Release that Witch

…

Waking up from the Dream World, Roland sprang out of his bed. Unable to contain his excitement any longer, he draped his coat over his shoulders and hurried to his office. He took out several blank papers and started to write down the missing parts of the periodic table of elements and ”Elementary Chemistry” from his memory.

He also concluded some rules from the previous two trips to the Dream World. First, the time passed at a different pace in that world. This was easy to understand, as even a nap was enough for a long, vivid dream. Roland thought it might be caused by the increased response speed of the brain. In a dream, it just needed to pull all the sensory inputs out from the memory and entered them into a dream instead of uploading and processing information from all five senses.

Take the last trip as an example. He had left the Dream World at 3:00 p.m. by falling from a standing herringbone ladder in his bedroom before Zero had come back. Until that time, he had spent eight hours in that world. However, when he woke up in the real world, it was still midnight and the moon was shining high in the sky.

Second, his brain had been so excited in the vivid dreams that traveling to the Dream World did not mean having a rest. This was a tricky problem, as in this way he would be busy for the whole 24 hours of a day. In the day, he had to handle state affairs in the real world, and at night, he needed to make money to raise the family in the Dream World. He was surprised to find that he himself had become one of the model workers of Neverwinter... and the most hardworking one.

By now, he had not yet tried to sleep in the Dream World. Due to the time differences, he guessed sleeping in it would be more efficient.

Third, the Dream World was different from ordinary dream experiences.

This world was clear, stable and had its own rules. This must have been caused by Zero. She had created this new world about which he knew just a little bit.

He wondered at this world, thinking, ”Does it have boundaries? How many fragments does it mix? How much hidden or forgotten information will I discover there?”

He waited out the night until the dawn reached. After having breakfast, he summoned all high officials of City Hall to the reception hall of his castle.

He needed to check on the progress of their works after the whole month, and more importantly, he wanted to work out the development plan for the next development stage for the coming challenge.

Now that the church was no longer a major threat, he had to get ready for the upcoming attacks from demons and put his all into the preparation for the Battle of Divine Will.

Roland set his eyes on the other kingdoms.

Barov wiped his forehead and said, ”Uhm... you mean we’ll recruit people not only from each domain of Graycastle but also from Everwinter and Wolfheart? Your Majesty, it’s a very big project.”

Roland said in a deep voice, ”The news that the church has suffered a sharp defeat will soon spread all over the continent. After that, Holy City of Hermes can hardly control Everwinter and Wolfheart. Seeing the sign of weakness, those local noble men driven to the church by the wars will turn their backs on it soon. This offers us an exciting opportunity to draw their people to Graycastle with gold royals or even violent measures.”

Not being affected by any form of nationalism, people of this era did not care very much about who they worked for, as long as they could bring their families together with them.

Roland continued to explain, ”In the next spring, the seaport of Neverwinter will be put into use. All you have to do is to formulate a recruiting plan, rent ships from the Fjords merchants and find places to accommodate the newcomers in the city. I know this will cost City Hall a huge sum of gold royals, but we’ve got to do this no matter what. All of you know it clearly that the church isn’t our ultimate challenge.”

As City Hall had lots of related experiences, Roland was confident in this ambitious plan to expand population in a short time.

For example, City Hall had sent emissary delegations to the Southern Territory and the Eastern Region to recruit people for many times before this plan.

As for resettlement work, it also had rich experiences and a whole set of regulations.

City Hall of Neverwinter had already become a reliable and mature administration body.

However, it had no experience in sea transportation. Roland planned to ask Thunder and Margaret’s Chamber of Commerce to assist it.

”By the way, in order to lighten your workload, I’ll officially hire Miss Edith Kant to work as your adjutant in City Hall.” Roland paused a little and continued, ”I find no fault with her previous performance in Coldwind Ridge battle and the work in Adviser Department. I believe you’ll feel much easier with her help.”

Barov said anxiously, ”Thank you, Your Majesty, but I can do it on my own...”

Roland interrupted him. ”I’ve decided. Just do what I say.”

After that, he turned to look at Scroll, saying, ”Education is another focus in the next development stage. How did the training of the secondary teachers go?”

Scroll shook her head and said, ”By now, only Ferlin has passed the assessment test. Your Majesty, I’m afraid this method won’t work.”

”I see.” Roland was not surprised by the failure of the plan. As most of the Neverwinter’s primary teachers were knights, using the teaching materials written by Scroll, they did not have any trouble teaching the students to read and write.

However, when the Education Ministry wanted to improve the quality of the teachers, it met a problem. The only reason for the knight’s reading and writing abilities was that they had had access to education. Being literate did not necessarily mean that they were good at studying.

To become secondary teachers, they need to be qualified in disciplines including math, physics, and chemistry, which were not easy to learn.

Roland thought for a while and made a decision, saying, ”Given that, let’s pick new secondary teachers from the students. To encourage top students to continue their studies at school, we need to include a scholarship scheme in the budget for the next year.”

”Sch-scholarship?” Scroll thought for a moment and continued, ”Do you mean the reward system we’ve adapted in Longsong Stronghold?”

Roland explained, ”No, not at all. That reward system was designed to attract more people to the school, but this scholarship scheme only rewards the top students. It aims to attract them to continue studying in the school by offering them money as much as most workers can make.”

Generally, when a student completed universal education and got a diploma, he would try to find a job to raise his family as soon as possible instead of furthering his studies at school. To make sure that people who were good at studying would get better trained, he must build a special fiscal fund, namely, a scholarship scheme, to subsidize those people.

Roland continued to explain his plan to Scroll, ”First, you can set high standard score to pick out only 20-30 students who’ll be paid for with scholarships, and then you work with Ferlin to teach them. Their learning speed must be much faster than that of those knights. After the training, anyone who passes the assessment is qualified to become a secondary teacher whose starting monthly salary is 50 silver royals, and the ones who fail in the assessment can apply for the other jobs.”

When he got the first batch of secondary teachers, he planned to soften the terms of the scholarship scheme and promote the higher level of knowledge and education among the people.