Chapter 224: The Spectres
This meeting continued from the morning until the sun's rays stood overhead and they passed midday.
Around fifty people from various positions, ages, and races attended this meeting from beginning to end.
Among the things decided was raising the level of the people from the five races who had declared their loyalty to Vaelor, up to the Fourth Level.
In addition to discussing how to manage the seven kingdoms...
The Kingdom of Light, the Elven War Kingdom, the Silent Raven Kingdom, the Dragon Kingdom, the Golden Lion Kingdom, the Centaur Kingdom, and finally the fallen Falcon Kingdom.
But the most important things discussed were the first ten locations where the first ten banks would be established, in addition to discussing how the elven armies would withdraw, who should be left behind, how order would be imposed in those kingdoms, and what methods would be used to govern those peoples and benefit from them.
....
After the meeting finally ended, everyone left the throne hall, and only three people remained...
King Vaelor... Guardian Imris... and General Zaylon.
"From today onward, you two will be tasked with creating the kingdom's first special unit... the Spectre Corps" Vaelor looked at both Imris and Zaylon, explaining to them how things would proceed...
"This unit will be split into two parts, the first part will handle gathering information, while the second part will handle assassinations and carrying out missions requiring combat" Vaelor said in a calm voice, looking at the young men before him, gesturing first toward Imris and then toward Zaylon...
"Imris will be the leader, while you'll be his second-in-command, and you'll have a direct connection to the bank and be part of it, but not subordinate to it, rather equal partners with it, taking your orders directly from me, exactly like it does!"
Both Imris and Zaylon looked at each other in some confusion, then turned back to Vaelor again...
"As you command, my liege" the pair knelt at almost the same moment, and after a few moments Imris raised his head toward Vaelor and asked seriously "we understand what you want, Your Majesty, but how shall we carry out these orders and what are your instructions and how will things proceed!"
"Mm!" Vaelor nodded and smiled "the armies will return these days, and after their return I want you to select the best 1000 people among them who are skilled in stealth abilities and begin training them"
And once Vaelor found that they had grasped this part, he continued "I don't want you to worry about expansion or exhaust yourselves carrying out missions, for the plan to establish the special Spectre Corps isn't a short-term plan, it's a long-term plan, and this unit will be one of the kingdom's foundations, so I want you to take all your time training and building it, and remember this well — quality matters to me a thousand times more than quantity, so I'd rather see ten spectres who truly deserve the name than a thousand spectres I could spot with a single glance!"
Both Imris and Zaylon tensed upon hearing this, immediately realizing that a great... indeed immense... responsibility had fallen upon their shoulders, and Zaylon looked at Vaelor with concern...
"But my liege, forgive my ignorance and bluntness, but how will we train these units? We're the best two in the entire kingdom in terms of stealth and assassination ability, and I daresay no one in the entire elf race or the other races could surpass us in something like this. But this is something we were born with, it's a pure talent that belongs to us alone" Zaylon explained, pausing for a moment as he looked at King Vaelor, and when he found no reaction from him, he continued...
"For in terms of stealth, I was born with exceptional skill in agility and lived my whole life as a professional thief, and this talent was developed through thievery, while as for assassination, the moment Brother Imris draws his dagger, he turns into a deadly killing machine and his opponent dies before even seeing him!" then he furrowed his brows, looking at Vaelor, his concern growing...
"But Your Majesty wants us to teach and train other people. How will we teach and train them when we rely solely on our raw talent, with no method or curriculum for teaching or training!"
It was true they were exceptional in terms of stealth and assassination, but this expertise they possessed came from talent alone, not from experience, rules, and systems.
To understand this more simply, the difference between the newly established Spectre Corps of "Imris and Zaylon" and any seasoned intelligence or assassination organization, was the same difference between the world of the ancient eras and the world of the modern era.
Scholars of the ancient eras began their journey relying on talent first, then on trial and error to learn.
They could take on a few disciples at the start, but they couldn't build a great academy because of the enormous number of mistakes and obstacles they would face, for knowledge is cumulative, and without several generations of accumulation you cannot build something with solid foundations, all you can build is something simple that serves the current purpose, but Vaelor didn't want this.
And here we come to the scholars of the modern era, those people who were nourished on the knowledge of thousands of previous scholars, and had the ability to build academies with extremely solid foundations that develop at a tremendous rate... and this was exactly the case with the Spectre Corps.
They were merely at the beginning, knowing nothing about espionage besides research and listening, and knowing nothing about assassination besides killing the target... but the methods by which they would do this were all primitive.
Unlike seasoned organizations that had meticulously studied plans and had experience and solutions for numerous situations and problems, and could carry out an operation in more than one way, always having backup plans... in addition to the most important thing the Spectre organization lacked... a curriculum by which they could raise generations.
Upon hearing this problem from Zaylon, Vaelor smiled and took out a storage ring, giving it to Imris "in here you'll find memory chips containing numerous skills related to intelligence, espionage, assassination, and research, in addition to numerous teaching and training curricula related to these things, and along with them also numerous AI models specialized in explaining all of this and training you on it!"
Imris took hold of the ring cautiously, but he wasn't as utterly astonished as usual... and that was because he had begun growing accustomed to King Vaelor's miracles.
"Over the next two months, I want you both to withdraw from all other affairs and immerse yourselves in what this ring contains, learning from it as much as you can, and two months from now, you'll begin recruiting people and start building the special Spectre Corps!"