Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1200 Crisis and Opportunity (First Update)

This period, later known as the Age of Renaissance, saw the emergence of many high-tech products with extremely simple uses. Lepa Bellena, the "last Yugoslavian woman," received a gift from the Latvian government: a black civilian hovercraft produced by a joint venture between Wakanda and the Immortal City. Her husband, Slobodan Chivojinovic, instantly lost his resentment at being ignored during their conversation because of this large toy.

Hammurabi, a member of the Royal Guard, reported to the Emperor that the couple, Lepa Bellena and Slobodan Zivojinovik, had accepted the gifts. Hammurabi then handed the Emperor a letter, written by Lepa Bellena during a break from the castle. Through the Royal Guard, she pleaded with the Emperor to bring their relatives back from Miami as soon as possible, as this letter would dispel her children's suspicions and allow them to leave with the Latvian agents.

"If only those provincial officials were as sensible as Lepa Bernina."

The Emperor waved his hand, ordering the Imperial Guard to deliver the letter to the intelligence liaison, so that the agents could carry it on their missions. Although Latvia had unified the former Southern Federation by force, some of the government officials incorporated into the administrative system still retained their old mindset of prioritizing votes—the only use of referendum votes was to shirk responsibility and give citizens the illusion that they had the power to make decisions. The British only understood the impact of Brexit after the vote, but officials could simply ignore their responsibilities by claiming it was a democratic referendum result. Information from Mycroft Holmes proved that 10 Downing Street and the Houses of Commons respected the decisions made by British citizens, but those who profited from the EU system continued to profit, and nothing would change.

Representative constitutionalism and democracy are two incompatible terms. The former requires representative politicians to make responsible decisions, while the latter requires politicians to hand over power to the people. The greatest advantage of this system is that no one is responsible and no one needs to be accountable, which is why things are rushing headlong toward inevitable collapse.

In the Balkans, the only campaign slogan for mid-level government officials who rose to power through voting was to secure more benefits for their own people and suppress other ethnic groups. After unification by force, the emperor explicitly prohibited such populist practices and dismantled all campaign teams to rebuild a civil service administration and official education system that met the emperor's expectations. From this system, a political party was cultivated as a pathway for advancement to gradually replace those officials without ideals.

Even so, many former mid-level political officers have become new civil servants.

These people were capable of solving problems, but they couldn't break free from path dependence, believing they could force the system to compromise by inciting public opinion. This foolish behavior only gradually subsided when the regent dispatched the First Secret Service to arrest and execute several mid-level officials with irrefutable evidence of corruption and bribery. This demonstrated that the emperor wasn't powerless against them; they were merely kept as cogs in the machine of the administrative system. They could sit on the throne of power in luxury, but they were always the emperor's servants. The emperor's sword of Damocles was as sharp and unyielding as his missiles against foreign powers. Some had realized that once the people the emperor had cultivated from the grassroots had gained sufficient experience, these beneficiaries of the old system would be completely replaced to ensure the health of the entire administrative system. If they accepted this arrangement, they could enjoy a peaceful old age; foolish resistance would only lead to death.

Building a military system is also a complex task. Regent Viktor von Dum constructed a local defense system capable of mobilizing the masses. This was not an advanced tactic; many people in modern history had done the same. The militia recruited and trained by sending officers, political commissars, and special forces were mostly highly qualified personnel. The vast majority of them retained their original jobs after joining the militia, but both combat and civilian personnel received basic military training, while some outstanding individuals received more specialized tactical and weapons training.

Normally, with the help of political commissars, these people promoted the emperor's unified ideology to the common people, such as by hanging banners, writing slogans, and compiling propaganda materials like newspapers. They also regularly attended theoretical training courses on "The Truth of Unity," studied dialectical materialism, and participated in team-building activities (such as live-fire exercises with marker munitions and night marches). Furthermore, they assisted the emperor's officials in grassroots construction and governance. Each village and city's conscripted soldiers were connected to the provincial garrison command through a political commissar. When war broke out, this conscripted system could be quickly integrated into the regular army's command structure, undertaking low-risk tasks such as night watch, village patrols, searching for infiltrators, and maintaining order.

If a conscript wishes to become a long-term professional soldier, they can apply and, after examination and review, formally join the regular army reserve and the Unification Party. After receiving military and ideological education at a primary military academy, they become ordinary soldiers, serving as the emperor's hammer against the enemy and his staunchest supporter. After their term of service, their continued service is determined by their merits and performance in the army. Retired soldiers enter schools, judicial and law enforcement departments for work and further education, becoming key personnel in the Ministry of Justice and other judicial and law enforcement agencies, continuing to serve the emperor. Some exceptionally talented young men may also be selected for the genetic modification program, becoming heavily armored, explosive-wielding genetically modified warriors, serving for life to dedicate themselves to the emperor's great ideals.

Once this system was operational, it began to inject a continuous stream of vitality into the emperor's army and government, and would ultimately achieve the goal of the emperor and regent replacing the wavering army and officials, thus reducing the impact of the purge on the efficiency of the entire system.

"At least I don't have to get angry every day because of those stupid bureaucratic officials like I do now."

“You are not angry at all, my lord,” Hammurabi said. “I have never seen you angry because of the incompetence of your officials, because their performance was exactly as you expected.”

"Give me the Imperial Guard training records, then shut your mouth, you corncob with no sense of humor."

Strictly speaking, the entire transformation process of the first Guardian, Constantine, was completed under the Emperor's guidance. Just like the preliminary experiments, as a teaching case for the Guardian project in the Immortal City Gene Laboratory, the various test data that Constantine underwent served as the evaluation standard and transformation experience for the second phase of the Guardian project.

The resources required to modify each Royal Guard were greater than those required to modify a thousand Infernal Knights, so Maya Hansen and the genetic alchemists of the Sora Redwood Druid Order were extremely cautious in their work. However, as their skills in modification techniques improved, four candidates in the third phase of the project successfully withstood the rigorous processes of physical modification, mental cleansing, soul ascension, and spiritual infusion, meeting the standards in subsequent tests. The Emperor examined the recruits' genetic fingerprints and mental imprints, the latter being patterns recorded in an obscure way on paper soaked in psychochromic light; to those without relevant knowledge, they appeared as a jumble of geometric shapes and ink stains.

"I will attend the armor-donation and oath-taking ceremonies, and they will receive new names." The Emperor handed the file to Hammurabi. "One hundred sets of Praetorian Guard armor are not enough. We will need more armor and weapons, as the size of the Praetorian Guard will not be limited to less than one hundred. We will soon be conducting specialized training with the Sisters of the Gods on boarding the Sky Carriers. Ragnarok is approaching, and we will have the opportunity to acquire a group of skilled craftsmen."

Please vote for me!

(End of this chapter)