Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"So? What are you guys going to do once we are done with those pesky nobles?"

The camp they were wasting their time on looked way different from how it should look when such a huge army would occupy the area. But to the surprise of anyone who would be daring enough to track the progress of the mercenaries, this situation would be fairly simple to explain.

'After suffering a huge loss at the Kinzarian hands, the despicable mercenaries that only came to wreak havoc in this once beautiful country now retreated to the safety of the rotten land that groomed them.'

Stretching his hands towards the fireplace, Fen randomly guessed how the chronicle excerpts about their exploits would look like if the Kinzarian monarch were to win. That is if someone was capable of understanding the true meaning of all Fen's actions so far.

"I think we should just concentrate on solidifying our lands. Once we force the Kinar republic to back us… I plan to open an academy for the Phoenixian blood possessors alone."

Speaking up, Fen cast away all the thoughts about the potential loss outside of his head. Right now, instead of thinking about the bad scenarios, it was better to focus on the things that they were ultimately fighting for.

"Well, what about the time when we will wait for the Kinzar forces to retreat? Are you going to waste away at taverns? Maybe look for some job elsewhere?"

With most of the mercenaries leaving the army to have a proper break, only the absolute core of the elites remained in their positions. Right now, one had to just look around to locate several more campfires spread around the open plain of the northern Kinar. 

And it was in this plain that barely a tenth of the original mercenary force was taking their time to rest. Given the mad dash to the bother aimed at completely eradicating their presence in what was supposed to be their new kingdom, there was no way even for the elites of the mercenaries to get into action right away.

"I don't think that spending my time in the taverns will be a bad idea. Given how we are about to poke Kinar's side with quite the strength behind it, I don't think it would be smart to stay in one place."

Taking a sip of the wine from his personal reserve, Victor looked up to the stars. With the slightly melancholic atmosphere that his words introduced, the two of his friends remained silent for a moment.

"What about you, Fen? Thinking about taking it easy as well?"

In the end, Orsha couldn't handle the depressingly silent atmosphere around their campfire. With the smell of meat fried directly over the fire coming from the other areas, she was clearly angry at her friends for deciding not to bother with cooking and as such was unwilling to let them just rest easy. After all, the easiest way to ignore one's appetite or other urges was to busy one's brain with something else.

"I will go back to Gauna. Someone will have to take the responsibility for what we are about to do. And if they won't punish me hard for that, I might attempt to get more people to come to our kingdom once we will restore it in its new borders."

The idea of creating his own academy was deeply lodged in Fen's head. Starting with how he wasn't fully satisfied with how things worked at Gauna academy, Fen didn't ignore another obvious problem that would appear if they didn't manage to set their own arcanist grooming area. 

Unless they could pull and train the arcanists on their own, their small kingdom would never have the chance of becoming something else but a satellite to its stronger neighbours. Only by creating their own source of local arcanists could Fen and his friends think about any long-term plans regarding their land. 

What's more, given the state of decay of Kinzarian kingdom, there was no better place to set up a new academy than Gazar - the city nominally under the control of the former governor of the province they took over. With how it was located on the soon-to-be most important crossroad in the entire middle of the continent, there would be no problems for anyone interested in reaching it. 

With the insane opportunities to train and look for a job in the Kinzar that would soon enter the state of a fully-fledged civil war, anyone who could provide easy access to those war-torn lands along with relatively nearby forward base would hold the reins of the most important academy in the entire world. 

And that was the reason behind Fen's grand plan. But while it was relatively simpler than any of the strategies that he came up with before, it by no means implied that it would be something easy to achieve.

"You really are stuck on this idea… But you do realise that it might take several months if not years before we will be able to return to our kingdom, not to speak about creating anything on the scale of a fully-fledged academy. I hope you understand that just setting up some wooden shelters won't be enough to attract people to your new grooming place?"

As strange as it could sound, Orsha had actually the most to say regarding the topic of schools. With how both Fen and Victor grew up from the Gauna academy, they lacked the insights of how the smaller schools operated through the Kinarian lands. 

"I would never bother with investing in some fancy buildings. This isn't the type of academy that I want to set up."

Shaking his head in negation, Fen took a quick sip of the thin beer from his cup. His lips twisted in an unpleasant grimace as the sour drink flowed down his throat. 

"You see, while it might be just my stupid guess, I think most of the academies that do exist are only a far, faulty cry of what they were supposed to be in the first place. This correlation might be something that I only imagined, but when studying the records of the old kingdom, I found an institution that was pretty similar to the academies we know off but with some great differences. Do you know what I have in mind?"

Studying the records of the old kingdom was the preferred leisure activity of choice for Fen. While his strategies regarding the war were mostly innovative and steemed from all the experiences he had in his life so far, when it came to the developing model for the lands they would soon return to govern, there was no better ancestral land to learn from than the old mercenary kingdom.

Obviously, their situation was different. That was something that every sane person would admit and acknowledge. Compared to the present, the old mercenaries didn't really have to bother with any established kingdoms beyond the level of tribal confederation. When compared to the modern governing system of the mercenaries, those underdeveloped societies stood no chance against the devious strategy of the old kingdom.

But was the situation that much different from what Fen and his friends were facing right now? While for now, this only extended to the lands of Kinzar, as soon as its stability would deteriorate to a sufficient level, it would be that different from what it used to be before the appearance of the Phoienixian lords!

"Do you mean the office? It's not like we would be the first ones to implement it…"

Shaking his head to cast away the dreams induced by the stars that he was looking at for a while already, Victor lowered his gaze at his younger friend. 

"Heck no. If you look more closely, it wasn't the source of the old kingdom's greatness. More like a necessary evil its rules had to implement to keep their lands connected."

Shaking his head in denial, Fen had to stop himself from spitting at the notion of the infamous office. What started as a simple organisation aimed at passing the orders across the vast stretches of land controlled by the old kingdom, quickly turned into an oppressive force that enforced its own will on nearly all the country's borderlands. 

And it was too obvious to even mention that their will often had nothing to do with the orders from the central government. Sadly, with no means to control the office as it quickly grew big enough to monopolise the general communication system, the golden age of constant growth and development was stalled by the need to constantly pour the water on the fires induced by the audacity of the soldiers and officials under the office.

"No. Office is the worst thing that we could even agree to create. Even a small chance of some group obtaining a complete monopoly over the passage of information is the last thing that I would want in our country."

This time, Fen didn't bother to hide his disgust, openly spatting a mouthful of saliva into the fire before him.

"What I want to create is not really an academy, but a pioneering gild."

As long as someone was capable of reading between the lines, then this was the true reason behind the explosion of the Old Kingdom and its metamorphosis from a mercenary oriented organisation to a proper and rich state.

"Wait, are you serious? Don't you realise that it will instantly make us the main enemy of all the neighbours that we will ever get?"

Hearing Fen's words, Orsha opened her eyes wide, barely capable of speaking her words without taking a pause to gulp down her saliva.

"Not if we call it academy instead."

Smiling in response to the expected reaction of the girl, Fen stretched his legs towards the fire before resting his hands on the ground behind him and leaning back.

"Phoenixian academy for the young souls. While we do not have the luxury that other offers for the people they like, we are unilaterally offering you the means to create a fortune of your own. With our help, the limit of what you can achieve is set not by some external means, but by the boundaries of your own imagination… How does that sound for a promotional motto?"