204: Shadows (I)

Mid-July, 49th year of the wizard's path.

"Is there anything else?"

"Mentor Bruceklin, have the economic intelligence networks I asked you to oversee found any abnormal investments or attempts to suppress our Academy's economy by any forces?"

"Lord Green, the Academy's Economic Intelligence Department has not found any abnormalities. The development of our Academy's economy is still booming, and everyone is still in the bonus period. Although the biggest initial gains have been reaped, according to the big data projections from the Academy's Statistics Bureau, the high-speed development momentum of our Academy's economy will last for at least another 10 years."

"This is a bit strange, it's not normal!"

Green rubbed his forehead, and his head began to ache.

He had originally thought that after the 10-year planning period ended, and without the protection of Teacher Joyce, Plant Heart Academy should have faced a major economic impact.

After all, the current so-called economic prosperity was brought about by the power of Teacher Joyce, a Tier 2 Wizard. As the saying goes—what makes you, can break you. So how is it that Teacher Joyce has been gone for over half a year, and the economic situation is still excellent?

This greatly troubled Green. His sixth sense told him that the calmer things were now, the greater the storms would be in the future, but Green just couldn't find the source of the danger.

"Could it be that no one is really targeting Plant Heart Academy? Are my worries all unnecessary?"

"No, it's better to believe it than not. This vague premonition must not be taken lightly."

..."Lord Green..."

"Do you think we should continue to implement the Great Western Development Plan and the Academy's key industry contraction plan?"

"People won't complain too much about the former, as it's for accumulating the Academy's Mandate of Heaven. The Academy's Supreme Management Committee only submitted a proposal suggesting a reduction in support for the Great Western Development."

Mentor Bruceklin, as Lord Green's right-hand man, was responsible for overseeing the work of the Academy's Supreme Management Committee.

"However, the latter is different. The Academy's key industry contraction plan you formulated, Lord Green, has had a huge impact. Industries like real estate, education and training, and potions have all been dampened by your plan. Their development speed has been halved in the past six months, and this is just half a year. If it goes on longer, our hard-earned great advantage will probably be gone."

"The Academy's Supreme Management Committee has already received seven or eight opinions and drafts, all... all proposing to re-liberalize controls and allow the market to develop freely. What do you think about this?"

Hearing Mentor Bruceklin's report, Green couldn't help but close his eyes in deep thought... The Great Western Development Plan was one of the three main directions for the Academy to accumulate the Mandate of Heaven.

Since the founding of Plant Heart Academy, this plan had begun. Like other forces on the Mist Coast, Plant Heart Academy adopted a system of high-salary incentives plus re-employment of retired personnel.

This meant, on one hand, offering high-value resources to attract wizards from both inside and outside the Academy to work and settle in Plant Heart Academy's development territory—West Forest County, assisting the Academy's core wizards in pioneering barren lands.

On the other hand, all retired wizards of the Academy were sent to settle in West Forest County through re-employment, receiving a small amount of resources each month. Retired wizards could greatly expand their family lines in the mundane world, expand the living space of the human race, and enjoy their old age, far away from the conflicts of the Wizarding World.

(The western frontier of the Mist Coast is the main direction for human wizard civilization to expand its living space. It is a vital area of the mundane world, bound by red lines. Wizards are not allowed to kill each other. Every wizard who steps into the western frontier must sign a Mandate of Heaven Oath and a paper oath—a double oath guarantee. Any wizard who dares to start a war in the western frontier will provoke public anger, and all people under heaven will attack him. Therefore, the western frontier is the best retirement spot on the Mist Coast, with very secure safety.)

And Green had only slightly adjusted the previous Great Western Development Strategic Plan in three aspects.

1: Resource support. Money is the fundamental driver of all interests. Any good policy cannot be effectively implemented without sufficient resources. Green directly made a sweeping stroke, increasing Plant Heart Academy's expenditure on the Great Western Development Strategy tenfold, accounting for about 20% of the Academy's annual financial outlay.

2: Technical support. The Academy invested heavily in launching several research projects, including research on desert greening plants, mundane plant desert cultivation technology, and Demonized Plants desert cultivation technology. In particular, some technologies were introduced by Green, modified from the desert and wasteland management technologies he remembered from Aqua Blue Star, including:

Straw checkerboard sand barrier technology, which can fix shifting sands, improve the desert topsoil environment, and provide a relatively stable ground foundation for the establishment of vegetation dominated by small shrubs and the construction of a sand-fixing and desert-control system. In extremely water-scarce desert areas, it established a stable surface plant sand-fixing system.

Artificial biological soil crust technology, which promotes the formation of biological soil crusts by inoculating cryptogams such as cyanobacteria, lichens, and mosses (similar plants also exist in the Wizard World) on the sand surface.

Brush-net rope straw checkerboard sand barrier technology, where wheat straw is woven into a brush-like shape by machine, like a feather duster, which can be directly "laid" in the desert, saving manpower and facilitating large-scale sand prevention and control.

3: Manpower support. People are the main body of all production and living activities. Only with enough people can various incredible feats be accomplished. The 10-year economic miracle of Plant Heart Academy was also achieved through the joint efforts of over 100,000 wizards.

To solve the problem of insufficient manpower for the Great Western Development Strategic Plan, Green implemented two changes:

One was the "Educated Youth Going to the Countryside to Expand the Frontier" support activity, encouraging young wizards to go to West Forest County in the west to reclaim land for 10 years, setting a goal of gradually introducing 10,000 people over 10 years, and offering a series of generous conditions to support this.

Educated youth were selected from apprentices who had started working. It was promised that after 10 years of dedicating their youth, they would be given priority for high-paying jobs upon return, arranged for guidance by famous teachers, arranged for spouses, and arranged for housing. In short, as long as you dedicated 10 years, your status would immediately rise by one level upon return.

Educated youth were also selected from affiliated forces, i.e., those small and medium-sized forces that had merged into Plant Heart Academy. They were not completely merged into Plant Heart Academy; Plant Heart Academy did not accept just any riff-raff, and the entry threshold was very high.

Those wizards who did not get in could not enjoy the welfare system of Plant Heart Academy. This "Educated Youth Going to the Countryside" activity provided an opportunity: as long as they went to the western region to reclaim land for 10 years, they would get a chance to enter Plant Heart Academy upon return.

The second was to add an option for graduated Wizard Apprentices to work in the Great Western Frontier for 20 years.

Previously, Wizard Apprentices of Plant Heart Academy who were eliminated during the five-year major examination and forced to graduate could only undergo 3 years of combat training to become combat wizards, which was often extremely dangerous.

That was because at that time, Plant Heart Academy's economic development was stagnant, internal competition was severe, and the Academy could not provide so many job opportunities. Those eliminated wizards could only go and compete with Black Wizards for food, living on the edge of life and death.

Now, things were better. Plant Heart Academy had developed well, resources were incredibly abundant, and there was a shortage of people everywhere. So Green timely adjusted his strategy, giving these eliminated Wizard Apprentices more choices: those with talent who wanted to fight could become combat wizards, while those who feared death or lacked strength could go to the west for development.