Chapter 390: The New Textbook

Gao De had just stepped out the door when he ran straight into Flora.

Flora, who had just returned from planting trees in Valar Bay.

"Mage, Lady Flora is back!" The little person's eyes were sparkling.

"Were all the tree seeds planted?" Gao De asked.

"They were." Flora puffed out her chest and said crisply, practically wearing the words "seeking credit" on her face.

"Truly amazing. With so many types of tree seeds, only Lady Flora could manage them all," Gao De exclaimed.

Even ordinary tree seeds have various requirements if they want to take root, sprout, and grow strong, let alone magical tree seeds.

Within the spiritual land opened up by Yujia Te Xila, there were already nearly a hundred types of trees, including quite a few magical tree species.

To this day, all the trees were growing normally and vigorously, which naturally could not have happened without Flora's care.

"Lady Flora is both capable and diligent; I admire people like that the most."

"Next time, I will definitely bring back more magical tree seeds for Lady Flora," Gao De promised.

"Magical tree seeds!"

"Yes."

"What is that in your hand?" Flora suddenly caught sight of the new version of the standard runology textbook Gao De had just finished compiling.

"A textbook prepared for Anna," Gao De said truthfully. "She is very smart; she is the type of person for this."

"Oh~"

"Oh~" Seeing Gao De didn't react, Flora said "oh" again.

"Of course, Lady Flora is even smarter, but it just doesn't suit Lady Flora, so I am not teaching Lady Flora." Gao De realized what was happening, thought for a moment, and explained it this way.

It was that it didn't suit Lady Flora, not that Lady Flora wasn't suited for it.

"Oh!"

"I am going to find Anna. Would Lady Flora like to come along?" Gao De asked.

Flora's movements were faster than her voice; she landed on Gao De's shoulder first, sat down, dangled her little legs, and then said crisply: "Together!"

"Then together it is."

When they saw Anna, the little girl was burying her head, shaking it back and forth while muttering something at a piece of parchment.

"What is Anna doing?"

Upon hearing Gao De's voice, Anna immediately shifted her attention from the parchment to Gao De, letting out an excited sound: "Brother Gao De!"

"Learning the Saint Xi En language." Gao De leaned in for a closer look and discovered the parchment was the basic introductory "Hundred Sound Chart" of the Saint Xi En language.

What the little girl had just been muttering was exactly the recitation of the Hundred Sound Chart.

"Sister said that from now on we will be settling in the northern realm, and we must master the local language as soon as possible," Anna said, pouting.

She had originally thought that since her sister had been "recruited" by Gao De to work, she wouldn't have time to "tutor" her, and she would be free.

Facts proved that Miss Aisha had plenty of methods.

If she was too busy during the day, she would work overtime at night to tutor Anna; if there wasn't enough time to tutor Anna, she would just assign Anna more homework.

"That is indeed the logic." On this point, Gao De agreed with Miss Aisha's reasoning; after all, he had also worked hard to master the Saint Xi En language after arriving in the northern realm.

"But besides the Saint Xi En language, Sister also wants me to continue learning music, painting, literature..."

Anna counted on her fingers, her little mouth chattering away like a clapper: "This isn't the west, so there's no need to learn these things anymore, right?"

"Sister said she will send me to a school in Phoenix in the future."

Gao De rubbed Anna's little head and said with a smile: "What you said also has a point."

Music, painting, and literature are certainly useful, but they are not mandatory.

These things are best learned only when one is personally interested in them.

"Brother Gao De, did you come to find me?" After complaining, Anna looked up at Gao De, hope in her eyes.

"Yes," Gao De nodded without hesitation. "I have specially prepared a gift for you."

"A gift?" Anna's eyes brightened even more.

"Ta-da~" Gao De pulled the still-warm new version of the standard runology textbook from his chest.

"What is this?" The little girl widened her eyes.

"The runology textbook I just wrote." Seeing Anna's little face about to collapse, Gao De, having satisfied his own mischievous streak, continued: "If you study this, I will speak to Miss Aisha, and you won't have to study those things like music and painting anymore."

"How about it?"

"Really?!" Anna widened her eyes.

Runology was one course, while the others were several; several courses turning into one... Anna was very good at arithmetic and naturally knew which was more cost-effective.

What's more, if she had to study anyway, she was naturally more willing to study this.

Because it was simple!

Much simpler than painting and such!

"Then it's a deal," Gao De said happily. "Now, I will first teach you the six major laws of He Xi, because I won't be in the northern realm in a few days, so we must hurry. As for the basic runes, you will have to rely on self-study."

"Okay," Anna said obediently.

Gao De signaled for Anna to sit back down at the table, then opened the "New Version of Standard Runology."

According to his established plan, Gao De patiently told Anna the story of Mentor He Xi first, before beginning the content of the "Six Major Laws of He Xi."

Throughout the process, Flora flapped her little wings, flying around the two of them, back and forth, up and down, her eyes full of curiosity and exploration.

Sometimes she would sit on Gao De's shoulder, sharing his perspective, looking at that pile of strange symbols and numbers that she recognized individually but looked so weird when put together;

Sometimes she would look at Anna's earnest expression, seriously wondering if the other party really understood, and how exactly she understood it...

Time passed quickly without them noticing.

The little person had lost count of how many times she had changed positions.

Seeing that the two were focused on their own world and had no time to pay attention to her, she flapped her little wings and flew out of the room to play by herself.

After playing for a while and feeling it was dull, she flew back to continue listening; after listening for a while and feeling bored, she flew out to play again.

This repeated many times, until finally, she grew tired herself. Sitting on Gao De's shoulder, listening to the sound of their exchange and the rustling of the pen across the parchment, she half-closed her eyelids and drifted off to sleep on her own.

It wasn't until Gao De suddenly stood up that Flora was startled awake.

"Is it over?"

"It's over." Gao De first responded to Flora, then instructed Anna: "The six major laws of He Xi are not complex in essence; one could even say they are very concise and clear... But this does not mean they are not profound; on the contrary, great theorems and formulas are often extremely minimalist. Additionally, these basic runes require diligent practice to master. This is a basic skill; you cannot be lazy."

"I will check your homework when I return next time."

While giving instructions, he was also feeling emotional inside.

Although he had long known that Anna had extremely high talent in calculation and runes, it was only after truly starting to "teach" that Gao De discovered Anna's talent for calculation was even higher than he had imagined.

A little girl who had never been exposed to multiplication, division, or Arabic numerals was actually able to complete those not-so-simple robust value calculations in her head after her first exposure to Arabic numerals and mathematical symbols.

It was just unclear whether Anna also possessed such talent beyond his expectations in terms of runes.

He said goodbye to Anna and left the room.

Gao De tilted his head and glanced at the little person still sitting on his shoulder.

"Mage, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Gao De replied. He thought for a moment and asked: "Was Lady Flora listening to me tutor Anna just now?"

"Not the whole time."

Most of the time she was playing by herself.

"Did you understand it?"

Upon hearing this question, the little person immediately widened her eyes alertly, looked at Gao De, and asked: "Did she understand it?"

Referring to Anna.

"... I suppose so?" Gao De said.

"Then Lady Flora also understood a little!"

"It's because you weren't listening the whole time that you only understood a little; otherwise, with Lady Flora's wisdom, you would certainly understand as much as you heard."

"That's right!"

"It really doesn't suit Lady Flora, right?" Gao De laughed.

"Doesn't suit!" Flora nodded repeatedly, agreeing completely.

"Since you aren't interested, why did Lady Flora keep me company the whole time?" Gao De said earnestly.

She had already fallen asleep listening just now.

"Because I was keeping the Mage company."

"So that's it." Gao De was stunned for a moment, then laughed out loud.

He felt this was truly an excellent answer.

Although he said he would leave the northern realm in a few days, Gao De ended up staying in Phoenix for nearly ten more days.

With two major events at hand, as the King of Enduring Zhenbing, even though he had already set the direction for these two matters, they ultimately concerned Phoenix's development for a long time to come, so he still needed to participate personally to feel at ease.

First was Phoenix's first civil servant selection.

Because the current situation was special, this civil servant selection had no "written test" phase and went straight to interviews.

Gao De had Miss Aisha issue a selection announcement to the entire Phoenix, and after three days of warm-up, the interviews officially began.

The interview phase lasted another three days before ending.

As the saying goes, the larger the forest, the more types of birds there are.

Phoenix's current population was nearly one million; it was indeed hard to find the elite talent usually recognized in the outside world, but as for "talent," there was truly quite a lot.

Especially those who dared to come and participate in the selection; they truly all had some skills to some extent.

Under the culture of this world, most people were still relatively practical, and few had the idea of coming to try their luck without any skills.

Among them were seven or eight "experts" responsible for building construction in their respective tribes, each specializing in different types of house construction... Without a doubt, these people were directly recruited into the Jianshe Force.

In addition, many chieftains of small tribes came to participate in the selection.

They had never heard of "civil servants," but in the announcement, Miss Aisha explained the rights of civil servants very clearly, and in their eyes, they naturally equated them with "elders."

To a certain extent, it was actually quite similar.

Originally, after joining Phoenix, as outsiders, they had neither a sense of identity nor a sense of security.

If they could become an "elder," that would count as truly becoming a person of Phoenix.

Out of this consideration, these dozens of chieftains, large and small, basically all came to participate in this first civil servant selection.

And being a chieftain under the harsh conditions of the northern realm was not an easy thing.

These chieftains mostly had extremely rich life experience and had a profound and intuitive understanding of the northern realm's climate, geography, resource distribution, etc.

They knew which places had stable snow layers suitable for building houses and knew how to use limited resources to carry out effective life supplies.

This life experience accumulated based on long-term practice could play a role in urban infrastructure construction, resource development and utilization planning, and responding to natural disasters.

In addition, the experience of leading tribes for a long time also made these chieftains possess outstanding management and coordination abilities.

In the tribe, they needed to reasonably allocate limited supplies, arrange for tribesmen to carry out various activities such as hunting, gathering, and construction, mediate disputes between tribesmen, and ensure the normal operation of the tribe.

This ability could be extended to the daily work of civil servants, especially in organizing large-scale construction projects, allocating human resources, and coordinating interest relationships between different urban areas or groups.

Another point was that these chieftains possessed extremely high prestige in their respective tribes; if they became civil servants, they could rely on this prestige to promote the implementation of various government decrees and work.

Of course, the disadvantages were also very prominent.

Because these chieftains had long been in a dominant position in the tribe, they often formed relatively stubborn personalities, were accustomed to acting according to their own experience and judgment, and were not easily accepting of new concepts and methods;

They often put the interests of their own tribe first, and in urban management decisions, they might excessively focus on the needs of their own tribe, "favoring their own," and ignore the overall interests of the entire city...

And how to play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses would depend on Miss Aisha's overall planning ability.

The second matter was "universal education," which Gao De valued the most.

After three or four days of observation, that Chief Ximo had not had any suspicious actions these past few days.

Except for getting up early on the first day, going out for a trip, and then bringing back a piece of prey he had just hunted, he had not left Phoenix again.

Usually, he would just wander around the city, as if he were collecting material.

Regardless of whether this was done for Gao De and Su Naifa to see, or if Ximo was just like this.

But in any case, the image-recording stone was an extremely important thing for Phoenix. Out of this consideration, Gao De did not continue to observe and directly finalized the "Immigrant Reception Plan."

——This was the name Gao De set for this initiative to actively welcome small tribes to join Phoenix.

However, out of caution, for this first reception operation, Su Naifa sent out a fourth-circle elder from the clan, bringing manpower to follow Ximo to the Tulu tribe.

The Tulu tribe was very far from Phoenix, and a round trip would take a considerable amount of time, so if they wanted to obtain a large batch of image-recording stones, they would have to wait for a long time.

However, Ximo happened to have three or four image-recording stones left on him, so Gao De asked for all of them.

Then, he organized teachers from Phoenix's First Middle School to act as "actors," with himself as the "director," and the Deputy Minister of Education, Miss Aisha, observing and learning. It took half a day to direct Phoenix's first "film lesson": "Introduction to Common Language--01."

Yes, in the end, Gao De named this form of course "film lesson" rather than the online course he mentioned at the beginning: since there was neither a network nor special features, calling it an online course was somewhat inaccurate.

"Film lesson" was extremely vivid and intuitive; one was taking the "film" character from the image-recording stone, and the second was that its form was itself a recorded light and shadow.

In this process, Gao De clarified the form, standards, and details to be noted for the "film lesson."

After this, recording "film lessons" according to this standard would suffice.

This was very necessary; this thing called "film lesson" was something Gao De was all too familiar with, and it was not complex in essence.

But for the people of this world, this was a brand-new concept, a brand-new thing.

Whether it was teachers or students, they could not imagine the style of this thing.

Even if Gao De popularized the concept, without an example, it would be very difficult for them to understand how to do it.

Therefore, this required Gao De to set an example for them first.

After these two major events ended, Gao De remembered another thing: his first-circle source was already in a deficit state.

He hurriedly issued an order again for the hunters in the tribe to capture different types of ley line creatures.

After doing all this, Gao De took the many supplies Su Naifa had prepared for him and prepared to head to Valar Bay to return to the Jin Quehua Dynasty via astral teleportation.

Just as he was about to leave, on a whim, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

(End of chapter)