Amanda's competitiveness is once again ignited. After all, it's been quite a while since she had seen someone new who could go toe to toe with her, and she will only be satisfied and become the victor once she kills Michael first, drawing first blood between them!
After that, Marcus brought away Amanda and took her into their ancestral home where she would train in the ways of an assassin.
Unbeknownst to Michael, this change in Amanda's fate would cause him a lot of trouble in the future, because according to the original timeline, the student of Sage Laura should have been her instead of Michael.
And that huge trouble would be another player, a love rival, who would become the student of Marcus' eldest son.
*****
"I'm back here again" Michael said through the hood of his cloak, as he observed his current surroundings.
Michael once again came back to Stormwind Fortress, as the nearest hotspot for the Blood Orchid is near here.
Inside...the Forest of Despair.
A monster territory inside the forest called Blood Forest, not because the place is covered in blood but because the apex predator of the place are packs of wolves called Blood Wolves, where they safeguard a lot precious herbs, and one of the few is a Blood Orchid.
But because the monster territory is just at the lower end amongst the hundreds of monster territories inside the forest, the chances that the herb would be a Blood Orchid is just one percent, maybe even lower, so there's a good chance that Michael would be just wasting his time on this adventure if the herb that the Blood Wolves is safeguarding for their consumption is another herb, and not the Blood Orchid that he's looking for.
After all, the herb is simply precious as it is one of the main ingredients for monster evolution.
And the good thing is that he had just arrived in time for a punitive force quest inside Forest of Despair after a non stop three days of travelling on foot and on his mount, and the quest is something he had learned from his conversation with Tina a few in game days ago.
Three days ago.
Someone whispered to Michael, who had spent a day reading in Starlight Library and two days doing some small quest around the city.
[Mike, are you there? You busy?]
It was Tina the Huntress, who had already reached Level 20 and currently staying at Stormwind Fortress after she and Michael had parted ways in Calderock village, and had been going monster grinding here and there, either by herself or with a team.
[Yo! What is it? Are you in trouble again? Don't tell me no one wants to team up with you again?]
[Shut up, I already have permanent team with me. Anyway, where have you been? I sent you a whisper almost every day since we separated from Calderock Village, but it was always blocked.]
[Ohh..I was a bit busy as I'm currently doing an important quest]
It was because Michael had blocked whispering or private messaging because he was too occupied for a day in the library, and the rest of the days is that he had just forgotten to lift off the block.
[I see. Do you have time now? Where are you?]
Michael had just submitted a quest for harvesting some common herbs that could be found just a dew distance away from the city.
[Yup, I'm at Starlight City, your starting location. Why?]
[Then, why don't you join the punitive force quest to Forest of Despair with me and my team? We decided to take the quest together, and I tried to contact you to ask if you wanted it too. After all, the more the merrier, right?]
And that's how Michael came rushing back to Stormwind Fortress, especially when he heard from Tina that one the two targets of the punitive force, is the Blood Forest.
*****
Sunrise Empire.
Located at the borderline of the eastern continent, surrounded by monsters at the west and north due to the neighboring Forest of Despair, then kingdoms and empires in its east and south.
The empire fortified its borders by constructing border towns and cities and organized militias or regular army in those places. They constructed towering walls facing the kingdoms and empires in the east and south.
Meanwhile, the north and west frontier that's facing the Forest of Despair doesn't have the protection of a huge wall.
Because for them, the north and west frontier doesn't need a huge wall, because the most important point for them is that they can send their new recruits here to baptize themselves in battles, and at the same time, it's also where their soldiers could continuously hone themselves so that their abilities and skills wouldn't get rusty as there are no wars happening in the continent, except for the occasional monster hordes and small monster raids.
This is the reason why the Sunrise Empire is considered a superpower in the whole Nevareth, and it's all thanks to their battle hardened soldiers that always faces the brunt of the monsters coming out from the Forest of Despair.
But the drawback on this is that their current status quo is also taking a huge toll on their population, but the good thing is that humans are innately l.u.s.tful, and that there would be at least multiple babies being born almost everyday in the empire.
The upcoming punitive force quest is led by a recently promoted general called, Ouki. An up and rising star in the military, praised for his wits and bravery during the recent monster horde that boasted a number of over one hundred thousand goblins and hobgoblins which was led by a monster called the Goblin King, an event that happened in a different military fortress called, Arean.
And Ouki got promoted because he had bravely led a cavalry charge which resulted in the Goblin King getting killed under his glaive even when they were under the barrage of monsters on all sides.
A cavalry charge wouldn't have happened if wasn't for those cowardly nobles that abandoned their post and led to the fortress getting breached from the northern gate, and if it wasn't for Ouki's quick wits of where he immediately allocated a unit of soldiers to temporarily hold the monsters off, then the horde would have reached the civilian area and started a massacre on defenseless civilians.
With no other choice left, he immediately assembled a cavalry of ten thousand strong that consisted mostly of elite soldiers, where they had miraculously killed the Goblin King in exchange of the lives of over seven thousand of their fellow comrades, who could have been their brothers, sisters, wives or husbands.
A lot of soldiers were promoted in ranks after that event, while those nobles who deserted their posts were immediately court martialed, where all of them were sentenced to death, executed in public under the eyes of hundreds of thousands of residents.
One of those nobles who were put to death was even the son of a Duke and even he didn't escape from his death, it just shows how powerful the imperial family is that a Duke's son wasn't even spared from his inevitable death..
After all, the Sunrise Empire despise the cowards and deserters the most, and no one would escape from death even if you're a noble or not.
*****
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