Education

The education system is mostly standardized across all of Mendala, however this does not mean that everyone has equal opportunities to all levels of education. Though primary education (ages 7-12) is free worldwide, higher-level education can range from no-cost to cost prohibitive depending on the type of school and its location. Sunnin did much to advance free education throughout the TS era, but efforts fell off after the loss of the Daughter of the Sun.
Many factors contribute to disparity in education levels, but adimus classification and locale are the main influences. Certain domains highly prioritize education while smaller towns lack the infrastructure for a formal education system. In the same vein, certain adimus classifications like environs and mandants have opportunities for free education that lower ranks don’t have.
Almost all high-level mentus-based jobs and trades require masters level education making it the defining factor in whether a person can pursue a career based on their adimus rank.

History

The Rise of Mentus Education

Formal education in Mendala dates back to the PM era. As mentus became more prominent, schools of mentus were established around the world. Most were low-cost in an effort to follow the teachings of the epouranals that stated that everyone should have the opportunity to learn mentus. People typically started learning mentus at age twelve which the epouranals taught was the age of “spiritual maturity” and therefore the best time to start learning. Later mentus researchers and scientists reinforced this practice when they discovered that twelve was the age that a person’s adimus became fully formed and adimus energy stabilized, making it far easier to learn and use mentus.
As knowledge and understanding of mentus grew, so did the need for more advanced forms of mentus education that went beyond the basics taught in most formal schools. The main way people learned intermediate and advanced mentus was either passed down by family, through apprenticeships, or other job-related training. It continued like this into the TS era.
Primary education, such as reading, writing, math, and other basic subjects, was virtually non-existent for young children. Some larger or well-established domains had primary schools, but they were largely for those privileged enough to be able to afford it. Because of this, a large portion of the population was illiterate and had only basic math skills.
Over the millennia, the same disparity started to apply to mentus education. There were still many mentus schools, but the notion of free mentus education had long sense faded for most of the world. Children who couldn’t afford mentus school could potentially gain apprenticeships, but for the most part, craftsmen and quartzsmiths passed down their trade to their children as long as they had the appropriate adimus classification. Because of this, they rarely took in apprentices outside of their immediate or extended family.
The only places where this wasn’t the case were in the dwarf and elf nations which were established in the middle of the PM era. The elven Kingdom of Ellenon placed high emphasis on education. All children were required to start attending school at age seven with mentus education starting at age twelve and continuing for anywhere from three to five years. The Kingdom also made sure its citizens had multiple opportunities to receive advanced education and inroads into mentus based careers. Because of this, Ellenon advanced quickly in mentus engineering, and in general produced a higher percentage of mind mages than the rest of the world.
Similarly in the dwarf Nation of Glorandor, the vast majority of dwarves were able to master the mentus skill of channeling, and in order to insure that their talents were passed down through the generations, they developed a more advanced apprenticing system. Despite its purposefully competitive nature, it guaranteed that any dwarf with channeling talent had an opportunity to learn, grow, and excel in a craft or in some form of engineering. Glorandor-made crafts such as weapons, armor, clothing, furniture, and other quartz-infused items became known as some of the best in the world.
However, the primarily human domains had no such universal system in place. Each individual city and country had its own way of handling education and because most lasted no more than a few hundred years, there was no long-term standard. This continued well into the TS era.
When mandamus was introduced by the first Fantasma, he gathered and trained mandants who wanted to learn the new adimus ability. Many mandants willingly decided to serve the Fantasma but just as many took their newfound skills into the world as mandamus became a widely coveted skill in the workforce. The Fantasmal Government created a formal mandant school after the appointment of the first guardians in 21 TS. Though it was free and taught beginner and intermediate mentus and mandamus, it was only available to mandants as the school was a way to encourage more people to pursue the path of guardian.
The Fantasmal Government made multiple attempts to standardize mentus education across the world and bring back opportunities for free education for all, but their efforts amounted to very little. Though they could potentially use tax money as a way to fund educational institutes, complications came in where to build them and who would ultimately run them. National leaders didn’t want to allow the Fantasmal Government to run institutions within their borders, something they saw as a breach of the firm barrier between the global governing body and individual domains.

Sunnin Standardized School System

It wasn’t until 700 TS, when the Sunnin Social System was founded by Angela Terrain, that education began to be standardized, starting with primary education. Having run an orphanage for several years, Angela had a passion for children that was reflected in her endeavors while she helmed the fledgling social services organization. Her initial primary focus was on children’s services, and one of her goals was to ensure that all children received education regardless of realm, adimus classification, or economic status.
Angela made contact with the leadership of Ellenon to learn about their education program and from there created a standard educational model that Sunnin would adopt. A primary school curriculum was created for children between the ages of 7 and 12. In those five years, they would learn fundamentals such as language, math, natural sciences, geography, history, and the general skills needed to function in the world. This would give them a solid foundation for further education.
After completing primary school, children would attend three years of mentus education between the ages of 12 and 15. This was because children legally became adults at age fifteen. Though not as thorough as the current elven curriculum, Angela’s version of mentus education would guarantee all children had a foundation in basic mentus abilities, giving them a better chance of pursuing a mentus-based career if that’s what they wanted to do.
It was Angela’s goal to provide primary and mentus education to children across the world by setting up Sunnin schools in every domain and providing the services for free. Though this was generally lauded by people around the world as a remarkable and desperately needed service, Sunnin met with extreme levels of resistance in almost every domain. Much of the world’s wealthy and elite were against educating the masses as this would inevitably disrupt the staunchly entrenched social classes that existed around the world. This was especially true for mentus education as it would allow more and more people to potentially enter the higher paying mentus-based professions. Sunnin faced several roadblocks in establishing their schools, especially during the early years when the organization didn’t have a lot of clout.
As a result, it took almost 1000 years, and multiple incarnations of Daughters of the Sun, before Angela’s initial dream was realized and every country and city around the world had Sunnin primary schools established. In 1572 TS, the Fantasmal Government officially amended the International Marriage and Family Act to require that all children between the ages of 7 and 12 attend primary school as a means of guaranteeing basic education planet wide. By 1609 TS, it was reported that 99% of all primary age children were attending school as mandated.
Unfortunately, mentus education would never reach the same level of ubiquity. There were multiple reasons for of this. In many domains, influential nobles or high-ranking citizens continued to lobby hard against the schools, in some cases even having laws restricting or outright banning them. Many claimed that the Sunnin mentus schools were subpar to the private schools already in existence and that free schools would drive private schools to close, thus ensuring that no one would have the opportunity to learn at a higher standard. Though Sunnin had no obligation to follow the laws of any domain, building mentus schools in areas hostile to the concept proved fruitless in most cases.
There were other, less nefarious reasons as well. For many families, mentus education was seen as impractical even if it was free. Residents of the Crystals Sands Desert were an obvious example of this, but it also extended to families living in small mountain towns where the main jobs were working in mines. In addition, since twelve was the age children could join the Warrior Guild, many opted to take that path since talented fighters were always in demand but there was no guarantee that mentus education would parley into a mentus-based career. As a result of all of this, by 1700 TS, 1000 years after the start of the Sunnin educational program, only around 60% of children were attending mentus school.

Masters Schools

The next major event to change education in Mendala was the invention of quickening in the early 1800s TS. With this came further research into adimus ranks which led to the discovery of mentant-non classifications, something that revolutionized the fields of mentus science and engineering. The revelation that only certain people could use channeler and quickener mentus made the skills far more coveted and pushed people with the appropriate classifications to try and master their specialized mentus. This was especially true for those in lower social classes as having those skills was seen as a way to move up the economic ladder. By far, the newly discovered adimus rank of quickener, which came with the ability to instantly move from place to place, was the most in-demand skill at the time.
The problem was that quickener mentus was exceedingly complex and required several skills in tandem including math, high level mentus and a deep understanding of the mentant realm. The standard mentus education would not be enough to take on the complexities of teleportation. After the initial surge in new quickeners learning the skills from the scientists and engineers that helped perfect it, education in quickening, like other advanced mentus skills became stagnant as people began hoarding the knowledge and only passing it down within their family lines.
However, unlike before, people now had an easy way to discover their adimus classification, thanks to advances in science and the eventual creation of the realizer—a device that could correctly identify a person’s exact adimus classification. Armed with this easy to obtain knowledge, people who discovered their quickener rank became desperate to use their talents to better their lives, even if they couldn’t obtain formal education. This led to thousands of quickener accidents each year, many of them deadly, and caused general distrust in quickening as a whole.
To counter this, Simon Wincraft and a group of highly skilled mentus users in various fields opened the first masters school in 2614 TS. This was a school designed to train mentus users to master their particular class of specialized mentus, whether it be quickener mentus, channeler mentus, or for mentants, helping them elevate to the mind mage rank. Though the school was costly, it was not outside of the realm of affordability for those who truly wanted to learn. In the beginning, those trained in the Wincraft school would receive a special quartz pin signifying their masters level proficiency in their field. Soon, having a “Wincraft Pin” was a sign that a quickener could be trusted, and it even gained status among mentus craftsmen and quartzsmiths.
Over the next several centuries more masters schools began to open and compete with one another for students. As a direct result of this, quickening finally became more trusted as people sought out those who could prove they were trained at one of the highly prestigious masters schools. This eventually resulted in the Fantasmal Government stepping in and changing the requirements for the vast majority of mentus-based professions so that only those with a certification from an accredited masters school could legally work within their field.
This new mandate, which happened in the early 31st century of the TS era, marked another massive change for education. With masters schools being a requirement for quickeners, craftsmen, and quartzsmiths, their popularity—and cost—grew exponentially. Because of this, more children were attending mentus school. Sunnin had more leverage to open schools in previously unaccepting domains and the percentage of children in mentus schools rose to nearly 80%. However, this caused a huge problem as mentus schools did not teach at the level needed for graduates to jump straight into learning high level class-specific mentus. More training was needed. As a result, masters schools started requiring that applicants had at least two years of training with a certified masters school graduate, either as an apprentice or working in their desired field, before they would be able to attend masters school, pushing the age of enrollment from 15 to 17 universally.
This system worked well for the most part. Certified masters were encouraged to take on apprentices and it was touted as a sign of status. For their part, the mentor masters were able to set their own terms for anyone wanting to work for them. This gave them the opportunity to hire cheap labor in exchange for the experience needed to go to masters school. Two-year apprenticeships or other temporary work programs became the norm and people fought for those opportunities. However, Norbert Pillman, a professor at Wincraft took notice that in the elven nation of Ellenon, such apprenticeships were completely non-existent and the masters schools within their region accepted students right out of mentus school. Upon closer inspection he realized the reason was because in Ellenon, mentus school lasted five years and not three as the country placed a far higher emphasis on mentus education.
Latching onto this idea, in 3616 TS, Pillman created the first advanced mentus school in the city of Leviton: Pillman Advanced Mentus Academy. The premise of the school was to further train students beyond standard mentus education to give them the skills they would need to succeed in masters school. In order to give students the same level of attention they would receive in an apprenticeship, he kept the academy class size small, admitting no more than ten students at a time so that he could adequately train each one. Because Pillman had been a respected professor at Wincraft, the school readily accepted the pupils who graduated from his advanced mentus academy.
Soon, every masters school had created an associated advanced mentus academy following the same formula as Pillman, and other unaffiliated advanced schools also sprang up, each one run by a respected master in their field. In general, masters schools started accepting anyone who attended an advanced mentus school in lieu of two years of apprenticeship. Though not formally standardized, advanced mentus schools were generally treated as reputable as long as the students were taught by someone with masters level education and the student/teacher ratio is no more than 10:1.
Sunnin also attempted to open advanced mentus schools, but much like before, they were met with strong resistance, especially from other schools who didn’t want to lose out on business because all Sunnin services were free. Sunnin also had a hard time gathering the masters level instructors needed for the endeavor. Since the social services organization was more focused on insuring that people had their basic needs met, providing advanced mentus schools was not seen as a priority.
With primary and mentus education standardized, it helped give children of all socioeconomic classes an equal opportunity to advance themselves. This continued mostly unchanged into the TA era and modern times. Because primary school is considered mandatory, and Sunnin schools are ubiquitous, almost all children receive a primary education with about 60% continuing on to mentus school.

Standard Education

There are currently four standard levels of education: primary school, mentus school, advanced mentus school, and masters school. Parents are only required by global law to ensure their children attend primary education.

Primary School

Primary school starts at age seven and continues for five years until age twelve. Primary education consists of fundamental subjects: math, language, history, science, and creative arts. Some countries and independent cities have their own primary education system, but the vast majority of them are run by the Sunnin School System which provides free education to all children who are of age. In general, it is considered a crime to purposefully deny a child of a primary education, and children are not allowed to work or be admitted to the warrior guild before age twelve.
Currently, around 95% of all people attend primary school. The area that has the largest number of children who do not receive primary education is the Crystal Sands Desert followed closely by many of the small towns in the Lumarian Mountains.

Standard Mentus School

After primary education, children can attend three years of mentus school, where they learn standard mentus, beyond the very basics that they learn as young children (most of it naturally or from parents). This gives children the skills to work in a variety of low to mid-level mentus-based jobs, as well as the foundation needed if they plan to attend higher level education.
Approximately 60% of people receive standard mentus education and there are many opportunities for free schools either run by the locality or by the Sunnin Social System, though they are not as abundant as primary schools. However, since mentus education is not mandatory, not all children attend. Some choose to join the Warrior Guild or take other paths.

Advanced Mentus School

Advanced mentus school is an optional level of education designed to provide students with more focused advanced level mentus skills needed if they plan to attend masters school. Unlike with primary and mentus education, there are almost no options for free advanced mentus school. Classes are taught by a masters certified teacher, and they typically focus on mentus specific to their adimus rank and only teach students with the same adimus classification.
Advanced mentus school is a two-year program meant to be a substitute for apprentice-level mentoring which is required to attend masters school. Because of this, instructors only handle up to ten students to insure they can provide each one with an adequate level of attention and instruction. Only a small percentage of people avail themselves of advanced mentus education. Just as many go the route of obtaining an apprenticeship or other form of job-based experience to meet the requirements to attend masters school.

Masters School

Masters school is the highest form of formal education on Mendala. It provides the skills needed to qualify for different mentus-based fields such as quickeners, quavers, quartzsmiths, mentant craftsmen, engineers, and many others. Certification from a masters school is required by the Fantasmal Government to receive licensing or permits in these fields, making it mandatory to work in most of the highest paying careers. In many cases this can serve as a barrier of entry since masters schools are very expensive. However, the requirement is necessary to ensure only trained people are working in these critical and sometimes dangerous industries.
In order to attend masters school, you need a certificate of completion from any advanced mentus school or a recommendation from a masters level graduate. In almost all cases, you cannot attend masters school before the age of 17, however some exceptions are made. Most masters schools also require you to pass an entrance exam to be accepted. The length of attendance in masters school is based on the specialty. Examples include:

• Mind Mage: 5-7 years
• Quickener: 3-4 years
• Channeler / Mentant Craftsman: 2-3 years
• Quavers: 3-5 years (only after becoming fully a qualified quickener)
• Mentant Engineer: 3-4 years (only after becoming a fully qualified channeler)

Specialty Schools

Though the standard education path covers almost all types of adimus and mentus education, there are some specialty schools designed for very specific types of training, usually in relation to adimus classification.

Mandant School

Because mandamus is so powerful and mandants are very rare, they are highly coveted and usually offered multiple opportunities to advance even from a young age. Instead of standard mentus school, mandants can attend a special mandant schools starting at age twelve. These are three to five-year programs that also cover standard and advanced mentus education depending on the length.
The largest mandant school in the world is the Fantasmal School of Mandamus, which is run by the Fantasmal Government with guardians as the instructors. This school is free to attend for anyone who is age twelve and has the mandant rank. The school even provides lodging and food for all students. The main reason the Fantasmal Government offers free mandamus education is because it allows them to cultivate the next generation of guardians. However, continuing to guardian training is not mandatory and only encouraged for those they feel have a sincere desire and aptitude.
The Fantasmal School of Mandamus is divided into the standard program, which is the first three years, and the advanced program, which is the last two years. This mirrors the divide between standard and advanced mentus schools. Only those with mastery scores of 70% and above can qualify to attend the school’s advanced program. The advanced school remains free, but as adults, students are required to pay for their own housing and other expenses, though there are scholarships available for some students, especially those who have a high chance of continuing into guardian training.
The Fantasmal School of Mandamus is the largest mandant school, but it’s not the only one. Several private mandant academies exist, though they are typically very expensive and usually attended by students from wealthy families who do not want their children taught by the guardians at the Fantasmal School of Mandamus. Even though students at the Fantasmal School are not required to apply to be guardians, many voice concerns that a certain level of indoctrination and pressure occurs at the academy. Mandants are highly coveted in a variety of fields and not as regulated as many other classifications. So even a mandant who has only attended a three-year mandant academy from age 12-15 can find steady and potentially high paying work upon graduation.

Guardian Training Academy

Though not officially named, the guardian training academy—or guardian bootcamp as it is often called—is a twelve-year training program for prospective guardians. Any mandant can apply between the age of 15 and 17, but the vast majority of applicants are 17-year-olds that have completed the Fantasmal School of Mandamus’s five-year program. Students from that school are automatically accepted as guardian trainees if they graduated with a mastery score of 85% or above and have a recommendation from one of their guardian advisors. All other candidates are required to pass a rigorous test in order to prove that they meet the same level of mastery to qualify for entry into the program. Applicants must also sit through multiple interviews and personality assessments to make sure they truly have the desire and temperament to become a guardian.
The guardian training academy does not accept students over the age of 17. This is because the program is twelve years long, making graduates 29 or 30 at completion. This is the age when the adimus becomes less flexible and capable of further growth. At this point, the trainee will either be accepted as a guardian and have their adimus boosted as a result, thus freeing them of these limitations, or they can no longer continue growing and training their adimus based abilities thus making further education moot.
Much like with their mandant academy, the guardian training program is completely free, and all expenses are paid for by the Fantasmal Government. They are granted quarters in the lower residency sector of Fantasmal Mountain, have their food and most of the necessities provided for them, and even receive a small monthly stipend.
Guardian bootcamp is the hardest specialty school in existence. Mandants learn masters level mentus and mandamus but also have to study in a variety of additional topics including advanced science and engineering, politics and diplomacy, world history, spirituality, law, healing arts, combat, and much more. This is because guardians serve in a myriad of roles around the world and must be experts in all of them. In addition, they are subjected to a countless number of practical exams and field assignments to prepare them for the type of work they’ll be doing.
The program is so grueling that typically 80 to 90% of trainees drop out within the first three years. Even those who make it through the entire twelve years still must be hand selected by the chief of the Guardian Council to be candidates for guardian promotion, which is still ultimately at the Fantasma’s discretion. Since the entire grueling process is to earn a role that is required to serve the Fantasma for life, only the most dedicated of people make it through to the end. Because mandants are highly coveted in a myriad of roles, even those that dropout from guardian training can find high-paying work.

Weather Mountain Environ School

The Weather Mountain School of Environs was founded at the beginning of the TA era shortly after the establishment of Weather Mountain and the Weather Rod. It is the only place in the world that teaches environs, a mentant-non classification that was discovered around the same time thanks to insight from the epouranals and extensive scientific research that happened in tandem with the creation of the Weather Rod.
Because environs are rare and necessary in order to continue controlling the Weather Rod, the school, which is run by the Fantasmal Government, is free, similar to their mandant and guardian programs. Anyone with the environ adimus rank can attend. The only requirements are that they must be between the ages of 15 and 25 when they enter, speak the common language, and know standard mentus.
The school operates similar to a masters school and offers similar credentials. As students progress through their studies they steadily climb up the schools internal ranks from level 1, which is entry level, to level 7 which is the highest level possible. These levels do not necessarily correlate with years in school but rather a student’s overall masterly level. Once every six months a student can take the necessary test to move up to a higher level, but these tests are extremely difficult and involve more than just mentus proficiency. Environs are trained in combat, advanced sciences, and other related subject matters.
To be deemed a fully qualified environ, they must reach a proficiency of level 5. This is the equivalent of graduating from a normal masters school and gives them the credentials needed to work in environ related fields that require certification. This can typically take between 4 and 7 years depending on the person and their aptitude. To even be considered for the position of weather master, a student must reach rank 7. This typically takes between 8 and 10 years but they technically have until they reach age 30 to qualify. As with guardian training, the environ school is rigorous and many drop out before becoming fully qualified. Even without certification, skilled environs can still get work in certain roles because, like mandants, they are so rare.

Order of Nature

The Order of Nature is the only organization that trains the summoner adimus classification. In addition, the order also trains healers. Though there are other healer programs, they are taught by fully qualified healers from the Order of Nature, and those programs do not train healers to the proficiency level of Order of Nature healers. This is done on purpose as the order closely guards all of its advanced knowledge because it can be used for nefarious acts in the wrong hands.
The Order of Nature’s training program is not structured at all. In fact, most trainees do not start truly learning their craft until around a year after joining the order. This is because it’s important to order chiefs that all members share their values before they are gifted the knowledge of summoning or healing. In addition, you will not be granted the rank of fully qualified in either until you’ve been with the order for at least ten years, regardless of skill level. For summoners, this means they cannot work in a summoner related field outside of the order. For healers, they’re still able to work outside of the order, but they won’t be able to take higher status jobs that require a fully qualified healer.
There are no set requirements for becoming a member of the Order of Nature, but they are extremely selective about who they let join their ranks. Though it’s not required that you stay with the order for the rest of your life after joining, they are looking for people who truly want to be a part of the organization and are not just there to try and learn summoning only to immediately take their skills to the outside world. Most people who join the Order of Nature stay for at least thirty to fifty years before leaving to pursue other career paths, but a fair amount of people do end up staying in the order for life.

Education as a Job Requirement

There are many careers that require some type of certification to obtain the necessary license to operate. These fields are regulated by the Fantasmal Government and operating without a license can result in fines or jail. These include:

• Mentant Craftsmen (tailors, blacksmiths, carpenters, etc.)
• Quartzsmiths
• Quavers
• Quickeners

Other jobs are not regulated but if you were to apply for a position in a government, business, or other organization, they would almost always require masters level certification or other appropriate qualifications in order to be considered. These include:

• Summoners
• Healers
• Environs
• Mentant Engineers / Scientists

Mind Mages and mandants are also extremely coveted in a myriad of areas. Typically, no proof of certification or qualification is necessary since you cannot fake being either of these adimus classifications, though in some rare instances, certification from a mandant school may be required to prove a specific level of proficiency in mandamus.
Though masters level education Is required for almost all high-level careers, those with only advanced or even just standard mentus education still have a myriad of opportunities. In the past, due to the general low level of literacy and mentus skills, many lower-class people were regulated to mining or other hard labor. The only other option was joining the warrior guild and trying to raise their status through a combat-based career. With the advancement of education across the world, more people have opportunities to work in retail, offices, and other non-labor-centric environments, giving them the ability to choose the path that feels right for them.

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