"Why so serious?"
Leonardo couldn't help but voice out an exclamation toned with his exasperation while being strung along at a speed no regular Tier 1 cultivator could handle. In fact, Sivan was very annoyed that she couldn't go any faster than this at the moment.
"The upper echelon of the Qing Sector is in a meeting right now," Sivan pointed in the distance at the other building next to the Commander's Pagoda. According to Sivan and Gal, that is the location where all war efforts related discussions and meetings are carried out.
The first floor is for meetings held by either the Left Wing Advisor or the Right Wing Advisor, and sometimes both of them would be present… The second floor is designated for the Military Advisor to hold his meetings, and the third floor corresponds to a meeting hosted by the Commanding General herself.
At this moment and according to Gal, the second floor has been occupied to the brim. This means that the sector is planning to move out in full force, as both the left and right factions are about to be involved under the leadership of the Military Advisor.
It was at a time like this that the Commanding General called for this new attendant. At first, Sivan and Gal were somewhat disappointed that their new friend and investment got exempted from the meeting, but who would have guessed that he was exempted because the Commanding General wished to speak to him in person?
Anxious and excited, all the while rattling on with her speculations, Sivan dragged Leonardo to the front gate of the pagoda with a flushed face. She, a mere maid, was about to step foot into the legendary pagoda where the Commanding General spent her days.
She was about to walk on the same floor as Her Eminence.
eaglesnovɐ1,сoМ "Sivan… You need to calm down!" Leonardo shouted in a low voice by the maid's ear the moment she paused to admire the spectacular structure of the pagoda.
Sivan realized that she was making a fool out of herself due to excessive excitement and bit her tongue. A faint trail of blood leaked by the corner of her lips as some clarity took over her mind, hurriedly helping the woman calm down through a bit of pain.
Leonardo shook his head and fetched a white napkin from his storage ring before wiping clean the corner of Sivan's mouth. Then, he flicked her forehead with a hint of reprimand in his eyes, and even though it wasn't painful at all, Sivan put on a wronged expression as she watched Leonardo step into the first floor of the pagoda.
Grumbling, she followed in his footsteps with the excuse of showing this new attendant the way inside.
Leonardo stopped bothering with this zealous woman the moment he entered the pagoda, not caring whether she followed him inside or not. After all, how difficult was it to find your way in a building of this scale to someone on his level of cultivation?
"Ascend to the fourth floor," Emily's voice sounded next to Leonardo's ear while he advanced toward the staircase. As for Sivan, she wasn't planning to take one step forward after officially entering the pagoda; having set foot inside was satisfying enough to this young maid, hence she quickly left after bowing deeply.
"Silly girl," Leonardo shook his head with a bitter smile, though he didn't voice out his thoughts while he ascended one floor at a time.
The pagoda was dense with pure ether. Oddly enough, as Tier 1 cultivators had yet to introduce any form of external energy into their bodies, both pure and chaotic ether didn't pose any lethal threat to them. Perhaps this was a profound lesson from heaven, putting the highest and the lowest of this world on equal grounds.
Almost in no time at all since there weren't any 'outsiders' here, Leonardo scaled the floors of the pagoda and reached the staircase to the fourth level.
"I assume you've seen through my little trick," Emily's lazy voice, accompanied by light footsteps, echoed from above. Looking up, Leonardo spotted the elegant figure of a woman dressed in white military clothes, long golden hair, and a smooth face mask stepping lightly on the staircase.
A mask like this wouldn't stop Leonardo from probing past it to glimpse at Emily's face, but he wasn't so low on emotional intelligence as to bypass this symbolic gesture. Since the woman didn't feel like revealing her true face, he had no interest or drive to go against her wishes.
"It doesn't count as me seeing through it when you put both the exam and the answers sheet in my face," Leonardo shrugged, sighing. "If I was an enemy though, I'd have fallen for this so-called little trick of yours; provided I was in a race against time in a war."
Emily smiled faintly behind her mask, as evident by the contractions of the skin near the corners of her eyes.
As for Leonardo, he shook his head and continued, "Unfortunately, although I may be clever, I've never been someone for the arts of war. In my opinion, if I managed to get through the enemy's defenses and infiltrate the heart of their territory, I'd be more concerned with collective lives rather than waste time collecting intelligence… If anything, I might as well flatten the entire library to the ground."
Emily's smile behind her mask froze, she then shook her head. "That might work when you have overwhelming strength and one enemy to worry about, but if you're just one beast in a jungle full of conniving wolves, you wouldn't get the chance to breathe essay after a brutal fight, let alone heal your wounds."
Her point was also valid.
Now that Leonardo had a territory to worry about if the high-caliber firepower was to run out of commission due to a reckless fight with one enemy, the others would take the chance to trap and kill him once and for all, then proceed to devour his assets. Even if he wanted to hide, his people and castle aren't going anywhere.
Some would rather turn a blind eye to the death of their people and come back at a later date for revenge, but the truly wise move is to stay away from such situations, to begin with. Thus, unless someone could overwhelm their enemies with power, Leonardo's approach was anything but smart and efficient.
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