The founding of the Knight Academy (III)

The Imperial Capital.

Whatever happened in the world, the Imperial Capital was always bustling. Some places in the world might go hungry forever, but the Imperial Capital could squander its wealth forever.

The hardest, most exhausting life here probably belonged to those at the Imperial Knight Academy.

In the Imperial Capital, where even beggars could live reasonably well, the knight cadets were the ones who sweated every day. Whether for their fathers' glory or their own futures, they had to prove themselves here.

Especially now...

Rumors from Neichiu Province gradually reached them.

The noble lords had naturally learned the news several years earlier: the two extraordinary ingredients used to brew Life Potions in Neichiu Province were growing scarce. The quantities of Flower of Life and Blood Rage Fruit were no longer what they had once been.

But knights below the nobility, along with the distant collateral branches of noble families, would learn of it much later.

In fact, the news had only recently reached them not because enough time had passed, but because of the political struggle between the Empire's great nobles and His Majesty Emperor Columbus IV. Whether His Majesty the Emperor or the noble lords had leaked it, the students of the Imperial Knight Academy had finally learned the news.

Rumors were frightening, and the Knight Academy suffered the greatest impact. The students had already learned from their instructors that this year's allocation of Knight Life Potions had fallen by fifteen percent.

It was a terrifying figure. It meant that at least several hundred people would lose their chance to become knights.

The once harmonious Imperial Knight Academy had become tense and cold, with hostile competition filling every interaction.

As for why rumors about Life Potions in Neichiu Province could affect the Empire's cradle of knights like this,