Arash suddenly tugged his sleeve. “Ludger! Look! Look! I made the line glow all the way to the end!”

Elle puffed her cheeks. “I did it first.”

“No you didn’t—”

“Yes I did—”

“Did not—!”

Ludger simply placed a hand on both their heads.

“Good job,” he said.

They froze. Then beamed like he’d handed them the world.

Mana training with toddlers was going to be chaos, but the useful kind. The kind that taught him more about the fundamentals of power than any book or dungeon.

Elle and Arash resumed tracing, determination fierce. And Ludger, for the first time, felt the quiet pull of something he hadn’t expected:

This wasn’t just research. This was family. And he was teaching them to grow.

Ludger quickly realized that the twins weren’t just growing physically; their mana development was accelerating at a startling pace. Each morning he could sense it, those tiny, flickering signatures in their chests becoming clearer, denser, more refined. 

Even though he never taught them any active runes or actual functional formations, the simple practice drills he crafted for them were enough to stimulate constant mana circulation. And children, unlike adults, adapted like sponges thrown into a river.

Elle took to tracing clay grooves with the seriousness of a seasoned mage, brow furrowed and lips pressed tight each time her mana wavered. Arash, while more chaotic, poured his energy into every exercise with wild determination, repeating tasks long after Ludger told him he could stop. They practiced in the mornings, before meals, after meals, whenever they could get their little hands on their clay tablets. Their determination made it obvious why their mana pools were growing so quickly, Ludger spent a lot of time correcting their posture, refining their breathing patterns, and adjusting their finger positions, and the twins responded with relentless enthusiasm.

With the steady, subtle pulse of Foundational Growth spreading through the training sessions, Ludger started observing something interesting. Normal children, ones without the System to forcibly strengthen their mana circulation, grew in slow increments. But under guided practice? Their mana channels expanded far more rapidly than expected. It was fascinating. It was also data he’d never get from training adults, whose cores were already somewhat fixed. The twins were giving him insight into how mana evolved from its earliest stages.

One evening, as the twins sat on the floor in the living room, tracing glowing lines and shapes across their clay tablets, Ludger found himself less focused on their progress and more on the thread of an idea that had resurfaced from memory. His mind drifted back to Linne and the strange device she carried, the runic typewriter, or whatever its real name had been. He couldn’t recall the exact term she used, but he remembered how it worked: metal keys that clicked to assemble runic sequences, sliding plates filled with engraved characters, and a frame sturdy enough to generate a spell matrix in seconds.

Back then, Ludger had dismissed it outright. It was heavy, mechanical, clunky, and inconvenient for field work. But now, watching Arash giggle as he succeeded in making his mana trace glow from end to end, Ludger felt that familiar tug of curiosity. The idea wouldn’t leave him alone. If he could create something smaller than Linne’s device, something portable and optimized… perhaps not a typewriter, but a sort of hand-held rune compiler

… then he could trigger complex spell structures rapidly without carving anything at all.

He imagined a compact object, something that could shift internal plates, arrange preset rune sequences, or assemble patterns at the push of a command. A device made of froststeel with channels that could shape mana into stable matrices almost instantly. He’d abandoned the idea before, but this wasn’t Linne’s bulky machine. This was a new concept entirely. And now he had both the knowledge and the skills to make it happen.

His Magic Blacksmith level had risen dramatically. His Quality Proficiency passive meant even complexity could result in higher-grade items. He knew elemental manipulation, metallurgy, atmospheric cooling, shaping through earth mana, everything was there. And he had thirty kids and two hyperactive twins available to test how practical such an invention could be.

It wasn’t just appealing. It was feasible.

Elle looked up at him suddenly, beaming with pride as she lifted her clay tablet. “Ludger! Look! My circle is almost perfect now!”

He glanced at it, nodded approvingly, and offered a simple, “Good.” But while he acknowledged her progress, his mind was already somewhere else, already assembling the future in silent blueprints and sketches of mana channels.

A new device, compact and efficient, capable of forming runic sequences on command. Not just useful. Game-changing. And for the first time, Ludger didn’t push the idea aside. He leaned into it. The world was changing rapidly. He might as well change with it.

The next few weeks slipped by faster than Ludger expected.

He wasn’t delving labyrinths, patrolling borders, or hunting down shady guilds. He was teaching, writing drills, mana tracing practice, water manipulation basics, and the occasional lecture on not accidentally drowning themselves with their own spells. It should have felt slow, boring, too mundane for someone used to fighting for his life every other week. But it didn’t. Because every morning brought something new.

A kid finally formed a stable mana thread without wobbling. Another wrote her name cleanly for the first time. Two more learned to maintain a steady water stream long enough to fill a bucket.

And every single success sent a quiet pulse through his status window.

[Foundational Growth + 10 XP]

 [Foundational Growth + 10 XP]

 [Foundational Growth + 10 XP] again and again and again.

Ludger watched the job level climb rapidly, his Teacher class moving at a pace that put even his early combat training to shame. And the higher it rose, the more anticipation built in his chest.

He wasn’t just farming levels. well, he was, but not only that. He wanted to see the final skill. The capstone. The one reward the System saved for the end of the job’s growth.

It wasn’t just curiosity, it was expectation.

His Geomancer class had burst past the ceiling when it hit level 100, granting him the ability to transform mana directly into earth. Not “summon earth,” not “shape existing earth,” but conjure the element itself, rewriting the basic rules of spellcasting for him. A class-breaking reward. A fundamental shift.

If Teacher offered even half of that kind of paradigm change… Ludger couldn’t help it. He wanted to see how far the System intended to push him. He kept training the thirty kids every morning, kept refining their techniques, kept adjusting mana flow, correcting form, and watching them grow stronger, not through battles or leveling, but through the simple act of being taught.

And apparently, word spread. Because one afternoon, while he was returning from the guild, he noticed three newcomers lingering near the children’s quarters. Frightened eyes. Thin clothes. Dirt-streaked cheeks. Kids who clearly hadn’t eaten properly in days. 

They weren’t from Lionfang. No, these were wanderers, runaways, orphans from the outskirts. Kids who had heard rumors about a boy who could teach even the most hopeless how to wield magic. Ludger approached slowly, watching how they flinched but didn’t flee.

“You looking for lessons?” he asked, voice calm.

The oldest, maybe eight or nine, swallowed hard and nodded. “We… heard you teach kids. Even ones like us. And that you… you don’t hit them for money.”

A strange, quiet anger flickered through Ludger at the implication. He pushed it aside.

“Then come in,” he said.

The boy blinked. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Ludger pointed to the training yard where the others practiced. “The rules are simple. Learn. Don’t cause trouble. Help each other.”

The three traded uncertain glances. Then stepped forward.

And Ludger felt it, another pulse from the Teacher job. Not big, but distinct. Like the System acknowledging something important. Or maybe it was just his small heart growing when it wasn’t Christmas yet.

As more days passed, more unfamiliar faces began appearing. A pair of children from a distant farmstead. A girl with burn marks on her arms, desperately wanting to learn Splash so she’d never lose her home to fire again. A boy who could barely speak, but traced letters with fierce determination. They came shyly, uncertainly, waiting for someone to chase them away.

Ludger didn’t. He let them stay. And just like that, his thirty students became thirty-five. Then thirty-eight. Then forty-two. Lionfang was slowly turning into something else, not just a border town, not just a guild base, but a place where discarded kids could learn and recover.

The Teacher job kept leveling. And Ludger kept pushing forward, a quiet part of him wondering: What kind of skill will a job grant… when it realizes it’s no longer teaching a class, but building a generation?

Torvares sat alone in his office, the late afternoon light drawing long, stark shadows across the polished floor. The letter in his hand crinkled slightly as he tightened his grip, eyes fixed on the window but clearly seeing far beyond it. His jaw was set, the muscles tight in a way that only appeared when something required his direct, and careful, attention. A quiet knock broke the stillness.

“Grandfather? May I come in?”

“Enter,” Torvares said, voice steady but heavy.

Viola opened the door and stepped inside, closing it softly behind her. She studied him for a moment, his posture, the crease between his brows, the parchment held between his fingers.

“You called for me?” she asked.

Torvares nodded once.

Viola’s gaze dropped to the letter. “Is that… trouble?”

“A minor inconvenience,” Torvares replied, though the weight in his tone didn’t quite match the words. “One that can be resolved quickly, if Ludger cooperates.”

Viola raised an eyebrow, already recognizing the issue. “So it’s something he won’t like.”

“Correct.”

She sighed, sweeping some hair behind her ear. “Let me guess… you want me to explain it to him.”

Torvares finally turned from the window and met her eyes. “Yes.”

Viola walked closer, curiosity tugging at her expression. “And why me? Because I haven’t had the chance to properly thank him for the sculpture?”

“That too,” Torvares answered, allowing himself a breath of amusement. “But mostly because if I go to him personally, certain nobles might interpret it as political pressure… or desperation.”

Viola frowned. “Because of the sculpture requests?”

“And the attention he’s received,” Torvares confirmed. “Some already whisper that I rely too heavily on him. That I’m tying the territory’s stability to a single boy. If I were seen visiting him just to deliver this message…” He gestured with the letter. “Rumors would multiply.”

Viola folded her arms. “So you need me to go as an intermediary.”

“I need you,” Torvares said gently, “because you’re the only one he will listen to without digging his heels in out of sheer stubbornness.”

Viola flushed slightly but didn’t deny it.

She folded the letter, jaw set with determination. “Alright. I’ll talk to him. I’ll handle it.”

Torvares nodded, relief flickering across his face. “Good. And Viola…”

She paused at the door. “Yes?”

“Try to thank him this time,” he said with a soft smile. “Properly, even if he tris to run, not that I think that he will.”

Viola rolled her eyes, but her cheeks warmed. “I’ll try.”

And with that, she left to find Ludger, completely unaware that the conversation ahead would be far more complicated than either of them expected.

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