Grace

In truth, this was only the first month since Gu Hang had transmigrated.

He now found himself in a cosmic era, where a vast human empire ruled over boundless star sectors. The God-Emperor, who had ascended ten thousand years ago, had established the Spirit Web, bringing psionic power to humanity. The current Empire was ruled by the High Council, which sat upon the human homeworld of Terra.

Approximately 120 years ago, the planet where Gu Hang currently resided had been an ordinary world. A war had completely destroyed the surface environment of the entire world, and Nuxiao Planet had become a wasteland planet ever since.

Twenty-nine years ago, the Imperial government assessed that Nuxiao Planet still had hope for salvation, and for the first time since the war, they dispatched a Planetary Governor to be responsible for reconstruction efforts.

Within the Imperial system, Planetary Governors could rule their planets in any way they saw fit, provided that the Governor remained loyal to the Empire.

What was loyalty? Paying taxes was loyalty. If you didn't pay, or didn't pay enough, you were executed and replaced by someone loyal.

To this day, over the course of 29 years, Nuxiao Planet had gone through five Governors.

In fact, the three predecessors before Gu Hang had each lasted only two years. The Imperial tax for Nuxiao Planet was collected every two years, and these three unlucky souls hadn't survived long enough to see their first tax collection after taking office.

And now, Gu Hang had arrived.

A month ago, when he had just transmigrated and finished merging with the memories of this body, he was already on the starship heading toward Nuxiao Planet. He had to ensure that in two years, Nuxiao Planet could pay one-quarter of the standard tax; the remaining three-quarters would be covered by the Sector Government. This was the favorable condition that the Gu Family, the political dynasty he belonged to, had secured for him.

Four years later, for the second tax collection, he would be required to pay the full amount.

A cruiser belonging to the Sector Navy was anchored in planetary orbit to provide him with support. As for the personnel he brought to the surface, there were only 3,000 servants, 300 servitor soldiers who had undergone lobotomies and mechanical augmentation, and 30 Marine Corps soldiers led by Captain Yan Fangxu.

The primary political power on Nuxiao Planet was called "The Alliance," established 29 years ago for the first generation of Governors.

Logically, after arriving on Nuxiao Planet, Gu Hang should have landed in the Alliance capital city of Revival City, assumed the identity of the Alliance leader, and then begun to exercise the power of a Planetary Governor based on the Alliance government.

But he did not do that. He took his people, established a camp not far from Revival City, and buried himself in doing things that no one could understand.

For instance, Yan Fangxu did not understand why Gu Hang wanted to train those 300 servitor soldiers.

These servants, who no longer possessed self-awareness, couldn't even operate armored vehicles or artillery properly. They could only be equipped with the lowest-grade gear and used as cannon fodder; they had no training value whatsoever.

However, he would soon be ashamed of his own shallow insight.

He watched with his own eyes as those servitors actually underwent a earth-shaking transformation in a very short period of time!

He saw that under Gu Hang's command, these servitor soldiers quickly completed a series of pre-departure tasks such as forming up and checking equipment; during the previous training, these servitors had also displayed technical and tactical levels far exceeding their past. Marksmanship, physical fitness, tactics... all of these had seen massive improvements. Coupled with their inherent lack of fear of sacrifice and complete adherence to discipline, they had become high-level soldiers.

This was already the level of regular troops in the Astra Militarum.

Although he still didn't think these servitor soldiers were a match for the elite Marines under his own command, that only applied to one-on-one combat. There were only 30 elite Marines, while there were 300 of these servitors.

More importantly, Yan Fangxu completely failed to understand how Gu Hang had managed it.

This was entirely beyond his comprehension: didn't the capability of servitor soldiers depend solely on their level at the time of augmentation, making subsequent training meaningless?

While he was lost in thought, he heard Gu Hang's resonant voice: "Captain Yan, have your squad pick up the pace. How is it that the elite Marines are slower at pre-battle preparations than the servitors?"

Coming back to his senses, Yan Fangxu felt a bit ashamed and saluted Gu Hang, then turned around and roared at his subordinates, who were also stunned by the changes in the servitor battalion: "What are you bastards dawdling for? Move it! The five slowest ones start sleeping with the servitors tomorrow!"

Watching Yan Fangxu begin to kick his team members in the rear one by one, Gu Hang chuckled, withdrew his gaze, and refocused on the panel information appearing before him.

The illusory, floating text in his eyes formed several options:

[Current Grace Point: 2]

[Total Territory Income: 5/Terra Month]

[Hero]

[Troop Token]

There were four items in total. Gu Hang clicked on the second item, [Total Territory Income]. Here, he saw more detailed information: [Governor's Temporary Camp: 5/Terra Month].

There was only this one entry.

According to Gu Hang's understanding, this monthly total income depended on the sum of income provided by what the system recognized as his territory. And his current territory was only this temporary camp.

Upon seeing the system and learning he had become a Governor, he had been full of excitement, wanting to know how much Grace he could receive each month once he had a planet as his territory.

However, after landing in Revival City from the starship, this number had remained a big fat zero.

He had guessed at the time that a nominal territory could not be recognized by the system; he had to have actual control over it.

As an air-dropped Governor, how easy could it be to control a loose wasteland Alliance regime and integrate the entire Alliance? If it were easy, the previous Governors wouldn't have met their ends.

Thus, he decisively abandoned the path taken by the previous Governors, turned around to request servant slaves and some armed forces from the starship, left Revival City, found an empty plot of land, and planned to start from scratch, utilizing the golden finger that had accompanied his transmigration.

When he brought his people and established a temporary camp that was entirely under his control, this number finally changed from 0 to 4.

Gu Hang guessed the initial 4 came from the population; the later increase of one point was likely because the camp had been built larger and more complete.

As for the last two items in the system, [Hero] displayed his own panel, while [Troop Token] contained two entries.

[Marine Corps 1st Squad, Comprehensive T4 Level, Upgradable]

[Quantity: 30 men], [Equipment: T4], [Training: T4], [Experience: T4]

This was the status of the thirty men led by Yan Fangxu.

And the other one was the 1st Servitor Light Infantry Battalion that had just finished upgrading.

[1st Servitor Light Infantry Battalion, Comprehensive T5 Level, Non-upgradable]

[Quantity: 300 men], [Equipment: T5], [Training: T5], [Experience: -]

The T-level should correspond to the overall strength of the unit; the smaller the number, the more elite. The Servitor Light Infantry Battalion had initially been an unranked unit. Their equipment was complete—rifles, grenades, squad machine guns; they had mortars and grenade launchers at the platoon level, but they lacked heavy weapons and could only be counted as a light infantry battalion.

He spent 3 points of Grace to upgrade this light infantry battalion. Over the course of four days, this mindless force that only acted on command—previously considered cannon fodder with negligible training value—underwent a earth-shattering transformation.

Reaching T5-level training was roughly equivalent to the strength of the regular Imperial army. As for the T4 level where the Marines were stationed, they could be considered conventional elite troops.

It was precisely because these Servitor infantry, who were originally just cannon fodder, had completed their upgrade that Gu Hang felt confident enough to forcefully intervene after hearing about the situation with the Waste Mine Society.

This was an opportunity, and he now possessed the ability to seize it.

He hoped to use this incident to bring the Waste Mine Society under his actual rule, rather than just being a nominal governor. In the future, he would expand his sphere of direct control step by step, until it encompassed the entire planet.