Chapter 210: Recruiting An Army (1/2)
After they defeated the two humanoids of superior races one after another, the Players returned to the village where a situation was unfolding amongst the family of the Long Ears’ chief.
“Uncle, you did what…”
Laybit was glaring in disbelief at Rangka, who still had the two broken pieces of the scepter he had snapped in two.
“Don’t start. I was only trying to distract them.” Rangka could not help looking embarrassed, aware that his nephew[1] had seen him ‘swearing fealty’.
“Your father isn’t dead yet,” He added, clearing his throat.
“What…” Laybit turned towards his father, who still was not showing any signs of life.
How could he be alive? His heart has stopped, let alone the fact that he wasn’t breathing!
But even when that thought crossed Laybit’s mind, his hearing—several times stronger than human’s—caught a faint sound.
Most wouldn’t hear it, but it was rapid and short as it was faint and powerful.
The sound was intermittent, echoing only once after a few moments.
And that sound came from his father’s chest.
A heartbeat.
Anyone not paying attention would never hear that exceedingly slow heartbeat.
“That’s…” Laybit was taken aback.
“Tortoise breathing,” Rangka explained then. “A martial sorcery passed down over generations in our tribe that allows the use to feign death for a moment. That said, Brother’s injuries are real, and it would take a long time for him to recover and heal before he could wake from it.”
He sighed, before continuing dejectedly and helplessly. “Even so, our kind is still too weak physically despite being able to learn martial sorcery. We would never win against the other despotic humanoid tribes.”
***
Xi Wei almost spat out his divine attributes when he left the Invisible Pantheon meeting, returned to his divine kingdom and saw what happened.
Wasn’t Tortoise Breathing supposed to be a wuxia thing? Isn’t it a little out of character for something like that to appear in this world?
Be that as it may, Xi Wei himself was aware that his perspective differed from mortals. While they could see things on the surface, he could see it down to its essence.
Unlike Chinese martial artists where they use neigong or true qi, the essence of the Long-Ears’ martial sorcery was the flow of a special mana around their bodies, and it would be closer to strengthening spells more than actual martial arts.
That wasn’t unusual, however, since the nonhumans of the Western Continent had rather singular faith—they were either believers of Bellphon, the God King of Beasts or the spirits of their own ancestors.
However, sacred arts that were connected to Bellphon mostly had to do with taming or crossbreeding beasts. Any such orthodox sacred arts were also preciously rare, just as a clerical system did not exist for it.
On the other hand, for the other nonhumans who worship ancestral spirits, they would actually have different objects of worship since the ‘ancestral spirits’ of each nonhuman race was different.
That directly led to a blurring of the deity identity for all ancestral spirits, and religious schism had left it for dead even before the Third Divine War began—in fact, it could share the crown of ‘most pathetic divine being in history’ alongside Rotten Bones.
Therefore, the supernatural power that the Western Continent mostly used was sorcery, a system similar to magic itself. Naturally, martial sorcery is a branch of that sorcery system.
In direct translation, the technique that Rangka just spoke of was a martial art ‘resembling a tortoise holding its breath and staying still to feign death’. But when it passed through Xi Wei’s cognition, it was automatically translated by his mind into Tortoise Breathing…
That being said, Xi Wei still had his interest pique despite the difference of martial sorcery in contrast to normal magic and sacred arts, not to mention that it made him feel nostalgic about the various techniques in his former world.
Furthermore, the Players might obtain new classes by learning how to train in those abilities, though Xi Wei also really wanted to see the Players going bald for some reason as well…
And as mentioned before, the Western Continent could be considered as virgin lands: rarely any religion exists and it is perfect for preaching.
“Umu. Just when I’m out of ideas for Zonyan and the others should be doing. We’ll do just that!”
With that thought in mind, Xi Wei’s tentacles danced, the keyboard of the Pantheon Computer making cracking sounds as he started typing.
***
[Ding!]
[Side quest started: Recruit an army]
[Although you have succeeded in reaching the Western Continent, the power of your enemy remained hidden in mists. The God of Games therefore predicts that your adventure would not go smoothly, and you need support right this second! Neither fortune nor the lands are reliable—so try to earn favor of local citizens, laying the foundation and network for your operations in the future!]