It didn't take long for me to get into a rhythm in the village. I was let out of the hospital after my leg was rebroken and set again, a limp obvious in my stride. A man from the village was a Named carver, and he had taken the hard chiton of the spider as a challenge and had requested some of it to work on. He of course got some and had fashioned me a rather nice cane out of the same leg I was using as a staff before. The cane came to a sharp point at the end, taking advantage of the natural shape of the leg, and was about three feet long with a top in the shape of a spider, an Aetherweb Poisoner to be specific, with the patterns carved into the dark chiton. Green paint was added to make carvings in the cane stand out, and it was all protected by a very nice finish that made the paint impossible to get off, or so I was told.

I was shocked on my first night outside of the medical hut to see two moons over the night sky, one larger than the other by a significant margin. I wasn't sure how I hadn't noticed it before, or if I had then how I'd forgotten it, a very memorable thing to see that really drove home that you were no longer on earth.

I had spent several days in the medical hut telling my tale to whoever would listen, and apparently, the man who carved my cane had taken notice. The carvings were of webs with spiders crawling through them, and close to the top you could see a humanoid figure holding a blade of magnificent green, facing down the spider looking down the rest of the cane. I wouldn't need the cane soon but decided that it would come with me everywhere I went from then on, a tribute to my successes.

I walked from my hut, a surprisingly sturdy and large space, out to the small hut made for schooling that barely saw use. Learning had been overlooked in this village, and I would assume this world, due to the rewards around growing skills like crafting or magic, and as a result, children went on with little knowledge of the workings of the world. I had tried to build a generator, and a lightbulb, but wasn't sure of any of the processes used in my world and couldn't describe them well enough to have the problem fixed.

Instead, I stayed as a teacher, and it's been a few weeks at this point, and my class had barely gotten through addition and subtraction, let alone more complicated math, and science. It would be long, but I would teach these children what I knew.

"Alright! Good morning ladies and gentlemen! How was the weekend?" I asked. Being the person in charge of all schooling left me with some liberties, like imparting a seven-day week with five school days, and the six-hour-a-day elementary standard from back home.

"Good!" came the ready voices of the little kids. I chuckled, knowing that that hope would die soon just like it did for everyone else back home.

"Wonderful! Now, can anyone remind me what two plus five equals?" I responded, knowing I would be met with resounding silence. I wish I had a chalkboard or some equivalent, but I had no idea how to make that work, even though using visual aids would have sped up the kids learning by a lot.

"Um, six?" said Steve from the middle of the room.

"Close, remember your counting? Use your fingers," I hinted.

The boy held his hands up, one of them holding up two fingers and the other one holding all five up. The boy ponderously counted to seven before exclaiming his new answer to the world. "Seven!" he cried out with the confidence only found in youth.

"Perfect! Well done Steve. Do you have any questions?" I asked.

A confused look crossed his face and he blurted out a question I honestly should have been more prepared to answer. "What happens if I run out of fingers?"

"You know what, I need a better way to show you guys this stuff. Tomorrow I can show you, but for today we can work on what we already know, alright?"

"Okay," the boys said dejectedly. There was little I could do, but I vowed to talk to someone about getting some sort of chalkboard before tomorrow.

And so the day went, passing through each subject and getting very little done before just past noon when I sent the kids home to work with their parents. I would never be the guy to invent homework on another planet, no sir, I just wanted the kids to clean around the house and do some yard work or something, although some of the kids were always trying to do the things they learned at school. Future scholars right there.

I was happy, although no one was paying me to teach their children, and the leaders didn't see my position as important enough to warrant more than giving me food and water and making sure I'm not naked. That last bit was more for everyone else, but I appreciated it regardless. I finished the contemplation before standing from my simple little stool and limping around to clean the place up. It never got very dirty, even with the kids bringing lunches and eating them in class, but I wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

After cleaning my classroom, I walked out into the center of town, somewhere I had never been before, usually never going anywhere other than the nightly bonfire where I get my meal for the day, my class, my hut, and the stream for some water. I was rather lost, seeing the symbols for several Names above doors, a few had people going into them and others seemed rather dead. The smith was rather swamped, people always wanting some new metal tool or another, and the baker and chef were nearly overrun with people, although their smiles never seemed fake. I looked around and found a building that seemed completely empty and had the symbol for a Nadir, the mason.

Before I could hobble my way in there was a shouting that caught my attention. "Mr. Sigurd! Mr. Sigurd! I never see you out of school! Mommy! It's Mr. Sigurd!" I turned to look where the noise was coming from to see Kaycie, a little girl in my class dragging one of the chefs in my direction. I smiled and started limping over in that direction, not wanting to make the chef leave the others alone.

As I got close Kaycie stopped trying to move her mother who continued to tell her child to calm herself. "Hey, Kaycie! It's good to see you out of school. I was just looking for something for class, actually. It's a surprise though, so I won't tell you." I said, a smile still on my face. She glared at me for a second before shrugging and snagging a piece of meat and running off. "And you must be Kaycie's mother," I said to the woman who had an amused look on her face. Her mononym appeared above her head, showing me that she called herself Catrina.

"I am, and I have heard a lot about you. Although I'm not sure what to believe from her," she said. I held out my hand for her to shake but she left it hanging for a moment before saying something. "I have hands covered in food, don't want to get weird things in it and make it taste bad," she explained.

"Oh, right of course. I can't believe I spaced that," I said, letting my hand fall to my side. That was a practice at home too, although that was about sanitation rather than flavor.

"So, what kind of things have you been teaching my child? I want her to follow her passions, but if it can't get her a Name then how can she function in society?" Catrina asked. It was a fair question, this world used the Names as crutches, assuming that only Named people had value to society. While the Named may have the most value in certain skills, people get stronger as a whole, not as individuals.

"I came from a place without Names. We had things you could only dream of, and magic was never even in the picture. We had boxes that kept things cold, we had flat panes of glass that could control everything, we had pictures that moved, and we could fly and move at the speed of sound, and that all started with the same practices I'm teaching every kid in the village. I promise, your daughter will have the foundation to be successful in any road she decides to follow," I told her. It wasn't an exacerbation, although it probably wasn't necessary.

"You can do these things? Prove it," she said, growing defensive very quickly.

"Not exactly. I don't have the tools to make these things, and I only have the concepts of how some of those things work, I never actually made any of them," I told her.

"You're just saying a society like that had this school you made," she said.

"Yes, exactly. A mother as smart as her daughter. Sadly I must go, it will take a while for me to carry my little surprise back to the hut," I said, marking the conversation as over. I had survived my first meeting with a student's mother and holy hell do I have a new respect for my teachers growing up.

"Of course, I hope to see you around," she said.

"You as well," I responded before turning and making my way over to the mason shop.

Upon walking in I see a counter like I would in a trashy kitchen found in a back ally that had the best breakfast sandwich for absolutely no reason. "Uh, hello?" I asked loudly into the room.

"Yeah?" asked a voice from the other side of one of the doors to the back, clearly trying to shake the sleep off his face. A large man with a dark beard walks in, muscles flowing all over his body but with thin and long fingers, an odd combination in my head. "You want something other than to wake me up?" he asked. His mononym was Gerald, nothing too strange.

"Oh, yes, I apologize, but I would like a piece of flat slate, about eight feet by four, as thin as you can get it without destroying the integrity of the stone, please," I told him. I guessed the size, but I thought that would be sufficient for my needs. "Oh, and if you could shape some chalk stone as little sticks, for writing that would be perfect," I added.

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"That's an oddly specific request. Why would you want to use chalk for writing, wouldn't you just use paper and a quill?" Gerald asked, clearly unsure why I would want any of this order.

"Well, if you take some chalk and you rub it on the slate, it makes marks that can easily be erased. I want to use it for teaching so I can show the kids what I'm thinking,"

"That's an interesting idea, I'm not sure where you got it, but I like it. Alright, I'll get started. Although, you don't look like a fella with much gold to his name. How were you gonna pay for this?" he asked, clearly not confrontationally, just more as a curiosity. I went pale regardless.

"I. . . Hadn't gotten that far. What can I do to repay you?"

"How about this, I'll give you a year, and you can pay in however much gold you have at the time in installs. The total cost is two hundred, not cheap but for this kind of project, it's a deal, how about that?" he asked. I had a problem though, I didn't make money, I barely survived.

"You see, I don't make money. I don't get paid at all in fact. I teach kids and I'm allowed to eat at the bonfires, that's all I have," I said.

"I do see. How long does teaching take every day? I'm sure I can get you a job that can pay you, even with that messed up leg of yours," he said. This man clearly wanted to help me out, but I wasn't making anything easy on him.

"Six hours a day I'm afraid. I came straight from the school building for this. If you can't help I understand, I'm really more of a charity case anyways. I can find something that will work. Thank you regardless my good man for your compassion and willingness to help," I said before turning slowly around while leaning heavily on my cane.

"Look, I can do this one job for free. Kids these days only learn one skill and I remember when I was a kid my grandpappy had a hundred and two Names. He got a boon and everything, but now people get one Name and stop learning. If you can teach these kids that one bit of knowledge isn't enough, then I can do this for you," said the burly man.

"Thank you so much! I knew someone would understand the need for education!" I exclaimed.

"This won't take too long, if you wait a few hours I can help bring the finished product over to the school," he offered.

"You are a true saint, and I thank you on behalf of the students-"

"I am no Saint, I only have four Names, not five hundred," he said, cutting me off. Well shit, I didn't know Saint was an achievement here.

"I- no, you're not. It's just an expression where I'm from. It means you are a very kind person," I explained, trying to stay on his good side. The man nodded and moved to the back. I sat down in a barrel that was nearby, probably full of something but I didn't know what.

A few hours passed and the mason finally left the back, carting a large slab of slate that was smooth but left rough enough for the chalk to rub off onto it in a flat wagon with wood wheels that looked like it could barely contain the weight of the slab. Gerald towed the cart into the room before turning back to the room and disappearing again. I moved to grab the cart and was in the process of picking it up when Gerald returned with a bucket full of perfectly shaped chunks of chalk, exactly like my college professors had used.

"This is wonderful, thank you!" I exclaimed one final time.

"You're not used to people helping you, are you?" he asked.

"I-no. People don't help each other where I'm from," I tell him.

"That's a strange place you come from. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near that place. You take the cart, I've got the chalk," he responded to my depressing truth.

"Of course," I said, pulling the cart with my left arm and supporting my right leg with my cane in my right hand. Progress was slow but we made it to the school and Gerald helped me set the slate onto the wall, leaving the bucket of chalk on my desk. "Thank you one more time," I said to Gerald as he left the school.

"Don't worry about it. Your a good man and I respect what you're doing here," he said in response. I let him leave, taking stalk of the room once more before going home as well, taking notice of the darkening sky.

I opened the door and walked into my hut, closing the door behind me before filling a cup with water from the bucket I had filled in the morning and taking a drink before laying down in my bed and falling asleep.

When I woke up I went to the stream with my bucket and a change of clothes, washing off in the cold water and cleaning my clothes while I was at it before filling my bucket with water and setting it aside. Next, I got dressed and limped back home, setting the bucket on a table and rushing off to the school. It didn't start as early as school did back home, but it wasn't late enough to be ponderous about getting ready.

I walked into the classroom to find it full of students, all admiring the chalkboard. I looked out a nearby window to make sure that I wasn't later than I had thought, but no, the sun was just coming over the horizon, just like it had every morning.

"Mr. Sigurd! Is this the surprise?" asked Kaycie, the first to notice me enter the room.

"Indeed it is. Since everyone's here, I say we get started then. We have a lot to learn!" I said, walking over to my desk which had been surrounded by children, who quickly moved to their seats so I could show them the wonders of the universe.

And I did, for another five years I taught, taking on a similar system to what early school systems had in the Americas, me teaching all ages and giving different work to different age groups, even having the older kids help with the teaching to set the knowledge in. I was very thin and that didn't promote muscle growth well regardless of everything I did every day, but I could walk just fine, using the cane more as a prop than anything else.

One day, while I was teaching some of the older kids about more complex algebra, giving them imaginary numbers and graphing and honestly anything I could remember when I earned another Name. Silfara, the mathematician, but with it came several other Names, one for number theory, algebra, calculus, matrices, and statistics.

I then gathered that gaining a Name in an overarching skill awarded all of the Names for the subskills as well, and people started paying me to teach their children, instead of just allowing me to live in the city. I of course refused a large portion of the money, but I did want to have more than one meal a day, and some changes of clothes would have been nice, so I accepted some gold. My first investment had to be into a coin pouch, as I hadn't had one previously, so I went into town for one.

I wasn't as lost as the first time, although I never went anywhere but to Geralds' place for more chalk before, but I knew the signs and walked up to someone who worked in leatherworking. "Hello good sir, I am simply looking for somewhere to keep my coins, it appears I have lost mine," I said as I walked right up to the man up front.

"What are you doing here then? I work with leather, not silver. The enchanter is right down the street, next to the smith, for obvious reasons," said the boy in his late twenties behind the counter.

"Of course, my apologies," I said awkwardly. I didn't need a silver coin pouch, what was this man going on about?

It was very clear when I walked into the enchanters and found rings about half a foot in diameter with scripting all along the fine surface set up all over, along with some other tools, such as farming equipment and such, although these things had quite the price tag on them. The rings were what I was looking for. Apparently, it was rather customary to have a ring keyed to the individual that held a small pocket dimension. The larger the dimension the bigger the cost, obviously. I splurged a little bit, getting a higher-grade ring, even though I never intended to have any money.

The enchanter stepped out and he had me prick my finger, running the blood along the script until it flashed blue and then the dark green of my Mana. This ring apparently worked very simply, you simply touched something to the ring and if it could fit, it disappeared, and if it couldn't, nothing happened. To take something out, you simply touched the ring and willed the item out. The ring seemed to expand the mind of the user, so I always knew what was in my storage ring.

I stored the last fifty gold I had left after dropping a hundred on a complicated bag. In hindsight, taking more money would have been a smart move, but I still had almost no experience with currency here, it was a conversion rate of ten coins between them. Ten coppers to one silver and so on, although inflation had made gold very common, the most common currency to be found on the streets. It was odd to me that platinum coins were still incredibly rare, with the first conversion of a thousand occurring between gold and platinum. A thousand coins were the average down payment on a hut, all of which were rather well built and came well furnished with things the carpenters had made while cutting the wood for the house.

About a week later I gained another Name and the accompanying Names of the subskills. These were all science-based, getting Names for theoretical physics, energy theory, and so on. I had nothing for language, and nothing for history because I didn't teach those things. The kids usually knew them better than me anyways.

It was odd to have so many brands on my skin. I had never gotten so much as a tattoo before but now my body was marked with twelve circles of raised skin down my arms, each one showing my breakthroughs in whatever area. I never thought anything of this Naming convention here before, more taking it as an odd system that simply showed who was capable in a village, but I did notice myself getting far better at the skills I was named at, mainly doing calculations faster and understanding the things I kind of understood before.

I found that this world was very similar to my own, only in a different solar system with two moons and magic seeping into the world. The magic never seems to affect the physics, at least when you don't actively add magic into the equation. I assumed that it would do something, but I used whatever money I had in my free time to run some experiments and got the same things that the famous scientists in the other world did, at least as far as my memory is concerned.

A few months later and I decided that the oldest group knew enough to graduate and move on to other places. I told them that before I gave them the summer, a tradition I was not going to be getting rid of in this world. I didn't make a big deal of it, but I told them to stay after class one day and they obliged happily, but got very upset when I told them they won't learn anything else by coming back.

"What do you mean we won't learn anything? We've only been here for six years, it usually takes a lot longer to be Named," said a now-teenage Kaycie.

"Just that. I don't have more to teach you, and I need to focus on the new students coming in. I gave you a foundation, now it's time for you to leave and build on that foundation and do something great," I told them in response. These were incredibly smart kids, and they picked up the material with a speed I didn't know was possible. It must have had something to do with the gods trying to selectively breed the smartest and most talented. I would not deny that it worked seeing the kids barely in their mid-teens graduating already.

"Then why don't we have the same Names you have? If there's nothing to learn we should get Names," she said back.

"We aren't worthy, isn't that right Mr. Sigurd?" accused Samuel.

"No, no, that's not it. I don't know how I got these Names, let alone how to give them to you," I told them honestly. The Names were still so new to me that I never even considered doing a Naming for graduation, although it made as much sense as anything else.

"It's natural, you just do it. I knew he was bullshitting us with this whole school thing," said Caleb.

"Alright, I'll figure it out. Next week we'll have a whole ceremony, you'll get Named and graduate. Invite your parents, family, friends, whoever you want," I told them.

The next week, I did what I said I would, lining the children up, giving a little speech about how talented these kids were, and walking up to the closest, Saydie. "You are a mathematician and a scientist, and I can't wait to see what you do with the world," I said. The Names appeared on her and she got a far-off look as she read the notifications. I did the same with each of the children, after which I earned a new Name as well, Sander, the teacher. Each of the kids left that day with twelve Names to start their lives with, a very good haul if I understood this world correctly.

I was walking back to my hut when a voice from the shadows of a nearby tree caught me off guard, causing me to fall flat on my back. "I need your help, Sigurd,"