Chapter 154: Chapter 133, Loyalty is the Top Priority

Before meeting Dennison Henry, Gu Hang had some time to do another thing.

A Terra standard month had passed since the last fixed income distribution.

It was time for the system to pay out salaries again.

Last time, when salaries were paid, he only controlled two campgrounds that could not yet be called Weixing City. By continuously “shearing sheep” from Revival City, he managed to just barely reach a population of around ten thousand before the month’s settlement, pushing the fixed income slightly over fifty points.

In contrast, he now had control over a population of a million.

After acquiring Revival City, various debuffs attached to the city’s status caused its million population to provide him with a reduced fixed income of just over sixty points.

When he first saw this, Gu Hang was almost shocked senseless, quite dissatisfied with the situation. But upon further consideration, those debuffs weren’t imposed by an external force; they were genuine issues that emerged right after he took the city.

In the half-month since, he had instructed Osenia and Lambert to do many things in the city. Even though they had gone through a near-disastrous storm that almost destroyed the whole city, everything had at least returned to the right track of reconstruction by now.

And many debuffs were indeed eliminated through their efforts.

[City Standstill], [Anarchy], [Post-War Chaos], [Rebellious Elements]… not limited to those mentioned, many similar terms that described how bad the city’s situation had been disappeared.

There were still issues like [Starving City], [Lower-Level Chaos], [Administrative Disorder], [Trade Disruption]… that hadn’t been completely resolved, but they were downgraded to [Food Shortage], [Lack of Basic Level Management Personnel], [Insufficient Administrative Efforts], [Obstructed Trade Routes], implying that although problems persisted, they had been alleviated.

Of course, there were still quite a few unresolved, such as [Extremely Low Living Standards of the Citizens], [Poor Infrastructure], [Low Population Quality]… altogether more than ten negative statuses.

There was even [Widespread Damage], a new debuff.

But overall, it was still much better than before.

This could be directly seen from the numbers.

Revival City’s monthly fixed income had increased from just over sixty to 211.

On the other side, Weixing City experienced even more growth.

Initially only surpassing fifty by a small margin, now, with a continuous migration of one hundred thousand people from Revival City, and Perbov’s efforts bringing in nearly twenty thousand people to Weixing City, it gathered a population of one hundred and thirty thousand, most of whom were potential industrial workers. Automotive, military, and pharmaceutical industries were all expanding vigorously with enough people to support them.

Even though many of the population had not yet been integrated and many could not be considered qualified industrial workers, needing sufficient training and learning, the current monthly grace income had still surged to 187.

Combined, the total was 398.

The salary could be described as having skyrocketed!

More importantly, this was obviously not the limit. With the urban reconstruction and production plans of both cities gradually being completed, with the implementations and advancements in place, whether it was eliminating negative city statuses or the tangible monthly grace income increases brought about by actual production capacity improvements, these were foreseeable.

With uninterrupted development momentum, this number could continue to soar at a considerable rate.

And just the income of this current month, added with the battle Perbov fought, along with previous leftovers, Gu Hang now had a whopping 889 grace points on hand.

He had to spend it.

Grace points wouldn’t earn interest by being hoarded; spending them could truly enhance the territories under his command.

Where to spend it used to be a question. Continuing to invest in the [Technology] interface was certainly good. So far, nearly every technology he acquired had brought substantial benefits to Gu Hang. They either became an important industry within his territories or an essential resource—referring to the reactor. Without that power plant generating electricity from the reactor, heavy industry wouldn’t know how much coal to consume for energy.

However, the training of industrial workers was a big problem. Many of the technological methods drawn out had yet to be digested.

Moreover, as more items were produced on the technology interface, the probability of winning within that tier would decay, forcing one to draw from a higher tier, making Gu Hang somewhat reluctant to throw all his current grace points into it.

He first took out 134 grace points to train troops.

The newly formed two division-level brigade units had their soldiers mostly in place. The majority of the Wind-Extinguishing Brigade’s personnel came from the Old Alliance Legion. Those soldiers had some military training but obviously fell short of a higher standard.

Perhaps for someone like Yan Fangxu, who came from a formal military officer background, if you just fed and housed them well and had them do nothing else but train for two or three years and then go through one or two intense battles, they could indeed become T5 level soldiers and officers. But obviously, Gu Hang couldn’t wait that long.

The newly conscripted regiment of about seven thousand people, constituting three battalions of infantry, was under the same logic.

Adding them all up amounted to just over thirteen thousand people. Calculating the cost, the 134 grace points were spent.