Glory Light Academy was originally going to be arranged in the Bauhinia Collar, but considering the contradiction between the land used for the academy and the actual land expropriation of the Bauhinia Collar, Edward changed his mind and moved the academy to Hungry Wolf Ridge. Considering the promotion of the academy in the future, Hungry Wolf Ridge was renamed Radiant Ridge. Currently, the Radiant Ridge was recovering and vigorously promoting farming, and the territory had recovered a lot of vitality in the past half a year. The citizens who had fled because of Sir Hungry Wolf Duruf's tyranny returned one after another after hearing the news. In addition to the influx of large and small caravans who saw business opportunities, the territory had indeed undergone earth-shattering changes.
Half a year of recuperation was naturally unable to make all the citizens rich, but at least in the cold winter season, they could eat their fill and wear warm clothes, and none of them froze to death. This was already very different from the past, but the greatest impact on the territory was not the farming policies and related preferences, but an academy built in the Light Territory. It was also because of this Glory Light Academy that Hungry Wolf Ridge had changed its name to a promising one.
Glory Light Academy was located in the south of the Light Territory, only an hour away from Fenrir City. According to Baron Edward's original plan, the academy building would fill the nearly a thousand acres of land that Fenrir City had drawn out. However, considering the current taxation of the territory and the number of students, the academy was not built according to Zhang Hongwei's blueprint. Baron Edward divided the blueprint into three phases, and the current completed academy was only the first phase of the project. After that, they would choose the right time to expand according to the territory's tax revenue and the actual situation of the students. But even so, the first phase of the academy's layout occupied more than two hundred acres. The building complex included squares, bell towers, teaching areas, training grounds, teacher and student dormitories, and other areas of different purposes.
Even though the current academy was only a general framework, many functional areas still needed to be improved. However, it was unheard of to build this academy in the southern border of the empire in just a few months. For this project, Baron Edward had invested a large amount of resources into Radiant Ridge, and even the army had been transferred to Radiant Ridge to participate in the construction of the academy under suitable circumstances.
This brought about incomparably resplendent business opportunities. Among them, the academy's building materials and construction were the biggest. However, in view of the viscount's means, although the merchants smelled something fishy and moved, they did not dare to make too much of a fuss here, let alone cut corners. During the early stages of construction, there was a caravan that planned to pass off shoddy goods as quality goods. As a result, the leader of the caravan was directly thrown into prison and heavily fined the caravan a lot of gold coins for violating the territory's business regulations. It was a punishment to wake up those profit-seeking merchants. It also made people see that whether it was Edward or the viscount, they attached great importance to the academy.
There was no lack of academies in the empire.
Especially in the north, there were several famous Zhanzheng Colleges. Every year, these academies would send an endless stream of officers and generals to the empire. According to some people's statistics, there were at least six hundred generals who graduated from those war colleges in the past three hundred years. As for the officers of different ranks, there were many.
However, there were academies in the Northern Lands, but few in the Southern Territory. Especially the business atmosphere in the Southern Region, coupled with the lack of military strength, there was no Zhanzheng College. It wasn't that the Lords didn't have the foresight to set up such an academy in the past, but the amount of money involved often made the Lords below the Count flinch.
In Iron Spear Ridge, there was a War God's Spear of a similar nature. However, the specifications of the War God's Spear were less than half that of the Glory Light, and they were compared to the first phase of the project. Moreover, this War Spear Academy was the same as the war academies in the Northern Region. Most of the students recruited were from the military system or noble backgrounds. After the completion of the Glory Light, Edward personally announced it to all the people in the territory.
In other words, it didn't matter if you were a soldier, a noble son, a commoner, or a consortium family. As long as you wanted to, you could register for the academy's examination. As long as you passed the examination, you could become the first batch of students of the academy. Moreover, as long as it was verified, those students from poor families could be exempted from tuition and could even receive a monthly living allowance. However, the condition was that these students had to obey the academy's assignment after graduation. As for the academy's allocation, it was nothing more than joining the army or politics, and the length of service was five years. After five years, they could leave or stay at will.
In this way, the academy would undoubtedly open up a path for commoners. As in the past, ordinary citizens either worked in the fields or joined the army with their heads on their waists. But now, not only did they have the chance to become a low-level officer, they could even enter the political and legal institutions. This was completely unimaginable in the past. This was because these positions were usually stared at by the children of noble clans. Ordinary citizens couldn't even touch them, let alone intervene.
Of course, it wasn't that easy to rise to the top. Just passing the academy's examination alone would wipe out seventy to eighty percent of the applicants. But no matter what, this was still an opportunity for ordinary citizens to change their fate. As long as they were of the right age, everyone would go to the academy with the thought of giving it a try. The academy planned to officially open in the spring, and in this winter, the academy's gates were almost broken by the students who came to apply.
The impact of the Glory Light Academy was far-reaching. Not only were the citizens affected, even the nobles of the territory felt this turmoil. What the noble clans were most worried about was the impact and change that the students of the academy would bring to the power structure of the territory in a few years. It could be imagined that when a large number of commoners rushed into the circle of power that should have belonged to them, even if they were unable to reach the upper echelons of the power pyramid at the beginning, the impact on the lower echelons of the noble clans would be enormous, and even fatal.
One had to know that the reason why the noble children were able to sit in their current positions in the power structure was because of their own abilities and knowledge. Most of them came from the shadows of their families. When Edward's first speech at the academy ended, the City Lord's Mansion of Dawn Castle was almost completely surrounded by the nobles. But at that time, Edward only coldly said, "This matter is imperative. If you are afraid of being squeezed out, just tell your sons and grandsons to apply for the academy. Or could it be that you so-called nobles don't even dare to compete with commoners? "
After that, the lords who were subordinate to Allen sent their children of the right age to the academy to register for the examination. Even the youngest lord of Fenrir City, Oz, participated in the academy's examination and successfully became a new student of the academy. With these great nobles setting an example, it was equivalent to supporting Edward's decision. The other nobles couldn't say anything else and could only follow the general trend.
Very quickly, the news of Glory Light Academy's independence spread throughout the Southern Territory. Some people raised their hands in praise, but most of them smiled and did not think highly of this academy. It was all because, according to the way the academy ran its school, even if it was an Earl's territory, it would be very difficult to maintain its operation. Moreover, Allen was only a viscount.
This morning, the students who were cleaning the academy gate saw a carriage without any markings slowly approaching. The students looked at each other in dismay. They were all from poor families. Not to mention riding in a carriage, they rarely even saw each other in the past. After successfully entering the academy, he finally saw the extravagance of the noble children. However, this carriage was neither marked nor decorated. It seemed that it came from an ordinary wealthy family. But even so, it was not something that commoners like them could hope for.
Now, the academy was opening the door to poor students like them, waiving their tuition fees and giving them a monthly stipend. They were also provided with a large number of jobs in the academy. Most of these jobs were the foundation of the academy. It was cumbersome but not burdensome. Moreover, students could earn their own living, and they didn't need a single copper coin from their families during their studies. If they could save some money to subsidize their families, this would have been completely unimaginable in the past.
For this reason, the students of commoner background respected Edward and the viscount from the bottom of their hearts.
The carriage drove through the gate.
The coachman was a young man with a head of eye-catching silver hair. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, only in the narrow trousers commonly seen by ordinary warriors, and covered with simple light armor. He looked like he was both a coachman and a guard. The carriage stopped in an open space behind the academy's gate. The young coachman jumped out of the carriage and opened the door. A woman in a cloak got out of the carriage first.
The woman was very tall. Although the cloak covered her entire body, it was not difficult to imagine that there was a hot body under the cloak. However, when the woman got out of the carriage, she dragged a large sword. When the scabbard gently landed on the ground, the ground sank slightly. It was obvious that it was a heavy sword. The heavy sword was calmly carried on her back by the woman, so the men passing by looked at the woman with less passion than before.
A woman who could wield such a heavy weapon, even if she wasn't an expert, was definitely not someone ordinary people like them could afford to provoke.
Then a young girl got out of the carriage. Her long golden hair was tied into two ponytails. Her green eyes were clear, and her beautiful facial features and dignified temperament made people believe that she was a noble young lady. As a result, the combination of a female guard who was good at using a heavy sword and a young and handsome coachman seemed reasonable.
However, in the eyes of outsiders, the coachman didn't seem to have the consciousness of being a servant. He didn't serve the young and beautiful mistress. Instead, he pointed at the academy and laughed from time to time. It was also because the young lady had a good temper that she didn't reprimand him. Instead, she chuckled at the side. Only the female guard standing behind them behaved in a manner befitting of her status. But as a result, it made the young coachman's rudeness all the more obvious.
The passersby were sure that the golden-haired lady was a noble young lady who came to the academy to study, and the other two were naturally her followers. The academy did not object to noble children bringing followers into the academy, but there were strict restrictions. Moreover, the followers had to pay the same fees, whether they had the intention to study or not. In this regard, the academy was not flexible at all. With such a measure, while limiting the number of followers, it also gave the academy a small problem.
So it was not rare for the golden-haired lady to bring two followers.
As the passersby expected, the three people stopped for a moment, then began to follow the academy's main road to the teaching area.
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