Chapter 305: Silver Province
So far, the sixth regiment had no members except for two lone commanders in Major Yu Mei and Captain Xiao Lin. By convention, each regiment was supposed to have their own dedicated base, but the sixth regiment was the only one to have none. The reason for that was simple—lack of funding.
Yu Mei looked very distressed and irritable when it came to that, even to the point of yelling at some senior military personnel. They had deliberately withheld a large amount of funding on the grounds that there were too few members of the sixth regiment. Without the money, not even a base could be built, which was why Xiao Lin only saw a half-built building that stopped construction when he went over.
“The military’s funding allocation has always been under the control of those stubborn old bags, and the dean can’t intervene either. Although they were forced to make concessions to form the sixth regiment, they still have to deliberately make things difficult for us! Hmph! In their hands, Dawn Academy will be defeated sooner or later!” Yu Mei mumbled a few sentences and said nothing more. Xiao Lin did not know much about the higher-ups of Dawn Academy, and Yu Mei did not seem too eager to let him in on too much either.
After Yu Mei finished, her squinted eyes sized up Xiao Lin’s entire body and her gaze seemed to be rather improper.
Xiao Lin gripped his clothes subconsciously and suddenly had a realization. No wonder that woman seemed so enthusiastic that day. With her intelligence network, it was obviously not a problem for her to find out that he had just made a lot of money.
“No can do! The money is mine! Don’t even think about getting your hands on it!”
“Hehe, like what you said earlier, you’re also a member of the sixth regiment. Your benefits will only increase when the regiment expands in the future. Even though you’re only a captain now, you’re still regarded as one of the regiment’s founders. ”
“I don’t think this is the dean’s intention!”
“The dean is an old man who has his hands full every day. He wouldn’t have the time to deal with such trivial matters. He entrusted me with complete authority, but I can’t conjure money out of thin air!” Yu Mei looked a little annoyed.
In fact, Xiao Lin sympathized with Yu Mei. Being a regiment commander sounded pretty good, but it was quite depressing for a regiment to have no members and no money.
However, as sympathetic as Xiao Lin was, he was not prepared to use his private funds willy-nilly. Even though he had yet to figure out how to spend his money, he believed that there will be plenty of avenues for him to use it in the future. All other things aside, lifewater alone would cost him a huge sum already.
“If you can’t magically produce money, then you might as well just rob it,” Xiao Lin suggested bitterly.
Yu Mei’s eyes lit up suddenly. She practically slapped the table and stood up while exclaiming, “Good idea!”
Xiao Lin’s lips twitched and he said helplessly, “Are you going to rob a bank?”
“Nonsense, of course not!” Yu Mei rolled her eyes at him, then sat down again. She snickered and said, “But we can always rob someone else’s. For the record, Planet Norma is very different from Earth. Wars are frequent here and it’s chaotic in many places. Say, how much do you actually know about the situation around our colony?”
Xiao Lin knew all of that from his initial geography lesson as all of it was mandatory knowledge for freshmen to learn.
The colonies under the direct jurisdiction of Dawn Academy had Dawn City as their center. There was a total of ten variously sized cities, and the total area was equivalent to about the size of a province on Earth.
Dawn City was located at the southernmost end, adjacent to an endless sea. In several other directions, the northwest was indirectly bordering the orcs’ territory. It was labelled as ‘indirectly bordering’ was because the merfolk were sandwiched in between. However, neither the orcs nor Dawn Academy took that weak race any seriously.
Ever since the war with the orcs, Dawn Academy realized the strategic importance of those buffer zones. They no longer oppressed the merfolk and even supported them as appropriate.
Bordering Dawn Academy’s colony to the northeast was an area about the size of two provinces. Neither the academy’s earthlings nor the locals could stake their claim over there. Dawn Academy once attempted to integrate that area in order to expand the colony, but it eventually failed due to the intervention of multiple parties.
There was a mix of both crooks and honest folk in that area, and many colonial academies had their supporting forces there too. To put it bluntly, balance and equilibrium was emphasized there. Everyone’s interests were evenly divided and it was always easy to deal with things. However, no one should expect to conduct any integration, not even Dawn Academy. If they were so bold as to commence any military interference, it would be met with strict opposition from the other academies, Judge Academy included.
The status and overall strength of Dawn Academy declined considerably after the war with the orcs, and there were also quite a lot of internal opposition, which left them little capital with which they could contend with. Over time, the area was left completely unchecked.
The reason why that area was so valued was because it was the only area where starmetal has been excavated in the entire Planet Norma.
The only thing Xiao Lin knew about starmetal was that it was a rare and valuable material which had extremely important applications in many fields. Everyone could accept joint mining of the resource, but monopolization by any one force was completely unacceptable to all.
That was where Yu Mei was going to make a fortune. Although Xiao Lin thinks this woman was a bit of a looney, the plan might not actually be impossible after giving it some thought. The powers-that-be was plentiful there, intertwining and overlapping, with power and might being the sole way of life there. It was quite common for crooks to turn against each other too.
As soon as Xiao Lin wished Yu Mei success, the woman frowned and said in a serious tone, “I can’t personally put myself out there though. I’m afraid I’ll have to rely on you.”
“Huh?”
“After all, I’m considered a government official and many people know who I am. There’ll be all sorts of unnecessary trouble if someone recognizes me there.”
“But I’m just a Black Iron-rank freshman!”
“No, no. It’s because you’re a Black Iron-rank freshman that you’re most suitable for this task.”
Had it not been for Yu Mei’s serious expression, Xiao Lin would have almost flipped the table and left. Yu Mei quickly explained, “That area is called the Silver Province. Do you know why that is?”
Yu Mei answered her own question. “Because there are unwritten regulations in that area. Gold-ranks are forbidden to enter! Silver-ranks can practically have their way around there, but Black Iron and Bronze are the commonest ranks there. Yours level and your identity will make you less noticeable.”
“Gold-ranks aren’t allowed to enter?”
“You could say that this is a compromise from Dawn Academy,” Yu said helplessly. “After all, Silver Province is next to our colony, and no one wants to have a time bomb next to him while they sleep, would they? Under the premise that that no integration shall be done in that area, the result of the final compromise was that no one above Silver-rank were allowed to be there. Eventually, the place was renamed Silver Province as a warning of sorts.”