“Perfect,” said Mrs. Clara. “All in attendance. I expect no tardiness, even on the rainiest of days, for the next four years going onwards. Unless, of course, the Demon God’s invasion takes place in the North, at which point I expect attendance to be zero.”

No one laughed at her joke, and the teacher sighed. “Fine, down to business. First, you lot might be interested to hear about the aftermath of the duel between Reinford and Gaius, but don’t come after me for details. Second, the phrontistery has decided that any challengers who want to challenge him must overcome Reinford first. The arena is too expensive to be repaired on a daily basis.”

“In that case, aren’t we comparing whose wallets are deeper? That’s an impossible challenge!” someone said.

“Schwarz, right?” Mrs. Clara pointed at the speaker, a black-haired burly teenager. Even while seated down, Gaius could tell that he was at least two times taller than him, and briefly wondered about his parents.

“Yes, teacher.” The boy nodded politely.

“You are right. If you don’t have enough money to defeat Reinford, you sure won’t have enough to repair the arena,” said Mrs. Clara. “And there isn’t any practical benefit in fighting them outside of final exams either, so please stop wasting your trump cards on duels like this. There is a great war in four years. No one wants to see invaluable items used for the wrong reasons.”

She looked around at the silent class. “Which brings us to the main point of Class 1-S. You are expected to be students well-versed in artificing. To incentivise this, half of any creations made in this class, using resources from this school and this school only, are treated as the creator’s personal property,” said Mrs. Clara. “Normally, they would be turned in afterwards, but there are extenuating circumstances This is a new policy we’ve created for you guys, so be grateful.”

“Our property?” Another student asked.

“Correct, Alicia. You are free to do whatever you like with it.” Mrs. Clara grinned. “Trade with your classmates, sell them outside, whatever. Furthermore, the school is willing to purchase unique artefacts of a certain quality and rarity at a generous rate.”

“And where, pray tell, would these artefacts go to?” Countess Reinford asked, her question drawing the eyes of many.

“To the Northern military, the ones that would contribute in the war between the Five Lands and the Wildlands,” Mrs. Clara replied. “If you feel that your artefacts cannot be brought with money alone, we are very happy to barter.”

“What do you think?” Gaius spoke mentally. Nexus, who had been returned to him some time ago, made a sound that reminded the boy of a computer booting up.

“Sounds fishy, but since you don’t have any unique artefacts that you can create on your own, it won’t affect you,” Nexus said.

Gaius ran through its reply for a moment, and then nodded. “You suspect that they want to reverse-engineer the artefacts they receive?”

“Bingo. Of course, their intentions may be somewhat obvious, but we are talking about the young scions of important families here. Whether they’re farsighted enough to realise that loosening a monopoly might be an issue or not is very much up in the air.”

“I see.” Gaius turned his attention back to the teacher, who was now talking about the main topic of today’s lessons.

“Many students have approached me yesterday, asking about becoming a Knight,” began Mrs. Clara. “We do have a few Knights here, but our school’s policy is that individuals seeking to become Knights should do so under the guidance of their family. That said, it is also part of our curriculum, so we are going to touch on it with an unbiased view of what a Knight is.”

“By now,” she said, “most of you should be aware that advancements in cultivation, to Knight and beyond, rest in the realm of the mind. But your understanding is often vague, so let me break it down to you. Essentially, the advancement involves placing restrictions on yourself in exchange for greater power.”

Gaius raised his hand, and she nodded at him. “Go ahead.”

“Where does this greater power come from?” He asked. Gaius had a few sneaking suspicions, and the last time he voiced it out loud to Isabelle, the Chanter of Innocents had awakened. The boy was tempted to draw a cause-and-effect link, but that was just a lazy approach.

And whenever he thought back to the day Weiwu awakened, Gaius had a feeling that the newly-summoned great god had done something in the aftermath. Their conversation back then — Gaius vividly remembered asking Isabelle about who she made a vow to — had ended without him having found out.

And he hadn’t dared to ask since then.

It was only in here, in Twilight Elysium, did he broach this topic. This was the land most hostile to the great gods and their influence, and this class was the best one to bring it up in.

Gaius stared at Mrs. Clara, waiting for an answer.

“To be honest,” she began, “we aren’t all that clear. There are various theories. The first, was that we were making our vows to the Human God, but this theory fell out of favour a year ago, when the truth of the Second Extermination was made known. Since the Human God wanted to wipe out the beastfolk, he wouldn’t have granted them power for the past ten years, but the continuous emergence of Beastfolk Knights and above goes against this. An alternative variant of this theory that recently gained traction is that we are actually vowing to gods that haven’t awakened. Considering the recent emergence of the Chanter of Innocence, this theory doesn’t sound that farfetched anymore.”

The class murmured.

“The second,” she continued, unaffected by the class, “was that each and every one of us has a latent store of untapped power within ourselves. The vows we create are able to somehow create an opening for this store to flow out. But the mechanisms behind this are vague and veiled, so no one really thinks this is the case.”

“The third major theory, which is currently the most accepted by philosophers, is that these vows don’t necessarily involve in a quantitative increase in power,” said Mrs. Clara. “But rather, the strength in which power surges. We can liken this to a river. Given that all other variables are equal, a narrower river will have a greater rate of flow. Vows, by narrowing available scopes of actions, enhance the output of power allocated to remaining actions.”

The others tittered thoughtfully, and then for a few minutes, discussions about which theory was better ruled the classroom. Mrs. Clara flitted around like a shadow, listening into the various groups and nodding. Meanwhile, Gaius was comparing it to Nexus’ own explanation, and his brows furrowed lightly.

In that case, where does a Lord’s Fief and a Paragon’s Dominion come from?