"Okay, kids, can someone tell me how we approach this problem?" Joel asked, standing next to a black board, in front of more than twenty children of various ages.

  A girl with braided hair raised her hand confidently.

  "We start by determining the lowest common multiple."

  "Very good answer, Abigail. To solve this sum, we need to determine that first," Joel stated, taking a piece of white chalk and writing firmly on the black surface. "Remember, when there's a whole number in a fraction operation, we must consider it to be divisible by one..."

  White lines filled the board with mathematical symbols, and Joel's every word was accompanied by the sound of graphite pencils scratching the children's notebooks. None of them looked away; Even the little ones, who although they did not understand everything as quickly as others, remained attentive, fascinated by the knowledge that was previously forbidden to them.

  More than two years had passed since Joel started his school, and the results were more than satisfactory. The teaching methods he had brought from modern Earth—structured, practical, and orderly—had proven astonishingly effective. Thanks to them, the children were progressing in math, language, and science with a speed that surprised even him.

  Of course, Joel had had to abandon much of the supplementary content, related to history, biology, and other subjects too closely tied to their world of origin. Teaching about revolutions, the biology of very different animals, or terrestrial geography made no sense in this place. However, math and physics were universal and became the central focus of his educational program.

  He had dedicated the first year exclusively to teaching the children how to read and write. That process was arduous, but also the most transformative: once they mastered reading, their progress multiplied. Now, more than half of them were comfortable speaking the new language Joel had taught them: English.

  Why English? The answer is quite simple, since all the books and educational materials he could recreate from his dreams were in that language. And Joel considered it a daunting and time-consuming task to have to translate everything.

  In a world where oral tradition dominated and education beyond reading and writing was scarce, and reserved for the upper classes, Joel's children had already mastered a second language and solved math problems that far surpassed the knowledge of most ordinary adults.

  Anyone would think that a year to learn to read and write is too short. But the truth is that Joel subjected the children to an intensive course that bordered on obsession. For days, weeks, and months, they did nothing but eat, sleep, and learn. He compressed the content of several years of schooling into just one.

  The effort was enormous, both for the children and for Joel himself, who carried the pressure of not wasting a single moment. Liam and Ariel, who initially only helped with minor tasks, eventually became real teachers, especially when Joel wasn't at the shelter. They reinforced lessons, corrected exercises, and, on more than one occasion, improvised activities to keep the children focused.

  The educational programs Joel remembered from Earth were designed for advanced societies, which focused on the comprehensive and gradual development of childhood. But that kind of idealism was an impossible luxury here. What Joel was building wasn't a traditional educational system, but an intellectual training ground. The goal was practical and brutally specific: to train future specialists in a critical area: the sciences.

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  The children of this world were completely different from those on Earth, at least from those of the modern era. Because of their humble origins and tragic past, the vast majority possessed a maturity similar to that of an adult, and they would not pass up the opportunity to learn from a powerful man like Joel.

  The children wouldn't learn to be poets or philosophers; they would learn to handle, understand, and eventually recreate modern artifacts and machinery. Joel's vision was clear: to lay the foundations for a revolution that, at best, within the first generation, would lead them to achieve the equivalent of the industrial age on Earth. From advanced metallurgy, electricity, machinery, to transportation systems… tools that would change the course of any society.

  Reaching the information age? Joel knew only too well: that would be an unrealistic dream for the first generations. The leap to computers, networks, and digital systems required centuries of interconnected advances, and he couldn't and shouldn't rush to that point. What he needed was a solid foundation, and for that, he was molding his orphans as cogs in a larger machine.

  Joel ended up making several more trips during the first year, again in search of orphans, through villages and towns he hadn't visited before. He changed routes and even explored other kingdoms that shared borders with the forest. This time, though, he decided not to bring more than three children per trip, so he could carry them himself and significantly reduce travel time—no more than a week each trip. Each return brought new faces, new stories of abandonment or tragedy, and also new responsibilities.

  Over time, the number of children in his care grew to twenty-six. For Joel, that number seemed sufficient for a first generation. A cohort of students whom he himself would shape from the beginning, and who would bear on their shoulders the weight of what would come next.

  Fortunately, the newcomers didn't slow down the overall pace of learning too much. Partly because the older students, with remarkable discipline, became guides and tutors for the newcomers, passing on what they had already learned. And partly because Ariel and Liam had established themselves as fundamental pillars of education: patient, persistent, and attentive to each child's individual needs. Thus, in just a few months, most of the newcomers reached the level of their peers.

  For the following years, Joel decided that the children's curriculum should remain primarily theoretical. Mathematics, physics, and initial technical knowledge were the essential foundation before beginning the first practical applications. However, he, along with Ariel and Liam, had already begun to take the first steps in the real application of knowledge, exploring a field he initially considered fundamental: electricity.

  The first thing he did was create, from his memories, some electric motors that he could conjure with his magic, weighing just over a kilogram. It wasn't a completely unfamiliar field for him; in one of his dream lives, he had been in the habit of disassembling household appliances, and in another, he had installed an inverter in his car. With those scattered memories, it wasn't too difficult for him to gather enough of the necessary elements for experimentation, including a multimeter to take accurate measurements.

  The first success came faster than expected, when he adapted a motor to a hand crank and managed to generate enough power to charge his old smartphone and even light an LED bulb. That dim white light in the middle of the night was, for everyone in the house, a flash from another world.

  The irony came later, as Nana, with her magical affinity for electricity, quickly analyzed the flow generated by the motor with her senses. And in just a few attempts, she was able to precisely reproduce the same amount of energy, controlling its power to the point of powering the devices without damaging them. For Joel, it was a revelation: magic could bypass years of research and development if harnessed correctly.

  That discovery led him to a bolder step: installing an electric lighting system throughout the house. With Nana as a constant, regulated source, the entire home was illuminated by white light fixtures, a spectacle that seemed straight out of the blue. And, surprisingly, Nana was able to handle the energy expenditure without any problem, as long as they didn't abuse the electricity consumption.

  Soon, Joel had learned to make the most of the electricity Nana could generate with precision. This allowed him to power a wide range of electronic objects he conjured. The first were simple household appliances: hair clippers and dryers, kettles and frying pans that ran on electricity. Then came small sound systems and, to Ariel and Liam's utter delight, some more advanced handheld video game consoles.

  The transformation inside the house was so sudden it seemed like a leap forward centuries. Where before, candles or some magical artifact Joel had acquired had been used, now lights shone constantly; where cooking was a labor of wood and fire, water now boiled in minutes and cooking could be done at the touch of a button. For the new children—who were barely getting used to the new pace of life—this was a cultural shock that was impossible to assimilate all at once.

  Like Ariel and Liam, the newer orphans began to associate all these technological prodigies directly with Joel. To them, he wasn't a normal human being, but a mage whose power could summon matter and make the strangest objects obey his will. And, in a sense, they weren't wrong.

  The passage of time also helped Joel expand his mana reserves. He was now able to materialize objects weighing close to two kilograms, opening the door to a much wider variety of options. However, he was still far from reaching the amount of mana needed to create truly useful tools, such as more complex weapons or large devices. For him, this was merely a reminder of how much further he still had to go on his journey as a mage.