This allocation of grace points would give his two division and brigade level units considerable combat strength.
Whether speaking of the military skills and quality of the soldiers, or in terms of their weaponry and equipment, this was the case.
Even that infantry division, which might look shabby, was only so in comparison to the Wind-Extinguishing Brigade. If you just look at them, each soldier is equipped with a complete G9 set, which includes alloy-steel bulletproof plates, the squad's machine guns, the platoon's mortars, the company's Ranger Rapid Reconnaissance Squad, the battalion's artillery battery...
They had everything that was needed.
Still benchmarking against the Empire's Main Star Realm Army, an ordinary third- or fourth-tier force, what's so-called a line-filling division, would only be at this level. On Rage Owl Star, it would be quite rare for any power to be able to field an infantry division with soldiers of such qualified calibre and properly equipped.
After these predetermined grace points were spent, Gu Hang still had 755 points in hand.
And these grace points had a new destination.
Because as his monthly fixed income surged past 300, a new interface appeared on the system panel.
[Architectural System].
Upon opening it, Gu Hang saw a very long dropdown menu, densely packed with rows of icons in black, followed by text descriptions that were simply marked with a question mark—these buildings.
Clearly, these were in an unlocked state.
At the very top were five unlocked ones, which were the Technical Academy, Comprehensive Academy, Loyal Heir Academy, Military Factory, and Civilian Factory respectively.
The first three were quite similar, to take the Technical Academy as an example.
[Technical Academy I: When you have built a school that imparts mechanical technology and put it into operation, you can exchange this option to grant it to the specified academy. It slightly increases student learning efficiency and weakly increases the likelihood of activating tech talent. Exchange value: 500 grace.]
The Comprehensive Academy had the same effect, but it just replaced the mechanical technology description with a comprehensive one, and the increase in learning efficiency was 'slight', yet the grace points spent shot up to 1000.
The Loyal Heir Academy, however, had a significantly different feature, with the main difference being that it didn't teach knowledge, but 'loyalty' instead. The main focus was on loyalty to the Empire, but Gu Hang could add a little something extra, forcibly binding loyalty to the Empire with personal loyalty to himself, something he had deliberately done in the past.
In addition, the Loyal Heir Academy had an extra functionality—it offered a new troop training option.
Beyond the original five levels of T1-T5, there would be a T3 variant provided: the training option for company political commissars. The required unit needed to study at the Loyal Heir Academy for a week to complete the training. The price was 10 grace points per person.
This price was ten times more expensive than ordinary T3 troops, but Gu Hang thought it was very valuable.
He didn't need to train a bunch of company political commissars to form an army for combat; that would be crazy. This was clearly a way for him to quickly train sufficiently loyal soldiers and send them into various basic-level units, serving as his firm means of controlling the military and ensuring discipline, morale, and combat effectiveness in battle.
They might not have excellent command abilities, and their combat capabilities might be at the T3 level just because of a more steadfast will, but their most important role was to inspire their comrades and resolutely hold their ground to the death.
He was now eager to get the Loyal Heir Academy built as soon as possible and then have over a hundred commissars of all levels go through a concentrated week of training before coming out.
Moreover, Gu Hang came up with another idea from this.
One difficulty in the rebuild plan he had previously thought about for the Phoenix Battle Group was how to find absolutely loyal youths to cultivate from a young age.
The Loyal Heir Academy seemed to be just the ticket.
Adopting orphans or children of clear origins from a young age and nurturing them, then spending some grace to turn them into political commissars, thoroughly re-educate them ideologically, and then advance them all the way to T1 level to become elites, before going through with genetic seed surgery and implantation...
Now, all that's missing is a channel to purchase, or even manufacture, power armor.
To do the former, one would have to find a manufacturing world with the capability to produce power armor. Generally, such worlds are closely associated with the Mechanical Cult Guild. Gu Hang doesn't have the connections in this area, nor does he have any means of keeping the purchase of power armor a secret.
As for the latter, it is unclear what level of technology the Star Realm warriors' power armor belongs to, and even less clear when time could be afforded to work it out.
But problems are always solved one by one, haven't we already found a solution to the staffing issue?
There must be a way when we come to the mountain.
As for the two remaining buildings, the civilian and military factories, the situation is similar.
[Civilian Factory I: When you have built a civilian factory and put it into operation, you can redeem this option, and the designated factory will receive a moderate increase in production efficiency. Redemption price: 100 Favor.]
The military factory is the same, with the same price, but the description changes to military-specific.
From seeing the different effects but similar descriptions of the Architectural System options, one can roughly understand the mechanism.
It's not that the system constructs a building out of thin air. The building, even the interior facilities, and the accompanied staff, all need to be managed by Gu Hang himself. The Architectural System simply provides some bonuses.
It's like a bonus card, which you apply to the appropriate factories or schools.
Currently, only these two types have been unlocked.
Moreover, among the options currently available in the Architectural System, all bear an 'I', which suggests that there might be level 2, level 3, or even higher levels in the future.
Beyond bonuses for the building itself, there might also be things similar to the Loyal Heir Academy, which could bring about changes to the system's own functionality.
The Loyal Heir Academy can provide him with a new type of troop; could other buildings do the same? For example, a level 1 Technical Academy only has a bonus effect, but as it levels up, could it eventually produce special troop types?
He remembers that within the Mechanical Cult Guild, there is a dedicated Protection Army. They are not the castrated version of the Imperial State Religion; they are a legitimate military force. Among them, the most famous is the Titan Legion. Those towering, Mecha-like war machines are incredibly fierce. A single one could sway the outcome of a battle.
In the future, even if Gu Hang had the capability to manufacture such top-tier war machines, he would still need people who could pilot them, right?
Even if it's just for now, Gu Hang is quite interested in the entire Architectural System, especially the Loyal Heir Academy.
Unfortunately, with a redemption price of a thousand points, it's a bit too expensive for him to afford at the moment.
As for both the civilian and military factories, he could afford to exchange for them, but there's no need to do so now.
Industrial workers, technology absorption... The means to boost his own production capacity have yet to be fully sorted out, and there's still a significant room for improvement in overall production efficiency. Therefore, it's not pressing to use the system's functions to spend favor points to increase production efficiency, which would be getting the priorities wrong.
Under these circumstances, he really did consider keeping the 755 favor points he had on hand for now.
Don't spend them. Wait for the next allotment of favor points to arrive, save up a thousand, and then go for the Loyal Heir Academy first to give it a try.
Not only can the political commissars of the army units be directly trained through the system, but the ideological education function of the Loyal Heir Academy itself is also very important.
In the future, all civil servants, administrative officials, military officers, and even as the scale expands, factory managers, business owners, merchants, and even the most ordinary industrial workers, could take some time each year to study there.
In terms of policy, it would also be possible to define the experience and duration of study at the Loyal Heir Academy as bonus points or even a requirement for promotion through the 45 ranks.
Loyalty is the primary concern.