Despite his injuries, Mister Uklend walked at a steady pace, each step being a solid one, contradictory to his hurt appearance.
"Hello everyone, I'm Uklend, you can call me Mister Uklend, or just U, I don't mind." Mister Uklend said as he took his spot at the front of the room.
"I promised your family members that I would teach you all as thanks for helping me, so tell me, what do you want to learn?" Mister Uklend said, catching the children off guard.
All of them expected Mister Uklend to just teach them how to read and write, but instead he shifted the choice to them, filling the room with excitement.
"Warriors, teach us how to become warriors!" Yuluk couldn't help but shout, his eyes glittering with excitement.
"Yeah, we want to be warriors too!"
"I want to learn how to cut a tree in half with a single slice. Can you teach us that?" One naive child couldn't help but ask.
Hearing the child's question, Mister Uklend couldn't help but laugh loudly. After finally catching his breath, he looked towards the small group of children before speaking.
"It seems you all want to become warriors?"
"Yeah!"
"Mhm!"
"Please teach us!"
Seeing the children all agreeing, Mister Uklend couldn't help but stroke his goatee, as if he was considering listening to them. However, just before he could have a chance to speak, a young Minos beat him to it.
"I want to learn to read and write!"
"Oh?" Mister Uklend couldn't help but say with some surprise, not expecting a child to actually want to learn something so 'boring.'
"Well it seems you guys don't actually all agree." Mister Uklend said with a smile, causing the children to all glare at Minos with anger.
"Come on Minos, just agree with us!" Yuluk said.
"Yeah, who cares about reading and writing, that stuffs boring." Said a little girl, agreeing with the Yuluk.
"Hmph, you better agree with us or else!" Another larger child said, threatening Minos directly.
"Alright everyone, calm down. How about this, you guys all give me reasons why you want to learn, and whoever convinces me, we'll do that." Mister Uklend said, calming the crowd down.
"Alright, let's start with you." Mister Uklend said, as he pointed towards a young boy.
"I want to be a warrior so I can become strong and chop down a hundred trees in one day! That way my family will never have to worry about going cold in the winter ever again." A little boy said.
"Hmm, good point." Mister Uklend said, appreciating the child's kind nature.
"I want to become a warrior because that way I can hunt and eat meat for every meal!" Another child said, again causing Mister Uklend to nod his head in appreciation.
Of course not all the children had good reasons. Some wanted to become warriors so they could beat up their older siblings who bullied them, others wanted it so they could beat up whoever said no to them.
Mister Uklend said nothing about this however, and just gave each child a chance to give their reasoning. It was only after he was finished with all the children did he finally point towards Minos.
"So tell me young man, why do you want to learn to read and write? Everyone else wants to become a warrior, and they have some mighty good reasons, so unless you can really convince me, it seems you can't win this battle." Mister Uklend said.
Hearing this, the children's eyes started glowing, as if they had already won, however Minos seemed to be unaffected by the pressure, much to Mister Uklend's appreciation.
Everyone's eye shifted to Minos as he stood up and cleared his throat. Despite having all eyes on him, he wasn't at all nervous, and started speaking with a clear voice.
"First, I believe that reading and writing is the foundation for everything. I believe that even if you want to become a warrior, you need to learn to read and write first." Minos stated calmly, causing Mister Uklend's eyes to slightly glimmer.
"Second, I don't think becoming a warrior is easy. Everything happens for a reason, and similarly, strength doesn't come out of nowhere. I think the resources required to become a warrior isn't something villagers like us can afford." Minos continued.
Hearing this, even Mister Uklend couldn't help but be surprised. Despite Minos not knowing anything about being a warrior, he could still understand the basic reality behind it.
Of course for an adult to come to such a conclusion wouldn't be anything surprising, but Minos was still a child, and children tended to lack such foresight.
"Third, I think we are still too young, and our bodies haven't yet developed enough for us to begin such strenuous training." Minos kept going, much to the crowds' shock.
At this point, Mister Uklends eyes were completely glowing. He never expected to stumble upon such a gem in a backwards place like this, yet here he was.
Minos stood out to him the second he walked into class, after all his pale skin and white hair were very conspicuous, but beyond his appearance, he thought he was a normal child.
It was only now he realized how wrong he was, far more surprising than Minos's appearance was his intelligence.
While Mister Uklend was thinking about this, Minos was still listing off reasons, causing all the children to look at him with slack jaws.
"Alright alright, enough, you win." Mister Uklend said, worried that Minos might go on forever.
"Does anyone disagree?" Mister Uklend said, as he turned towards the children.
The children could only look around the room helplessly, as if trying to find a savior to fight Minos for them, but unfortunately they found no one.
Seeing the children's hopeless appearance, Mister Uklend couldn't help but laugh again, speaking up to try and raise their moods.
"You guys shouldn't feel so sad, in fact everything Minos said is true, so it's impossible for you guys to become warriors now."
"Then when can we?" Yuluk asked, still having some hope in his eyes.
"Everyones different, but for most people, around twelve to fifteen is the best age to begin training, so you all are still far too young."
"Since you knew we couldn't become warriors, why give us the option?" A more clever child couldn't help but ask, causing Mister Uklend to slightly choke.
"Mhmm well the reason for that is that things… Never mind about that, anyways since Minos won, we're going to learn to read and write." Mister Uklend said, changing the topic.
As for the child's question, the truth was he just wasn't thinking that far ahead, but of course he wasn't about to admit the truth and embarrass himself.
Despite some children still wanting to argue, Mister Uklend had clearly made up his mind, no longer arguing with the children and just teaching.
"The Aleph Language uses a lettering system, where each letter corresponds to a sound. These letters are then strung together to form a word, and words are combined to form sentences." Mister Uklend explained.
Some of the children seemed to understand what Mister Uklend was saying, whereas others were confused, of course Minos understood fully.
"We have a total of 49 letters in our language, and with these 49 letters, we can create everything. So today, I'll teach you guys the 49 letters and how to pronounce them. How much you can learn is up to you." Mister Uklend said.
Such a way of teaching was of course fast paced and unconventional, but he had no choice, after all his time were was limited, so he was just trying to teach as much as possible
Knowing his time was limited, Mister Uklend decided to go all out in teaching, not bother to hold back or slow down at all.
The next few hours passed by miserably for the children, who were used to spending their free time playing or helping their parents.
To just sit still for hours was incredibly foreign for them, and some would rather be forced to work with their parents than to sit still here.
Of course not all children hated learning, some were quite curious and happy to learn, and if you were to ask who was happiest, it was of course Minos.
He was like a dry sponge, absorbing every word Mister Uklend spoke, devouring them like they were the finest delicacies.
For most children to learn a couple letters along with their pronunciations in a single lesson would be enough to be proud of, but Minos wasn't like other children.
His photographic memory allowed him to learn instantly, and only after Mister Uklend explained the letters once, did Minos already have them all mastered.
Of course he didn't say anything, instead he kept quiet and kept listening, further refining his already good understanding.
Mister Uklend went through the language a few times before he decided to call it a day. He had long since realized that most of the children were already wiped out by this point, so any more teaching would just be counterproductive.
"Alright, let's call it a day, but before you guys go, I want to see how much you've learned." Mister Uklend said, causing the children to get excited.
Like that, he went through the crowd from child to child asking them some basic questions, such as what a letter was called and what sound it made.
Most children did quite poorly, not properly remembering anything, of course some did better, causing Mister Uklend's sour face to slightly rise.