After dinner, Jenkins began preparing for his evening class. The Wednesday arithtic lecture was one of the few tis he felt he was truly contributing to the church. In the autumn, he used to get nervous every ti he stepped up to the podium, but he had since grown composed, mostly because he realized the vast majority of his audience had no idea what he was talking about.
Fini's diligence was one of the main reasons Jenkins felt motivated to teach, but she wasn't the only believer who tried their best. Jenkins usually arrived at the classroom half an hour or twenty minutes early, giving those with questions a chance to ask.
While most of the questions were quite basic, he sotis encountered an interesting one. Today, the topic was once again multiplication. After covering the bulk of the material and seeing that there was still ti left, Jenkins posed an intriguing problem to his audience.
"Let's imagine a scenario," he began. "Suppose I want to give one of you so rice as a reward for being such attentive students."
He used this kind of hypothetical to capture his listeners' attention.
"Now, you have two options. The first is to simply choose a sack this big," he said, gesturing with his hands, "and I will fill it to the brim."
He shaped the air with his hands, outlining what looked like a standard-sized flour sack.
"The second option involves a chessboard. On the first day, I will place a single grain of rice on the first square. On the second day, I'll place two grains on the second square, and on the third day, four grains. In short, the amount of rice placed each day is double that of the previous day, and this continues until the final square, the sixty-fourth. Now, which option would be the better choice?"
Of course, no one answered him. In fact, no one ever volunteered to answer any of the questions Jenkins posed in class. It seed they considered it a disruption of classroom etiquette.
Jenkins waited a mont, his eyes landing on the cat curled up next to Fini. If the cat had a say, he thought, it would demand both.
As silence stretched on, with the attentive students rely staring up at him, he turned, picked up a piece of chalk, and began to calculate the total amount of rice from the second option.
No one could follow the geotric series formula he scribbled on the board, but that didn't matter. Jenkins only wanted to present the conclusion, to make everyone in the room understand the terrifying number that resulted from repeated doubling.
Unfortunately, the number representing the grains of rice had far too many digits. Most of them couldn't even read it aloud; they only knew it was a quantity they would never encounter in their entire lives. Jenkins wasn't sure if his example had been successful, but Fini looked absolutely horrified by the result. After class, she quietly asked him if a chessboard that could hold so much rice was one of those space-bending artifacts from the stories.
It was a simple, earnest question that Jenkins couldn't answer.
Once the lecture ended, Jenkins stood at the podium gathering his things as the departing students greeted him with respectful tones. Fini had already scampered off to bed. Jenkins looked down and called to his cat, urging it to wake up from its nap.
"You know, sleeping too much can make a cat fat."
Jenkins shared a bit of trivia with his cat, the source of which he himself had long forgotten.
"ow?"
The tone was clearly questioning. The cat seed to think Jenkins was spouting nonsense.
He had planned on going straight to see Miss Bevanna, but just as he was about to step away from the podium, he saw Bishop Parrold walking toward him from the back row of the lecture hall. Although the tiered classroom had doors at both the front and back, the rear one was always locked during class. This ant the Bishop must have been sitting there from the very beginning, listening to Jenkins's entire two-hour lecture on elentary multiplication.
"Oh, Bishop! My apologies, I didn't see you. There were so many people sitting back there. Perhaps you should have taken a seat in the front."
He offered a small joke, and the old man smiled, signaling that Jenkins didn't need to leave. They could talk right there, in the classroom now occupied by only two people and a cat.
"Jenkins, you lectured splendidly. It reminded of my school days so many years ago. If Mr. Rockwell, our old math teacher, were still alive, he'd be nearly a hundred by now."
He shook his head, brushing away the old mories.
"But enough of that. I'm here on church business. Oh, but before that, I must say, the mysteries of mathematics are truly captivating. That example with the rice on the chessboard was excellent. It's similar to the basic concept behind the 'Fabry Fraud,' isn't it? One becos two, two becos four, four becos eight... it doesn't take many rounds to accumulate a colossal number."
Jenkins had no desire to discuss that topic, either. He had always hated discussing anything related to the "Fabry Fraud" with anyone.
The bishop, however, continued on his own accord. He had brought up the Fabry Fraud because the Church of the Sage had finally made a decision: they were going to establish a proper church bank.
The advantage of a church bank was its incredibly high credibility; its drawback was that it would only accept deposits from believers. The church had long perford bank-like functions, such as helping believers save money or offering temporary loans, but a formal bank would have to go far beyond that.
And since Jenkins Williams was currently the foremost expert on finance and banking, the matter had ultimately landed on his shoulders.
"You're not asking to establish the bank, are you?"
Jenkins asked, taken aback. He simply didn't have that kind of ti.
"No, no, you're still too young, and you have other important matters to attend to. The Holy See would like you to write a proposal. Feel free to jot down any of your insights on modern banking. The church will use it as a foundation to establish the new institution."
Even so, the pressure on Jenkins was imnse. His knowledge of the banking industry was scarce at best. If he wrote a proposal based solely on what little he knew, it would surely lead to a huge ss. Yet, the church had unshakable faith in his abilities, though he couldn't tell if it was because they believed he was blessed by the Sage or because his performance during the Fabry Fraud had been so utterly dazzling.
Fortunately, Jenkins had friends—very reliable friends. In Ruen, Alexia was currently helping Dolores establish the kingdom's new financial and treasury departnts. If he entrusted this task to them, he was certain to get excellent results.
"That's what I'll do. Alexia won't let down."
Having already delegated the task in his mind, Jenkins's expression had returned to normal by the ti he bid the bishop farewell. This was an era of great change, and while Jenkins wanted to be a part of it, he needed to do so in areas where he excelled. Finance was clearly not one of them.
"So, what am I good at, then..."
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