Published: March 12, 2025
Chapter 276: You Win
No one opposed Zhao Hai's plan. In the continent, the typical age for children to start school is around six to eight years old. Generally, children who start at six come from wealthier families, such as big merchants or nobles, while those who start at eight generally come from less affluent backgrounds, such as commoners.
However, Zhao Hai set the admission age at four, which is two years earlier than the noble children. Therefore, teaching these kids some miscellaneous books wouldn’t affect their martial arts training.
Zhao Hai also carefully examined the map drawn by Wells. They had now entered the territory of the centaur tribe and were already quite deep inside, indicating that they were indeed in a hurry.
From Zhao Hai's current position, it would take about five days to reach Wells' location. However, Zhao Hai didn’t want to take that long. Since the undead beings didn't need to rest, he decided to let them march non-stop day and night. This way, they would likely find Wells in about two days.
During these two days, they hadn’t encountered many people on the prairie, and Zhao Hai didn’t go there himself. He left the matters of the prairie to Cai'er while he busied himself with Merlin and the others regarding the construction of the school.
Although their school was not large, it had several hundred students. Zhao Hai noticed that the number of teachers seemed insufficient, especially in subjects like literacy and math, where they were particularly lacking qualified personnel.
The teachers assigned for literacy and math were all Oroja. Although Oroja was an undead being and didn’t need to rest, the number of kids was overwhelming, and relying on him alone wouldn’t suffice.
The problem was that Zhao Hai couldn’t spare anyone else to be the teachers, which made him quite troubled. In the end, he had to assign an undead mage to teach the children literacy, and this time he chose Zhao Jia.
Zhao Jia was a grand mage of the light system, so he naturally knew how to teach literacy. The students attending were all children from the Giant Horned Mighty Bull Tribe, and it was normal for him to teach them since they wouldn’t be learning magic.
As for children aged four to seven, Zhao Hai didn’t assign any teachers but selected two female slaves to teach them. He chose a literate woman from the Giant Horned Mighty Bull Tribe, as the younger children needed more care, and it would be better for these attentive women to teach them.
At the same time, another matter that troubled Zhao Hai was the textbooks. The curriculum had been set, but what about the textbooks? They didn’t have enough books to provide each child with a full set.
In the end, Zhao Hai had to use another method: he provided each child with a stack of blank paper, bound them with thread to create notebooks, and had them write notes on what the teachers taught them. Although this would slow down their learning speed, it was still a feasible solution.
This method, however, significantly increased the demand for paper and ink. But that was okay; it was much easier to buy paper than books on the continent.
At this point on the Ark Continent, there was no movable type printing technology; they used very primitive woodblock printing, which was quite expensive. Many children from poor families couldn’t afford textbooks when they attended school, and they used a method similar to Zhao Hai’s.
Zhao Hai provided these children with fountain pens purchased during their supply run in Casa City. Initially intended for the orcs, they were now given to the children.
Zhao Hai emphasized that the children must take good care of their pens and paper. They were required to record their notes daily, which the teachers would check the next day. The same applied to the fountain pens; if any were found damaged, the child would face punishment.
Of course, this punishment was not corporal; Zhao Hai did not want teachers to physically punish students. However, for the children, it was a serious punishment: they would be prohibited from attending physical education class.