Hilda is in the middle of teaching the children while they continue to play and act up. She must have noticed me at the door because she speaks about me.

“Alright class! Today we have a special guest teacher. I asked him to come speak with you while I'm while I step out for a few hours. You can ask him any questions you want but be sure you listen to him. He's the reason that everything runs so smoothly in the fortress and this might be the last time he'll visit and talk to you all.”

She passes by me and whispers.

“Good luck.”

There are still some helpers around to help me if something goes wrong… I shouldn't just assume something is going to go wrong but I don't have a very good understanding of children… I normally just end up treating them like adults and that ends up with them either hurting themselves or not understanding me. I give out a sigh and head towards her desk… The room is far quieter than when she was here… Most likely because they are waiting for me to do something, it seems like all of their attention is on me.

“Okay class… So what would you like to learn about?”

The room is still quiet… I'm not sure why she didn't ask Leaf for help instead of me. I speak up again.

“Alright out of these topics which would you like to learn about?”

I scribble some things on the black marble board with a piece of chalk. I invented this to help with the reading and writing of students. You think I'd be better at teaching than this but I've never taught children or anything as board as this. I could accidentally teach them a class and they would all be stuck with it if I teach anything wrong… Broad topics would be the best because of this. On the board I've written down the words general, languages, mathematics, history, science or magic theory. A hear many of them yelled out but the one that keeps getting yelled out the most is magic theory… I'm not sure why I wrote that up there. It is probably too advanced for all of these children in the room. To catch them up to where they would understand could take a very long time.

“Alright but magic theory is very advanced so if you feel like you don't understand it you don't have to listen. You can go and play if what I start saying sounds too difficult. Before we start, you should know that this is all theory based. This means it could all be wrong but we wont know for sure until there is a way to test to see if that is how it actually is.”

Some of the smaller children only need to hear the word play to avoid what I'm teaching. I think some of the children old enough to actually understand have also ran off to play outside or with some of the toys inside here. I'll have the helpers gather them back once this topic is over. I should probably split the topics up into certain time slots so I can go over each of them without accidentally focusing on one while forgetting the rest. I'm here for 6 hours so I should split the classes up. Maybe 45 minutes per subject and I'll let them have lunch and play outside for an hour. Then 30 minutes to review all the subjects.

“Hmm… I'm not really sure where to start so I'll just explain what mana is. There are 2 forms of mana. The building blocks of the world. Everything, the dirt we walk on, the hair on your head, even the air you are breathing that you cannot see is made up of mana. The other form of mana is the resource kind. It is the type of resource people use to launch skills.”

I rummage through my void bag and pull out a mana canister.

“This is the resource but the container holding it is the building block variant. In a way rage, energy, chi, fatigue points and insight are just mana in different forms a dispersal. Even this mana container is different from the mana in your body, it's far more volatile. You can think of this as the unstable version of mana while the resource in your body is the stable version. Does anyone have any questions?”

One of the murine folk children raise their hand now. I think it's Nami's sister.

“Well if everything is mana than how can it be different things?”

“Good question! The best way to see this is with job enchanting. In order to make an enchant you need to channel a certain amount of mana into it. A good portion of the easier enchants cost the same exact mana. So why are they different if you are using the same amount of mana to make them? Because the mana is changing itself to fit the enchant that is going on your weapon. You could also think of skills that make things out of nothing like air and water. Think of the world being the same exact magic being used by a powerful god.”

Well… Now that I think about it, that would also make the mana building blocks just the mana resource the Greater god used to make the world… The little girls speaks now.

“But wouldn't that just make the mana that is the building blocks of everything just the resource mana the gods used to create the world?”

“…Yes… But because it was made by a god it makes it a variation… It also helps classify things seeing as there are spells like fire and real life occurrences like fire that occurs naturally.”

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I really should have put more thought into this than I have so far. It is a theoretical idea that I thought up just by observing the world we live in. A world with gods powerful enough to make mountains and rivers isn't that strange and they would need to make it out of something. I never thought I would have any students able to completely understand it let alone be able to question this theory.

“Well… To continue from there, if this hypothesis is correct anyone should be able to make their own magic once they become strong enough and understand how magic works on a very deep level. Depending on how you work at it, you could potentially make a new spell or item or something that could change how everyone lives their lives… That is exciting to me. Right now the only way to progress is to use what the current world provides but if you can figure out how to make rare things or new things you could change the world forever.”

Thinking more upon it. I already have a skill that is very similar to what I just mentioned called mana to matter. As it is right now it is too weak to use for anything important. Anything truly valuable would cost so much mana and time it wouldn't be worth making. Figuring out a way to quickly change stored mana into items, figuring a way to do everything faster… Better than I currently can is how I could accomplis… But I can't think about this right now, I'm in the middle of teaching children.

“I can actually prove some of this theory correct with my skill mana to matter. The evidence that the world is made up of mana is much harder to prove because unless asking a god I would have no way of putting it to any test… Actually.”

I fish through my void bag again and pull out the mana battery charger. It is underpowered until I place a mana battery inside it. I've only seen it sort of in a much smaller amount but. If this is charged somehow then it would pull mana from its surroundings to charge. Eventually if enough are charged in a certain area it would destroy that area, kill all the plant life, make the living beings in that area suffer or even die if exposed to it for too long. I notice that about half of the students have stood up and are about to leave… Shit! It was too advanced for most of them.

“Wait, before you go let me explain the basics before you leave. If after I explain it from the very beginning you don't understand it then you can leave.”

I start from the very basics explaining fundamentals of mana. How we have a well of mana we can pull moves from. How some people with rage or energy are using a different form of mana but it is still mana. How every living thing slowly restores mana from their surroundings but not at a speed that would cause harm to anything we're around. How eating uncooked monsters and conjured food gives us mana poisoning. Even down to the basics of how things are conjured from mana with a few small water, wind and fire spells. I catch everyone up to where they would be able to understand it but before I have even realized it I have spent a good majority of my time making sure everyone is up to the level where they can understand magic theory.

“Alright, can the helpers please go get the other children that were playing up until now. We're going to start from the very basics of general knowledge and work each subject up to a good point by the end of today. If all of you get caught up to the same level then this huge gap in knowledge should become smaller.”

Nami's sister speaks up. She's asked a few questions and from them I've learned her name is Aiko.

“Besides the beginning of the class I didn't learn anything new… If you are just going to teach the very basics can I please go and study separately?”

“Alright, I don't see any problems with that.”

As she stands up, about a dozen other children stand up as well. I ask them why they are also standing up and it is because they have also heard the explanation of mana as well… Several times actually. As more children grow up to the point where they can learn, Hilda would just start the lessons over. She's been repeating the same lessons over and over again about once every 8 months… Hmm that seems to be a huge problem then. With the older students never learning anything new they've become stagnant with knowledge. While being able to read and write is very uncommon in this world that is about all that any of the students are being taught right now… I'll have to change that or else the barrier of knowledge will never be increased.

“Alright please go and study separately or play for now while I teach these younger children.”

The older children all break off and do their own thing. Aiko reading at the back of the room with another 2 girls. Most of the older boys have ran outside to watch the troops train. I teach the remainder of my time here. Not really going to deep into any one topic, trying to cover the very basic of each and really focusing on any student that didn't look like they understood what I was talking about. I finish up the lessons and Hilda comes back.

Before I leave I make the suggestion that maybe the students should be taught separately depending on their knowledge. Maybe separate the students into 3 separate levels. After they complete the 3rd level they can be taken on as apprentices for a job they're interested in. If they start learning when they're equivalent to a 5 year old human, they would finish in about 3 years putting them at 8 for apprenticeship. Many of the students would already be old enough to start apprenticing right now. I think of some teachers that could possibly fill in the other few categories. Level headed people who are also extremely smart… I can only really think of 2 of my generals who are book worms.

I'll have to talk with Gargarz and Swift… It will be difficult to convince Gargarz to teach. He will most likely want to keep his nose in the books over teaching. Swift should be fairly easy to convince seeing as he should be looking for a way to make up for the fact that he held Tough in a cave without letting anyone know. He'll also be trying to make up for that fact that I helped his brother regain his senses. I hate using people who feel they owe me but the way students are learning isn't in a good place right now. Having 3 teachers teaching students at different levels will almost triple the amount of basic knowledge my troops will be at after this.

Not only that but the current job rolls for the army is rather low. In the future we can't sustain this huge army with the amount of people who have jobs. The tailors are working 12 hour shifts to get the new armor made for everyone. The blacksmiths are covered in injuries and calluses from working so much. The alchemists hands are permanently dyed green from working with chemicals all day. Without learning a job none of them will have anything to fall back onto when they aren't fighting. This will help them out in the future as well as the sustainability of the army.

Parents have started trickling in get their children. Aiko remains sitting. She'll walk herself back to her room… Thinking on it now, she's probably been alive for longer than me.

“Aiko can you come here for a moment?”

She closes her book and walks up to me. She looks like she's about 5 years old… People most likely treat her like she is that old. That would make her about 25 years old in human years, she is already smarter than most of the helpers in the class. From what I understand from talking with Hilda she was able to read since before she started taking lessons. There is no reason for her to be here.

“Aiko. Do you think you should be here right now?”

She sort of remains still for a moment. Mainly looking down at her feet not wanting to answer so I continue.

“I don't really think you are going to learn anything from these classes that you don't already know. Now, because you are still so small most people probably still treat you as a child but you've lived longer than most of the people looking down on you. You were able to understand what I was talking about and even question my theories while most of the other students didn't understand even the most basic version of the topic. I would just like to give you a chance to grow your knowledge more than it's been recently… You should think about what you want to do in the future and talk to me when you have decided. I'll help make sure people see you as an adult and that you're given the proper guidance.”

She doesn't really say anything. I guess even though she is so smart for her age she is still very shy.