Nine times out of ten, life failed to go as one wished. Rex had been in a poor mood lately, a faint irritation simmering inside him. Standing atop the Greymane High Wall in the wind, he gazed toward Pyrewood Village, his eyes slightly unfocused. His plans had met with considerable resistance lately. Even his proposal to establish academies had fallen through; his father in this life had rejected it outright on the grounds that it would cost too much.
Rex had originally intended to build several academies at once-for warriors, hunters, mages, and the like-so Gilneas would never have to worry about a shortage of talent in the future.
He had thought approval for the academies was all but guaranteed. Of course, that was only his own assumption. Establishing them would bring Gilneas every benefit and no harm. No, there was one drawback: the gold required was no small sum. That had become King Genn's reason for refusing. But the rejection itself was not what depressed Rex. The real cause was the Greymane Wall beneath his feet. Its construction had squandered an enormous amount of Gilneas's resources.
Rex had somewhat overestimated Gilneas's current circumstances.
During the time of Rex's maternal grandfather, Gilneas had expanded vigorously and amassed considerable wealth. The Greymane Wall had consumed all of it. Decades of savings had vanished in one stroke to build this supposedly everlasting wall.
The construction of the Greymane Wall reminded Rex of the Qin State during the Warring States period in his previous life. With Qin eyeing his kingdom hungrily, the King of Han, driven into a corner, had adopted a thoroughly clumsy strategy of supposedly "exhausting Qin." He had sent Zheng, a renowned hydraulic engineer, into Qin as a spy to persuade it to excavate a vast irrigation canal between the