“`
[Mage Academy: Once you have built an academy dedicated to teaching control of Spiritual Energy and specific Psychic Spells, and have set it into operation, you may redeem this option to assign to the designated academy. It slightly increases student learning efficiency and faintly increases the chance of loyal talents becoming available for activation. New troop type available for training: Psychic. Exchange value: 5000 favors. Training cost: 100 favors/person]
The effects of this Mage Academy are similar to the other three, except that the bonuses for training general talents, technical talents, and loyalists are applied to the training of Psychics instead.
It’s just that the price has soared straight up compared to when those other academies were first established.
But Gu Hang still had no doubts and clicked to exchange.
The main reason was that the training of the Psychics was too enticing.
It was particularly fitting for his current situation.
The training of Psychics, even with the system, still requires the trainees to have a talent for Spiritual Energy.
This is quite normal, just as when Gu Hang was cultivating new blood for the Phoenix Battle Group, he had to train them from the age of teens, step by step from T5 to T1. During this process, many people could only advance to T3 or T4 level and could not train further, which meant that this level represented the person’s highest potential.
And the proportion of people with the talent for Psychics in the population might even be lower than those with the potential to reach T1 level.
However, compared to training T1 level warriors and cultivating new star warriors, training Psychics is much “simpler”.
First of all, there’s no upfront investment.
To train a T1 warrior, one must practice all the way up. Before then, no one knows whether a still-growing youngster has this potential, one only knows after beginning the training. Therefore, training a T1 warrior requires 100 favors, exchanging a seed costs 100 favors, but in actuality, Gu Hang has to spend a thousand or two points of favor for a round of selection to eventually find two or three suitable candidates.
Of course, the extra expenses were not without value; they were thrown into the 10th Brigade to become special forces. Equipped with Exoskeleton Armor and more elite weapons, they also formed a not insignificant force.
When training Psychics, there is no such worry. One glance at the training interface to see if someone is trainable, and if not, just drop it; there’s no cost upfront.
Moreover, training for Psychics is very suited for Gu Hang.
Where does human talent for Spiritual Energy come from?
Basically, it is the sensitivity of the human spirit to the source of Spiritual Energy—the Subspace.
Those with higher sensitivity naturally possess talent.
In the past, this was a disaster. Those with a talent for Spiritual Energy, even those so high they naturally possessed certain supernatural powers without training, could constantly hear whispers from Subspace, endure massive mental pressure, and go mad. Moreover, they themselves would be targeted by malevolent entities within Subspace as conduits to the real world.
A person wielding uncontrollable power, prone to madness, and likely to attract Demons… obviously, this was a source of disaster. In many places, there was a tradition of witch-hunting to proactively eliminate these dangers, resulting in customs and religious edicts.
In fact, under the earlier environmental conditions of the entire Empire, Psychics were likewise subject to stringent control, with many individuals with talents for Spiritual Energy being executed directly.
Not until the Divine Emperor ascended and carved out a space in Subspace to establish the Spirit Network.
Wild Psychics without control are still dangerous. They possess talents but are unaware, untaught, unsupervised, and thus very likely to fall into madness under the whispers of Subspace, lose their minds, go out of control, or even become beacons for Demon invasions of the real world.
But trained Psychics can direct their sensitivity to Spiritual Energy to the Spirit Network built by the Divine Emperor, allowing them to use Spiritual Energy safely. They will not be targeted by malevolent entities within Subspace, and the likelihood of plunging into madness and losing control of their power is greatly reduced.
This has made Psychics a truly exploitable part of humanity.
At the same time, it has established the importance of the Psychic Cultivator’s Association. They are not only responsible for cultivating Psychics, Star Speakers, navigators, but they also collect wild Psychics.
Those who can still be saved are trained into legitimate, legal Psychics; those already mad or corrupted by Demons beyond saving are dealt with.
In such an environment, Gu Hang “coincidentally” has two things that tie in nicely with it.
Firstly, he obtained authorization from Zhang Guang’en, a big shot at the Psychic Cultivator’s Association, to establish a branch of the Psychic Cultivator’s Association on Rage Owl Star. This was something he needed to do, and it would allow him to get a foothold into the upper echelons of the Empire’s power structure through the Psychic Cultivator’s Association.
Secondly, Gu Hang “just happened” to control a piece of the Subspace Divine Kingdom. The essence of a Psychic fundamentally lies in their sensitivity to Subspace, which, logically, cannot be taught as it’s innate. But with Gu Hang, it’s not the case. Unless they are so-called ‘Untouchables’, completely Subspace Insulators, Gu Hang can turn anyone with even a slight talent for Spiritual Energy (which actually most humans have) into Psychics.
“`