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 remember 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 remember where each piece was placed?" The professor pressed. "Set it up on the board if you remember."

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.@@novelbin@@

The professor was smiling a sage smile. "Bravo," he said. Oliver had a feeling that he wasn't complimenting the position. "You didn't remember 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 something of the like.

"Ah, but not by memorization," Volguard said, waggling his finger. "You derived it, didn't you, using the principles that you yourself have come up with, hm?"

"I don't think… Half the principles were things that you mentioned, professor," Oliver said, unsure quite what the professor was getting at. He was wearing the same 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 time I am able to spend with you compared to them, and despite the disadvantage of your late start."

"How so…?" Oliver said, looking for some 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 memorise it. I do not force a route on any student. As always, they can choose whatever means they wish to reach their goal. I only ask that they be capable of reproducing it. You, young Patrick, are the former.

To an alarming degree, might I add," Volguard said. "Your mind is wired most peculiarly. You seem unwilling to even attempt to memorize 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 some time, 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 came to Oliver at that. He was starving for progress now. To hear of it came with a great bout of excitement. "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 overcome, 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 time, 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 medicine as well.

He was meant 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 come to after much thought on the matter.

Given how things had ended, Oliver did not blame the man, though it did make him somewhat 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 seemed 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 seemed to be bearing some fruit, with a potential new way in which he might attack his strategic learning and catch up with his peers.