[15th April, 2006]
Eddard was waiting at the entrance of 221B Baker Street for his new students. As he had promised, James had gotten Eddard a total of 10 children between 14-16 years old. The only problem was that he was being followed by their parents looking at me as one would look at a fraud.
"Mr. Clarke, the students are here." James then went on to name the parents whose name Eddard could not bother remembering. Eddard invited all of them in the house.
As they got settled into the room which James repurposed to receive a guests. The parents and teenagers started chattering among themselves and after a minute or two, they looked at James and then at Eddard as if asking whether they could talk.
"Mr. Clarke, we have heard James saying you are a God and that you want to take our children as students. Now I have known James for a long time so I do not believe him to be mentally unstable but I hope you do not take offense at my skepticism." said one of the fathers.
"Sir, I can understand skepticism. I promote it even since wisdom is better than ignorance. If you wish for proof. Would this be enough?" Eddard allowed the light to rush through his skin to make it look as if he were glowing from an outside perspective.
Most of the parents nodded dumbly. Eddard tightened the pull on my light that was leaking and asked the teenagers, "So wanna become students?"
The teenagers looked at him excited but then looked at their parents.
Sophie Turner- James' Daughter asked, "What will you teach us? Will this be like a school of magic and fighting?"
"This is not a school of magic. As for what I will be teaching you."
He shoved his gold medallion on the center of the table, "Do you know what metal that is?"
"Gold." A lanky boy answered.
"Correct. Now identify this one?"
The boy looked at it and then asked,"An alloy of some sort?"
"Correct, it is called Adamantium."
"This one?"
"I have no idea."
"The most versatile metal on Earth. Vibranium."
The boy looked at Eddard, "How much of it do you have?"
"As much as I want." Eddard stated smugly.
"Where do I have to sign to join, boss?" The boy asked.
A woman presumably the boy's mother asked,"Kayneth, are you sure?"
"Mother that coin alone must be worth billions. How can I not?"
Eddard was impressed by the boy's ambition," Ma'am I can assure you that he will grow better with me than he would with any traditional company."
Sophie asked disappointed, "So we will work with metals?"
"You could work with very precious metals, engineering, coding, biology, finance, weapons, fighting, architecture and a bit of magic." Eddard said thinking back to his plan to create a think tank.
"Fighting?!" asked one of the mothers.
"If they want, not like I need someone to fight for me."
"And you think children can handle all that?" grunted a well built man.
"They will have around 5 years to do so."
"So what about their school?"
"They leave it. Traditional systems will become redundant with the gifts I have planned for them." Eddard commented carefully.
"What gifts would that be?"
"Only my students will know."
"Can we visit them at least?"
"Daily if you wish. Just don't leave with them. And finally I don't want anyone knowing other than the people here what is going on, not for the next five years at the least."
Thankfully all the parents agreed to place their children with Eddard and get a homeschool certification.
The parents left after saying goodbye and that they would return to get the students their stuff.
Eddard asked the students to get settled in and meet in him in the meeting hall at six in the evening.
[Meeting Hall.]
When all his wards arrived in the evening.
Eddard announced,"Ok! First gather around the table. And wear the ring that is in front of you."
Eddard had made the rings out of Vibranium. They had the concepts of Physical Growth,Pattern Recognition,Analytical Thinking, Memorization and peak fitness permeated into it. He had worked hard to figure out how to create items with passive effects and active effects in the previous months. The ring was a signet ring and was silver in color and had a golden etching of a shamrock.
He had been careful to not use any concept that could wreak havoc even in passive states.
"Now these rings will make you smarter and more physically fit."
Kayneth asked,"Is it vibranium?"
Eddard smiled,"Yupp."
Kayneth took the ring as if it would vanish, "You must be a God of metals to be throwing vibranium around like that."
Eddard laughed at Kayneth's assumption and corrected him by saying, "I am a God Of Light."
"Cool." said one of the guys.
"Thank you. Now the question is what do you all want to do?"
He got 2 wannabe programmers, 2 mechanical engineers, 1 chemical engineer, 1 biologist, 1 investment banker, 2 Fighters, 1 magic researcher.
He had a plan for the biologist and engineers. The investor would learn under Micheal Peterson to handle their assets.
The fighters would train themselves to fight and spar with each other and with enough time could take out most top shield agents except for probably the Black Widow and Clint Barton.
The to be magic researcher was a boy named Jayden. An outside perspective on his abilities would be good.
"Ok I have always found that working on projects has always been the way to go but I will give you your projects tomorrow."
They all nodded digesting my words.
"Now for food. I will be preparing the food but you will be responsible for cleaning your plates. Same goes with your room, and clothes. You clean your things yourself. These two" Eddard pointed at his new watchdo- fighters, "will be responsible for maintaining order. While I will be responsible to watch them. I want you all to be here at five in the morning everyday except Sunday, where you will still wake up at five but will be free to do what ever you wish. Are we clear?" Eddard asked in a clear voice as he pushed light into his skin to make himself glow.
"Yes boss." came the voice of Kayneth.
ding dong*
Eddard spoke up,"Ah! Looks like food is here."
And as he checked the door he found a delivery man with their food for tonight. It was cheesy pizzas and burgers with soft drinks.
He paid the delivery guy and then proceed to pay the guy and take it to the meeting hall. He placed it upon the table.
"I got Pizzas and Burgers along with some coke."
"You said were going to make food." commented Kayneth smirking.
"I paid for it."
"Dad is not going to like me eating fast food." commented Sophie.
"I am a god remember. I made it so that any food on the plates in the kitchen will be nutritious, healthy to eat and still retain its taste." Using conceptual permeation to eat junk food safely was not something he had seen himself doing but it had been a very useful application of it. Showing its overpowered yet balanced nature.
[16th April, 2006.]
Eddard asked his wards, "Good Morning, so you all prepared for a workout. Follow me."
They went to the second floor for the first time to see a massive gym filled with weights and machines.
His wards gasped at the size of the gym.
Jayden asked to no one in particular,"How large is this building?"
"it isn't that large I just enlarged the room spatially. The weights weigh exactly as it is written on them."
"But the weights weigh upto fifty tons." Stormi, one of the fighters said.
"They are." Eddard admitted he went a bit over board with the gym.
"I want you all to run until you collapse while the fighters will run 12 km and then start other exercises. Like pull ups, jumps, stretches, push ups,etc. Strength is not what you are looking for, you are looking for mobility."
"What?! That's impossible." Harry, one of the aspiring programmers shouted.
"Trust the rings. The more you push yourself the more you grow, both intellectually and physically. Remember the rings won't betray you."
"If we do this, we will be too tired to study."
Eddard shrugged at boy's moaning.
"You will be. But not for many days, its April right now, I can wait until May for you to have become acceptable."
"Getting fit is not that easy." whined the boy again.
"For normal mortals perhaps."
[1st May,2006.]
In fourteen days, Eddard's wards really picked their daily routines. By this time they were not dead exhausted of constant running or exercising. Harry, the aspiring programmer, had gained two inches in height and filled out his frame with muscles a bit. Eddard had spent 4400$ in food in expenses in the last 14 days as the growth required massive food consumption. The pizza guy learned the associated voice to 221B Bleecker St, now a call with Eddard's voice lead the guy at their doors with their usual order.
"It is the first day of the month. And since you can now cope with your previous routine, I will tell you your projects. Harry and Nathan, you want to be programmers, so I want you to learn as much as you can about python and c as programming languages. You should be able to talk to the bloody computer using those languages. The core topics I want you to study about is App development, AI, Virus Writing and protecting us from cyber attacks. You will get about 500$ a day in budget for this and only this. Jacob will be the one responsible to take care of your expenditures and properly record them. Any problems?"
"No boss!" came the voice of the three boys.
"Jake and Jessica, you want to be engineers, so I want you to start reading books on mechanics, physics and engineering push yourself. I want you to work on machines and toys and then slowly build your way upto other things. The first thing I want you to make is an RC quadcopter. If you can't solve a problem I will arrange for help to brainstorm it. You have a 700$ a day in budget."
"We can buy tools, books, anything?"
"Of course if it is under your monthly budget of $21000."
"Stormi and Draco will have a budget of 100$ each daily. They are allowed a certain amount of autonomy so that they can practise fighting. But your main project is to learn wrestling and muay thai to fight."
"Yes boss!" The boy and girl agreed.
"Kayneth you like chemicals correct? So do you want to design chemical plants or study chemicals and their nature."
"Mr. Clarke I would actually like to study the properties of metals you can make."
"I will allow you to do so if you study chemistry in earnest and use Vibranium as a subject for study. Your budget will be 600$ daily."
"Yes sir."
"Sophie, you want to study biology. Please focus on genes and evolution. You will also have to work with Kayneth in the future."
"Yes sir." The girl agreed.
"Jacob you will check up on everyone's finances here. I want you to learn as much you can from Peterson, he is a smart man and you learning finance under him will do you good. You don't have a budget but have the ability to draw cash from the budget for a reason."
"He is a good man." Jacob commented.
"He is." Eddard agreed easily,"Jayden you are going to be responsible for magical research. You will help me with a very powerful and dangerous ability of mine where we will research it as thoroughly as we can. The research in my abilities will not require a budget."
"Yes Mr. Clarke." Jayden agreed.
"All of you can work with each other and share information, ideas and conclusions to better solve problems and projects. I will also open the third floor. Each room on the floor is completely empty except for a bookshelf to hold books you will buy. The rooms are designed with protecting the inhabitants. Any questions?"
"Mr. Clarke can we get an internet connection?" Nathan asked.
"Why would you want that?" Eddard asked curious.
"There is this new site called 'Youtube' and I opened a channel on it about my journey on programming."
Eddard shrugged, "Why not? Just make sure to take down the internet after dinner. I do not want you out of bed at night."
The way the boy's face brightened at Eddard's affirmative answer nearly melted the young adult's heart. The way the teenagers had taken him as the leader of their newly formed group had been heartwarming to Eddard.
Eddard knew that none of these kids would ever be as good as Stark or Banner but they would still be geniuses int their own rights. The two avengers were just playing in a different field completely.