Technomancer: Genesis - 116 A Scandal

Ezra concluded his lecture proving the first Proposition in Euclid’s The Elements on which His whole lecture was based on. It would take a longer time, taking him up to dusk,if he tried to prove all of Euclid’s propositions that very day, so he stopped at the first proposition. Early on he discovered that the locals of this world had some fundamental grasp of geometry, though it was not too widespread, and only artisans, builders and masons had a grasp in the subject.

The books that were in the Castle Blackfyre library led him to the conclusion that there was no collected and centralized repository of geometry as on Earth, at least within the confines of Fulmen. He was not too sure if Rexasticus already had this knowledge distilled within a single book like Euclid’s The Elements.

He decided that the direction of where the lecture should go was to hint that Fulmen had already amassed and extracted geometry as a body of knowledge, with this he hoped that people who thirsted for knowledge and those who had a natural inclination to become tinkerers would flock to Bren to further propel industrialization.

This, however, gave him a dilemma, spies could easily gain this knowledge and use it to Bren’s detriment, but he also wanted to uplift the overall well being of the citizens of not only Rex Imperia but the whole of Arcanium.He was thinking of a citizenship or passport system but he hadn’t fully analyzed the effects of the mandate.

He had already been talking to his father about how this would be implemented, one proposal was that foreigners could only access certain general knowledge, and Fulmen’s citizens were privileged to gain everything Ezra had to offer so that Bren would have the advantage. In order to contain the spread of special information within Fulmen’s borders, he had to reinforce the loyalty of its citizens.

Another problem was since Fulmen was because the viscountcies weren’t all that cohesive, he had to think of a plan to make Fulmen more centralized to further enhance allegiance on the state. Ezra thought of using his banking system to strengthen ties between all the viscounts but he had yet to find a suitable way implement it, for now, it could become a reason to visit the various fiefdoms of Bren and establish better ties with the Viscounts.

Temporarily, he wanted to focus his efforts on building a solid foundation of officers and administrators, executives and engineers, specifically inside Bren, not only because of their loyalty but also because they were smaller in number. He could then delegate his workload. He had set his sights on Raydal, Noren and Vendis’ generation as future leaders in the upcoming industrialization and technological overhaul of Bren. The plan to introduce, military, infrastructure, and technological advancements had been slowly falling into place.

His father was right, he could not do everything alone.

“And thus we conclude that Congruent Circles have congruent radii it follows that AB and AC and AD are congruent since they are radii of congruent circles. From this, we know that equilateral triangles have congruent sides, so ABC is equilateral.”

Ezra walked slowly again from side to side,” We have proved all of this starting from the simple idea of a point.” Ezra smiled,” What I would like you all to take from this lecture is that we generate knowledge from the simple, and we establish the complex. The simple propels us to generate new ideas and from that, we can make even more, as long as we have generated and tested them, and even proved them for ourselves. With that, I will conclude this lecture”

Thunderous applause shook the entirety of the training grounds, which only came from the nobles. The children were bewildered that this happened since they normally did not clap for Ezra when he concluded his lectures instead, they would give him his workbooks and he would check their answers and discuss their mistakes, some of them giggled and scratched their heads, while others clapped along.

The nobles all stood in praise while clapping, they had really appreciated the address of the child. It made them ponder deep thoughts and some of them even thought to apply it in their training. Everyone but Erela stood, she was scowling at Ezra.

“Ulric,”

“Yes?”

“We definitely need to get into that university,” Heinrich stated in all seriousness.

“Yes, I wonder what other hidden secrets and knowledge Bren has. That leaves a question to be answered: Does this all stem from the Earl?” Ulric raised his brow.

“Perhaps, but wherever it’s from we need to find out.”

Ezra then went down from the stage, he was met by Hestia who ran toward him. The nobles were smiling and looking at the princess and her betrothed. A boy to be admired. The nobles under Bren had puffed up chests looking at Ezra. They had a sense of awe when looking at Ezra, truly Bren was blessed to produce such a child advanced for his time. A true maverick. His address was not comparable to any other they had heard, nor would ever hear from someone else, and from a child at that.

Reitz and Aerwyna proudly look at their son beaming at him, while they acknowledged the praises the nobles were giving them about their child.

“Ezra, that was great!” Hestia exclaimed as she ran toward him. “You explained everything thoroughly.” Hestia’s nose was in the air,” everything connected in the end, and made sense, from simple to complex, “Hestia closed her eyes,”, I am beginning to see how educating the commoners can produce a better domain.” Hestia saw the grasp of knowledge of Ezra’s students in contrast with the nobles, she often looked back to see their expressions, she was very sensitive about their reactions.

“That was nothing really. I didn’t even go too far. If I did then we would not be able to go to the banquet, afterwards,” Ezra smiled.

“Despite your flaws, I think you really are worthy to be my betrothed,” Hestia blushed.

Ezra wasn’t too sure how to respond and just nodded, smiling in an awkward fashion. Ezra caught himself doing this, he wasn’t really sure how to react to compliments. Thankfully it seemed that Hestia looked the other way smiling and didn’t take offence. She just faced the nobles who were cheering at them while she waved and smiled.

“Hold on a moment, princess before we go to the banquet at the back together, may I address, my students first,” Ezra asked for permission. He was taught by his mother to do this every time he was with Hestia but he wanted to do something else. She told him it was effective because it would mean that he was thinking of her and just needed to do something that he didn’t really want to do at the moment, but because necessity dictated, he had to, it implied that she was of higher standing in his eyes.

“Sure, of course.”

Ezra went to the children. At once, they formed a huge circle around him and huddled close to hear what he had to say.

“Okay, you guys heard the announcement from father, right?”

The children nodded.

“You are all going to go to the university to learn instead of work, so we won’t be meeting for about a month until the first building is built. Okay? You can relax or if you want, browse through the books I gave you.”

“Yes, Lord Ezra, but what about the textbooks?” asked Noren, he was somewhat the leader of the group.

“Don’t worry the guards will collect them and I will grade them when we meet. There will be a lot of changes and I’ll just send word when we are going to meet again. I hope to see you all in the university,” Ezra smiled.

“Yes, Lord Ezra, we shall go now,”

“Yeah, I need to go socialize with the snooty gentry now, Bye everyone,” Ezra waved to them.

The guards escorted the children outside the grounds.

Ezra walked toward Hestia and they both went walking down the divide of chairs towards the noble’s area, and everyone applauded their ascent.

A shrill voice penetrated the applause.” All right, this has gone far enough! Ladies and Gentlemen, I think that this show is already too much won’t you agree?” Erela bellowed.