As Spring was kicking in I was tasked with my third batch of students.

I was in no position to refuse the old lord's requests. Even if on the inside I was dying to move on to something more.

This batch was both more numerous, almost fifty people, and even more disparate than the last one.

There were some adults, officials, and scholars working for the Shieldlord; children from lower-ranked blades, army officers, or less rich people who still held some influence: free citizens, major traders, astronomers, etc...

There were noticeably more girls in this batch.

The previous one was made out of the heirs to great houses, mostly boys. There wasn't that much discrimination against women being part of the army or even fighting, but the power was patriarchal nonetheless. Rulers were often men and ruling positions were passed down to the most suitable heir, but if it was a boy it was all the better. There were female generals and blades, but not many were becoming queens or leaders.

I knew that because of the third princess. Her second brother was the heir-to-be even if the first princess was deemed as a more talented one. While the second prince was groomed to take his father's stead, the first and third princess were to be used either as political pawns to secure alliances through marriage or to take care of strategic positions. The third princess was intending to become a powerful blade and maybe even hold a high position in the army for example.

Now that I had taught the heirs, I had to teach the less valued daughters of the blades.

This class was more numerous yet easier to teach. The scholars and officials were briefed by the old lord and would act politely around me even if I was only a kid in their eyes. The young ladies were just less unruly than boys. Plus they knew the princess was my pupil before them and many around her age were more or less part of her entourage and eager to learn the same thing she did.

The Shield family was held in high esteem.

Only now that I was faced with more people did it occur to me that most blades were humans.

There were only two Beastkins among them and one dark-skinned Elve.

I was quite happy that this batch was comprised of a lot of cute girls but I was expecting to meet a lot more of the other races.

On an evening I asked the old lord about it to make sure there was no discrimination to access my class and he gave me an unsuspected answer.

Each race had their respective empire or main settlements and were making sure to keep their powerful ones to their own. Magic was strictly controlled and the passing down of “spells” was harshly restricted.

It was fine to have commoners mix in cosmopolitan cities but when a powerful one would emerge from them they would receive tempting offers from their native lands.

For example: if Melodi was to show great magical abilities, she would be scouted by the Beastkins' Empire and would receive a hard-to-refuse offer for her and her family. The same was true for a human mage living in the Elven kingdom etc... There was a tacit agreement between rulers to not poach on the other's gifted ones.

There were exceptions: rebels on the run, in exile or just wandering adventurers who settled wherever they wanted. So there were a few non-human blades here. If their children were to show talent in magic, they would get approached by their native land though. Knowing that, these first-generation blades weren't given a lot of power since it was expected that their most talented heirs would have to leave.

Martial prowess was regarded as inferior to magic so it was more common to meet other races in the army. High-level Chi users were as powerful as magicians and able of destruction on large scale but magicians were able to do so since the lowest levels. This made Chi users simple soldiers at low levels of mastery when even a low level magician was already a war machine on its own.

I was glad to learn that this batch was probably one of the last that I would have to teach myself. The officials I was training now were the ones who would take over afterwards.

I never intended to become a simple school teacher so this was welcomed, I wouldn't be the one who would have to spread my teachings on his own. I have far more important things to do to help better this Shieldom.

* * * * *

The first thing on my list was convincing the old lord to change the numerals writing system.

I've spent a week waiting for an afternoon where he would be sober enough to discuss the matter with me.

The right occasion appeared on an evening when he was drinking with Fortmo. The egg-headed cardinal was one of his regular night visitors. This made me rethink how much my current situation was due to randomness. Me being hired by the old lord was maybe one of the cardinal's long term plot to hinder blade Duarch.

As they were enjoying some fruit wine in the sunset, I envied their leisure. The jade garden was coming to life with spring and not only were there flowers blooming left and right: huge purple daisies were spreading a fresh flowery scent around while the green leaves fresh out of their buds were a dedication to Tupu's powers.

There were also more animals frolicking around. The fish in the pond were joined by winged frogs that were croaking in a melodious harmony. Birds of all colours were chirping around, some were even showing some attunement to magic, be it a fire breath or lightning speed.

I waited for Fortmo to leave. I was still blaming him for what happened to my family. Duarch wasn't the only guilty there.

Once the old lord was on his own I exposed my idea about switching to a decimal system. Just like Mekas he wasn't interested in foregoing the hexadecimal system. Guess I'll have to put up with it for a while longer. It is hard to accept that sometimes this world has to change me instead of the other way around.

This didn't change the fact that Arabian numbers were easier to use to write down big numbers and the zero was a breakthrough. Even if I had to stick a while longer with the hexadecimal system, I had to at least reform the writing of numbers. Right now they were using something like Romans numerals, all numbers had their own sign.

Not only were there 16 base numbers but the number of signs was only growing, as two hexes wasn't 2+16 but rather its own sign. This inflation was limiting the manipulation of big numbers.

Sure, an abacus was helpful, but it wouldn't be useful when manipulating hundreds of thousands or millions (or in their case hexes of twexes and hexes.)

“What use would I have in writing nothing? Is this some kind of Elven riddle? The rich need me, the poor have plenty of me, add me to something and all is the same, eat it and you die?” Lord Iroto was eyeing me with suspicion. The pressure his deep jungle eyes were pushing onto me was nothing to scoff at. His gaze might look blurred by alcohol but the sharpness of the mind behind them was no joke.

“This is to make it easier to manipulate big numbers,” I answered blankly, I wasn't here to play riddles.

“Like what number would be so big that writing it down would be too fastidious?” He laughed at me, his green eyes flashing with mockery.

I had thought about it beforehand and had the fitting case ready for him: “How many soldiers would an expedition to cull the nests of monsters have?” I replied with a question of my own.

“Foot soldiers? About four hexexes. With at least three hex of knights, a few blades and a few hexes followers to keep the camp running outside.” He easily answered. Planning such expeditions had been his bread and butter for years.

That meant: 4X16X16 soldiers: so 1024 soldiers, 48 knights, let's say 8 blades, and 64 more people for running the camp: 1144 people. Quite the expeditionary corp but I had seen what monsters were able to. Going to face them in great number, on their turf, required this many to have a chance to make it out alive and succeed at the task.

To write down that number in their system I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the hex sign then another hex to make a hexhex then a four in front of it but I also had to add another “7” in front of a hex sign and an “8” to reach the final tally. So no less than six signs to write what I could write in four. And much harder to decipher.

The old man nodded to confirm my count was right as well as the writing down of it. His eyes cleared the fogginess of alcohol in an instant. I was believing more and more that he was faking his drunkenness most of the time. I'll have to taste his wine one day.

Then I asked. “How many bunta would a soldier eat each day?”

The man was a former general of the army so he knew what I meant “Hmmm, two breads per day on a normal walk pace. More if you want to force them to cover longer distances or in the winter.”

“So I'd have to add another four multiplier in front of that number considering two meals a day and if I wanted to calculate the amount of bread for a hex day expedition how would I write it down?”

He shrugged “Just write enough bread for a hex days of march.” He answered me.

“That won't do. You'd have to rely on the officials to make sure there are enough supplies and wouldn't be able to control how much was actually provided or even how much you had to pay for.” Money was always a winning argument when talking about government management.

“It won't make much difference, the price of bread isn't that high,” he stated.

I could feel he wasn't that confident in his answer. “How much?” I countered.

He scratched his grey hair in uneasiness, trying to remember the price. He wasn't buying food often.

“I'd say four or eight small coppers per bread depending on the season and market supplies. Right now should be more around eight.”

This was quite accurate. For commoners it was even a bit more. Currently bunta bread was up to ten small coppers a loaf. The next harvest was still far ahead and the granaries were emptied even if trade had resumed.

With a few more lines I was able to show him that since he didn't know exactly how much supplies he needed, it was easy to frame him for 10% of the total cost. In our case, it amounted to:

Considering four small copper per bread it made a sum of 292 864 small coppers or 1 144 small irons. Or 71 large irons and 8 small irons.

So four hexes and seven large irons and 8 small irons.

A 10% embezzlement was easy to hide among so many numbers: 7 large irons per expeditions, or eia (14) if the bread was worth 8 coppers.

This could sound like not that large a sum: my family was able to scrounge up that much when needed. A lord who was handling sums many times larger than this wouldn't be fazed. Yet, if at least 7 large iron coins were taken away on each expedition just on basic food, it was enough to get him thinking. How many expeditions were there?

Considering the number of patrols, the amount of other supplies and such it could quickly grow to hexes and hexes of large irons and silvers lost every year. Just because the numerals were hard to check when they had to fiddle with bigger numbers so they wouldn't bother.

“And what do you propose? Your zero thing can help?” He finally asked.

That's when I could show the power of my maths. I had to make a lot of conversions to keep it in the hexadecimal system but in the end, in just a few signs I could show him how to check the expenses for our example expedition. Having all your big numbers easy to read and handle meant they were easy to check. You wouldn't have to rely on an armada of quartermasters and accountants, you alone could check the maths.

I immediately regretted my decision when I was assigned to check the army's ledgers of last year's expenditures.