Honestly, Saren completely overturned Chu Guang's impression of the Eastern Legion, as well as his impression of what a legion commander should be.
He did not seem like an ordinary officer, or even a conventional soldier. Not only was he well-spoken, but his every gesture carried the elegance of an old aristocrat. He looked more like a civil official than Bannott, who actually was one.
Chu Guang could not help thinking that if there were a bottle of red wine decorating the table beside him, he could be placed straight into a painting without looking out of place at all.
In particular, his refined, easygoing temperament and depth oddly resembled Chu Guang's own in some ways.
Of course, only in a few ways.
It was like how the Eastern Legion and the Alliance disagreed on most matters, yet shared overlapping interests in some areas.
For example, matters concerning the eastern world.
Compared to the Southern Legion, whose colonial lands were relatively barren, the Eastern Legion controlled vast and fertile territory. Further expansion was an undertaking where the investment greatly outweighed the returns, and its return on investment was far inferior to developing the land they already possessed.
Although the Eastern Legion's enormous body of junior officers had the strongest motivation to seek achievements and advancement, that drive was not enough to shake the upper military aristocracy—or rather, those "great landowners" holding vast estates.
And the only generals with any hope of leading the eastern expansionists to carve out a future, General Klaas and General Griffin, had both perished during the most recent eastern campaign—one at the hands of the Great Rift, the other in the war against the Alliance.
For all those reasons, the eastern expansionists, mainly composed of young officers, had been almost completely marginalized within the Eastern Legion.