Having finished the second lesson for the Knights of the Round Table, Kayal felt a lot of pressure from having students who could infer three things from one... Then came a group of even more tender little ones: a month had passed, and the top students from each of the thirty-odd subjects across both academies!
Sage Academy had thirty-nine subjects, and Knight Academy had twenty subjects, making for a class of nearly sixty people.
The so-called subjects were naturally not the hundred-plus that Kayal had mentioned before. Perhaps there would be in the future, but for now, there were indeed only sixty subjects. The subjects and academies developed gradually, and both educational facilities and teaching staff were significant shortcomings.
For example, the so-called iron-making process: blacksmiths who evolved towards robust and reliable civilian applications would become "Farm Tool Forging Masters" or "Tool Professors" in Sage Academy, while those who evolved towards military applications—reliable, sturdy, sharp, and tough—would become "Weapon Masters," "Skilled Craftsman Professors," etc. The latter were naturally more sought after than the former and could also be considered two different subjects.
Kayal had this plan for the future, but for now, he could only make a rough division. Only when Camelot's technology flourished in the future would there be an academic explosion. Kayal was incredibly envious of Greece's academic atmosphere.
Whether under Roman or Macedonian rule, the rulers granted Greece a certain degree of tolerance. Except during the sacking of cities, it was almost possible to speak freely. Even the Greek governor himself was a scholar, and the juries for legal cases were exclusively composed of professors. Their intelligence was exceptionally high, and the academic atmosphere was absolutely the best in world history!
No one could surpass Greece in academic atmosphere!
And Kayal aimed to create such an atmosphere and environment. He believed that one day, Camelot's academic environment would be even better than Greece's.
Of course, this was something he had to work hard to build. His path was still very long.
Kayal looked at the group of little ones below, heads held high, who had managed to earn money to support themselves and even their families in the first month. He chuckled. Their faces were full of the pride, arrogance, and ostentation unique to youth, self-satisfaction with their achievements, and anticipation for this class.
They were the top group in Camelot, full of arrogance, but upon seeing Kayal's gentle smile, everyone unconsciously brought their hands and feet together, placing their hands on their knees, like good students on their first day of school. Their pride was truly insignificant in front of this legend of Camelot.
Kayal's eyes, like curved amber, with emerald green pupils, looked with a curved smile at these children who slowly lost their voices and began to become humble. He felt a little satisfied with himself.
This was his domain, just as Artoria on the battlefield would exude an aura like a Valkyrie, where no one could withstand her sword. Kayal's aura in the academy was like Artoria's on the battlefield—this was his battlefield!
Kayal nodded, tidied up the podium, and then, at his leisure, looked at the group of youngsters below: "Now, let's begin roll call."
After roll call, half of the youngsters from Knight Academy were from well-known noble families, which wasn't too surprising. Eating rich food, even if they weren't particularly strong, their physical energy would certainly be greater than that of peasant sons who only ate coarse grains.
The other half were resilient farmer's sons... In surprise, one could only marvel at the stubbornness of these youngsters. Given their backgrounds, how could they be sitting here without having put in a hundredfold effort?
On the other side, there was nothing much to say. Except for five or six exceptionally bright, naturally gifted youngsters, those who could receive higher education and become top students within a month of enrollment were all from wealthy families who had accumulated knowledge through money from a young age. One must know that a single parchment in this era cost one Camelot gold coin, which was simply unaffordable for ordinary people.
Currently, Kayal and his professors were using yellow paper instead of parchment. Although not as good as white paper, it was usable for writing, had slightly lower quality, but very high production.
And the paper mill also spurred a series of personnel changes, bringing jobs, salaries, and contribution points.
Contribution points were not about how much you earned, but how much you contributed to society.
Kayal nodded slightly, turned around, and wrote a word on the blackboard: "Effort!"
"In the academy, my disciples will teach you, but here, I only impart intellectual maturity to you," Kayal said. In fact, in the past, he taught and gave ideological lessons to his students with examples. Now, he had to teach such things separately, and Kayal unconsciously fine-tuned his teaching methods.
"What is effort?" Unlike adults who have their own mature thoughts, Kayal did not use a guided teaching method, but rather an indoctrination method: "Effort is a prerequisite, a condition for success!"
"Perhaps you don't know, but before His Majesty the King became invincible, after she turned ten, she swung her Sword of Victory an average of fifty thousand times a day and fought fifteen battles. Her victories were not brought to her by the Sword of Victory in her hand, but by her effort," Kayal said, and he was absolutely right. He had once conducted a survey to meticulously record the physical endurance of people in this era, and the experimental subject was his childhood friend and personal guard, Artoria... "Perhaps you don't know, but before I became wise, I read an average of fifty books a day, and each one was a very profound work..." Kayal was not exaggerating. Before he became an (unofficial) Chief of Staff, he read nearly fifty-five books a day, each one like "Das Kapital" or "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History," covering a vast array of subjects.
"And you have put in more effort than your peers, so you received the chief scholarship, came to this class, and are sitting here, superior to others." Kayal's words made them proudly puff out their chests. What he said was true, and they sincerely believed it.
"And that is effort." Kayal smiled, curved like a fox.
"I believe in one thing when I do things: if you try, you might not succeed, but if you don't try, you will definitely not succeed!" Kayal smiled and added two underlines beneath "effort": "So if you want to succeed, you still need one more thing..."
"Opportunity!" Kayal wrote another word next to "success."
"So, we can derive this formula: Effort + Opportunity = Success, but does it equal success?" Kayal smiled and pointed at the success formula: "Your homework for today is... Besides opportunity and effort, what else does success require?"