"Power, influence, wealth, fame, beautiful women—all these things are easily within our grasp, yet we act like fucking idiots, staying in this backward, filthy cesspool. We delude ourselves into thinking we can change this rotten World, help those ignorant masses whose spines were broken long ago stand up and escape the oppression of the upper class... Plague Doctor, if that’s not idiotic, what is?

Gavin’s emotions grew heated. "We’re Ascenders! One-in-ten-thousand Ascenders! We are nobler than these ignorant masses. Why should we suffer for their sake? Why should we give up a better life, give up grasping even greater Power, for them?"

Having known him for more than ten years, Plague Doctor had never seen Gavin like this. He pondered for a few seconds before saying softly,

"Gavin, you were never like this before."

The sentence was clearly pointed at someone else. Zhou Chen calmly replied:

"Mr. Plague Doctor, people change.

If you think I had some ulterior motive and brainwashed him... then why wouldn’t I just brainwash you directly?"

Plague Doctor fell silent.

Gavin, like him, was Tier Two.

Although he didn’t know how "Siegfried" had done it, if "Siegfried" could brainwash Gavin without anyone noticing, he could certainly brainwash him, another Tier Two, as well.

"It’s true, I wasn’t like this before. Back then, I was full of passion, I had lofty ideals, and I wanted to help the lower class rise up. But ever since I got a taste of the lavish lifestyle of an Ascender, I made up my mind to never go back to that hard life.

Of course, what truly solidified this decision for me were those ignorant masses. They’re just a bunch of hopeless, servile wretches."

Gavin sneered. "Think about it, everyone. Why did Rodan forty years ago, Saint Martin Francis twenty-five years ago, and Havier eighteen years ago all fail? They were more outstanding than us, more visionary than us, more idealistic than us, and more powerful than us. They even pushed the North Carolina Government to the brink of collapse—

So why, in the end, did they all fail?"

Zhou Chen’s mind immediately supplied the relevant history. The history of the North Carolina Republic was obscure and niche; very few people knew about it. However, he had looked it up online before he came and had a general understanding.

Three large-scale uprisings had occurred in North Carolina’s history. The first was forty years ago. Rodan, then the Minister of Education of North Carolina, tried to implement a new education policy to give more people from the lower class the right to an education. However, this policy was quickly rejected by high-ranking government officials. The following week, someone framed Rodan, pinning the crime of treason on him.

At that time, quite a few people from the lower class were educated. They were dedicated to changing the country’s distorted class conflicts and fighting for more rights for the common people. These individuals lobbied everywhere, secretly raised a force, and grew to a considerable size. As the class conflicts in North Carolina intensified, Rodan’s framing and imprisonment naturally became the spark for resistance, and a massive uprising thus erupted.

One week after the uprising began, Rodan broke out of prison and became the leader of the rebellion.

Afterward, the Rebel Army and the Government Army fought for five years, with nearly 200,000 casualties. At the height of their advantage, the Rebel Army was only two cities away from the North Carolina Capital, pushing the North Carolina Government to the brink of collapse. But it wasn’t long before problems arose within the Rebel Army.

Due to the brutal fighting, the Rebel Army’s strength was greatly depleted, forcing them to conscript on a large scale. Because of this, some hooligans and ruffians joined the Rebel Army and committed atrocities everywhere under their banner, tarnishing the Rebel Army’s reputation. Some even acted as informants for the Government Army, hoping to trade information for a chance to join the upper class. The combination of these factors led to increasingly heavy losses for the Rebel Army in one battle after another.

Seeing that the situation was turning sour, some high-ranking members chose to betray them, leaking the location of the Rebel Army’s command center to the Government Army. The core leadership was captured all at once.

With Rodan’s execution, the massive rebellion finally came to an end. The Rebel Army had failed, but they left behind a spark of hope.

Next was the uprising led by Saint Martin Francis.

Saint Martin Francis was born in the slums and grew up hearing stories of Rodan and the Rebel Army, instilling in him a rebellious spirit. When he was fourteen, he personally witnessed a member of the upper class order his bodyguards to beat a family of three to death in the street, for no other reason than he was simply "not happy."

First, the man running the stall was beaten for no reason, his wails and pleas for mercy useless. Then, seeing things were bad, his wife and daughter tried to flee, but the bodyguards caught them, dragged them back, and beat and kicked them without a word, finally killing them brutally.

According to Saint Martin Francis’s later recollections, he couldn’t sleep at all that night. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of the family’s brutal deaths would appear before him. A fire began to burn in his heart, and then, as his emotions reached their peak, he unexpectedly awakened his Extraordinary Abilities.

Francis was both shocked and overjoyed. He told no one about this. He earned money by fighting in underground boxing matches to buy nutritional fluids, successfully passing through his Extraordinary Development Stage. Afterward, he quietly waited for the right moment. On a dark and stormy night, he took his chance and killed the upper-class man when he came to the slums to make a deal.

After that, Francis assassinated several more members of the upper class. He eventually made contact with the remnants of Rodan’s original Rebel Army and joined them without hesitation. In the following years, he grew rapidly, became the leader of the Rebel Army, and led the newly strengthened force in another uprising.