Chapter 637: Development Plan

Roland came out of the Dream World like a man surfacing from deep water. He was on his feet before his eyes had fully adjusted, shrugging into his coat as he moved. He went to his office, lit a lamp, and spread several sheets of blank paper across the desk.

He wrote for hours—the missing sections of the periodic table, first; then the gaps in Elementary Chemistry that he’d been unable to fill from memory alone. The dream had given him access to a complete textbook, and his mind had held onto it with the grip of a man who knows he only gets one chance to see something.

He also began cataloguing what he’d observed about the Dream World itself.

First: time ran differently there. Even a short nap could contain a dream of many hours. He suspected this was because the brain, freed from processing live sensory input, only needed to retrieve and replay from memory—a faster operation than uploading and organizing the continuous flood from five active senses. His last visit had lasted eight hours inside the dream while only a few hours elapsed in the real world.

Second: the dream was not rest. His brain was active throughout, working to sustain the illusion. That meant he was running two full schedules simultaneously—state affairs in Neverwinter during the day, and whatever the Dream World demanded of him at night. He had, with no intention of doing so, become the most industrious person in the city.

He hadn’t yet tried to sleep inside the dream. Given the time differential, genuine recovery might be possible from within. Something to test.

Third: the Dream World operated by consistent internal rules. It was stable, detailed, and self-sustaining in a way that ordinary dreams never were. Zero must have imposed that structure. He knew almost nothing about how she had done it—how large the world extended, how many memory-fragments had been blended into it, what else he might find there.

He wrote until dawn. Then he had breakfast, and summoned his senior officials to the reception hall.

He needed to assess a month’s worth of administrative progress and set the agenda for the next phase. With the church no longer a credible military threat, the work had shifted: prepare for the demons, accelerate everything that preparation required.

“You’re saying we recruit not only from every domain of Graycastle,” Barov said, wiping his forehead, “but from Everwinter and Wolfheart as well? Your Majesty, that is an enormous undertaking.”

“News of the church’s defeat will reach the continent soon. Once it does, the Hermes plateau can no longer hold those two kingdoms in line. The nobles who bent the knee to the church out of necessity will feel the ground shift. That’s our window—gold royals, ships, promises of stability. We pull as many people as we can to Neverwinter before someone else fills the vacuum.”

People in this era were not sentimental about nationality. They cared about feeding their families and keeping them together. That gave Roland leverage he wouldn’t have had in his previous life.

“Next spring the seaport will open. Your task between now and then is to develop a recruitment plan, hire ships from the Fjords merchants, and arrange housing for the incoming population. City Hall has the experience—you’ve run resettlement campaigns in the Southern Territory and Eastern Region. This is the same machinery, applied at larger scale.” He held Barov’s gaze. “The cost will be significant. We spend it anyway. Every one of you knows the church is not our final enemy.”

City Hall had the infrastructure for this—reliable administration, standing resettlement protocols, established relationships with the Fjords traders. The only gap was sea transportation, which Roland intended to address through Thunder and Margaret’s Chamber of Commerce.

“One more thing.” Roland paused. “Effective immediately, I’m officially hiring Edith Kant as your adjutant. Her work in the Coldwind Ridge campaign and the Adviser Department gave me no reason to doubt her.”

Barov’s face tightened. “Your Majesty, I assure you I’m fully capable of managing—”

“I’ve decided. Proceed accordingly.”

He turned to Scroll. “Education. How did the secondary teacher training go?”

Scroll shook her head. “Only Ferlin has passed the assessment. Your Majesty, I don’t believe this approach is workable.”

“It isn’t.” Roland had expected this. The knights who staffed the primary schools were literate men—but literacy wasn’t numeracy, and it wasn’t chemistry. Asking them to master mathematics, physics, and natural philosophy had been optimistic. “New plan. Pull secondary teachers from the student body itself. The top scholars. We build a scholarship program to keep them in school rather than entering the workforce.”

“Scholarship?” Scroll turned the word over. “Like the incentive system we used in Longsong Stronghold?”

“Different intent. That system attracted students in the first place. This one rewards the best students who are already enrolled—matches what they would earn as workers, paid by the ministry, conditional on continued study and assessment.” He walked her through the mechanics: a small initial cohort, twenty to thirty students, high entry threshold, taught directly by Ferlin. Their learning speed would far exceed the knights’. Those who passed assessment after training would teach; those who didn’t would be placed in other technical roles. “When the first cohort produces results, we expand the terms. Eventually this becomes self-sustaining.”

When Roland stopped speaking, the hall was quiet for a moment.

Then he looked at Scroll again. “One more item—add ideological and moral education to the primary curriculum. I’ll give you a detailed teaching plan later.” He was thinking of the social studies textbook in Zero’s room: structured, age-appropriate, designed to build civic instincts rather than passive obedience. In this era, shaping how people thought about their obligations to each other was as strategically vital as any steam engine.

Scroll nodded.

Roland stood and looked around the hall. “To summarize: this year and next, the three priorities are expanding the population, deepening education at all levels, and scaling industrial production—weighted heavily toward the first two. They determine how far we can reach before the greater enemy arrives. I expect everyone in this room to do their best.”

“We will do our best for Your Majesty!” The officials rose in unison.

“And for yourselves as well.” He let it settle. “That’s all for today. Kyle Sichi—come to my office.”

Chapter 637: Development Plan

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

…

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.