When the time for his lesson to be over came, Thorsten gave a respectful farewell and made his way towards the door.
"Goodbye, sir. Have a good afternoon."
"Hmm..."
Mr. Klein responded with a small nod, too focused on the papers spread out in front of him to respond verbally.
He didn't even notice the eyes watching from the other side of the gap in the door, and the predatory gaze behind them.
It was Valie, the cause of his delirium, watched him with a satisfied smile that belied his innocent face.
'That went well,' he thought to himself, before stepping back from the door and making his way back to his room.
*****
Francis Klein could barely believe what he was looking at, despite it being written out neatly on the papers spread across his table.
Each page was filled from top to bottom with increasingly difficult mathematical problems, and yet every one of them had been answered correctly — with the proper method and without a single inconsistency.
"…He's a genius," he muttered, his thoughts rapidly piecing themselves together.
Francis raised a shaky hand to cover the jubilant grin creeping its way onto his face and started reflecting on the day's lesson, already realising that the lesson plans he had laid out for the coming weeks—perhaps even months—would need to be adjusted.
Ordinarily, once Thorsten's answer sheet had been marked, the remainder of the lesson would have been spent on revision, followed by a modest amount of homework before concluding their lesson.
But Thorsten had completed the sheet without a single mistake, performing far beyond the level Francis had expected.
Even the final question—added as a quiet reprimand for the boy's earlier lapse in attention—had been answered correctly, despite the concept having only been mentioned briefly weeks earlier and never formally taught.
What followed had been less a lesson and more a confirmation of a suspicion Francis had harboured for some time.
Ultimately, what had begun as a simple measure of Thorsten's ability had quickly escalated, until he found himself presenting increasingly difficult questions and watching closely as the boy solved them.
The results of that now lay spread out before him.
"Sigh..."
When his excitement had faded it allowed for him to consider the situation from a more logical perspective, and this posed a very important question: 'How do I proceed from here?'
Francis let out another sigh and settled down in his seat.
The first thing he had to do was in inform High Lord Baylith, then he could address his lesson plan, that is, if he was to be able his position as Thorsten's teacher.
He leaned back in his seat, letting his mind rest as he prepared a mental outline for his report.
When he finally sat up to make write the report, Francis was met with the realisation that he would most likely have to address the High Lord personally with this finding.
"..."
After a several minutes of thinking about how to do it, he thought it would be better to gather a bit more information, and then he could confidently present it to the High Lord.
At least that was what the reason Francis came up with to justify his decision; one made in self-preservation and fear of the man he would have to speak to.
"Impatience will only lead to mistakes..."
Those wistful words rang out through the quite study, leaving behind a sombre air as he began altering his lesson plans.
*****
Thorsten made his way through the neatly decorated halls of the Baylith palace, taking care to smile as the original would to each servant he passed.
It was something he had been thinking about since he inherited this body; that the original having a warm, almost sunny, personality made imitating him more taxing as it conflicted with his more reserved, quite self.
'That's another thing I'll have to get used to.'
And as much as he would like for it to change, suddenly acting like a different person would do him more harm than good.
So, as much as he wanted to, the matter of changing his public persona was something that would take months of careful behaviour adjustments.
Which meant that for the sake of his future, and mental health, he would have to grit his teeth and play the part.
The thought caused him to grimace slightly, but he quickly fixed his expression and chose to distance himself from it, and instead, focus more on things in his immediate are of influence—his current public image, at least in the eyes of those that mattered.
Namely, how he had displayed a level of competence and understanding in mathematics that stood out above what the original had shown.
His little performance with Mr. Klein may have been a little shaky, but for the most part, things went as well as they could have, 'And considering that this was my first attempt, I'd say that I did pretty well.'
Going from his memories, the original was already preforming at a level higher than most people his age, with the main difference being that this was still only within the scope of what he was being taught.
So, he had used the lesson with Mr. Klein as a catalyst—not to create something new, but to shed light on something that was already there, igniting the spark of brilliance that would one day see the original named a hero.
"A hero..." he echoed, still unable to grasp the weight of those words.
Saying it out loud, the absurdity of it all suddenly dawned on him: he had been "here" for less than twelve hours, yet he was, already laying the groundwork that would set him down a path with no chance of turning back.
In a world he still wasn't sure was entirely real, and not just some lucid dream. And despite that, he couldn't deny how real it all felt.
'The wonders of human adaptability,' he reasoned.
Thorsten couldn't help but chuckle at the thought, quickly burying it before it could threaten his sanity.
With that settled, Thorsten pushed the thought aside and focused on what was ahead of him, literally, as he had already reached the door to his room.
Originally, he had intended to kill some time here until the day's final lesson, but with everything weighing on his mind, the last thing he needed was a place where he could be alone with his thoughts.
He thought about it for a moment, then settled on taking a walk to familiarising himself with the palace grounds, instead.
'Don't sh*t tomorrow what can be sh*t today... or something like that.' With that thought in mind, he began moving his little legs again.
Taking care to request that some things be brought to his room to a maid he passed on his way.