Interlude: The First Lecture on the Fundamentals of Gifts
"Nice to meet you all. I'm Allen Jest, and I'll be standing at this podium with you for the duration of the semester."
"Isn't that guy the founder of Allen Trading Company? A person like that teaching as an ordinary instructor at the academy? Even if Everlight Academy is famous... is it really that prestigious?"
"Who's that? Is he famous?"
"What? You don't even know the famous 'Savior of the People'?"
"The one who saved the Kingdom of Renia?"
The students' murmurs filled the air. It was such a familiar reaction that for a moment, I wondered if we'd somehow gone back to the academy's first day.
I ignored their stares and stood at the podium, casually scanning the room.
The first person who caught my eye was, of course, Elaine. Considering that her ability to stay sane during the infinite loop ghost story was thanks to her strong mental power gift, it was only natural for her to take a class on gifts.
Next were the students from Class 1-A under my charge. There was the one who'd looked utterly unimpressed when she first saw me on day one. A girl with such a tiny frame she might have skipped grades. A studious-looking girl who screamed class rep. A slightly delinquent-looking guy from the track team.
And even some of the students who'd been replaced by grotesque impostors.
I easily spotted the Class 1-A kids among those attending my lecture, but there were quite a few from other classes mixed in too. Generally, gifts are innate abilities possessed by only a tiny fraction of people, but once you're enrolled at the academy, gift holders aren't hard to come by.
Having given the students a once-over, I launched into my first lecture at the academy in earnest.
"Since this is our first class, let's start light. What do you all think a gift is?"
...
A gift.
"A special ability that only a tiny fraction of humans are born with. There's no rule to who gets it, and no rule to what the ability is—a mysterious power. That's why we call it a gift from the heavens, and thus, a gift."
Like most first lectures, this one stuck to the basics: purely theoretical and commonsensical.
It wasn't like I'd ever planned on standing at a podium from the start, after all.
The subject I taught at the academy was gifts. More precisely, the class I was handling for the semester was called "Basic Understanding of Gifts." It was akin to an introductory course.
In fact, up until now, I'd been publicly known as a gift holder. It was the perfect excuse for leveraging my knowledge and tech from my past life. The irony was that only after pretending to be one and joining the academy did I actually become a real gift holder.
"Gifts seem to have no rules or commonalities between holders, but in truth, every gift shares three fixed characteristics. Does anyone know what they are?"
Fortunately, the students' attitudes toward my lecture were positive. One even raised her hand right away.
It was the diligent-looking girl with gold hair and glasses—the one I'd pegged as class rep material earlier. I nodded lightly at her, inviting her answer, and she spoke up immediately.
"Yes. The three characteristics of a gift: innateness, limitedness, and inscrutability. First, innateness—as you explained, Teacher Allen—means gifts are possessed congenitally by only a select few humans and cannot be acquired through any postnatal means. And limitedness..."
"Ah, that's enough. I'll handle the rest. Thank you for the precise answer."
The academy's students really are diligent. A prestigious school lives up to its name.
I gently cut off the girl—who seemed ready to steal my whole lesson—and continued.
"The second characteristic of gifts is limitedness."
It's no exaggeration to say that the abilities granted to gift holders follow no rules, varying as diversely as there are holders. Yet even these special powers don't transcend human limits.
Gift abilities remain firmly within the human realm. They excel in their specific domain beyond ordinary humans, but still within human bounds—abilities that even non-gift holders could eventually match through study and effort.
A gift holder won't punch a bear barehanded with inhuman strength or fly through the sky spewing fire from their palms. Think abilities like running a bit faster than average or picking out fresher fruit at the market.
Gifts simply let you do what others can do, but better than most. That's their limit.
"Teacher Allen, does that mean having a gift doesn't make you special?"
The one raising her hand was a particularly petite girl with fluffy brown long hair, looking lively and youthful. Her energetic demeanor belied her small stature.
"In a sense, yes. A gift is certainly special, but everyone has at least one talent they're good at. In that light, gift holders are just ordinary people."
She openly showed her disappointment. Was being "not special" such a shock?
"...If gifts are such minor abilities, why bother opening a class to study them?"
"Of course there's a reason. If merely having a gift let you effortlessly dominate others without study or effort—to lord over the masses—would we even need to analyze and refine it? A gift is only slightly better than average if you just possess it passively. That's why we must explore and observe it to truly understand it."
"What does 'understanding a gift' mean?"
The same petite girl followed up right away.
Only now that I was the one at the podium did I realize how grateful you are for students who ask timely questions during a lecture.
"Take the fresh-fruit discernment gift I mentioned earlier. It's the ability to pick fresh produce at the market, but really, it's an eye for discerning plants' growth states. What if you used it to inspect a noble's fields and predict crop failure or bounty before harvest? Or maximized it to spot and fix failure causes early? Would you still call it a 'fresh-fruit picker' ability?"
"Ah..."
She nodded as if something clicked.
"By grasping how a gift works and applying it accordingly, a mere bargain fruit-finder becomes a tool to manage an entire territory's harvests."
Was my analogy entertaining? I could feel the students focusing more intently.
"But interpreting a gift's principles isn't easy. That fruit example was an ideal case of proper understanding. What if its true basis wasn't plant growth insight, but reading merchants' faces and psychology? Or if it was limited to fruit, not grains?"
Another student voiced doubt this time.
"That doesn't make sense, does it?"
It was the blond guy with a delinquent vibe I'd noticed before class—the track team type.
"What's so nonsensical?"
"You're saying the gift's operating principle can be misunderstood—even by the user themselves. How could someone not know if their own gift stems from sight, smell, or whatever? That doesn't add up."
"Of course it wouldn't—for ordinary people. But gift holders are different. It's due to the third characteristic: inscrutability."
"Inscrutability?"
Even at a prestigious academy, not everyone's a top student. The guy frowned and repeated it, slipping into casual speech.
Cheeky. Back when I ran the trading company, I'd have snarked back, but here at the academy, I'm playing the kind, competent teacher—so I let it slide.
"An ordinary person picking fresh fruit could explain why they chose it, the reasoning behind it. Naturally—they thought it through themselves. But gifts don't work that way."
They activate, and the holder simply accepts the result. No insight into why the judgment was made or what logic powered it.
It's like an appliance. We all use microwaves and smartphones proficiently without understanding their inner workings. Gifts are even trickier—no manual, no similar models.
"That's why we benefit from gifts without fully understanding them. We just inch closer to 100%. Hence, inscrutability."
And that third trait is clear proof gifts are fantasy. If they were just innate talents for everyday tasks done better, they'd be called talents, not gifts. Instead, they defy human comprehension, judging and acting independently, delivering only results.
"In summary, these are the absolute triad of gift traits: innateness, limitedness, and inscrutability."
It was almost laughable. My own gift, Observation, had already broken free of the first two.
What was a gift's true nature, anyway, that exorcising ghost stories granted one...?
Ding-dong-dang-dong—
The bell rang right on cue, signaling break time.
"Well, that's our cue for break. This concludes today's lecture. As I mentioned, through this Basic Understanding of Gifts course, I'll help you properly comprehend and effectively utilize your gifts over the semester. I look forward to your interest and active participation."
I stepped forward, bowed, and the students responded with applause. My first lecture ended without a hitch.