As time passed, officer candidates who had gone to the empire for study abroad gradually returned one by one.
Those who came back were divided into junior, intermediate, and senior officers.
There were two main criteria for assigning ranks to the candidates.
One was the report cards they submitted, and the other was the timing of their return from abroad.
The report cards were certified by the imperial military academy.
Some tried to forge them, but such fools couldn’t fool the instructors stationed in Florence.
"Who do these idiots think we are? Do they really think they can evade the eyes of those who have spent years at the military academy?"
"Not even worth looking at! Immediate expulsion! They’re rotten from the start! They’d probably sell the weapons given to them to the enemy!"
The instructors pushed for the expulsion of those who tried to cheat.
However, Lorenzo, Giovanni, and those at the very top of Florence’s military had a slightly different view.
"They did go off to study in the empire after all..."
"If they leave as mercenaries to other cities, they’d hand over our tactics and strategies as is. We need some kind of countermeasure."
"Though they’re idiots, they’re still the seeds of our family… We can’t just kill them all..."