Prime Originator

Once Heinrich sent the labor recruitment news out to the city after Elizabeth and Darlene left, the already bustling city became even more bustling.

Tens of thousands of people quickly flocked to the recruitment board to sign up, and not a single one was below Rank 7 Body Tempering in strength.

The condition in New Capital was excellent.

With the abundance of food and crop cultivated throughout New Capital, hunger was non-existent despite the megacity being home to one million humans and elves.

No one had to worry about surviving, even if they were jobless.

Since hunger was eliminated from people's worries, and people didn't need to work for food, they started looking for other goals to succeed in life.

And when asked what the most common goal for everyone in New Capital was, cultivation was undoubtedly the answer.

However, not everyone was born with the same opportunity to rise above others in cultivation. Many did not have the financial resource of a wealthy family to aid their cultivation.

This is what made the royal family's labor recruitment so lucrative for people from common backgrounds.

It was a rare chance to earn contribution points—contribution points that can and will be traded at the Contribution Hall in the royal palace's outer courtyard.

Whether it is medicine, cultivation resource, techniques, battle skills, or even official and military positions in the empire, they can all be exchanged at the Contribution Hall.

That being said, it wasn't easy to acquire the better quality items on the exchange list. The sheer number of contribution points required was enough to dishearten anyone that looks at them.

Even so, they were more desirable than the official and military positions that could be exchanged with contribution points.

"Easy to get, hard to keep" was the best way to describe official and military positions available in the Contribution Hall's exchange list.

If one were deemed incompetent for the job, they would be fired without further notice.

Furthermore, the contribution points exchanged for the official or military position would not be refunded.

As if to add further salt to the wound, they would also be punished for their incompetence.

Many people thought the king was crazy for introducing official and military positions to the Contribution Hall and even set them at low contribution point requirements.

However, the heavy penalty that came with acquiring the jobs through the Contribution Hall was like a splash of cold water for all the opportunists who saw it as an easy way to ascend the empire's hierarchy.

A competent person would not fear being incompetent – Heinrich Crawford.

It was Heinrich's idea that the talents he needed to fill the empty positions in the empire would be sought out by the people of the empire themselves.

This saved him the trouble of finding talents while ensuring that he gets the best man or woman for each job.

Nevertheless, the contribution system had one fatal weakness – the distribution of contribution points.

It required far too much work and labor to record and update the information of every person that earned contribution points in the empire.

As such, contribution points are recorded on intricately-designed metal tokens with a specific runic-engraved number and are handed out like a form of currency.

This implies that as long as one had the proficient knowledge and skills to engrave runes and was capable enough to replicate the intricately-designed metal tokens, they could cheat the system by forging contribution points.

That being said, it was not so easy to forge contribution points either.

While the metal tokens are all created by the Lancaster Family's people, the rune engravements are done by the Duke and Duchess themselves.

Furthermore, they were all tier-3 rune engravements with actual effects.

Thus, unless the forgers were also tier-3 runemasters, it wouldn't be possible to forge contribution points and cheat the system.

But at the same time, there was no need for tier-3 runemasters to resort to forging contribution points.

Tier-3 runemasters can easily acquire status and wealth with their ability. This also means that there will be people assigned to monitor them for fraudulent acts secretly.

However, tier-3 runemasters aren't the only concern with contribution points.

Since it was a form of currency, contribution points could be freely exchanged between people, which isn't a problem in and of itself.

It only becomes a problem when the contribution points are acquired through coercion or robbery.

In order to prevent the strong from preying on the weak and guarantee the fairness of the system, Heinrich imposed the death penalty for people caught acquiring contribution points through improper means.

Nevertheless, not everyone would be deterred by the death penalty. The stakes were simply raised. As long as they don't get caught, some selfish and evil people are willing to take the risk.

You only break the law when you are caught breaking the law – nameless criminals throughout the ages.

…

"Hey, have you heard? His Majesty has issued a labor recruitment notice for reclaiming Extreme Misty Forest. This is a rare chance to earn some contribution points!" a young man excitedly shared the news.

"Huh? Reclaiming that spooky place? Is that even possible? I heard that place is full of ghouls in the outer regions and vengeful spirits in the inner regions," a female elf uttered.

"That's why there's a minimum strength requirement of Rank 5 Body Tempering for the job! Even so, we just need to chop trees, and we can earn some contribution points!" the young man informed. "I'm definitely signing up!"

"Just chop trees? It can't be that simple. His Majesty could have just sent in several Transcendents to sweep the place, no? Something about this labor recruitment notice feels shady…" a 42-year old woman doubted.

"What do you know, old hag?" the young man looked at the woman with disgust for doubting the king and said, "This is what you call the benevolence of the king! His Majesty is giving this opportunity to us common folks to improve the empire's economy and strength!"

"O-old hag?! How dare you call me that!" the 42-year woman shrieked, feeling offended by the young man's crude words.

The young man was ready to engage in a word battle with the woman when he was suddenly tapped on the shoulders by another person.

"Hm? What do you want?" the young man looked at the hooded person and frowned.

"Ignore the hag. I like to hear more about the labor recruitment notice."