Chapter Six: Modo Academy!
April 24, 2016
Author: Floating Tower (诸生浮屠)
The collapse of the shallow magic network did not have a significant impact on Soren.
However, the collapse of the faith network had severe consequences for Soren, as the workload for responding to the prayers of his believers increased severalfold. Soren’s intention to meddle with the Shadow Magic Network was in part aimed at establishing his own faith network in the future. Otherwise, continuously relying on external power to gather faith was not a sustainable approach. Soren was not fond of having certain things dependent on others; having power under his own control was the most effective.
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
The research progress led by the Wizard Alliance, Northern Witch Council, Ice Snow Witch Group of Arendelle, and Modo City finally began to yield results. Many wizards had mastered their most familiar spells through repetitive practice. How much power they could recover in the future would depend on their individual innate abilities and efforts.
Speaking of which.
A positive development emerged after the collapse of the magic network.
That is, a benchmark for measuring wizard talents appeared. In the past, everyone relied on the strength of the magic network to cast spells, much like a group of students in the first grade, where everyone’s intelligence seemed similar without any specialized testing. The only difference was that some learned better while others did not, some were diligent while others were lazy. But after the magic network collapsed, a direct benchmark emerged for measuring everyone’s talents, immediately distinguishing geniuses from ordinary wizards.
These near-genius or genius-level spellcasters easily completed the memorization of spell models and gradually became eligible to advance to archmages.
After the magic network disappeared, such talents continually emerged.
In the past, everyone relied on the magic network for spellcasting, and even if there were intellectual differences, the distinction was merely in the number of spell slots mastered and the speed of learning spells, which was not a very obvious benchmark. Now that the magic network has disappeared, most geniuses have come to the fore, and these individuals have become crucial for many factions seeking to recruit talent. Even in Modo City, two or three witches with innate intelligence above 20 points emerged. All of them have been taken in as apprentices by Gloria, preparing to cultivate them into future archmages.
At this moment.
In the council hall of Modo City, Soren, Gloria, Saruman, Fallen Witch and others gathered together.
“What?”
After hearing Soren’s words, Gloria paused for a moment and murmured, “Are you saying? You plan to open a school in Modo City? It’s not an elite school for nobles, but a fully public school?”
As soon as Gloria’s voice fell, the expressions of others present were also slightly surprised.
The level of knowledge dissemination in this world is very low, adhering to the most standard elite education model, where knowledge is always held by the upper echelons of society. Ordinary civilians may find it difficult even to learn to read; some might only barely manage to write their own names in their lifetime, and only merchants, nobles, and professionals could possess more knowledge. In fact, many children of commoners joined the church of deities precisely because the church also imparted some knowledge to commoners.
“Yes.”
Soren had long wanted to do this but only now felt the time was right. He looked at the others and said solemnly, “I am planning to open a school.”
“Due to the collapse of the magic network, the number of spellcasters in Modo City suddenly increased.”
“In the past, Modo City did not have so many scholars to impart knowledge, but now there are so many wizards in Modo City. Even if many spellcasters are not very powerful, the knowledge they have accumulated is still a valuable asset.”
“Modo City will require a large number of talents in the future.”
“Not only those with the potential to become wizards but also talents in various other fields. Moreover, I intend to try a new model, which you can refer to as a ‘production line’ approach, allowing ordinary people who lack sufficient talent to master certain parts of particular jobs through repetitive practice, making them more skilled, ultimately constructing the entire process through different divisions of labor.”
Wizards possess knowledge far beyond that of other professionals.
Currently, Modo City has many sheltered low to mid-tier sorcerers. Their spellcasting ability may retain less than thirty percent, but the knowledge they have accumulated in the past has not vanished.
If they are not utilized, does Soren intend to feed them for nothing?
It’s not overly complicated; as long as they take turns teaching, even if one person teaches only one day a week, it would be enough to teach ordinary people many things.
Alchemy isn’t all accomplished through spells.
The Golem Factory of the magic network also requires many low-level workers, including polishing parts of stone golems, assembling the structures of golems, arranging runic paths, and so on. These tasks can be performed by ordinary people. If a production line can be formed, then wizards would only need to oversee the most critical activation and charging aspects.
“I am not establishing a school of the elite type.”
Seeing that others still seemed a bit confused, Soren slowly explained, “To put it simply! You can think of it as a technical school! Aside from the most basic literacy knowledge, all other categories are aimed at learning some technical skills.”
“Such a school doesn’t require lengthy periods for research.”
“Quickly, it may take a few months; slowly, around a year, and the students within can master a certain technical skill and then directly enter various jobs in Modo City.”
“In this way, even ordinary families in Modo City would be able to afford it.”
Why is the spread of knowledge in the Material Plane so low?
A large part of the reason is that ordinary families cannot afford to have a labor force learn without bringing any income to the family, hence, knowledge flows only among traders and noble families. What Soren aims to do is to shorten this cycle. Currently, Modo City is rapidly under construction, and low-end manual labor has gradually been replaced by golems. What he needs now are more technically skilled labor forces. Establishing a technical school has thus become a crucial part of his plans—one that maintains a learning cycle of six months to a year, continuously supplying Modo City with mid to low-end talents specializing in areas like hydraulics, forging, engineering, alchemy, and so forth.
To be even more straightforward.
Currently, Modo City has no need for laborers; Soren requires workers!
That’s right.
It’s all about workers, workers, workers!
The importance of this must be stated thrice; the purpose of opening the school is to train workers to meet the future demand for a large number of low-end technical laborers in the Floating City.
With that said, Soren paused and then looked at Saruman in front of him, stating solemnly, “Regarding the achievements of your research on alchemy, everyone has already seen.”
“So!”
“The specific establishment of the school will be arranged, but the principal will still be you.”
“The preliminary plan is to recruit around three thousand students from Modo City, and these individuals will directly enter Modo City’s arms factories, laboratories, and city hall after graduation.”
Gloria needs to be responsible for researching the Floating Tower, the Fallen Witch focuses on the Elemental Furnace, and Alice is in charge of the Golem Factory.
Naturally, Soren could not personally manage the school.
Then, the only one in Modo City with the energy to take on this principal role is likely Saruman, who is only responsible for an alchemy laboratory.
Training workers is just the most basic plan.
If this school can truly be set up, Soren will have even more talent to cultivate in the future. The Professionist Academy has long been one of his ideas. Otherwise, there would be too much to consider and too great an investment requirement; he has been laying the groundwork for it. Some matters must consider the current reality. For the residents of Modo City, the family support for training a skilled worker is already the limit.
There’s no other way.
The foundation of the Material Plane still remains too low.
Overall, it is merely the productivity of the late Middle Ages. Soren wants to directly advance to a modern educational model, which likely requires Modo City to bear a significant part of the financial burden; conservatively estimated, it would not be less than several hundred thousand Gind.
Right now, he only hopes for results to emerge as soon as possible!
………………
(PS: First update. Today there are three updates.) (To be continued ~^~.)
