Each of them possessed their own luxury battleship, each one directly conferred with the rank of Rear Admiral in the Federation, with all their sustenance, housing, and daily needs provided for by the Federation... As for legal immunity—that obviously laughable provision—it ignited the passion of countless ordinary Federation citizens!

Every soul harbors an inherent flaw; every single citizen of the Federation had entertained the dream of swaggering into a Federation bank vault for an unrestricted raid... Legal immunity, what a magnificent power!

Gu Xichen said emotionally on the television screen, "For the outstanding graduates of these schools, if they can reach the strength of a Gold Star level Espers upon graduation, the Federation will reward them with an exceedingly rare Crysto-Sphere... Once this sphere is fused, a mighty Jie Shi is born!"

Join an Esper Training School, reach Gold Star strength by graduation, and you become a Jie Shi!

Gu Xichen's words were immediately understood by the Federation populace in this way! The common folk did not know how arduous the cultivation of Espers was, nor did they know how few Gold Star powerhouses the Federation possessed in total, and they certainly did not know that the survival rate for fusing a Crysto-Sphere was a mere three in a thousand! They only knew that if their children joined these Esper training schools, they would instantly rise to prominence and secure an incomparably bright future!

Just look at the privileges enjoyed by the Esper powerhouses and the Jie Shi! Even if their own children didn't attain those privileges, the sheer magnitude of the high salaries alone was enough to make anyone eager!

The recruitment propaganda film masterminded by Gu Xichen had only aired on the Earth Telecast for less than four hours before long queues were already snaking outside several training schools. Three days later, all the training schools were completely surrounded, three layers deep, by anxious parents clutching their sons. The pathetic Bureau of Punctuality and the Federation Military Department—whose ingrained habits had always led them to secretly and forcibly conscript Espers into becoming spies and soldiers, keeping Espers as phantoms hidden beneath a thick curtain of secrecy—meant that even if Federation citizens noticed strange occurrences in their sons, they usually chose to fiercely guard the secret!

Gu Xichen decisively pulled back the curtain. He made all major Federation officials and every department explicitly declare to the populace that Espers could be cultivated just like primary school students. Espers were no longer a separate race distinct from ordinary humans. Once Gu Xichen became the Director of the Special Operations Bureau, being an Esper was simply a career path boasting both magnificent prospects and wealth!

Gu Xichen shamelessly broadcast his achievements to the five billion citizens of the Federation on the program: Do you know why Colonel Gu Xichen achieved so much merit on Paradise Star? Do you know why Colonel Gu Xichen could single-handedly destroy over a hundred Roman warships? Why could Gu Xichen become a Federation Councilor at such a young age? Why could Gu Xichen take over from the wicked Roman half-breed Colonel Uriah as the Director of the Special Operations Bureau while still so young?

You guessed right! Colonel Gu Xichen is also an Esper! He possesses formidable Ice-elemental powers! This viewer guessed even more correctly: Gu Xichen is also a powerful Jie Shi!

A Federation Hero, the Federation's youngest Councilor, the youngest head of a powerful Federation department!

He is an Esper, and he is a Jie Shi!

Therefore, your child has a chance too!

Gu Xichen proclaimed loudly, "The evil Romans are attempting to seize Paradise Star, which belongs to our Earth Federation! This is an age of chaos, an age of chaos teeming with opportunities, an age of boundless prospects! Perhaps the child sitting next to you is the next me, perhaps my records will be broken by the child beside you!"

"Your child does not need superhuman intelligence, does not need noble blood, does not need an aristocratic background; as long as he possesses a sliver of potential, he can possess everything!"

The Earth Federation's propaganda machine frantically cooperated with Gu Xichen, sending these seductive images and words before every Federation citizen.

When the veil that had shrouded the small circle of Espers and Jie Shi was torn away, the Federation public was first astonished, and then they went completely wild!

One month later, the facilities of the twenty Esper training schools could no longer accommodate the overflowing enrollment, and the new sixty Esper training schools were already breaking ground!

In the span of one month, over ten billion Federation citizens proactively sent their potentially gifted children to the training schools for assessment. The head of the Federation Public Transportation Department was grinning ear to ear, and the presidents of the major subordinate shipping companies were smiling so hard their teeth nearly fell out. This was quickly followed by the restaurateurs and hoteliers near the Esper training schools, who were laughing until they nearly choked. Next came the suppliers providing various consumables, laughing so hard their very flesh convulsed.

Finally, it was the head of the Federation Tax Department, who laughed so hard he actually fainted!

There were only twenty training schools in total; ten billion Federation citizens traveling from all corners of the globe to reach these schools meant that the expenditure for lodging, food, travel, and transport along the way amounted to an astronomical figure. The resulting stimulation to related industries' production and consumption spiraled ever larger, like a snowball rolling downhill.

In one month, the twenty Esper training schools gained over five million new students, among whom the number of students with extremely strong potential—those capable of reaching Mars level or even stronger realms—exceeded thirty thousand!

The enormous numbers and the superior potential stunned many. Unlike Martial Artists, Espers had always been a taboo subject within the Federation. The surge of children displaying Esper potential began appearing after the Romans arrived on Earth.

Especially after a large number of mixed-race children were born between the Romans and Earthlings, potent Esper children began appearing frequently even in ordinary Earthling families. Therefore, Espers were inadvertently linked to the Romans and unintentionally became synonymous with tainted bloodlines.

The Federation heavily promoted Martial Arts, which relied purely on self-cultivation. Meanwhile, the treatment of Espers was one of private coercion, like what Uriah experienced: either become a secret agent or be inhumanely destroyed or used for experimentation.

But this time, in order to mitigate the impact of the Uriah incident on the image of the Federation's upper echelon, Gu Xichen successfully brought Espers into the sunlight, promising them a glorious future.

With the joint guarantee and promise from so many high-ranking Federation figures, Espers would henceforth be able to walk openly in the sun, just like Martial Artists. Gu Xichen's image and standing in the hearts of these Espers needed no further explanation. Once these new students completed their schooling and entered society, Gu Xichen would command a powerful force.

The stubborn, conservative Federation higher-ups cooperated with Gu Xichen so readily partly because of the three bottles of Azure Spirit Rejuvenation Pills he handed over! Otherwise, they would have preferred using violent means to control the Espers rather than granting them such high status!

When scores of millions of future Espers were presented before the Federation leadership, and when tens of thousands of future Espers with extremely strong potential were discovered, the attitude of the Federation leadership toward Gu Xichen became increasingly friendly; some people even began intentionally courting favor with him. After all, what a powerful force this represented! If millions of Espers could be deployed onto the battlefield, they would be far more potent than millions of Innate Warriors!

However, the people most satisfied with Gu Xichen were not these Federation elites, but the First Master of the Nine Nether Sect, the Corpse Emperor.

The Federation population exceeded fifty billion, and many lived perpetually in sunless underground apartments. The Asura Dao Alliance consisted of hundreds of sects of varying sizes, yet their total membership barely reached one hundred thousand. Some sects, unable to find suitable disciples for cultivation, were left in the awkward position of having no successors beyond the three or five Elders and the Sect Master. In the vast sea of humanity, finding a suitable apprentice was incredibly difficult.

But this time, billions of Federation citizens voluntarily sent their children to the training schools for testing, and the waiting rooms outside every testing center were crammed with Elders from the Asian Dao Alliance!

In one month, over one hundred and fifty thousand suitable disciples for cultivation were selected, instantly more than doubling the size of the Asian Dao Alliance! Those suitable for cultivating the unique martial arts of the Nine Nether Sect alone numbered over four thousand, which delighted the Corpse Emperor and made countless Elders of the Asura Dao Alliance grateful for Gu Xichen's benefits.

Naturally, another group that saw significant gains were the numerous priests from the Holy See Seminary, who selected over two hundred thousand children suitable for cultivating the Church’s secret techniques.

Only the Pantheon Alliance gained less, as their strength largely relied on the inheritance of their own bloodlines and the sheer number of their clan members. Only a few temples, like the Temple of Misfortune, managed to recruit over ten thousand disciples; this meager gain was negligible compared to the Dao Alliance and the Holy See.

Regardless, everyone agreed that Gu Xichen had made a monumental contribution to the Earth Dark Alliance, establishing his name once again within it.

Everything proceeded smoothly and auspiciously. Everyone forgot about the former Special Operations Director, Uriah, who had vanished without a trace. All attention was focused on the newly appointed Gu Xichen and what he would transform the Special Operations Bureau into. The Bureau, always hidden in darkness, suddenly transformed into the Federation's most transparent department, which amazed everyone and inexplicably boosted Gu Xichen's public standing.

If the Esper training schools truly yielded results, it would be a heavily inked, brilliant passage in Gu Xichen's dossier.

However, the bad news finally arrived: Hekoms, the Vice Chairman of the Federation Military Department, rejected the application from the Logistics and Equipment Division to procure the Hercules I individual combat armor. During the Military Department assembly, he proposed a focused examination of the Gu Clan Group’s Thunder God I system.

Undoubtedly, Hekoms was challenging Wolf's authority.

Gu Xichen and the Gu Clan Group had become pawns in this confrontation.