With his time in the Bayern Kingdom growing short, Rorschach dragged Hasse along for his next stop the very next day.

"I’m still organizing the acquisition documents! Why are you going to a university, and why are you dragging me along?" Hasse had witnessed the young man’s drive, and it reminded him of his days before becoming a senior partner—following the boss around like a secretary, saddled with several days’ worth of work from a single sentence.

Now, Rorschach was definitely up to something.

’What’s with this guy from the... company leadership? He’s not nearly as motivated as Pierre Nixingen!’ Rorschach noticed that after his "number one fan" had departed, his successor, Mr. Hasse, wasn’t quite as sharp. But Rorschach paid it no mind and instead explained his reason for going to the university:

"Didn’t I spend a whole morning talking with Prince Otto before the wedding? I got all sorts of permits from him." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"So that’s how it was." Back when Hasse was still closely aligned with the Balderom Chamber of Commerce, he had wondered how Pierre and Rorschach managed to bypass the Chamber’s connections to obtain a stack of priceless royal charters. It turned out Rorschach had gone directly through Hasse’s own young master to contact the prince.

’Young Master Bart, do you have any idea how much initiative you’ve made our Chamber lose...’ Hasse felt he was falling out of touch with the world of the youth. He found it hard to tell whether his own young master and the Mage before him were reliable or completely unreliable.

"Of course, we’re not just taking handouts from the Royal Family! At the very least, we have something we can start working on now. Prince Otto hopes that the Fanta company can cooperate with the Munich Royal Family’s Bayern Engineering College."

Although it was a college, the institution was considered among the kingdom’s elite. Rorschach would just call it Bayern Engineering for short. It was originally where the Royal Family had placed its hopes of dismantling the Guilds, sponsoring it to promote the development of Bayern’s industry and commerce. Back then, the old scholars had spun fantastic tales for the old King. They made it seem as if building a first-class university with top-tier disciplines, on par with those of the Empire, would be a shot in the arm for tax revenues. But by the time the previous Monarch said his goodbyes to his subjects, the money invested had shown no obvious returns.

Otto realized this investment was likely a failure. Every year, the chancellor would lead the various department heads to the Royal Palace to wail about their poverty, claiming that education was a hundred-year endeavor and one couldn’t just focus on the present. The Prince desperately wanted to kick these highly respected old swindlers out. He hadn’t seen a single one of the benefits they’d used to fool his grandfather. The Guilds were still thriving, and tax revenue growth couldn’t even keep up with the professors’ demands for raises.

Moreover, it wasn’t just the Apprentices at the Tower of Secret Techniques who had a habit of delaying graduation. University students of this era, still carrying on traditions from the Old Empire, were fond of taking a year off mid-studies to "contemplate life" and "see the great sights of the Empire"—what they grandly called a "gap year." Others would get halfway through their studies, grab a letter of recommendation, and head off to another school as an exchange student. This was a holdover from the "study abroad" tradition of the master-apprentice system in the craft Guilds. Some students had to wander through several universities across the kingdom before they were considered to have completed their specialized field of study.

Thus, the university students of the old era could be broadly divided into three types: those who couldn’t graduate, those who graduated to inherit the family business, and those who were unemployed upon graduation but didn’t care because their families could support them. After all, who could afford to study for six or eight years during their prime without having to support a family, unless they came from a well-off family?

The one getting hurt was the Royal Family. Prince Otto desperately wanted to scream: ’You may not be getting a free education, but the Royal Family is still subsidizing and sponsoring you! Your food, your clothes, your living expenses—it’s all being paid for with our money! My money!’

Rorschach’s strategy was, of course, to "integrate industry, academia, and research." In truth, Otto was vaguely aware of such a path, but the problem was that the Royal Family’s industries were all farms, ranches, and the like. You couldn’t very well have university students who studied grammar, natural history, mathematics, philosophy, and other such "sacred texts" go out and till fields or herd sheep, could you? Rorschach didn’t care, but Otto would have felt the sting. Besides, after accounting for positions for the children of the Nobility and those "sponsored" by major merchants, there weren’t many official posts left in the Bayern Kingdom. At least, the conditions weren’t yet ripe for an "imperial examination system."

Rorschach’s final mission in Munich was essentially to use Fanta as a foundation to establish a new-era talent development system in line with new development concepts. This included, but was not limited to, funding and recruitment.

"We’re planning to recruit university students? Ah, they’re all just youths who do nothing but recite poetry, drink, and sweet-talk girls." Hasse himself wasn’t highly educated; his knowledge was limited to what he’d picked up over his career—enough to write and do basic arithmetic. His impression of universities was stuck decades in the past, a time when they primarily produced humanities graduates who debated the classics and art. From his perspective, if the company was going to hire, they should stick to accountants and people who could handle legal matters.

Rorschach had always been dissatisfied with the Tower of Secret Techniques’ disdain for the Mages and Apprentices trained in Alchemy. The few useless fellows in the research department now were still in their training phase. One could only say that while their intelligence was certainly high, their specialization was a mismatch.

He explained to Hasse, "If you look only at the cost of hiring university students, they are indeed expensive. But everything is relative. When you compare them to an Apprentice from the Tower of Secret Techniques, don’t they suddenly seem much more cost-effective?" Rorschach laid out the new rules of the game he intended to establish. "This is an engineering college, so there are bound to be disciplines relevant to our business. First, we’ll donate a sum to a department to establish a long-term partnership. They’ll teach the subjects we need, and then we’ll have the school arrange for students to intern at Fanta. As for their wages during the internship... well, that can be discretionary."

The more Hasse listened, the clearer it became, and his eyes grew bright with understanding. "I understand, Mr. Rorschach! This way, we cultivate exactly the talent we need. After their studies and internship, they become skilled workers, which cuts down our training time. Plus, we can evaluate the outstanding ones during the internship, making our screening process easier when it’s time to hire..." Hasse had never imagined they could get the coddled young masters and misses to work for free, just like apprentices.

"Not bad. You’ve grasped the spirit of it." ’This is so much better than that whole master-apprentice system. Personal servitude? No such dark affair exists here. These talented individuals, second only to Mages in this era, are all volunteering their labor for the sake of learning!’

The two men, brimming with devious plans, requested entry into the university in the prince’s name. The campus indeed had a utopian atmosphere. Although this was just an "engineering college," its ambiance was no worse than that of a university known for its poets and scholars. Spacious and beautiful courtyards were filled with vibrant, youthful students. Beneath the shade of trees and on the lawns, you could see them, smiling as they engaged in lofty discussions. The academic buildings here were built to the standard of palace architecture, their elegant designs affording them bright classrooms and fully-equipped libraries and research labs.

Rorschach looked around. Though the time, place, and people had all changed, the familiar feeling had not. Compared to the Magic Academy, the gloomy Tower of Secret Techniques—convenient for "bungee jumping"—the fantastical-styled Tower of Stars, and the fledgling Valois High Master... being here made Rorschach wish he could run back to his dorm and turn on his gaming laptop.

The two of them didn’t look out of place walking around. One blended in perfectly with the students, while the other could be mistaken for a faculty member. After making some inquiries, they found the chancellor and the head of the Department of Architecture and Engineering.

Interestingly, Rorschach happened upon a professor and students dismantling a Dwarven power engine, exactly like the old hands from the Alchemy Department had done. The department head became rather excited upon learning that Rorschach was the author of *An Inquiry into Thermodynamic Conversion and the Efficiency Limits of Heat Engines*, and wanted to discuss related issues with him.

’The paper’s reach has already extended beyond the Magic Guild?’ That was something Rorschach hadn’t expected.

The chancellor was a brilliant old man—and brilliantly bald, too—who disdained to cover his head with a wig. He enthusiastically shook hands with Rorschach and Hasse in turn. "Since this is a request from Prince Otto (and for the sake of the money), we welcome this collaboration."