Blood of the Army

by Tinalynge

  His eyes gleamed with excitement, and his back straightened. He perked up, and although he was not about to forgive what the prophet had done to him, he was not so stubborn as to say no thank you to something so obviously practical to him.

  "Got you interested for once," Lan laughed, his eyes once more shining mischievously, and Xue Wei suddenly started wondering if he had been cheated.

  "Don't worry; I promised I'd teach you, so I will teach you." Lan laughed and seemed as if every little action Xue Wei made truly entertained him.

  "You are a rarity. You would fit so nicely in my collection," Lan sighed again and shook his head. "Well, for now, try and focus on your voice, merge it with your Qi, as if you’re coating a bubble, and send it towards me."

  Xue Wei looked at Lan with confusion. Compress his voice? How was he supposed to do that?

  Lan shook his head, "You are supposed to be a heaven-sent genius for goodness sake, try thinking a bit!"

  "I am thinking!" Xue Wei protested, but his voice was a bit weaker than before. If he had some kind of starting point to go off of, he would understand what Lan meant, so he could not help but feel inadequate for the first time since he set off on the path of cultivation.

  "Well, I guess it is because no one here in the Kingdom of Heping has the ability to do so. I will help you so don't worry – even if your comprehension was as bad as an earthworm's, I would still not give up!"

  "Why thank you for comparing me to an earthworm."

  "No worries. Now what you should do is to think of the sentence you want to say. Then guide a stream of Qi into your mind and then project it towards the person you wish to speak with."

  "You could have given me that explanation from the start," Xue Wei grumbled.

  "It would not have been fun if I did that, now would it?" Lan grinned, but Xue Wei just snorted at his obvious amusement.

  Still, Lan was teaching him how to compress his voice, so he stopped complaining. Instead, he attempted to do what Lan had told him, and sent a message to him.

  "Can you hear me?" was what arrived, which made Lan look at Xue Wei with a smile on his face that grew larger by the minute. "You managed to successfully transmit a message already on your first attempt... not bad at all!" Lan praised.

  "The sound was very uneven, and some of the words were loud while others were silent. You will need to balance the Qi so that it is even with every single word." Lan suddenly looked serious as he began explaining things to Xue Wei, taking the younger man completely by surprise.

  Xue Wei listened intently and nodded his head solemnly. He was going to try his best and sent another sentence towards Lan.

  "Much better this time!" he praised. "Once again!"

  And like this, most of the day went by. Xue Wei had been capable of transmitting a sentence right away, but to balance the Qi and make the sound natural was something he found was a lot harder than he had expected.

  "Okay, you have learned it now," Lan nodded his head with satisfaction. "It took you a few hours, but for you to learn it so fast shows that your comprehension is not bad. Still, it is not great either as I had to explain to you what you were to do and you could not figure it out on your own."

  Xue Wei smiled wryly and shook his head. No one would have been able to understand his first way of describing the technique, but things were different now that he understood it.

  "Well then, why don't you lead me to the dining hall?" Lan asked. They had spent most of the day wandering the tent camp and had stopped by their tent, where Lan taught Xue Wei how to compress his voice.

  "Do you think they are distributing food this late?" Xue Wei asked, frowning. The sun had already set, and it was past dinner time. But on second thought, Xue Wei recalled that Lan was an esteemed guest. Xue Wei could not imagine them saying no to him.

  While Xue Wei viewed Lan as a weirdo and a madman, it was clear that everyone else revered him.

  "Tell me, you are not a real prophet are you?" Xue Wei sent to Lan, which made Lan laugh, but the man did not answer the question. Instead, he just smiled at Xue Wei.

  In Xue Wei's eyes, Lan was an extremely skilled martial artist, but he was not a prophet. He was able to observe things that others did not notice, but this was not enough to call him a prophet.

  Seeing that he was not going to answer the question, Xue Wei just snorted and came to the conclusion that Lan was indeed a fraud. And he was good at what he did.

  "Since you won't answer that question, then what about your collection? Which kind of things do you collect?" Xue Wei asked.

  In fact, Xue Wei was practicing his ability to converse through the mind, and since he had no other person to talk to, he had no option than to strike up a conversation with prophet Lan.

  Lan finally seemed interested. His eyes burned with excitement, and he stopped in his tracks, turned towards Xue Wei, and the biggest, happiest grin the younger of the two had seen appeared on the lips of this older man.

  "I am collecting anything rare. That can be beast cores, herbs, minerals, ores, treasures, pills. Everything that is rare is of value to me. Why have you taken an interest in my collection? Have you decided to become a part of my collection now?"

  When Xue Wei heard this, he shook his head silently. "I am not going to become a part of your collection," he said seriously. This time, he was not using the compressed voice because Lan had not done so either, and his response made the prophet seem disappointed.

  "Let us go and get something to eat," Xue Wei said again and started walking towards the dining hall, this time leaving Lan to follow him. However, Lan took one step, and suddenly he was next to Xue Wei once more. It was as if he had compressed space itself and teleported. This was done so casually that Xue Wei, who was watching him, realized that the man was without equal among the ones he had ever met or heard about.

  Xue Wei and Lan made it to the dining hall. They could smell the scent of food in the air, and when they arrived at the dining hall, they found that it was filled with youngsters.

  When Lan and Xue Wei entered everyone turned around to see who it was, and many of the expressions were filled with jealousy.

  The dining hall was a tent like the others. There was a kitchen in one end of the tent, and in the other end was a tall podium where the commander and various captains were seated around a large table with benches.

  On the ground in the middle were also many tables and benches for the geniuses of the Genius Camp, and they were all filled to the brim.

  "Mister Lan, please come sit with us," the commander requested, and Lan nodded his head as he went to fetch a tray of food before heading to the commander's table.

  Xue Wei knew that the invitation was not extended to him, so he too went to get a tray of food, after which he started looking around the tables.

  It was not until the final table that he found a spot to sit, but as soon as he sat down, he felt everyone staring at him with anger and jealousy in their eyes. What made this weakling think he was better than them? What made him so special that Prophet Lan went out of his way to take care of him?

  Everyone was completely convinced that Lan was a prophet and that he knew things that no one else knew. As a result, they also thought that he had noticed something in Xue Wei's future that made him a special figure.

  These geniuses had never before been stepped over by anyone else, and now they felt that a weakling beneath their strength was doing just that.

  Xue Wei was used to being hated, so he did not do anything special. He just started eating his meal and completely ignored everyone else.

  Seeing his complete and utter lack of reaction, some of the stronger experts clenched their fists with the desire to put him in his place, but whenever they thought about it they would glance at Lan and stop themselves. Their vengeance could wait until the prophet had left.

  Chapter 19 - Dining Hall

  "He is doing it on purpose," Xue Wei mumbled to himself. "I bet he is doing all of this on purpose. He wants me to suff
er. He wants me to be hated by all of them."

  "I bet he is having a whole lot of fun right now," Xue Wei continued, but he refused to look at Lan and his smug face more than necessary. He poked the food with his chopsticks and could not help but praise the quality of the food that they were provided in the Genius Camp.

  The meal consisted of meat from Fierce Beasts alongside different medicinal herbs and roots.

  These medicinal herbs and roots were so weak that one had to eat an astronomical amount to see any actual change in one’s cultivation, however when eaten in a meal, these limited portions of energy would spread through the body and assist in supporting the foundations and make them even steadier.

  Xue Wei had eaten food like this at special occasions, but to eat it daily was simply wasteful. Were they given special treatment today, since it was the first day, or was the Genius Camp wasteful with their resources?

  The Kingdom of Heping was a poor country. Thus it should not be able to provide the soldiers with such luxurious food every single day, so Xue Wei, completely ignorant of whatever was happening around him, ate every single last bite on the plate.

  When he finished his meal, he went back with his tray to the people behind the counter that had delivered food to him before. Without waiting for Lan, he headed straight back to his tent.

  As he exited the dining hall, Xue Wei saw a whole group of experts waiting for him outside. All of them glared at him and looked around to see whether or not they could find Lan.

  But Lan was not present, and one of the geniuses left the group unnoticed and stood at the entrance to the dining hall, keeping an eye on Lan.

  "You are on your own this time, kiddo," Lan's voice sounded in Xue Wei's mind. "You will get stronger, or you'll get beaten to a pulp. Either way, you will learn something."

  "Is this another one of your teaching lessons?" Xue Wei sneered back with his compressed voice, and Lan's laughter rang through the entire area.

  No one knew what he was laughing about apart from Xue Wei, who furrowed his brows. His eyes narrowed, and he could feel the killing intent within him growing dangerously out of control.

  "He is doing it on purpose," Xue Wei shook his head with annoyance. "What did you just say?" someone asked when they saw Xue Wei's reaction, but Xue Wei just looked at him as if he was looking at trash.

  "I was not speaking to you," Xue Wei snapped at the genius in front of him.

  The genius that was standing in front of him was a one layer Earth Warrior. When he looked around him, he saw that everyone present were at the first layer apart from two at the second layer.

  Although he could deal with first layer Earth Warriors easily, and could tussle with someone at the second layer, there were simply too many experts surrounding him right now.

  "When in doubt, flee," Xue Wei quickly made up his mind. It was clear that Lan wanted him to face off against the entire Genius Camp, but Xue Wei was aware of his own shortcomings and simply activated Forbidden Rush.

  Having activated his movement technique, he could easily sidestep the attacks that suddenly rained down upon the location where he had been standing moments before.

  Their attacks had been delayed by a few seconds. It was clear that they had not channeled the attacks before they suddenly saw him vanishing into thin air, and thus their attacks also hit nothing but the location where he had been standing.

  "He vanished!" someone exclaimed, but the others just looked at him as if he was an idiot. It was clear that he had vanished, there was no reason to mention it.

  "It seems his uncle valued him greatly and gave him an outstanding movement technique," one of the two-layer Earth Warriors said as he stroked his chin.

  "You guys are better off not trying to make things difficult for him like this," a voice sounded from behind, and the others turned around to see a third layer Earth Warrior behind them.

  "We cannot accept him! He is a simple Ordinary Warrior, and he is close to the prophet from the central of the continent!"

  "He will become cocky if we do not teach him a lesson!"

  "We cannot accept him as he is. He is a shame to our Genius Camp!"

  "Do you think the Prophet fell for his handsome looks?"

  So many of the experts called out at the same time, and the third layer Earth Warrior that had appeared behind them just shook his head smilingly.

  "I never said that we could not teach him a lesson. I merely said that we could not do it like this."

  "For instance, if he is wounded during practice no one can say anything about it."

  "If he were to encounter an accident, then who is to be blamed?"

  "What if he were to encounter a Fierce Beast or a deserter in the arena, what good is his movement technique then? Fleeing can only work so far. I heard that one could bribe the gatekeepers of the Arena to rig the matches."

  "We have to do things like this," the third layer Earth Warrior continued. "He is highly revered by the prophet and his uncle is Xiao Lei. We cannot afford for him to know what happened."

  The truth was that this young man was just as tired and against Xue Wei as the others, but he was also aware that it was impossible to get rid of Xue Wei without Xiao Lei knowing what was happening if they didn’t move covertly.

  Since that was the case, he might as well share his many thoughts on how to get rid of him with this group of people. If he were lucky, one of them would do just what he had given as an example, and then he would be rid of a troublesome person.

  "You fled fast!" the annoying voice of Prophet Lan appeared in Xue Wei's mind once again when he had fled from the group of youngsters.

  This time, Xue Wei was incapable of answering him. He was simply too far away, and he growled in annoyance at knowing that the next couple of weeks would be filled with conversations with this madman who wanted to pit him against the world.

  Xue Wei arrived at his tent and entered it before he sat down on the ground, and sighed as he looked at the bed which he had given up for the next two weeks.

  The ground was cold and hard, but fortunately he was no longer a mortal, which meant this level of cold could not make him sick.

  Just as he entered his tent, Xue Wei finally felt a calm descend upon him. The killing intent and urge to fight, brought about by the overwhelming number of people he encountered and fled from before, was suddenly gone.

  He knew that he had no chance to defeat the group of experts, but he had still felt an urge to do battle. He had felt an urge to kill every last one of them.

  Although the reason they disliked him was because they felt he had been praised too much and given too much credit, and was almost overshadowing them despite actually being the weakest amongst them rank wise, was something that he could understand, he also knew that if one were to rank them on battle strength, then he was far from being the lowest ranked.

  In the Genius Camp, there were a full fifty-four third layer Earth Warriors; a hundred and seventy-three two-layer Earth Warriors; three ninth layer Ordinary Warriors and remaining nine thousand seven hundred and thirty-four were one layer Earth Warriors.

  Xue Wei would at least be ranked in the top hundred if he were to fight them, and he understood this. He also knew that although Lan had not seen him fight, this strange prophet had already gauged his strength completely and knew exactly how strong he was and what he was able to do.

  "No more thinking about him. It makes me so angry," Xue Wei muttered as he slowly emptied his mind of thoughts.

  As his mind was emptied, he focused solely on his breathing. On the energy all around him and on how he drew it into his body. He rotated this energy through his meridians and absorbed it into his strange and unique dantian with every cycle.

  The evening turned to night and Xue Wei was completely lost in his cultivation. He did not even pay attention to the mad ramblings of Lan that came from time to time. In fact, he paid it so little mind that he forgot what had been said the moment he heard it.

  Lan seemed to sense t
hat Xue Wei was cultivating, and as a result he stopped bothering Xue Wei. As for Lan's true purpose, no one seemed to understand it.

  That night, Lan was busy drinking and chatting with the upper echelons of the Recruitment Camp while Xue Wei was cultivating.

  Although Lan did not return to claim the bed, Xue Wei had already taken the payment for leaving the bed untouched the next two weeks, so even if Lan were to find a tent on his own, Xue Wei would stay on the floor for those two weeks.

  When one made a promise, one had to keep it.

  As the sun rose in the sky, Xue Wei awoke from his meditation. His eyelids lifted and he looked straight into the smiling face of Lan, who was so close that their noses almost touched.