipe his sweat and smiling. “You’re not shouting like the others. Very sensible…”

No sooner had he spoken than a boy nearby shouted, “Because Pea is mute!”

The girl with the big eyes shot the boy a sharp look. He quickly shrank back. “Sorry, Sister Pea…”

Pea was mute?

Santis was stunned. He recalled seeing the strange name “Pea” on the student roster but hadn’t expected one of his students to be mute.

While he was momentarily distracted, a small hand suddenly reached out from under the teacher’s desk, holding a slate with crooked words written on it: “Cast a spell, sir.”

The slate was quickly withdrawn before Santis could see who had sent it.

He blinked, then realized what to do. Raising his right hand—saving his precious few daily spell uses for this moment—he cast a small orb of arcane energy.

The tiny sphere flew into the middle of the classroom and exploded with a bang, scattering magical sparks like fireworks.

Instantly, the children fell silent.

They looked at their new teacher with awe, finally realizing and accepting that he was a true mage.

Like Lady Hetty, a magic user.

The children exchanged glances, and Santis finally knew what he had to do.

“Children,” the young second-level arcanist smiled, pushing aside his past experiences tutoring noble and merchant children, discarding meaningless formalities and lessons on etiquette. He spoke the words he most wanted to say: “I will teach you how to recognize runes and understand the basic principles behind their power.”

These children might never cast a spell with their own hands in their lives.

No one in history had ever considered teaching the secrets of magic openly to everyone.

He wrote the title of the first lesson on the blackboard with chalk.

The fundamental runes of earth, water, wind, and fire appeared under his chalk, followed by derived runes of frost, lightning, and other domains.

But these children could commit this knowledge to memory, work through it on paper. Miss Jenny had already proven the value of such “calculations,” and the lord believed in it too.

Santis turned back to face dozens of curious, focused eyes—they could focus.

“Let’s begin our first lesson.”

(End of chapter)