Commanding Wind and Cloud

Chapter 163: The So-called Number One

“Fanta Kunge, this is nothing to joke about!” A Centurion understood what was occurring and intervened, “You’re a member of the Fanta Family!”

“So what?” Fanta Kunge lifted his eyes to stare at Qian Jin. Only those who have competed with him were aware of the power this peer possessed! To attain such power at such a young age meant partaking special training methods that others were incapable of! Only by using such special means would my second eldest brother look up to me! Fanta Kunge thought to himself.

Qian Jin scratched his head, “You reached out to me for that?”

“Of course!” Fanta Kunge nodded his head, “I know that you’re powerful, you’re even possibly more powerful than I could ever imagine. Even General Wind in might not be your rival…”

“What?”

“Could that be true?”

“Has Fanta Kunge grown distraught due to the fight?”

“Is there something wrong with his head? How could General Wind lose to someone who hasn’t even been admitted to an advanced academy? Even if he was a bloodline warrior, he still couldn’t manage that.”

Piles of soldiers followed the Centurion in chattering, all of a sudden the camp was filled with all kinds of disgruntled voices as discontent increased.

Fanta Kunge replied to the boisterous crowd with silence, looking at Qian Jin, waiting for his response.

“Um, you’re already powerful enough.” It was not that Qian Jin was unwilling to instruct him, but that he felt it necessary to make contact with the other descendants of the Fanta Family. What if Fanta Kunge had several elder brothers who were extremely arrogant and wanted to duel with him? They would also be emboldened due to his instruction being seen as an insult to the Fanta Family.

“I have to get stronger!” Fanta Kunge was nearly growling. Though he was lowering his body, the blue veins on his forehead had protruded, “I have to be stronger! I’m already powerful now. A lot of people say that I’m number one in Jinsey State, but how many of them know that there were no bloodline warriors taking part in the general exam this time? This was because they had all been promised admission to an advanced academy? And me, as the number one…”

Fanta Kunge was carrying a distressed look, “Couldn’t live up to my title at all.”

“And then?” Qian Jin suddenly waved his hand, “Let it be. Everyone has their own secrets and I don’t aim to dig out yours. But your perseverance is very touching. It’s a little exaggerated to call it instruction as I’m still improving myself, but we can exchange notes and discuss things with each other now and then.”

Fanta Kunge stood up straight and wore a grateful expression. Not everything needed to be said, nor could all acts of kindness be paid off by merely saying thanks. As such, he didn’t overdo his expressions of gratitude for what Qian Jin had promised him.

“I’m not crazy.” Fanta Kunge responded to the incessant crowd around him, “I know what I am talking about. General Wind is powerful, but defeating Qian Jin is something unknown.”

“Do you even know what you’re talking about? Do you think that General Wind was appointed to garrison the Reventment Battlefield due to his lack of strength? This was because he had crossed someone! Thus he was banished here…our general is very…”

“Tiger Kunge, you think that I can’t beat Qian Jin?” General Wind had come to the field without anybody’s attention. He looked up Fanta Kunge and Qian Jin up and down with great interest. He thought that Fanta Kunge came to Qian Jin because he felt aggravated due to his defeat, but it turned out that he had not only admitted his incompetence but also pleaded for instruction from Qian Jin actively.

“General, he was just joking.” Qian Jin kept moving his hands, reminding himself that they came here to learn more about the demon species, not irritating everyone in the Reventment camp.

Fanta Kunge stood straight, and wore a stubborn face which showed no signs of yielding, “Yes! My instinct tells me so!”

Qian Jin really wanted to kick Fanta Kunge’s buttocks for his so called instinct which might trigger a fight between him and someone else! The person standing in front of them was a general! A general of great power! If they were somewhere else, he would wish to compete with this general, not here on the front line, when the general was in charge of safeguarding its security. Suppose they fought against each other, both sides would have consumed a lot of energy. At that time, what if the defense was undermined, who would protect the civilians here?

“Is that so?” General Wind’s bold brows kept dancing, and his big round eye looked Qian Jin up and down, “Maybe you really have the ability to help me stretch my muscles.”

“My general…” Qian Jin was about to say something when he saw General Wind waved his hands.

“It’s not necessary to say anything. I haven’t stretched my muscles for a long time and I do want to try, but not now.” General Wind waved his hands at Qian Jin and Fanta Kunge, “Since you two are not going to fight, just follow me. One of you comes here to hone himself, the other comes with the aim of observing the demon species to prepare for the general exam. That’s perfectly fine.”

General Wind’s tent was much wider than the others’, where three Chiliarchies had already been dressed in their armors, waiting in a fixed place with a strong murderous look.

Seeing General Wind walk into the tent, the three Chiliarchies straightened their backs, and gazed at Qian Jin and Fanta Kunge with a puzzled look, wondering why their general called them in for the secret military meeting. Though these two young men’s individual combat abilities were indeed pretty strong.

“Come to me, you three, and you two.” General Wind took out a piece of white cloth from his inner coat, and unfolded it on the table—it was a map!

“This is…” Fanta Kunge frowned slightly, and then his eyes were opened wider with his pupils contracting. He lowered his voice, and said aloud in sheer surprise, “A map of the demon territories!”

Almost at the same time, the same words were uttered from Qian Jin!

General Wind and the three Chiliarchies were shocked, wearing a look that was even more surprised than the two young boys.

There were a number of demon territory maps dispersed in Zence Empire, yet few people paid attention to them, especially students of primary warrior academies.

During the several years of study for warriors, they not only had to strengthen their individual combat abilities but also were required to master all kinds of military knowledge. A single map of Zence Empire was enough for the students to research into, let alone studying the maps of the demons territories for the students from a primary academy?

But coincidences didn’t exist! As Fanta Kunge was born to Fanta Family, a military family, General Wind didn’t feel too surprised about his knowledge of military maps. But the fact that Qian Jin, a mere warrior apprentice from Oakland Academy, was also able to tell identify this map of the demon territories amazed General Wind. Is that to say, Oakland Mage and Warrior Academy had improved their teaching abilities by leaps and bounds during these years?

“There’s something wrong with the map.” Qian Jin was ignorant of the other people’s astonished gazes and pointed at the edge of the map, “There should be a bunker of the demons species right here where roughly 50 soldiers reside. And here…there should be a river, and also…”

The tent was filled with Qian Jin’s voice, who was concentratedly correcting the map’s mistakes. Fanta Kunge looked at Qian Jin blankly. Before coming to the Reventment fortress, he had studied all kinds of demon territories maps near the fortress at home and found out the real locations of the places marked on the map through comparison. How could Qian Jin know these? It seemed that he was even more familiar with these locations than him.

General Wind looked at the map silently. Were it not for him being garrisoned here for many years, and that he had bought some maps from various trade caravans and had stealthily slipped into the demons’ territories to inspect the terrains, he might have been convinced that Qian Jin was talking nonsense at this moment.

Right! He was right again! Watching Qian Jin correcting and illustrating the map, General Wind kept nodding his head unconsciously, because those locations were exactly the same as what Qian Jin had pointed them out to be.

Qian Jin finished talking about the map and found that the tent was even quieter than Rollin’s mourning hall, in which the slating of the opening flaps of the tent against the wind was the only sound around.

General Wind took a deep breath, and changed his look at Qian Jin, from surprise, to shock, to puzzlement, and then to appreciation. He used to think that he was only a warrior apprentice engaged in individual combat, and never ever would he have imagined Qian Jin’s ability in reading maps and could even instantly recognize the errors of the map’s proportion scale.

In this era where most warriors attached great importance on strengthening their personal powers, there was a young person who valued maps! General Wind smiled, bantering himself that when he was at Qian Jin’s age, he was indulged in enhancing his individual combat abilities, in the hope of defeating the bloodline warriors, while neglecting the importance of maps. He had already been overthrown by this young person regarding the issue of maps.

The three Chiliarchies felt a cold air rising from their backs into their heads, as this guy seemed to have got the point! At least some of the mistakes he pointed out were the same as what they had figured out.

“Hey, kid…” General Wind coughed, to break the silent impasse, “How do you know all of this?”

Qian Jin couldn’t tell them the truth that he was assigned to sort out the family library when he was in Qian Family in his early years, during which time he had looked through a lot of maps, dreaming about becoming a respected general in the future. And among the maps he had read there were a lot of maps of the demon territories. Through comparing the different marks of the same places between different maps, he drew the above conclusions.

“There happened to be a map of the locations here in the school.” Qian Jin fabricated a reason, but General Wind didn’t intend to further question him. After all this young person was from Zence Empire, instead of coming here as a spy of the demon species.

“All right, you have got them right.”

General Wind patted on the map hard with his two hands, which made the appointment cards on the table bounce up and then crash down onto the table, producing a sound as if complaining about General Wind.

“This map was used to sabotage me.” General Wind collapsed into his general seat, and said, “But this mission should be real.”

Mission? Qian Jin and Fanta Kunge were suddenly excited. Meanwhile, the entrance of the tent was opened to both sides, through which the bright light slipped into the tent. It was Duren Burg, who stood outside the tent, carrying a long spear and squinting at General Wind, “Someone said you were calling for me, my general?”

“Get in here.” General Wind waved his hand to call Duren Burg in, “I bet that you’re also astute. I intended to refuse the mission saying that it is unattainable, but I find that you three are pretty capable. I want to have you try it out.”