The student grew engrossed in the professor's story as he appropriately and expertly compressed a story spanning eons of time in human history. What would have otherwise been a horrendously boring technical write-up filled with all kinds of mundane descriptions and facts, locations, and dates had instead become a remarkably interesting story of humankind.
"The advent of mercantilism was driven by the consequences of gold being the only permissible medium of exchange that was universally valued across human civilization," Professor Verlix remarked. "In an increasingly sophisticated world, those who didn't have gold were poor and were unable to purchase the goods and services of the nascent global economy. That was why some nations that were able to produce an enormous amount of goods that simply didn't exist in other places decided to go the mercantile route and focus entirely on export and preserve as much gold as possible by cutting down imports and becoming self-sufficient. These nations accrued a truly tremendous amount of gold across history. Not just that…"
His tone shifted, growing slower and more thoughtful. "Some nations did mercantilism better than others. Some nations grew richer while other nations grew poorer. And thus, there were some people who, not knowing what we now know today, sought to understand what made some nations rich and what made some nations poor. Particularly, there was a man named…"
The professor paused to grab the marker and write on the whiteboard.
[S'dam Amith]
"A man named S'dam Amith, who published a book formally known as the 'An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,' who spent his time trying to understand just that; the wealth of nations, as his work is known when shortened," Professor Verlix informed with an expression of respect. "And this, my dear students, was the origin of magiconomics or, as it was known back then, political economy, which is now considered a hybrid field. S'dam is regarded as the grandfather of magiconomics, and his work on the topic inspired the first generation of magiconomists to begin studying the economy with scientific scruples. S'dam's first insights into magiconomics are what we consider one of the most fundamental concepts in magiconomics—"
He wrote get down on the board once more, gesturing to it to his students.
[Division of Labor]
"The concept of division of labor is one of the most valuable concepts that human civilization has ever discovered, in my honest opinion," the professor remarked. "And you will see why. I will honor Mr. S'dam by using his example to make the point. It goes like this: Imagine you have a pin. A regular, sharp, thin iron pin about that small."
He gestured several inches with his fingers.
"Is it possible for one person to create this pin from scratch?" Professor Verlix asked with a raised eyebrow. "Think about it. What does it mean to create a pin from the absolute inception of the process?"
One student frowned. "You would have to heat the iron yourself?"
The professor laughed jovially. "You would have to do more than that. Iron isn't simply lying around on the ground for you to pick up and put to use, I'm afraid; you will have to mine it. However, even if you somehow mine it, you will only end up with ores that contain compounds of iron and other substances. Thus, you will have to purify it yourself. And then and only then…"
He took a deep breath with a hint of exhaustion. "…would have pure iron. After you get pure iron, you will have to heat it and melt it before pouring it into the mold. Only after you it cools down will you finally end up with a pin."
Even the students seemed tired just listening to the process.
"That, my dear students, is the process that you would need to go through just to create a single pin if you had to do it by yourself," the professor remarked. "Now imagine if you had one hundred men trying to create one hundred pins. What do you think would be the best way to go about it? Have each one of the one hundred men trying to create one pin by themselves from scratch, or have each of the one hundred men collectively trying to create one hundred pins together by focusing twenty-five men on the four tasks involved?"
Intuitively, the answer was obvious.
"The latter would produce one hundred pins more efficiently."
"Exactly," the old professor nodded vigorously. "This experiment has been performed, believe it or not. Not just for scientific inquiry but also by industrialists in the time of S'dam Amith, who sought to maximize efficiency. And in every industry, field, and sector, it was discovered that the second option, division of labor, was more efficient than the former. But why exactly? Why is division of labor so much more efficient? After all, it's the same resources. The same magicapita. The same manpower. What made division of labor drastically more effective despite the same resources?"
They grew thoughtful.
Intuitively, it felt obvious.
Teamwork made group tasks easier to tackle, but that wasn't at the heart of why it was more efficient.
"The answer is that labor can be divided, but skill…" he stressed the word. "Skill cannot be divided. That is the fundamental reason why labor is the one that is divided and why skill is concentrated. Now let me explain this concept a bit more."
He turned around, writing down a simple verbal equation on the whiteboard.
[Worker output = labor × skill]
"You can think of this as a fundamental law of labor in magiconomics," Professor Verlix remarked. "And it stands to reason intuitively. The more labor you put in, the more output you will have. The more skilled you are at that labor, the more output you will have. Both of these decide, very roughly speaking, the output over a given amount of time and people. Now…"
He leaned in, gesticulating with his fingers for emphasis. "Let us take the example of a two-man kitchen team, where one chef only knows how to prepare food expertly while the other knows how to cook it expertly, but neither, for some reason, knows how to do the other's job. By combining their labor, they can produce excellent food at a reasonable pace. However, what if both of them were only fifty percent proficient in preparation and cooking? What would be the quality of food?"
"…Bad," the student admitted.
"Exactly," the professor nodded as he directed a sweeping gaze across the twelve students. "In the former case, both tasks were performed with a hundred percent skill; in the second case, both tasks were performed at a fifty-percent proficiency. And it produces a different outcome. Why? Because labor can be divided, but skill cannot."
He brought his hands in the air before him. "Fifty percent labor plus fifty percent labor equals one hundred percent labor. However, fifty percent skill plus fifty percent skill is not equal to one hundred percent skill. Skill does not add up like labor does. And that is why we divide labor and super-specialize in skills. And that…"
He spreads his arms. "Is one of the most fundamental concepts in magiconomics. The division of labor and the super-specialization are only some of the now-universal concepts of magiconomics that S'dam Amith introduced to us in his entry work into magiconomics. He goes on to talk about several more concepts that we will cover in this course, such as economies of scale and the 'invisible hand' of the free market, but we will cover them in due time. Regardless, his work didn't just give birth to magiconomics as a field of study, but also gave birth to what is known as economic liberalism, characterized by free markets and private ownership of magicapita."
He went on to break these concepts down as Cæ listened with faint interest.
As someone with a business degree, he had an understanding of all these concepts. But given that the students of this magicademy had entered the Elendir Institute of Magic at the age of sixteen, there was no doubt that none of them were familiar with these basic concepts. They listened with keen interest, engrossed in Professor Verlix's storytelling manner of teaching.
RING RING RING!
The professor did a double-take abruptly as the bell rang, signifying the end of the first class of magiconomics.
"Oh dear," he gazed at his watch. "Looks like we have reached the end of this session. Ah, well, I hope you enjoyed that, and I look forward to seeing you in the next session. For now, I must hurry to the next lesson!"
The old professor quickly picked up his briefcase, waving goodbye to his students before departing from the classroom.
Cæ heaved a sigh as he pondered the immersive lecture on the history of magiconomics that the professor had delivered to them.
It was fascinating to briefly learn about an interesting part of history and the events that led to the birth of magiconomics, as well as what some of the earliest thoughts on magiconomics looked like. Certainly, he was under no illusion about the fact that magiconomics was going to get very complicated very quickly. He knew from just skimming his textbooks that it would get very technical and mathematical.
Regardless, it helped him understand to a very slight degree why the world had evolved the way it had. Some of the most fundamental aspects of modern civilization, such as the value of gold, a metal that truly didn't have any utility or strategic value innate to it. However, with Professor Verlix's explanation, it became so clear that it was a wonder he hadn't thought about it before.
'This is what I need if I'm to understand why the world is the way that it is,' Cæ appreciated the insights about the world that he had gotten from Professor Verlix. 'I'm looking forward to this lecture.'
While Cæ went about his day to another class, Professor Verlix wound about the magicademy with a brisk gait.
Strangely enough, he didn't end up in another class.
Instead, he wound his way to the administrative wing of the Elendir Institute of Magic.
To the Headmistress' office.
CLACK
The door to her office opened, revealing the extravagant and spacious office inside with the Headmistress' table on the far end of the office, at a large window.
Headmistress Lenolia put down a pen as shifting a document away as she leaned forward, steepling her fingers.
Her elderly purple eyes bore deep into his knowingly.
"Professor Verlix, please come in. Take a seat."
CLACk
The door closed behind him.
"I am quite busy dealing with the aftermath of recent events, you see, so I'm afraid we will have to be quick about this," she remarked. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The man smiled jovially. "Well, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you."
She raised an eyebrow.
"About?"
"About the young man," the professor remarked with a fascinated tone as he sat opposite the Headmistress. "About Cæ."
She raised an eyebrow. "You had a lecture with him already?"
"Of course! Hahaha, have you not checked his schedule?"
She heaved a tired breath. "I can assure you that as much of an interest he is to me, I do not follow his entire day. I have more important things to deal with than him at this crucial point in time."
The professor smiled. "Speaking of which…"
His jovial tone grew a little heavier.
"How goes the radicalization process?"
His words were dangerous.
He gazed at Headmistress Lenolia with a knowing expression.
"Twilight eagerly awaits our new budding elite initiates."
The air tingled with a hint of tension.
"…It is going well," she replied in a solemn voice. "Their unfamiliarity with magic is especially making them vulnerable to this kind of magic. On top of that, they have an innate disdain for the current order, making them quite susceptible to our conditioning and our subtle influencing factors. I believe that by the end of the year, they will have been sufficiently radicalized in their hatred for the current order of things that they will willingly jump into our welcoming arms when we formally induct them into our organization."