Alexander The Great Mage

Chapter 40 - Military Economy

"Just one company of banshees, and they almost massacred a town of almost thirty thousand people?" Alexander whispered internally. "If the banshees weren't focused on controlling the people and instead focused on slaughter, Valarin would be drenched in blood. Rin-Turah is way too weak compared to the big powers of the main continent! We may be the biggest dog here in our little corner of the world, but it counts for nothing compared to the likes of the Lich King."

"Yes." Buccephalas agreed. "The strongest person in the town of Valarin was a Red Archmage, the Town Lord. There is no way our towns could resist a company of banshees. Even us, with Aleyria and three Red Archmages, we had trouble fighting them off. Speaking of which, I wonder what happened to him. It's weird that he didn't do anything while he was under control of the banshees."

Alexander shrugged. This was the reality of battle. The strongest could die almost immediately and the weakest could somehow survive battle after battle, until the end of the war.

How many heroes had risen from the ranks of common soldiers who rose to prominence step by step? How many potential heroes from the ranks of the elite had fallen from the chanciest of arrows and all the other whimsies of fate which struck them down before they could exhibit even a tenth of their skills?

"The Mayor probably got trampled in the chaos or got knocked unconscious when he slammed into Dari's wall. We'll know what happened to him soon enough when the full report comes in." Alexander dismissed the issue with the Mayor almost immediately.

"If my main goal is world domination, I need to first fortify my homeland and build up an elite force that could take on any comers and squash them flat. It would be catastrophic if we went on an expedition only to have Rin-Turah razed to the ground.

I need a full fledged military economy. From industries producing military supplies, to academies recruiting and training soldiers and mages, to information centers which will build the mentality of the country with ideologies and boost morale with news of hard-won victory. Towns like this must be strengthened and given a military function in the process of building a war machine! To do that, every aspect of the country needs to be strengthened."

"Indeed. If building a military economy is what you want, then I could be of great help to you. I have tons of information in my database on how to do exactly that!" Buccephalas said excitedly.

Alexander's brain raced at high speed, galvanized by the deaths of so many innocents. His mind thought of the map of Rin-Turah and he began to create districts and assign functions of every single village, town and city.

Very soon, they reached the Mayor's Hall. Captain Tory immediately brought Alexander and his team to the largest guest house reserved for Royalty. Alexander paused his almost-frantic planning to make sure that Aleyria was well taken care of before retreating into his own room for some 'quiet meditations' where he promptly resumed his planning.

"First things first. I need to rebuild Valarin into the strongest fortress in Rin-Turah to commemorate the deaths of so many innocents. This would also be a strong message to our enemies. We may fall for a moment, but we will rise up stronger every single time!

Valarin was brought down by banshees. Then Valarin would be the center of fire in Rin-Turah! Firemages and all sorts of fire weapons will be trained, researched and mass produced right here in this city!" Alexander's heart burned with fiery passion.

You may be able to take something from me. But I will make sure that I come back and rip off that arm of yours you used to take from me!

Time unknowingly passed. As Alexander sat in his room as if in a trance planning his next steps in transforming Rin-Turah into a war-machine, the Power of Perses within him began to subtly change.

The glow around him that was originally a deep bronze was slowly turning into lighter shades of bronze. Alexander was so immersed in his thoughts that he did not notice these changes. He also wasn't aware of Fluff-fluff who had very nimbly leapt off his head and landed onto a table nearby to quietly stare at him. She had sensed the Power of God activating and radiating from Alexander, and had decided to observe the change.

Before this moment, Alexander was a genius on the battlefield, his Bronze Power of Perses giving him extraordinary reflexes to survive any battle and guiding him to make excellent decisions in the heat of battle.

However, at this moment, Alexander was finally taking the step ahead into the next level - becoming a genius in the full Art of War - transforming a country into a war machine capable of producing and supporting the armies required to take over an entire world.

The Silver Level.

Deep in his thoughts, Alexander was actually dealing with a massive influx of information. Various data on the resources of Rin-Turah began to appear. The first list he dealt with was those of diamond mines and mines of other rare precious stones.

Rin-Turah controlled the only diamond mine in the continent, along with the vast majority of the high-tier precious stones mines. Apparently the entire country was built upon the richest land in the entire continent, possibly the entire world.

Alexander nodded in satisfaction. This would be the financial foundation for his war-machine. He decided to immediately put the troll prisoners to work and mine for the precious stones intensively. In fact, he would have to mobilize more trolls from Zan to mines. Money, check.

Next up was the demographics of the population in Rin-Turah. Rin-Turah was a classic Urban Country with almost 70 percent of its population living in towns and cities. However, it was also a mage country. A full 35% of its population were mages. Although most of them were the lowest tier Black Robes, it was still an incredible number.

"There are 1,500,000 Black Robes, yet only 50,000 Grey Robes. This is due to the lack of Academies for mages. Magic is part of the high school curriculum, and has been so for many years. That explains why there are so many Black Robes. However, Rin-Turah failed to capitalize on that strong foundation, and only built a few Academies, resulting in only 50,000 Grey Robes. That must be rectified immediately." Alexander thought.

"I need 50 new Academies, each capable of training 1,000 Black Robes into Grey Robes in cycles of 2 years. I will also build 25 Higher Academies with the same capacity to train the Grey Robes with potential into Blue Robes in cycles of 2 years as well. These Grey and Blue Robes would be the back bone of my future army. If all goes well, I will be producing 50,000 Grey Robes, of which 25,000 of them would go on to become 25,000 Blue Robes every 2 years.

However, I would also need to build Military Academies to shape them into proper soldiers. I only need three major academies and one minor academy. The Flying Academy for my flying units, The Mounted Academy for my cavalries, and The Shadow Academy for my scouts, assassins and commando units working behind enemy lines.

The final minor academy would be training up Military Planning, Support and Logistics.

Each Major Military Academy would do its own Basic Military Training course for 6 months, this would apply for every single mage in the country. They will then select 10,000 of them to join specialized training for another 6 months before activating them as a fully operational unit of Rin-Turah's Army. The remaining would join the country's Defence Force which will be stationed all around the country.

These academies would produce a fully functioning 10,000-man regiment every year. Within 2 years, combined with Rin-Turah's current 5 battalions, I would have 62,500 men and women ready for war. It is enough." Alexander clenched his fist in determination.

"You're looking to make an Air Force as large as your Land Army?" Buccephalas asked incredulously. "Whatever happened to the 20 regiments of Companion Cavalry and 2 regiments of Air Force you mentioned before?"

"I had thought it would be difficult to get flying mounts. But with Wyverns and the Six-winged Falcons, I should be able to breed enough mounts for the army."

"Don't forget you need to send 1 regiment to Lyra in support of her defence against the Lich King. Plus, if you really want to invade the other countries in this little continent, the 5 battalions you have are already enough." Buccephalas chuckled.

"I agree. But that way, they would have to fight. With 6 full regiments, I would simply need to march into their territory and demand their unconditional surrender. I would control this entire continent without fighting a single battle."

"Hmmm." Buccephalas approved of that plan. "The best victory is one where we do not have to fight a war to achieve it. Excellent."