Starting from the Planetary Governor
Chapter 49: Battle Conclusion

Gu Hang sat pale-faced in an infantry fighting vehicle, eyes closed, resting.

He was aware of the commotion outside but couldn’t be bothered to deal with it.

The recent battle had drained him significantly.

The main issue was taking a direct hit. His [Spiritual Shield] had blocked nearly all the damage, but it had also depleted all his spiritual energy.

This was actually a very dangerous situation.

Based on his education in psionic spells, completely exhausting one’s spiritual energy could lead to uncontrollable consequences. Death, madness, mental disorders, split personality… all were possible outcomes.

After the battle, while resting, Gu Hang checked his spiritual state, and the results were somewhat relieving.

Those severe conditions hadn’t appeared; his current symptoms were just some fatigue and a slight headache.

Generally, after some rest, he would feel better.

But he had learned a few lessons.

This time, he had been a bit too reckless, putting himself in danger.

However, thinking back carefully, Gu Hang didn’t feel he had done anything particularly wrong.

He was the Governor, yes, but he wasn’t so untouchable that he could avoid all risks. His enterprise was still in its early stages, and some things required him to take risks.

In this case, there was no other psionic in his entire domain. If he hadn’t stepped in personally, the situation wouldn’t have been resolved.

He couldn’t just leave Yan Fangxu and his 3rd Infantry Battalion to perish in the forest.

But the results this time were definitely good.

The method the Original Owl Beast Sect used to create and control so many monsters was certainly not easy; otherwise, they wouldn’t still be like rats in a sewer.

Using such a method and losing three powerful priests here must have been a significant loss for them.

Even before this, they must have been in pain.

If it weren’t for his push to intensify the purge of heretical cults in Revival City, they wouldn’t have been forced to the point of desperation to try to assassinate him.

That’s fine, you failed to get me this time, so wait for me to go to Revival City and expose all your secrets.

…

After resting for a while, he felt much better.

At this moment, he finally had the energy to thoroughly assess his gains.

This time, it was a resounding victory. Although the losses were the greatest since the beginning of the battles, so were the gains.

[Marginal Victory, gained 86 Grace Points]

[Lost 103, eliminated 6597, captured 0]

[2nd Infantry Battalion: Lost 77, eliminated 4447]

[3rd Infantry Battalion: Lost 24, eliminated 1613]

[Marine Squad: Lost 2, eliminated 537]

Judging by the casualty ratio, it looked impressive, but Gu Hang couldn’t feel happy at all.

All those eliminated were mindless monsters.

Following Yan Fangxu’s strategy, they could systematically burn down these monsters’ nests one by one in the coming months without any losses, instead of facing them all at once after they were catalyzed.

Not to mention, they had to face three Storm Priests together.

A total of 103 soldiers were lost, with the 2nd Battalion losing over 25%.

These casualties mainly occurred during the period when they were enveloped in the thick fog of the storm.

Additionally, two Marines he had just promoted to T3 level were killed, all by the most powerful priest, which wasted the 2 Grace Points invested in them.

The regular infantry battalions, especially the 2nd Battalion, needed substantial reinforcements.

Currently, Gu Hang’s entire population under his rule was less than six thousand.

Excluding the Mechanized Light Infantry Battalion, they had already supported two infantry battalions of six hundred men, with a mobilization rate of over 10%, which was already a significant strain on the population structure.

Not to mention, apart from the military, various rapidly expanding production lines also needed manpower.

The high mobilization rate had already impacted production efficiency.

Especially the young and able-bodied manpower, where there was a significant shortfall at the Wasteland Society, already becoming a development constraint.

The army’s need for replacements would draw another hundred from the manpower pool… it felt exhausting.

Gu Hang could already foresee that Patel, in charge of heavy industrial production at the Wasteland Society, would be tearing his hair out.

That guy wouldn’t set any obstacles for young men to join the Governor’s army; in his mind, it was an honor, defending their labor results.

But with reduced manpower, how to maintain or even expand production would indeed be a headache for him.

As for other costs… the textile factory was established, uniforms could be produced in-house, and the related design plans had been handed over; the Alloy and Plastic Steel production line could produce bulletproof vests; weapons could be recycled from the battlefield or new ones produced; even soldier training for a hundred soldiers would cost just 1 Grace Point, so these weren’t issues.

The problem still lay in the population.

He still needed to draw in people.

Drawing from the Quintet in the sky was no longer feasible, and targeting low-end population wasn’t meaningful either.

Gu Hang had other ideas for the female captain; the Quintet had plenty of talents he coveted.

Eliminating the Original Owl Beast Sect, or at least dealing them a severe blow, would also require the female captain’s power, which would also serve as a repayment to Alicia, but that could be discussed later.

The remaining sources were Revival City and Garbage Town.

Garbage Town was mostly filled with adventurers chasing dreams of wealth.

Some might have gone through tough times and now wanted a stable life… no, wanted to live a stable life, but it wasn’t something he could count on.

Revival City was a massive source; the refugees outside the city who couldn’t survive, Gu Hang would not turn them away.

Hundreds of thousands of people, it wasn’t realistic to take them all in at once, but he now had plenty of job opportunities and abundant food to support a lot of people.

…

After thinking about the losses, it was time to consider the gains.

86 Grace Points, this was the largest single gain Gu Hang had ever received.

It was even more than his previous total gains combined.

This gave Gu Hang a sense of “sudden wealth.”

The shadow cast on his heart by the huge casualties of his soldiers dissipated considerably due to this joy.

Of the 86 Grace Points, an estimated thirty or so were “contributed” by the three Storm Priests, with the strongest one alone accounting for over 20 points.

That High Priest, in terms of psionic strength alone, was even stronger than Gu Hang.

But in terms of psionic application, Gu Hang had the exquisite ‘Soul Sever’ from his ancient family inheritance and the system-given ‘Spiritual Shield,’ making him much stronger than the High Priest who could only borrow the power of the Native False God and use Storm Magic.

In other words, Gu Hang’s victory relied on his superior spells and larger numbers. In terms of pure psionic strength, at LV2, Gu Hang was still inferior to the opponent.

Defeating such a powerful enemy and gaining more Grace Points was only fair.

As for the remaining fifty points, they came from the soldiers eliminating those six thousand or so mutant monsters.

Clearly, the lives of these monsters weren’t worth much.

But given their sheer numbers, with over six thousand eliminated, it did accumulate quite a bit of Grace Points for Gu Hang.

It’s just a pity that the battle victory rating was only ‘Marginal Victory,’ and the post-battle Grace Point multiplier wasn’t high enough, otherwise, there could have been even more.

Next, it was a matter of how to spend these Grace Points.

He happily summoned the interface, and then saw an old feature flashing and a new feature appearing.

The flashing feature was the [Hero] interface.

The new feature was something called [Events].