[Knowledge is power, Power is control, Control is Command, and to Command means to be Wise, and to be Wise means to have Knowledge!A king is not king by the hardness of his fist, but rather by the strength of his heart and the wisdom of his mind, all things powerful are born from the Discovery and seeking of knowledge; Knowledge is power!]
ANONE
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THREE DAYS LATER
Running a tower was a lot more complicated than Alex thought, and the fact that he was now the master of said tower, it meant that it was up to him to take care of everything that had to do with it. The tower dorms of the academy were a unique existence, there were more normal like dorms within the academy built for normal students who were not part of an organization or influential enough to be offered a chance to stay in one, however the towers themselves were responsible for the entire economy of the academy.
Each tower had a unique trade or set of services that could be offered to other towers in exchange for money. It was that same money that was used to purchase services or resources from other towers, or the school itself to help with the training of the students living within the tower. So it was basically like a trade between nations, however this tower was ranked amongst the lowest, the only thing they had to offer were herbs and plant materials for Alchemy, and even then due to the lack of knowledge of everyone else in the tower, the growth rate of the herbs were slow and their quality was terrible.
A tower master can make a tower if he or she has total control over all of it"s floors, but even when Miranda was in charge, she didn"t excel too well when it came to management and as such the tower and the students in it had a severe lack of resources and would instead choose to go out on missions for the academy of other towers in order to raise money for or gain the resources needed for their training, this had to change.
Anya and Xiao Mei had already started taking lessons, but Alex and Louis have been left with no other choice but to find a way to improve the quality of a tower, not to mention they also had to submit their registration form and take a test to be recognized as an official organization. But Alex and Louis weren"t the only one going at this, Alex"s new a.s.sistant/maid had to also be there to help.
"I"ve made a tally of the amount of resources we have in the tower, I"m afraid to say that it"s not really much, and I don"t know how we would be able to increase it anytime soon." Miranda said as she walked into the office on the seventh floor, a place that used to be hers, but now belongs to Alex.
Alex took the tablet she was holding and began scrolling through the list she had just given him, granted it would be almost impossible for someone of her Caliber to bend her back to someone else, she had agreed that she would do whatever Alex asked should she lose, a scenario she has successfully avoided ever since she gained admission into the academy 15 years ago. Miranda wasn"t talented, in fact she could actually be considered quite average when it comes to cultivation talent, however she was a hard worker, and martial arts fanatic. Her ability to rapidly master a number extremely difficult and hard to learn techniques had earned her the nickname of The Librarian.
Regal as she was, she was no different than Anya who thought with her fist instead of her head, now she was someone else"s servant for the entire duration of his stay in the academy.
Tuition in the academy has always been free, until after six years regardless of your age, it is expected that you graduate. To continue staying in the academy you would be required to pay a certain amount of fees every year, and honestly there was nothing cheap about it. So far Miranda has been able to sc.r.a.pe by, relying on her insane beauty, hardly efficient followers, and the fondness some of the teachers and students have for her, or rather the l.u.s.t they had for her body.
But lately all of these has never been enough, lately she has been a.s.saulted with marriage proposals, as all of her admirers have gotten tired of just admiring and not being able to posses. But the thing is, Miranda didn"t exactly like boys, or at least she didn"t think she did until Louis ran rough shod over her subordinates. Not to mention he was really, really handsome. But that aside, servitude to Alex, who for all intents and purposes was a rich third generation young Master of the Wudang clan, would enable her to continue her studies in the academy, and if possible increase the speed of her cultivation with much better resources.
"This is terrible, first thing first the tower itself is in a state of disarray, the Inscription arrays, and rune wards protecting it and responsible for most of it"s functions have not been updated, this is just a simple building that could be brought down by anybody. We"re lucky it"s built with very st.u.r.dy materials, of the fight from three days again would have brought the entire thing down.
It has three sub-bas.e.m.e.nts, but two have collapsed, and the third which is supposed to be an Alchemical farm has been turned into a stoner lodge, with only a small part allocated for the card taking and growth of alchemical ingredients. That"s just neglect and irresponsibility of the highest order, they"re supposed to be focusing on their cultivation but you let them do drugs! Truly leadership doesn"t suit you."
Alex wasn"t trying to be harsh, but with the way Miranda was clenching her fist, it wouldn"t be too far fetched to say she was considering murdering the guy. But she was also rational enough to know that he was right, she had fought to become tower master because she didn"t want to be at the mercy and control of someone else, not because she felt the need to lead, in fact she felt that baby sitting a bunch of grown children was just too much work. While she would never admit it, a part of her was all so happy that Alex was the one now in charge, at least he"ll see hard it is to lead a tower.
"The towers main source of income is the growth of the Indian Nightshade, poisonous to normal people, but one of the few valuable multi-discipline flowers, on it"s own capable of causing a vibration of energy, causing a stimulation that refined said energy in the body of a pract.i.tioner. The higher the grade of the Indian Nightshade, the better the efficacy. And the Indians Nightshade grown here for all intents and purposes suck! It"s easy to grow but hard to properly cultivate, and yet you let a bunch of stoners smoke and do drugs right where it grows.....f.u.c.k! This is going to be harder than I thought!"
To Miranda it was quite the comical sight watching Alex lament about having too much work or about her shortcomings. He was taller now, but everyone knew he was still just fifteen, and Miranda who was already way past her thirties thought it was cute that Alex was trying so hard to be a grown up. But nevertheless she recognized intellect when she looked at him, he was not just strong, he was also very smart.
And the thing is she wasn"t wrong about that, Alex didn"t know the first thing about management, but he used to help his father paint houses and hear him talk about the way thing were ran back at the village. And then Scholar Fan had crammed an inordinate amount of knowledge into Alex"s head about military and economical management, along with a bunch of history lessons and books, most of them histories of alternate Dimensions or worlds in a higher realm that fell due to a lot of shortcomings of their leaders. Alex never read those books until it became obvious he needed them yesterday, so he"s not had a wink of sleep in 48 hours, learning how to properly run things.
"The Indian Nightshade aside, the only other source of income is by being mercenaries, carrying out missions for the academy and then for other towers.
The problem is this tower had a very terrible track record, and all of the people under you are just incredibly lazy! And finally the only amount of money left is 300 gold, that"s not enough to even get substantial resources for me, and I"m the one with the lowest cultivation here...…however it should be enough to get us some proper farming supplies to get that first floor bas.e.m.e.nt farm back in order.
We"ll oversee the restoration of the farm first, as far as resources are concerned of learning, me, you and Louis can put that on hold for now. After the farm is restored we will take a few missions to raise enough money to last us a while, I"ll personally take charge of the farm, and focus my studies on arrays and wards for now, apart from defending the tower, they would help with the growth of the Alchemical plants and make life a bit easier and more comfortable for everyone. If there"s any other thing to do, we"ll jump that bridge when we get there. Now is there anything else? Louis?"
Louis who had been silently looking out the window in the office by Alex"s right turned, his gaze brushed over Miranda, lingering for a second before coming to rest on Alex.
"There"s a few reports to be given, but we need to move now. The other organizations would begin recruiting the early admission students, and I remember you wanted to draw those students from the Beggar"s Sect into our organization, and probably look for a few other Talents. That event begins in ten minutes and we"ll be Kate if we don"t leave now." Alex groaned as he rubbed his hand on his forehead, before scrunching his eyebrows and downing the cup of cold coffee sitting on his desk. Then he slapped his cheeks a few times to wake himself up before turning to Louis and saying.
"Let"s go!"