Chapter 794

Ves Institute was named after its location on the shores of Ves Lake. It was Marquis Paul Greiman, the lord of Alarda Territory, who took the greatest pride in it.

In the beginning, Ves Institute had been nothing more than a few crude buildings. Paul had established Literacy Night School there, teaching his illiterate subjects to read and write.

The roof leaked, vines covered the walls, and the nighttime classes relied solely on oil lamps for illumination. The monk teachers recruited from a nearby monastery wrote letters and numbers on rough wooden boards with charcoal pencils, while the subjects crowded onto benches, awkwardly gripping crude pencils as they painstakingly drew all kinds of crooked characters on paper.

As time passed, the school began teaching not only reading and writing but also basic arithmetic and geometry. Some clever young people started displaying astonishing talent. They learned to calculate the area of fields and quickly tally various figures. At last, the seeds of knowledge took root in this land on the kingdom's frontier, providing tremendous support for Alarda's agricultural reforms and economic development.

As Arda's economy flourished, Lakeheart Town invested more and more in education. Primary schools were built in every town under the Government Affairs Council. Once literacy had been achieved, raising the territory's educational standards became the next goal. Paul decided to establish a higher-level educational institution in Lakeheart Town.

Near the original few crude school buildings, the first teaching building rose from the ground. Though the three-story stone structure was plain, it marked a new step forward for Alarda's educational standards.

The growing prosperity of commerce and the export of manufactured goods spread the once-obscure name of Arda to more and more places—from Northwest Bay to Aldo Kingdom, and from Aldo Kingdom to the rest of the continent. Along