Chapter 54

Roughly once every year, the Grey Imperial Academy along with the other four big Imperial Family funded academies would send their students out into the real world to temper their strength as a group led by an instructor. Such experiences were usually to assist the military on a mission whether it was to explore an area that was filled with some low level demonic beasts or even other types of military missions as far as guarding an area so that some soldiers would be able to take a break and visit with their families.

Some areas across the empire had armies of soldiers situated there in order to protect the empire's borders and one area in particular, was to protect the empire's borders from demonic beasts specifically. The real reason for the empire's forces being much weaker compared to other empires, was that there existed not one but two areas where there was an overflow of demonic beasts. These areas would be almost constantly filled with hordes of attacking demonic beasts that would collapse nearby villages and cities and would destroy the surrounding area which would make it difficult to rebuild such places after the fact.

Luckily over time, the Emperor spent a large sum of the Imperial Family's treasury in order to purchase a seemingly endless supply of materials needed to create formations and barriers and with it, the two highly active demonic beast neighboring areas became safer and even one of the two areas was so safe that unless they needed to, normally all the soldiers had to do was stand guard since it was difficult for a horde of demonic beasts to break through the amount of barriers and formations that were put up.

It was unfortunate, but Timothy by taking a mission would not be given any gold rewards or anything similar as a payout. This was normal since the military had to pay their soldiers a yearly salary and would not have too much left for students who were just there to lend a helping hand. However, if such missions were to be completed, the students would receive a potential military rank as a soldier would receive for completing the same mission. This rank received by the student would only be available if the student chose to enter into the military once they had graduated, otherwise it was equivalent to a simple honorary rank that did not actually do anything for said cultivator.

Not only that, but if the mission itself required to head into a dangerous area where demonic beasts were to clear them out or even evil humans like bandits and similar enemies were, the squad of students and the instructor would be able to keep anything that they looted from such areas. With this rule in place, every student normally would not waste any time and would sign up for missions as soon as the opportunity came up since a squad only consisted of roughly three to four students and a single instructor leading them.

Even rank one demonic beast cores could fetch for a decent price on the open market and usually it would be strange for a squad like one that Timothy would be in to not be able to kill several dozen during a mission for the military. Plus from his own calculations with the help of Andrew, a single demonic beast core was equivalent to a month's allowance for third year class students which was considered to be the same monthly allowance as an average member of a second rate organization. But if during a three month mission the squad could split even just forty demonic beast cores evenly, that would mean on top of returning and obtaining the three months of allowance from the academy immediately, they would have made an additional eight months' worth!

Since students of the Grey Imperial Academy were mostly commoners, after a successful mission they would not keep the additional income to themselves but would send the gold equivalent to their own families in order to help their families in their day to day lives. For a commoner to receive eight months' allowance worth of gold coins at once, would mean that they would be able to support themselves if they made no additional purchases compared to how they were already living for roughly three years. Not just that, but if a student were to enter into the military at a higher point since they would already have a higher starting rank before their own strength and capabilities were accounted for, it was possible for them to bring their families along to live on a small base with other military families as equals.

For this reason, students who were able to become rank three mages, would be willing to even put their lives on the line even if it were to be able to be given a mission by the military through the academy. Plus, with an instructor present that had their own requirements to lead the squad, the chances of being killed were extremely minimalized for the students and if anything were to happen where they were heavily injured, the payout for the instructor would automatically transfer to the students and in turn back to their families. And out of respect, the academy would also give one third extra of the student's monthly allowance to their families directly while the injured student would not be kicked out of the academy during their healing process.

Nora and his two friends were somewhat skeptical of Timothy heading over in the morning to apply for a mission, but knowing that he was a rank three dual expert more or less meant that if anything were to occur, it was possible that at the very least he would be able to survive which was what they cared about the most. To cultivators, they needed to experience life and death in the outside world, otherwise one day they would remain stagnant in their strength and would no longer be able to make any advancements. Even those of an ancient lineage had to allow their youths to experience danger so that their bloodline could continue to prosper!