"Immigrate? What for? We still need immigrants?" Joander found it unbelievable.
"Don't we?" Long Yue asked. "Without a population in the tens of millions, how could we hold the Spirit Ice Continent? Besides, the Imperial Capital is a modern city. Keeping it running requires an even larger young workforce."
"Wouldn't the natives do?" Joander laughed at himself as soon as he asked the question.
Of course the natives wouldn't do. The Divine Realm Empire People had never treated them as human beings.
Although the official term was supposedly "indigenous inhabitants," they were actually regarded as... expendable materials without civil rights.
Since when did the fuel think it was a passenger? Our Divine Realm Empire is an imperialist nation, plain and simple.
Long Yue slipped an arm around Dugu Yan. "Forget it. His Majesty the Emperor can worry about all that."
The Soul Guidance Train departed Xinluo City, passing through coastal plains, mountains, and forests.
Long Yue saw many things: freight transport and irrigation along the rivers, fields and roads across the plains, timber and mining in the mountains...
The Divine Realm Empire had erupted with an unprecedented enthusiasm for construction, almost on par with the "Migration Era."
This was the age of a nation's founding.
There was none of the petty scheming that came after everything hardened into place. Everyone could rise to a new social class amid the magnificent, surging tides of this era.
On the journey from Xinluo City to the Divine Realm Imperial Capital, the fields grew more orderly, the forests thinner, and the population denser. The flourishing air of civilization washed over them.
The Imperial Capital was almost within reach!
The red sun slid down along the black mountains. The light abruptly dimmed, turning the world outside black, and scattered lights came on across the open