St. George's Elementary School

St. George's Elementary School.

That was the name of the school Wu Ming attended.

After Jamie paid a year's tuition, he received a school badge that served as his pass through the gates, along with two uniforms identical to the other students' and several textbooks.

Soon afterward, he was led into a classroom.

"Class, this is your new classmate, Steven Sterling!"

The stern-looking, somewhat dour old woman from the academic office personally escorted him into the class. After introducing him to everyone, she assigned him a desk, completing all the necessary formalities.

Wu Ming glanced around. The children were all about seven or eight years old.

Since he was well-developed for his age, he looked about the same age as them and didn't seem out of place.

"Welcome, new classmate. Now, let's open our textbooks to page five..."

At the front of the classroom, a young female teacher clapped her hands. A chorus of pages turning rang out below. "Today we'll be learning mathematics. Arithmetic is a wonderful subject. Everything in the world follows its own rules. By using the planning power of mathematics, we can make boilers boil and machines roar, unleashing incomparable power..."

Wu Ming looked around. Jamie had hurried off as soon as he'd brought him to the classroom, and the students nearby were all listening attentively, carefully committing everything to memory.

Clearly, the children sent here to study came from families that weren't well-off but had scraped together the money to support them. They were remarkably mature for their age and understood how rare this opportunity was.

The school, for its part, had no intention of taking things easy. Its schedule was packed, showing just how thoroughly it believed that knowledge was money and knowledge was power.

"Rapid-fire cramming, along with an intense course load... There