In the year 205 of the Sea Origin Calendar, the fifth year after the First Impact and the third year since Milan had successfully advanced to Truth Embodiment.
Saint Evan City, Garratt National University.
"Students, what we are studying today is a great discipline that investigates the properties, composition, structure, transformations, applications, methods of production, and laws of material change.
"We owe all of this to the outstanding contributions made in this field by our esteemed master, Duchess Olivia."
A middle-aged professor in formal attire spoke eloquently from the podium while a group of spirited young people below listened with rapt attention.
It was especially worth mentioning that among these outstanding young people, quite a few were Niemanster-Atelian mixed-race individuals with highly distinctive features.
Evan's policy of ethnic integration had clearly begun to bear fruit by now.
From bloodlines to culture, the most stable and cohesive single national identity had gradually taken shape, and the new generation of citizens all possessed such fine qualities as obedience to the government, diligence, thrift, reverence for the gods, and respect for nature.
The duchy's educational system deserved immense credit for this.
Even now, education within the duchy remained one hundred percent publicly run. Not a single profit-seeking private school controlled by capital could be found across its ten million square kilometers of territory.
Except for vocational skills-training schools, all institutions involved in compulsory foundational education—where character and worldview were shaped—were kept under strict official control.
This was not because Evan was needlessly alarmist and insisted on placing everything under government control.
Rather, he clearly understood that if even the slightest opening were left in education,
profit-driven capital would pour in money, poach every outstanding teacher from public schools, transform itself into the main force in education, and further shake the very foundations of