Chapter 24: Loyalty Admits No Compromise
(Page 1 of 3)
[May, 125th Year of the Transcendental Era. Under your care and the baptisms of various life-saving stratagems, the majority of your peripheral members have pledged their loyalty to you.]
[Seeing that the time is ripe, you begin to develop according to your own plan.]
[During the day, you lead the team to the Misty Wetlands for all-out combat.]
[At night, you gather at the Red Heart Squad's base. Fueled by fine wine and delicacies, you begin to talk freely, lamenting your own luck while venting about the injustices of the world.]
[When the atmosphere reaches a fever pitch, you step up to deliver your speech!]
[“When fragments of God-given Crystals replace primary God-given Crystals as standard, marked-price products in malls; when countless lending institutions are recognized by federal law, while we, the grassroots professionals, are harvested like cattle and horses—it signifies that this corrupt system is destined to collapse!”]
[“Look at them!”]
[“Those financial hyenas seated high above in the clouds, using compound interest from loans as chains to tighten the throat of every professional!”]
[“Those life potions casually brewed by alchemists, the formulas for which have long since been made public!”]
[“Given today’s social development and technological level, such life potions, which require no complex technique, should have long ago entered every household to become common medicine for everyone to treat their own ailments.”]
[“Yet, the capitalists would rather pour out expired life potions than share them!”]
[“A single bottle of the most basic life potion costs five hundred thousand?!”]
[“Ordinary people work until they are exhausted, yet cannot even earn ten thousand a month!”]
[“When the five years of savings of an average young adult cannot even buy a single bottle of the most basic and common life potion, this is not our fault—it is the fault of society, and the despair of the monetary system itself!”]
[“The capitalists have forged a transcendental financial system. They use loans as their sickles and ‘favor-debts’ as dog collars to wantonly harvest all the wealth we earn!”]
[“With a mere wave of their hands, the pillars of millions of families collapse!”]
[“And the federal law stands steadfastly on the side of the capitalists, suppressing the roars of the masses and acting as a platform for the consortia!”]
[“If federal law stands against us, offering us no protection but only harm, then we shall abandon federal law!”]
[“To hell with federal law!”]
[“To hell with this shitty fate!”]
[“Are we destined, just because we were born into poverty, to be led by the nose by the wealthy and powerful using dog collars?”]
[“If we were cowardly, if we were faint-hearted, we might accept such a fate!”]
[“But what about our children?”]
[“Are we willing to see our unborn children shackled in the womb, groomed from the moment of birth to be nothing more than loyal dogs for the consortia?”]
(Page 2 of 3)
[“No!”]
[“We cannot accept it!”]
[“We must resist!”]
[“Only if our generation rises in resistance can our next generation... have a better future!”]
[“The world is sick!”]
[“It needs our cure!”]
[“Everything we do is to shatter this dark world and forge a brilliant, glorious future!”]
[“We are the idealists building a world of Great Harmony, the leaders of a bright future!”]
[“Even if we have nothing now, the heat radiating from our burning hearts is enough to make all the monsters and demons of this world tremble in fear!”]
[The salute of the Red Heart Squad subtly influences the inner hearts of the members, making them identify themselves as part of a collective from the inside out.]
[Your immense strength and your gentle smile allow the members to see hope for the future.]
[You treat them better than their own parents and relatives!]
[Your teachings resonate more deeply than any teacher they have ever encountered.]
[You are the shaper of their ideals!]
[You are the caster of their iron-willed ideology!]
[Thus, in their increasingly fanatical pursuit of you, they involuntarily change how they address you.]
[They feel the title of ‘Captain’ is unworthy of your vision, let alone the great achievements you will accomplish in the future.]
[By comparison, they would much rather call you ‘Teacher’.]
[However, when there are many people, there will always be those with different ideas.]
[Among these twenty peripheral members, two were slow to pledge their loyalty to you.]
[Seeing that their minds could not be changed, you did not force the issue.]
[Using the item: ‘Memory Washing Crystal,’ you cleared their memories of your speech before dismissing them from the Red Heart Squad.]
[Fortunately, you had made prior arrangements; since they had not pledged their loyalty, your investment in them was negligible.]
[When these two received your notice, they were in disbelief.]
(Page 3 of 3)
[They had committed no errors and had carried out your instructions without hesitation; why were they being fired?]
[They did not want to leave the warm, big family of the Red Heart Squad!]
[After all, having spent time in the Instance Hall, they were well aware of the harsh requirements for recruitment by other squads.]
[Those squads wouldn't dream of paying out of their own pockets to train newcomers; you’d be lucky if they didn't swindle the gear right off your back.]
[Not to mention that as a newcomer, the first few months in those squads would inevitably be spent doing grunt work with no rights to any loot.]
[To encounter a team like the Red Heart Squad, which paid to train them, taught them combat skills, and even shared loot from every instance, was something they never would have dared to imagine.]
[Regarding this, you did not offer much explanation.]
[You had already given them their chance. In this team you built, you could tolerate anything, but you could not tolerate a flaw in loyalty.]
[Loyalty that is not absolute is absolutely not loyalty!]
[This matter concerned the future development of all your plans, so you could not tolerate it.]
[June, 125th Year of the Transcendental Era. On the eve of the Great Exam, you used the assets left behind by the Red Raven and Dragon Tooth squads to purchase ten intermediate God-given Crystals in the wilderness at a high price.]
[You leveled up to Level 12.]
[With your help, Lin Xue and the other three reached Level 8, and the 18 peripheral members reached Level 6.]
[At the same time, you sold your surplus inscriptions and paid off all the ‘favor-debts’ of everyone in the team.]
[For a moment, the way everyone looked at you became even more fanatical.]
[Although, under your guidance, they had already internalized the idea of not defaulting on loans.]
[But if they could avoid debt, who would want to carry a mountain of it on their backs?]
[By doing this, you intended to improve the creditworthiness of the Red Heart Squad members, preparing to play a bigger game later.]
[If nothing goes wrong, after the Great Exam, every member of the Red Heart Squad will become a university student.]
[At that time, the Red Heart Squad—a high-end configuration of all university students with zero debt—would be seen by every financial and lending institution as the most pristine, high-quality candidates.]
[When that time comes, applying for loans in the name of the Red Heart Squad will surely result in an astronomical sum.]