The new schools were magnificent, but they were also a logistical nightmare. Students were provided with free meals, paper, and writing implements, but the lack of teachers had become a critical problem.
"My lord, we have done everything we can," Maester Cobain said, his old face etched with exhaustion. The endless government affairs of Starfire City had left him with no time for his own research. "We've tried to recruit every literate person we can find in Westeros and the Free Cities, but there simply isn't enough manpower."
Over the past year, Cobain had expended tremendous effort, even trading some of Jason's modern medicines to the Citadel, just to lure away a hundred or so acolytes and maesters who could read, write, and count. Even with these additions, the total number of educated personnel in the entire city barely exceeded two hundred. In this world, knowledge was the scarcest of all resources.
A wry, smug smile touched Cobain's lips. "I'm afraid the Citadel has taken notice of our ten new schools. They are afraid, my lord. To protect their monopoly on knowledge, those 'virtuous' archmaesters have privately forbidden any man of the Citadel from accepting our employment. They think they can stop us."
Jason frowned at the news. "So, the Citadel has noticed us. I expected it would happen eventually, but I had hoped for more time."
He knew full well what his education initiative meant to the established order. By spreading knowledge to the common folk, he was digging up the very foundations of the Citadel, which had maintained its high status for centuries by controlling who was allowed to learn. It would be strange if they didn't react.
Thankfully, the great chaos engulfing Westeros worked in his favor. With four self-proclaimed kings tearing the realm apart, the Citadel could not focus its full power on stopping one lord from building schools in the North. In peacetime, the combined influence of the Citadel and the great houses would have been terrifying. Monopolizing knowledge served the interests of every noble family, and anyone who challenged that system would normally face their unified wrath.
But these were not normal times. The great lords were more concerned with the immediate "War of the Four Kings" than with the long-term implications of a social experiment in the remote, barren North. They were all watching and waiting, hoping to carve out greater power for their own families amidst the chaos. They had no time to spare for the quiet revolution taking place in Starfire City.
The sheer scale of the project was daunting. The influx of nearly 300,000 refugees from the Riverlands included almost 30,000 children between the ages of five and fifteen—the exact demographic Jason wanted to educate. To accommodate them all, he had waved his hand and ordered the construction of ten large schools. The gold coins piling up in his treasury were useless if not spent, and he had always believed that education was the foundation of a prosperous society. This was a long-term investment.
He wasn't aiming to create advanced scholars. His requirements were simple: he needed children who could read, write, and perform basic arithmetic. He needed a generation of competent managers, clerks, and foremen to run his factories and administer his territory. The current situation was untenable; he was forced to use his soldiers to maintain order and handle simple administrative tasks, a misuse of an army he had trained for war. He had to create a civil administration, and fast.
Jason, accompanied by Cobain and his guards, went to inspect the seven schools that were already completed and in session. Each was a two-story building with thirty classrooms and several offices for the teachers. Across a large playground stood a canteen that provided three free meals a day for all students and staff. School uniforms were also provided free of charge. Aside from lodging, the school covered nearly all of a student's expenses. Each classroom was designed to hold one hundred students, meaning a single school could educate three thousand children.
Thanks to the abundant labor force, construction was moving at an incredible pace. The building sites were swarming with workers. But even as the buildings rose, the teacher shortage remained.
As a desperate, temporary solution, Jason had been forced to select five hundred of the brightest older students from the schools he had established at the logging camps two years prior. These teenagers, along with thirty of Cobain's acolytes, formed a makeshift teaching corps of 530. Their task was to teach the younger children basic literacy and arithmetic.
Jason stepped into a classroom that was spacious and bright, illuminated by large glass windows produced in his own factory. He had designed the schools based on modern elementary schools, with blackboards on both the front and back walls. The chalk was imported from his world—it was simply easier than trying to manufacture it here.
The classroom was filled with children of a similar age. To avoid the awkwardness of having five-year-olds learning alongside teenagers, the classes were grouped by age as much as possible.
On the podium at the front of the room stood a twelve-year-old girl. She held a teaching stick, pointing to the letters of the Westerosi alphabet written on the blackboard as she led the hundred boys and girls seated before her in recitation.
Jason watched, fascinated. The young teacher was so short she had to drag a small bench over to the blackboard to write on it. She would step up, carefully write a new set of letters, then step down, pick up her stick, and point to her work, her clear voice calling out the sounds. The students below, many nearly her age, would dutifully repeat them back in a loud chorus.
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