The next morning, Ludger stood in front of the quarters with a stone tablet in hand and thirty kids sitting cross-legged in the dirt like an army of mismatched recruits. Some were half-asleep. Some were vibrating with excitement. A few looked like they still couldn’t believe any of this was real. Ludger didn’t waste time.

“Alright. Today we start with letters.”

Groans. Whispers. One exaggerated sigh from a kid who clearly expected magic explosions on day one. Ludger ignored all of it. He raised a hand, and thin ridges of earth lifted from the tablet, shaping clean, sharp lines as he spoke.

“A,” he said.

“B.”

One by one, the alphabet carved itself onto stone through smooth, deliberate geomancy. Each stroke landed with precision: clear, even grooves, no wasted movement. If he’d done this on a battlefield, it would’ve looked like a spell formation.

The kids watched in absolute silence, as if expecting the letters themselves to start fighting.

“Eventually,” Ludger said, “you’ll write on paper. But until you stop butchering letters, you practice here.”

He gestured at the ground. They blinked.

Then he knelt and traced the letter A into the dirt with a finger.

“Do it like this. Don’t rush. If the letter looks like a dying spider, you redo it. No rush it, don’t worry about making it perfect on the first few tries.”

Muffled snickers. One kid immediately scribbled something that… yes… did resemble a dying spider.

Ludger stared at it. “Fix that.”

Thus began the morning: thirty kids scratching letters in the dirt, grumbling, asking questions, erasing with their palms, drawing again. Some were quick. Some struggled. Some tried to draw animals instead. Ludger redirected them with the patience of a brick wall. By midmorning, their fingers were filthy, and even the energetic ones looked mentally wrung out. So he stood up.

“Alright. Break over. Magic time.”

Thirty heads snapped toward him like a synchronized spell. Now they were awake. Ludger raised a hand, and a small sphere of shimmering liquid formed above his palm. It condensed cleanly, droplets merging into a fist-sized orb, dense, pure water.

“This is Create Water.”

Half the group gasped. The other half leaned forward as if they could drink the spell out of the air. Water trickled from the orb into a neat stream as Ludger continued:

“It’s basic. Safe. Useful. Anyone with a little mana control can learn it.”

He dismissed the spell and held out another hand. A thin whip of water sprang from his fingers, clean, fast, snappy. It lashed the air before splashing back into a harmless puddle.

“And this is Splash. Don’t use it on people unless it’s an emergency, or you’ll be cleaning floors for a week. At least here, on Lionfang. Anywhere else, and you will be put on jail.”

The kids murmured among themselves, excitement building like a small storm.

“Why only two spells?” one brave girl asked.

“Because you don’t need fireballs,” Ludger replied. “You need income.”

Confusion flickered, so he clarified:

“You can earn coins filling wells, watering farmland, helping caravans, or selling clean water on the outskirts. Villages far from rivers will pay good money for it. Basic magic isn’t just flashy, it’s practical.”

The tall half-northerner boy nodded first, grasping the importance faster than the others.

Ludger clapped once. “Pair up. One partner stabilizes mana flow, the other tries to form droplets. Switch every five minutes.”

And just like that, the yard transformed into a chaotic mess of concentration, misfires, tiny water beads, squeals, and the occasional splash that Ludger pretended not to see.

But as he walked between them, adjusting postures, correcting mana flow, nudging fingers into place, he noticed something. They were trying. Hard.

And more importantly, they were hopeful. Ludger didn’t smile, of course. But something eased in his chest as he watched thirty kids fail, fail again, and then manage their first trembling droplets of water.

They were building something here. Not just spells. Not just literacy. A future. A different path. One drop at a time.

The afternoon sun hung high when the lessons finally ended, the last shaky droplets of Create Water evaporating in the heat and leaving the kids exhausted but proud. Several had managed steady drips, a few even a palm-sized sphere. For day one, that was impressive.

Then salvation arrived in the form of a woman from one of Lionfang’s taverns, broad-shouldered, cheerful, and carrying a massive cauldron that sloshed with the scent of stew rich enough to make half the kids sway on their feet.

“Oh, you poor things,” she laughed, setting the cauldron down with a heavy thunk. “Looks like you’ve been worked harder than our dishwashing crew.”

Within seconds, she’d started distributing bowls, spoons, and big steaming ladles of food. The kids lined up with a kind of reverence normally reserved for holy relics.

Yvar, of course, was already two steps ahead. He had logs, lists, distribution orders, and a ridiculous efficiency only possible for someone who treated administration like a sacred calling. Ludger, seeing the situation fully under control, slipped away before Yvar could rope him into peeling potatoes.

He headed back into the guild. Paperwork awaited. Endless paperwork.Arslan’s pained groan greeted him before he even reached the office.

“Ludger…” his father grumbled without looking up, quill stabbing across a form like it had personally offended him. “You vanished. Again. And came back with thirty children and a new building behind my guild.”

“Unexpected things happen,” Ludger said simply, pulling up the chair beside him.

Arslan shot him a long, flat stare. “Unexpected is expected with you.”

Ludger said nothing. He didn’t have a counterargument. Together, they dug into the mountainous stacks of requests, patrol reports, equipment requisitions, and budget forms. Arslan looked like he’d aged three years in the two weeks Ludger had been assisting Raukor.

Midway through a document about feed costs for horses, Arslan cleared his throat.

“…By the way. When are you accepting the sculpture commissions?”

Ludger paused. “Never.”

Arslan gave him the father stare, the one that meant don’t be an idiot. “They’re offering insane money, Ludger. Actual nobles. Merchants. Even a few envoys.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“I’ll accept one per week,” Ludger finally said, voice resigned. “But I’ll start with Torvares’ closest allies. His supporters. People tied to the territory.”

Arslan leaned back, rubbing his forehead. “A safe choice.”

“It’s not about safe,” Ludger muttered. “I don’t want to owe favors to random nobles, and I don’t want them thinking Torvares has control of me. Hence the pace.”

Arslan chuckled dryly. “Trust me. No one thinks you’re out of control. They’re just terrified to be on your bad side.”

Ludger shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. He returned to the pile of papers, Arslan doing the same.

Outside, he heard faint laughter. Kids running. Eating. Practicing simple spells. Inside, he heard quill scratches, annoyed muttering, and the creak of overworked chairs. Somehow, this felt… balanced.

Lionfang was changing. And Ludger, despite every instinct telling him to avoid attention, was becoming part of its foundation, one lecture, one kid, one sculpture, one forged blade at a time.

After a week, the progress was undeniable.

The kids who couldn’t write a single letter now scratched out their names with shaky pride.

The ones who could barely control a droplet now filled clay cups to the brim with Create Water, some even shaping it into thin streams with a control that would put certain grown adventurers to shame.

Their mana signatures had changed, too. Before, most of them had barely any presence, thin, brittle sparks sitting deep in malnourished bodies. But daily spellcasting, even low-grade magic, forced their channels open. 

Ludger watched all of it with quiet interest. The way their bodies adapted. The gradual thickening of mana threads. The instinctive refinement from simple repetition.

It gave him clues, valuable ones, about how normal people grew without System support. About how mana developed organically instead of by notifications.

His Teacher job noticed.And it rewarded him.

[Teacher — Level Up!]

Teacher Lv. 40

+3 INT, +3 DEX per level

New Skill Gained:

 [Foundational Growth Lv.1]

Your instruction accelerates the natural expansion of a student’s mana pathways.

Students practicing under you gain increased mana recovery and slightly faster mana growth. Effects scale with your understanding and teaching consistency.

Ludger blinked at the notification.

That… was good. That was really good.

He’d seen the effect already, kids who trained consistently gained mana faster than adults who practiced sporadically. But now the System was codifying that into something more defined.

Yvar, watching kids form letters in the dirt with surprising determination, noticed Ludger staring into the air.

Mana growth wasn’t just about talent with this skill. It wasn’t just about resources. It was about guided repetition, structured practice under someone who understood the mechanics behind it.

A teacher. It seemed obvious when phrased that way, but seeing it happen to thirty children at once painted the idea in far sharper detail.

As he oversaw the day’s drills. Correcting stances. Adjusting finger placement. Fixing letters. Pushing them to shape a steady water flow— he felt the subtle tug of the new skill at work.

Ludger’s Teacher job bar ticked upward with each success, each correction, each moment of understanding. It was scary, in a way. Not their growth. But how effective structured teaching was when paired with System guidance.

If thirty kids could develop this quickly… What about a hundred? What about an entire town? Ludger filed the thought away. It was too early to pull that thread. But the potential was there, dangerous, and promising.

For now, he watched a girl proudly lift her cup of clean water, mana steady and stable.

A week ago she hadn’t known her own name. Now she was building her future one spell at a time. His job notification pulsed again, quiet, almost satisfied. Ludger hid a small nod behind crossed arms. Not bad for week one.

When Ludger finally stepped through the front door, the familiar sound of tiny feet pattering across the wooden floor greeted him like a miniature stampede.

“Lud—ger!”

“Lud—geeerrrr!”

The twins barreled into him with practiced accuracy, each latching onto one of his legs like extremely determined barnacles. Elle hugged his knee. Arash wrapped both arms around his shin and refused to let go.

Some things never changed.

Normally, this was where they climbed his back, yanked his hair, and forced him into his part-time job as a living horse. But this time, Ludger didn’t bend down or sigh or resign himself to neighing.

Instead, he lifted a hand.

A small pulse of earth mana rippled through the floor, and three small shapes rose from the ground, two palm-sized tablets of smooth clay and a pair of thin rods shaped like children’s practice wands.

The twins froze, eyes wide. Elle released his leg. Arash loosened his grip. Both stared up at him like he’d just conjured actual treasure.

“New toys?” Elle whispered.

“No,” Ludger corrected. “Training tools.”

Arash gasped. “MAGIC!?”

“You won’t cast anything,” Ludger reassured Elaine, who had leaned into the doorway with crossed arms and a suspicious eyebrow. “They’re just learning how to control their mana… it will take a while before they can actually do anything with it..”

Elaine relaxed. Slightly. The twins’ eyes lit up as faint traces of mana traveled through the rods, making the carved magic sigils in English glow with soft color. This was supposed to be even easier than casting some spells since one just had to control the flow of mana for each rune and write what the rune was supposed to do with intent.

“Woooah!”

“It’s shiny!”

Ludger observed carefully.

Their mana pools were tiny, normal for toddlers, but active. Curious. Responsive. And under his guidance, with this new skill amplifying natural growth…

He could monitor exactly how fast their channels expanded.

This was data he couldn’t get from older kids with half-developed mana cores. This was early-stage growth, raw, unshaped, pure. Invaluable.

And the twins were ecstatic.

They traced lines. Messed up. Tried again. Arash accidentally tried to chew the wand. Elaine scolded him.

Ludger corrected their posture, fixed their hand angle, and adjusted their breathing with a precision that would make any teacher proud.

Within minutes, the clay tablets vibrated with steady, even mana pulses.

Ludger raised an eyebrow.

That was already faster progress than normal.

The skill works better on kids, he noted silently.

Interesting. Very interesting.

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