It had been half a year since Ezekiel joined the Void Palace army, and he had to say…
'This place is really the best.'
The work he had to do was monstrous, but it was always worth it.
The drills he was put through made his entire body squirm in pain. When he laid down to sleep, he'd be unable to move in the slightest until the next morning.
It was really brutal. At times, it was even more brutal than Straea Clan's hidden manor.
But there was one key difference between them.
Rewards and merit.
In the first month, Ezekiel truly suffered. He wondered if his decision was a mistake or not, and he dreaded the fact that he'd merely moved from one hell to another.
However, by the second month, he was already faithfully doing his training without a single complaint.
That was because there was nothing wasteful.
Everything his instructors forced him to do was for his own sake. His strength would see a direct improvement proportional to the amount of work he put in.
And while the exercises themselves were brutal enough to match Straea, the atmosphere wasn't.
The soldiers were free men. They were given days to explore the military city and engage in entertainment. The instructors would push people past their limits, but if they realized that their students were approaching a breaking point, they'd slow them down and make sure to prioritize their health.
Straea never did this.
Those who died were weak. Those who couldn't handle training were weak. Those who lost their minds were weak.
No matter what happened, if one didn't adhere to their standards, one was weak and deserving of death.
Comparing that environment to the palace made the palace look like heaven.
And in a sense, it was.
The men of the army were always given opportunities. As long as they could grasp them, they could become strong enough to stand atop the world proudly.
Plus, there was a merit system.
As long as one worked hard, not only would one become strong, one would become privileged.
Merit points could be used to buy resources for training and growth, weapons, and even access to places like movie theaters and sporting arenas, where events would take place semi-frequently to ease the soldiers' minds.
Damien had created this army to be absolutely loyal to the palace, just as Malevalon created the hidden manors for the same purpose.
However, while Malevalon desired absolute obedience through force and control, Damien wanted that loyalty to come from the heart.
He wanted his men to be proud to fight for the palace, proud to die for it.
Those were the people who would truly cause a difference on the battlefield, not those who didn't feel pain or suffering at all.
The soldiers here were not only well taken care of, they were allowed to be people outside their posts.
They were welcomed by the palace, they were treated with respect, and even their families received countless benefits for their service.
And, in the case that they died, the people they cared about would be given death gratuity enough to let them live their entire mortal lives in fortune.
Frankly, not many of these soldiers had been to war yet.
Only a small portion was taken to siege the Divine Order, and only those more powerful than the people on Ezekiel's level had been deployed to the Northern Region.
Compared to those who'd experienced war, they were naive. Their loyalty was also somewhat weaker, since they didn't know what it was truly like to be on the battlefield fighting for one's cause.
Still, even they were willing to lay their lives down for the palace.
This was proven in the many simulators used by the army to train them.
They'd experienced death before. They'd made the conscious choice to sacrifice themselves for the cause.
So when the time came for them to experience it in reality, they would be trained to exhibit a similar level of calmness to soldiers who'd been brainwashed and conditioned.
However, the fact that they still had emotions and free will gave them an aspect of unpredictability. They could make flexible decisions, and when they realized they were going to die, they could push out far more strength before their flames of life finally died out.
Even if Damien was an indifferent person who viewed his men as tools, this would be the best strategy to make them the best army imaginable.
However, he did not think of them that way.
And they didn't just think of him as an unseen Young Lord whom they'd sworn their allegiance to.
Damien was actually pretty active in the various departments of the palace.
He was now spending most of his time on the back line. It had been over a year since he'd been out in the world.
Of course, he spent a whole lot of time with his family, but he wasn't that selfish. His wives wanted to train, and others had their own matters to attend to as well.
While he would take breaks to meet the people he wanted to meet, he spent the majority of his time becoming more familiar with the people of the palace.
He went to the forges and became peers with the smiths there, acknowledged for his skill at the forge. He went to the servant housing and learned the names of the people who were serving him, and he even went to the kitchen to discuss culinary matters with them.
Damien had an expanse of knowledge gathered both through his own experience and through the devouring of countless individuals with countless talents.
Their memories became his, and their experience became his.
He was skilled in a variety of random things, but his most experienced department was obviously the military.
Damien would occasionally head down to the military city. He'd observe the ongoing training, and sometimes even train the troops himself.
Only the main group of elites he gathered were given the chance to get a free personalized training method from him, but that opportunity hadn't been completely eliminated.
As long as the current soldiers could gather enough merit points, they could purchase it.
It wasn't an unreasonable amount of points either.
Damien wanted to give them as much as they wanted. He wanted his troops to grow and bloom into their full potential.
Merely, with the army growing, he couldn't promise the time necessary to create the perfect technique for each and every one of them.
A barrier of entry was added, sure, but it was a barrier that could be broken by anyone as long as they worked hard enough for it.
That was the part of the army that Ezekiel liked the most. As long as he tried, anything was possible. It was a truth that didn't exist anywhere else in the world.
And he'd been trying his hardest since he arrived here. He trained harder than anyone else, gaining and saving merit points by not spending them on vices or entertainment.
And after six months, he'd reached that point.
He had already gone to the merit shop, and he'd already purchased his ticket.
Soon enough, it would be his turn to meet the Young Lord he served in a private setting.
It was his turn to discover where his potential truly lay.
