Mixed Blessing System

After a few moments, Lothur arrived at the office of the Academy Morning Star principal.

Appearing suddenly in that place, Lothur naturally caught the attention of Luis, who was finishing reading some documents.

“Lothur!” Luis exclaimed as he got up from his armchair and looked at the young Ritter.

Lothur had his back to him, looking out the window of this office while looking at the obelisk in the middle of the academy.

“My name is first in the rank, eh? It looks like I kept my promise to Elke.” He smiled as he muttered that.

Luis heard that comment and said. “After the Secret Realm ended, we removed the names of most of the students in Sector 6 from the student rankings, which caused your name to rise to the 1st position.

We didn’t know if you would return one day, so we haven’t taken your name off there yet.”

Lothur closed his eyes and said. “Now you can do that. It is best to avoid any association of you with me.”

“I see… It makes sense.” Luis commented. “I’ll do it before dawn. Don’t worry about that. 𝘣𝘦𝑑𝑛𝘰𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘰𝘳𝑔

But Lothur, I know you are very strong now, but you still have many things to learn here. You stopped your studies so soon before graduating. If you want, you can take all the material you need and finish your formation.

I’m sure you could finish this at your current level in a day or two.”

Lothur heard that and looked at Luis before sitting in one of the chairs there. “Thanks for the offer, but that won’t be necessary.”

After absorbing what the ancestors of the Frost family had left for the future patriarchs of the family, Lothur had not only learned a little more about the past and the purpose of Viktoria’s ancestors. He had gained a great deal of knowledge about this world, about cultivation, and had even learned new languages.

As such, he didn’t need to learn from this institution anymore.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here just to get my name off your student ranking.”

“Oh? What’s this about?”

Lothur looked seriously into Luis’ eyes and asked. “I must assume that your boss is the emperor, my grandfather, right?”

“So you found out about it…” Luis sighed before answering truthfully. “Yes, that would be the case.

But it is not that simple. As much as the academies around the empire have their leaders appointed by the emperor, they are not part of his army or anything like that.

The resources of each academy are theirs for their principals to decide where to put them. So don’t worry, the Ritter Motor Company coins didn’t increase the imperial family’s income.” He said, considering that was the problem.

Lothur smiled and said. “That is not what I am most concerned about. What I want is for your allegiance to shift from the emperor to me.

The old emperor has tried to act against me in the past, but what worries me most is his heirs. One of them may become the empire’s leader soon, and I don’t like that someone with such a significant position in my company is a subordinate of theirs.”

“So that’s it…” Luis sighed. “I don’t know what to do about that, Lothur. It wouldn’t do for me to swear loyalty to you. When the emperor or a new emperor wants, he can remove me from my position and put someone else in.”

Lothur already imagined this and put some papers in front of Luis. “I know that. Then I want you to sign this here.”

Luis looked at the Blood Contract similar to the one he had signed with Lothur, marking that Morning Star Academy owned 10% of Ritter Motor Company.

But this contract had some differences. In it, the academy gave up the right to vote in any company matters and was only entitled to receive parts of the profits.

Lothur didn’t really care where his coins went. What really bothered him was having his enemies have decision-making rights within his company.

But there was a clause in there that said that if Luis was removed from his position, the academy should sell half of its position to the Ritter family for the cheapest cost of shares in that company.

‘That will make it impossible for the emperor or his replacement to remove me from my position…’ Luis read that, seeing that Lothur wanted to avoid his enemies within the Ritter Motor Company.

But as someone who couldn’t refuse, he immediately agreed and signed the Blood Contract, annulling the previous one and enforcing these new rules.

Lothur smiled after resolving this. “Very well, that was all, principal.

Take good care of the academy in the future. It would be good if this place develops to become a supplier of talent for our company.

It will be good for Peters City, the province, and the empire.”

“I will do my best,” Luis said just before Lothur disappeared from his office.

…

After Lothur and Luis’ previous meeting, four days passed in the blink of an eye.

In those days, Lothur warned his allies about the battle with the previous Saints and explained the danger the empire would be in very soon.

Everyone should prepare for tense times and use their resources wisely.

However, with envoys from the local powers sending positive messages regarding their actions in other provinces, not only negative news was reaching these people.

Lothur had already announced that within a week, he would hold a new auction of shares of the Ritter Motor Company, opening up the opportunity for various powers from within and outside the empire to participate.

News of his cars was already reaching states neighboring Leopoldine, so even foreign powers who wanted to participate in this bid would have a chance to become his allies.

Several letters were already being sent to Leopoldine’s strongest families and to foreign merchants with good contacts.

In them, the management of the Ritter Motor Company announced that they would sell 20% of the company at the auction a week ahead.

With the academy’s voting rights lost, Lothur had increased the fraction he would sell.

Anyway, all his allies were excited about this, as this action would greatly enhance their positions. But not only that but with more allies, they could even lessen future foreign pressures on them!

And so the Ritter family had been preparing for this new auction, with their core members growing stronger each day as they were ‘trained’ in different ways by Lothur.