Technomancer: Genesis Chapter 115: A Child's Lecture (Part 2)

"A dot, a simple point, seemingly insignificant." Ezra faced the audience as soon as he had placed his marker on the board. "It has no length or height, or depth or breadth. One might think it is trivial."

The n.o.bles looked at Ezra intent to listen to every word while the children seemed lively.

"But again, trivial is a dangerous, a very dangerous thing to label it. Because this where it all stems from."

The gentry started to give him conspicuous looks. Ezra wrote on the board Definition 1: "A point is that which has no part."

Heinrich nudged to Ulric who was lost in thought, "Look at that, what are the children doing?" He pointed at them.

They observed that the children took out their own book from a knapsack. They took out pencils from it and a book.

"Odd," Ulric commented.

"Are they? Are they writing?"

"It would seem so," Ulric nodded.

"Great omnipotence! It looks like almost everyone present can write," Heinrich added.

"They're . . . Are they writing down what was written on the chalkboard?"

"Yes, it does look that way, those children are writing the what Lord Ezra is saying and writing on the board."

"Remarkable! We should try to get one of those books. Tell our men to acquire one of those, by any means." Heinrich nodded seriously at Ulric.

"Yeah, I'll tell our agents as soon as this lecture finishes."

When Ezra had finished writing the definition, he continued. "Very simple concept isn't it?" the majority of the audience began to nod.

"But something interesting, yes, something very interesting happens when we make another dot." Ezra drew another point on the far left of the board.

Some n.o.bles began to relax and rub their chin.

Ezra then drew a line from the first dot to the second dot and wrote another definition: "A line is breathless in length."

"A line can be thought of as a series of dots connecting two points from the time, we first put down our pens to mark that s.p.a.ce with ink to the time we raise our hands to conclude. But a straight line, to draw one. It is necessary that we mark the two points and draw its shortest path."

"Can you see? We build our knowledge from previous concepts?" Everyone nodded. "From this, we can determine our first axiom. Vendis, what is an axiom?"

Vendis stood up," Lord Ezra it is something, taken to be true, it is a fundamental truth, something that is self-evident," Vendis beamed as he sat down.

"Taken directly from the book, that I gave you," Ezra chuckled," One should try to express one's thoughts in his own words you know, if you can do this then it means you have understood the concept. Express it in your own thoughts next time, everyone, take note of this."

Vendis blushed lightly and nodded.

The children began to write down while the n.o.bles observed with perplex expressions, it was odd that such young children could actually write.

"Did he just say taken from the book that I gave you?" Heinrich asked Ulric as he seemed perturbed.

"Yes, that is what I heard. Is he giving books for free?" Ulric rubbed his temples.

"It seems so, Great Omnipotence, this domain is rich, but that's beside the point. Whatever that book is we should get a hold of it," Heinrich swore.

"I think we should get a hold of a knapsack those kids have altogether." Ulric nodded.

"Yes, I think that would be best."

"Tell the men to do that, pay them or take it by force if they have to"

Ezra began to write the axiom on the board. Axiom 1: "To draw a straight line from any point to any point."

"Now things begin to look interesting do they not?" The audience nodded.

"This leads us to another definition which is built upon the two previous knowledge we had." Ezra faced the blackboard again. Definition 3:" The extremities of a line are points."

"Now we can have a more formal definition for the straight line." Ezra wrote again. "Definition 4: A straight line is a line which lies evenly with the points on itself."

"Now this requires demonstration, suppose we draw something like this." Ezra drew a curved line, "or this," he drew another wavy one.

"Are these straight lines?" the crowd shook their head.

" Of course not, these lines are not evenly placed within itself." Ezra erased parts of the curved and wavy lines. "See it becomes evident when we erase these parts because a straight line has to be even between the two points."

The n.o.bles nodded again, with brightened expressions. It seemed that this eloquent young n.o.ble could put words to concepts so simple that they deemed inconsequential but the effect was that they had understood what he was saying even more.

"From these simple concepts we start to develop a fundamental grasp of the subject, these are the tools which propel us to further strengthen our knowledge."

A gentleman from the n.o.ble area awkwardly raised a hand as it shook ever so slightly.

Ezra was surprised, he didn't expect a single n.o.ble to humble himself and ask about knowledge that he didn't know.

"Yes Lord, please speak, state your name and domain," Ezra smiled as he was happy that at least some of the n.o.bles opened up.

A burly man yet elegantly dressed n.o.ble donning a distinct walrus moustache stood up. "I am Baron Flair Incendis, Lord Ezra, Baron Overseer of Anticourt. Is . . . is it okay to ask? It's just that I pondered and just wanted to come to a conclusion, about something you said a while ago."

"Sure, sure, ask away Lord Incendis." Ezra jollily welcomed his question.

" Well Lord Ezra, your previous statement said that giving names to things gives you power over them, does this concept have a meaning," his voice was deep and loud but it was full of curiosity.

"Yes, I am sorry I didn't mention it, it is called the Rumpelstiltskin Principle. I didn't want to elaborate because it is not the object of this lecture, I would have to tell you the story of Rumpelstiltskin for you to understand, however, if you want to learn more, we invite you to attend the university where I will also be teaching," Ezra smiled and nodded.

"In fact, we invite all n.o.bles of Fulmen, to go to the university to have discourse or gain new knowledge. However, for n.o.bles who are outside the fiefdom of Fulmen, we are still currently working out how we will actually work that out, but for the moment we will not accept any applicants from other domains. But this is, of course, temporary, you see we want to focus on only that which we can handle because we want that each individual who enters the university becomes knowledgeable."

"Good save," whispered Reitz who was smiling. He had taught Ezra how to structure his words so that it would not seem offensive to other people when putting forward their own agenda.

"I see, I see thank you, Lord Ezra, Rumpelstiltskin principle, odd but certainly memorable. I will consider attendance to the university Lord Ezra," he sat down and Ezra nodded.

Erela was muttering something, "Honestly who would go there? It's waste of time, Baron Overseer? That's just a landless Baron, pondering things other than strength ends you landless. That is the only proof we need. Hmph"

There were murmurs on the n.o.bles' area, plenty actually expressed interest while a minority expressed the same sentiment as Erela, however, they leaned more to ambivalence rather than empathy.

"Hmm, looks like they are wary of foreign n.o.bles," Ulric whispered.

"Yes, it would seem so, we need to get agents inside that university," nodded Heinrich," If not we cannot gain entry ourselves."

"Thank you for that question, let us continue where we left off."

"The concepts which we now have an understanding of gives us a surface."

Ezra wrote on the board once more. "Definition 5: A surface is that which has length and breadth only."

Ezra drew a square on the board. "From a point to a line, now we can make surfaces and shapes. Starting only from the fundamental concept of a dot, now we can do a lot of things with this. This opens us up to even more possibilities."

"From this obvious representation, we can see the edges or its extremities are lines." Ezra wrote another definition on the board.

The audience bobbed their heads in agreement.

"Can you see? These concepts get more and more complex which came from something simple, often times simplicity is hard to describe, but once we begin to call it a name, we can play with the concepts. When we start to describe simple things, we can use it as a baseline for more things and once we have generated them, we can use that to build on top of it."

"It does seem that he has been teaching for these past three years," Ulric commented, "His technique is flawless, he reiterates his key ideas to give emphasis so that the audience would not forget the points he had stated."

"Now using the definitions, we have on the board we can start to play with these concepts. These concepts are going to be the foundations. Our wellspring into determining the unknown"

The children kept writing and nodding intently. Some of them didn't and just listened to Ezra's lecture. They were the ones who already had a grasp of Ezra's address. However, they were not disrespectful and continued to calmly listen.

Ulric observed the children. "Looks like some of them have already heard of this topic,"

"Yes, it would seem so,"

"We definitely need to get more information on those children," Heinrich nodded and continued to listen to the rest of Ezra's lecture.