Master of the End Times

These people were not allowed into the Fengli Organization because they were too politically seasoned. They were not a match with how largely the organization worked.

Like this time, when they were called in for a meeting, they started to throw wild speculations behind what Qin Feng’s intent was before listening to what he had to say.

A few moments later, Qin Feng finally walked into the meeting room and sat on the chairman’s chair.

“Everyone! Please be seated!” Qin Feng said.

After seeing everyone seated, Qin Feng pondered for a short while before opening his mouth, “Things are looking up in the North Sea State. Half of the North Sea’s desert has now been turned into oases. There is also a huge decrease in the ultra beasts’ number in the area. However, at the same time our resources have been vastly depleted too!”

This was frankly quite unavoidable.

In fact, to develop a powerful city, the best way was to own several entrances to several secret territories. The point was to be on the offensive instead of waiting for ultra beasts to come and attack them.

And to do that, they would need more manpower. With more capable aptitude users joining the city, more taxes could be collected which then would be spent in developing the cities.

However, the North Sea State did not have such advantages.

Qin Feng continued on, “Due to a huge climate change in the desert and cities growing larger and closer to one another, there was no need for the cities to construct walls to defend themselves. Yet, this also means that all the four cities are congregated together. Not only that, there are very few expedition teams to scout useful lands for new settlements. To add more, there seems to be some mismanagement too. The ancient warrior families are avoiding taxes by abusing the privileges that they have!”

These, however, were not the fault of these aptitude users—these were the problems that were all rooted back to Gao Yukang’s governance.

These people were associated with the Huaxia Alliance but they were largely uncontrolled by Gao Yukang. Meng Lin, for example, had to allow these ancient warrior families to abuse their privilege and get huge sets of benefits because they were too weak to stand up against them.

If the ancient warriors were holding up their side of the bargain, things would at least be better. However, they did not. Whenever the ultra beasts came attacking, they just lay back and watched, refusing to send their men to come to face these beasts. However, whenever there were some loot or benefits to share, they would come and ask for their “share”.

With no one able to take on the ultra beasts and these schmucks robbing the government of all the money, no wonder the North Sea State was so weak.

Of course, Qin Feng was not going to badmouth Gao Yukang. The man was dead. It was unwise to be disrespectful toward the deceased. Besides, Gao Yukang was the one who passed on his title to Qin Feng; so, he was grateful toward Governor Gao for this opportunity.

Sure, there were a lot of things that Gao Yukang could not change during his service. However, Qin Feng could do what he could not!

After hearing Qin Feng’s analysis, everyone started to show some discontent.

“Governor, it’s not that we don’t want to collect the taxes. But most businesses are owned by these ancient warriors. They are quite powerful—even more powerful than our patrol units. There’s no way we could tell them to get in line!”

“Yes, governor. This is hardly our fault. No one helped us in dealing with these leechers!”

“Some of these ancient warriors have C-tiers among them too!”

Qin Feng took a slow sweep at everyone with his eyes, forcing everyone to shut up with his tenacious glare.

“Are you done? It doesn’t matter how it was back in the day. From today onward, these ancient warriors must pay their taxes. Send my message to them. If they dare to skip on even one cent, I’ll go knock on their doors for a chat!”

Qin Feng emphasized the word “chat” when he said that.

Would it be just a “chat”? No one knew.

However, these people of authority knew Qin Feng meant business now! When he first became the governor, he did not show these people his authority. Now, they had seen and felt it.

Qin Feng continued on, “I gave them one year for them to adjust to the new government here. So, I hope they know just who the boss is in the North Sea State!”

This was a low-key threat but not toward anyone in the meeting room. As such, after hearing this, they felt a surge of confidence.

To them, this was good news.

“Of course, Governor. We understand!”

“Yes, Governor! You’re absolutely right in this. I’ll do what you’ve asked!”

“Hell yeah! It’s about time!”

Qin Feng waved his hand to signal for everyone to settle down. “The biggest threat in the North Sea State is now gone. So, many aptitude users have ascended and improved in this one whole year. Now, we should do our best to prevent these new blood from moving out of our state!”

Back then, the North Sea State had nothing but desert, and Shadong Town was a dog-eat-dog world. As such, even the Three Cities along the Sun would send E-tier aptitude users to help deal with the safety here.

Now that things had changed, there were many more local aptitude users showing up.

These aptitude users would need resources, money, ultra beasts’ crystal cores, runes and scrolls to ascend and grow. If the North Sea State could not give them these, it was quite natural for them to leave and seek for better opportunities elsewhere.

With these people gone, it would lead to the North Sea State losing power; and with less power, this meant less control for the government—the last thing a governor would want to see.

Thus, everyone in the meeting room now knew what Qin Feng wanted to announce.

“Boss, you mean to develop the North Sea State? To make our state stronger?” Meng Lin carefully opened his mouth, trying to uncover what Qin Feng was thinking.

Still, there was no need to announce this outright. After Qin Feng had become stronger, he would start to feel that governing the North Sea State was not much of a challenge anymore. However, it would be very wasteful for him to just give it away.

As such, Qin Feng now had three choices:

One, to resign from his post and leave the North Sea State. He could earn more as a support general for the Huaxia Alliance.

Two, apply for a transfer to become a governor of another state. However, this would mean that he could offend someone from another faction.

Three, develop and strengthen the entirety of the North Sea State. However, in order to do so, he would need time and money. However, if things went well, the benefit would be tremendous.

In the Northern Region, other than Beihua City, there was also Hanchuan State, where many capable aptitude users were born due to its plentiful resources. Compared to that, everyone from the North Sea State was so weak that they would bend whenever they passed by someone from another state. When he saw this, Qin Feng could not help but feel ashamed of this.

Thus, Qin Feng chose the third route without hesitation and gave Meng Lin his reaffirmation, “Yes. That is what I have in mind. That is why I’m gathering all of you here to ask for your opinions.”

After hearing this, everyone started to form their opinions and another wave of discussion had begun. Some of them were really giving proper analysis and suggestions on what to do to develop the state while some of them were just doing their darndest to secure some benefits for themselves. Qin Feng listened carefully to the former while completely giving the latter his cold shoulder.

“Alright, there’s a good suggestion right there. Let’s build a new city behind the four cities in order to accumulate the population in the area—right here!”

Qin Feng switched on the big screen behind him and pointed at one spot on the map!

As they looked at the map, they did not see the burning excitement in Qin Feng’s eyes.

Qin Feng knew that in less than half a month, a huge incident—an incident of opportunity would happen on this very spot!

That was why Qin Feng wanted to claim this exact spot preemptively.

Before he was reborn, Qin Feng remembered that in February, A.C (After Calamity Calendar) 219, Qin Feng was just a mere F8-tier aptitude user. He had no resource and power to do anything to grab this opportunity for himself.

But now! He could with all the resources and power he had with him!