Chapter 84

"Let's skip the 'loyalty' part. I just chose a deity to believe in so I won't be walled up with the faithless after death," Gao Dun muttered to himself.

Duke Robert was unaware of Gao Dun's thoughts and continued, "Lord Ioun needs to develop as many believers as possible in the Material Plane, expand his influence, and strengthen his power to get through an impending great crisis. We believers must do our utmost. Therefore, the Church of Ioun has decided to establish schools to spread knowledge and education."

Ioun is the god of knowledge and truth, with domains including education, books, and inventions. Establishing schools to spread knowledge and education is indeed a method to increase believers and influence, thereby enhancing divine power.

However, the problem is that in this world, education is a resource monopolized by the upper class. It's already impressive if an ordinary person can recognize three hundred words and perform basic reading and writing. Most commoners, and even some newly ennobled military men, are illiterate. Writing a love letter to a beloved girl would require entrusting a bard.

In the Telos world, the main educational institutions are temples and various spellcaster organizations. They send people to the populace to find talented children and take them back. These children then learn cultural knowledge and divine or arcane magic simultaneously. Some powerful noble families or the royal family also establish schools to cultivate talent, such as the Ferelden Imperial Military Academy. However, these schools teach advanced professional knowledge.

Nobles generally hire private tutors or have parents personally educate their children. Commoners who want to learn must go to places similar to private schools. However, these private schools are small in scale, and the teachers may not be professional, perhaps just a destitute bard or a store accountant working part-time to earn extra money.

The education system is not well-structured, and the quality of educators varies widely. This is the basic education situation in Ferelden, and one could say the entire continent.

What Duke Robert plans to do is to establish institutions similar to primary and secondary schools on Earth, which will popularize basic knowledge, completely different from the traditional elite education currently practiced on the continent.

The idea is excellent. If it can be implemented, it will definitely benefit future generations.

However, there are many problems in actual implementation.

At the beginning of establishing a school, the land can be allocated by Duke Robert, with no cost. Teachers can be served by the priests of the Temple of Ioun. These believers, who are dedicated to spreading the glory of the god of knowledge, would not mind the low pay; they are not like the meticulous priests of Waukeen.

Most of Ioun's believers are from the upper class. After establishing the school, raising funds from them for the construction of school buildings, classrooms, and dining halls would not be difficult.

However, the biggest expense is books.

In the Telos world, books are very precious items. Since printing technology has not been invented, books are handwritten by authors. If they need to be copied, it is done manually.

Even popular adventure novels on the market are hard for ordinary people to see in physical form; most are spread through bards singing in taverns.

Although mages can use the "Copy" spell to easily duplicate books, spell slots are extremely valuable to them. Often, they would rather pay someone to copy books than waste spell slots on such tasks.

For various reasons, books in the Telos world are very expensive. To establish a school for popular education, reducing the cost of books is a problem that must be solved. Duke Robert plans to offer basic language, common knowledge, and mathematics courses, which means each student needs at least three textbooks.

Duke Robert plans to enroll five hundred students in the first batch, requiring one thousand five hundred textbooks. This is not a small number. If copied manually, the time and money required would be unacceptable.

The Lord of the Scepter informed Gao Dun of the main difficulties in establishing a school and then said, "For some time, I have been looking for a simple and inexpensive way to increase the production of books."

"No wonder this Duke has been hard to see since becoming a magic assistant; he has been busy with this," Gao Dun thought.

"Two days ago, I finally made a breakthrough and found a way to conveniently and quickly copy books," Duke Robert said, then walked out of the room and gestured for Gao Dun to follow.

In the underground magic laboratory filled with various clutter, following the direction of the Lord of the Scepter's finger, Gao Dun saw a wooden board lying quietly in the center of the room.

The wooden board was carved with reverse positive text.

"I ordered craftsmen to carve text on the wooden board. By applying ink to the board and then covering it with paper, pressing and wiping the back of the paper, the text can be printed," Duke Robert explained.

Isn't this woodblock printing? Gao Dun was so surprised that his mouth dropped open as he looked at Duke Robert. This middle-aged man, not only powerful and influential with a harem of beautiful wives, was now engaged in invention and creation!

Gao Dun even suspected that the other party might also be a穿越者 (穿越者 means "穿越者" in Chinese, which translates to "穿越者" in English, but in this context, it means "a person from another world" or "a穿越者").

"Don't look at me like that, young man. As a believer of Ioun, I often think about new inventions. This is just an accidental discovery," Duke Robert said, somewhat proudly.

"Your wisdom is admirable," Gao Dun said.

He was indeed impressed. Although woodblock printing was not a rare thing to him, it was an ancient and outdated technology on Earth that had been used for over a thousand years and was long obsolete. However, for the Telos world, it was a remarkable invention.

For someone of Duke Robert's status, others envied his power, wealth, and strength, but Gao Dun's admiration for his intelligence made him very happy.

However, Duke Robert was not entirely satisfied with his great invention. He continued, "I call this printing technology 'woodblock printing.' However, it has many flaws. For example, if a craftsman makes a mistake while carving the text, the entire wooden board must be scrapped. I have experimented with many types of wood and finally chose the expensive black pine as the material for the blocks, which will cause significant losses. Moreover, one wooden block can only print one page of a book, and to print a book, a large number of blocks are needed. Although this method has reduced costs, it is still somewhat expensive."

Although Duke Robert had accumulated vast wealth, he was meticulous about the costs of establishing a school. Popularizing education and establishing schools is a long-term endeavor. It cannot rely on a single wealthy person's generosity to sustain; a sustainable development path must be found.

Duke Robert's considerations were already very thorough, but as a native, he could not match the broad knowledge of a穿越者 like Gao Dun. After all, Gao Dun stood on the shoulders of all of Earth's human civilization, with a natural advantage.

Duke Robert told Gao Dun about the current difficulties and then asked, "Do you have any suggestions for improving my printing technology?"

Gao Dun put on a thoughtful expression.

"You don't need to rush. Take your time. If you can't think of anything, it's fine. This woodblock printing technology has already significantly reduced costs. I just want to see if it can be improved. By Ioun, this is just a mage's pursuit of perfection."

Duke Robert did not want to put too much pressure on Gao Dun, so he comforted him. In fact, Gao Dun had already thought of a solution but did not want to reveal it immediately to avoid appearing too shocking, so he pretended to be deep in thought.

After pacing back and forth in the underground laboratory and putting on a show, Gao Dun slowly said, "My lord, I have an idea that might work."

"Go on."

"Actually, we don't need to carve the entire page of a book on a single wooden block. We can carve individual letters on uniformly sized wooden blocks and then arrange them to print a page. Moreover, by rearranging the blocks, we can create new pages, reuse them, and reduce costs."

As Gao Dun spoke, Duke Robert's eyes grew brighter, his expression changing from listening to surprise, and finally to elation.

"Ha ha, by Ioun, you truly have an outstanding believer!" Duke Robert patted Gao Dun's shoulder hard. As a Spiral Tower mage and a skilled swordsman, the Duke's arm strength was considerable, making Gao Dun wince.

But seeing Duke Robert's excitement, Gao Dun could only endure it silently.

"Brilliant idea! Brilliant idea!" Duke Robert paced around the room, repeatedly muttering, his mind racing with thoughts on how to implement Gao Dun's suggestion.

For Duke Robert, Gao Dun's suggestion was indeed a brilliant idea. After all, he had just invented woodblock printing and could not possibly come up with movable type printing.

On Earth, it took nearly a thousand years of using woodblock printing before movable type printing was developed.

For the穿越者 Gao Dun, movable type printing was an outdated technology, but for the Telos world, it was a groundbreaking new technology.

"Your idea is fantastic. Gao Dun, what should we call this technology?"

"Movable type printing."

Duke Robert nodded. "Yes, a fitting name. Here's what I'll do: I'll entrust you with the responsibility of perfecting the movable type printing. As a believer of Ioun, you should contribute your share and not just come up with a brilliant idea and then walk away."

What can you do when the boss is the boss? To earn a fief for the Freeman family, Gao Dun had to work hard.

"Of course, my lord."

Seeing Gao Dun readily accept the task, Duke Robert gave him a personal seal. With this seal, Gao Dun could withdraw funds and materials from the Duke's treasury.

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