He had nine positions on a sheet in front of Oliver, all of them comprising equal amounts of pieces for both warring sides, but all of them were completely different in who was winning or not.
"If I were to hide this one, would you rember it?" Volguard asked, his hand covering a position in which the white pieces had been forced to play a considerably more defensive battle, It was an odd situation, in which, despite black having far more attackers active, white was in a mightily advantageous position.
"Mm," Oliver said. "That is the defensive one…"
"Indeed. Do you rember where each piece was placed?" The professor pressed. "Set it up on the board if you rember."
Oliver began to, murmuring to himself all the while. "No… Needs to be one big wave in the counterattack, that wouldn't work…"
It took him a minute or two of fiddling, but after rerunning the model in his mind, he was confident it could be no other position but this.
The professor was smiling a sage smile. "Bravo," he said. Oliver had a feeling that he wasn't complinting the position. "You didn't rember what the position was, did you?"
"What? But I managed to set it up, didn't I?" Oliver replied, a little too quickly, thinking that he was being accused of not paying attention, or sothing of the like.
"Ah, but not by morization," Volguard said, waggling his finger. "You derived it, didn't you, using the principles that you yourself have co up with, hm?"
"I don't think… Half the principles were things that you ntioned, professor," Oliver said, unsure quite what the professor was getting at. He was wearing the sa smug smile that he wore whenever Oliver fell into one of his strategic pitfalls, though Oliver couldn't figure out just how he'd blundered.
"Relax, boy, I am not finding fault with you," Volguard said, "quite the opposite. I do believe that you shall be able to catch up with the class, despite how little ti I am able to spend with you compared to them, and despite the disadvantage of your late start."
"How so…?" Oliver said, looking for so sort of clue from the professor's face, but he was a master of strategy for a reason. It leaked into his normal life. Upright, gaunt, and serious – that was the image he presented to the world, but as soon as an unfortunate bit of prey fell into one of his traps, his stone face would unwind into a highly satisfied smile.
"See, when I present this information to the class, there is implicit one of two options. Understand it, or morise it. I do not force a route on any student. As always, they can choose whatever ans they wish to reach their goal. I only ask that they be capable of reproducing it. You, young Patrick, are the forr.
To an alarming degree, might I add," Volguard said. "Your mind is wired most peculiarly. You seem unwilling to even attempt to morize information, no matter how I present it to you. Instead, you try to categorize it, understand it, and reduce it. You save an idea capable of deriving the information rather than the information itself."
"Is that good?" Oliver asked. He'd never considered such things before, and it was all but impossible to read Volguard's intentions unless he said it explicitly.
"It's the truest sign of talent that you are likely to find," Volguard said. "It took so ti, but I am able to confirm it for myself. As amusing as it is, it would seem that a Patrick of all people might have the greatest talent for strategy that I've seen in the past ten years."
A rush of adrenaline ca to Oliver at that. He was starving for progress now. To hear of it ca with a great bout of excitent. "Is that right..?" Oliver murmured to himself. He'd struggled with it in the forest with Dominus. It was his strategy test out of all those tests that he'd struggled to overco, but yet he'd done it.
He'd managed to beat Dominus in Battle after only a few weeks of playing it.
"Do not let that go to your head, though," Volguard said. "Talent though you might have, you do not have ti, and you are still behind. It will make your life easier, for I shall change the way that I teach you. By the end of the year, if you apply yourself with this much vigour, I am confident that you should be able to match your coursemates." Continue your journey on My Virtual Library Empire
"Good," Oliver said, clenching his fist. "Good… Now for the others."
That was just one subject amongst many, though. All his subjects were beginning to take on a more academic focus, now that he was being taught alone. He had strategy along with his mathematics, and he'd even begun to take on alchemy – in which he was like a fish trying to swim on dry land, unable to make heads or tales of it – and there was field dicine as well.
He was ant to be having archery lessons too, though he'd only had one, given how tight Professor Yoreholder's schedule was. That lesson had been particularly tense, given her husband's decision to remain impartial at Oliver's trial, a decision which the man had apparently co to after much thought on the matter.
Given how things had ended, Oliver did not bla the man, though it did make him sowhat wary of him, not knowing which side he stood on.
"I imagine improving your strategy, and developing a proper taste for it as the academic subject that it is, that might be just what you need to improve your reading and writing. One needs a reason to do things before the mind starts to take them in – your mind especially," Volguard said. "If you had a reason to write and read more often, you should be able to close that unbridgeable gap."
Oliver nodded deeply, taking the words to heart. Moreso than any of his other professors, Volguard seed to want the absolute best for him. His advice was always salient, and the best that he could offer.
It was one thing amongst many that had stopped Oliver from giving up hope on his academics entirely – and now that decision seed to be bearing so fruit, with a potential new way in which he might attack his strategic learning and catch up with his peers.
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