The Examination

"Chen Mo lifted the five-hundred-jin stone, grade A-plus." An old man with a goatee wrote Chen Mo's score on silk paper.

Hearing the call, Chen Mo slowly lowered the stone wheel from above his head. He was currently taking part in the Guard Camp's monthly routine assessment alongside numerous other guards.

All guards in the Guard Camp had to undergo an assessment once a month, and the assessment grades were roughly divided into four tiers: A, B, C, and D.

Tiers A and B received rewards, tier C meant neither merit nor fault, and tier D faced punishment.

The assessment score Chen Mo obtained last time was tier A, and naturally he wanted it again this time.

In addition to a reward of one tael of silver, tier A also earned a banquet reward; not only could one enjoy a hearty and delicious meal, but the acquired silver could also be used to buy more meat.

Over the past two months, the Mortal Transformation Pearl inside Chen Mo's body had already accumulated nearly fifty percent more qi and blood. Following this speed, in a little over two months he would be able to undergo his next Mortal Transformation.

Putting down the stone wheel in his hand, Chen Mo walked toward the drill ground to begin his archery examination.

Only by achieving quite good scores in all examinations could one finally obtain a tier A evaluation.

However, calling it an archery examination was actually just a test of drawing the bow; there was no need to actually shoot the arrow out.

Of course, releasing the bowstring empty would damage the bow, so after pulling the bows open, they still had to carefully retract the bowstring.

The reason they were not allowed to truly shoot arrows was also very simple, because arrows were too expensive. The manufacturing cost of a single fine-feathered arrow was not less than one-tenth of a tael of silver. Even General Sun did not dare let his subordinate guards shoot casually, as they simply could not afford to burn that kind of money.

Only during their usual practice did they have the opportunity to personally shoot a few arrows, and even then, they had to collect the arrows afterwards.

From this it could also be seen that poverty in literature and wealth in martial arts was by no means an empty saying.

This was merely foot archery; if one wanted to practice mounted archery, they would have to equip a horse, and expenses like that would soar to the heavens.

Therefore, the monthly archery examination actually only looked at whether the bow-drawing motion was standard and how many shi of heavy bows they could draw.

Chen Mo's physical strength was great enough that, even though the time he spent practicing archery was relatively short, the evaluations he received each time were not low either.

The archery examination ended, and the evaluation Chen Mo obtained was also A-minus, showing a clear improvement compared to the middle-B from last time.

Aside from an increase in his own physical strength, Chen Mo's control over himself had also strengthened greatly following his Mortal Transformation. To put it simply, he was able to better control the exertion and circulation of his physical strength.

Therefore, whatever he learned was not considered slow, and his speed of progress was also faster than ordinary people.

Right after the archery examination came flag signals.

On the battlefield, the situation was complex and ever-changing. It was not possible to rely on sound to transmit messages every single moment, and these guards of theirs had to be able to read flag signals.

This was even simpler. Except for a few foolish people born with dull brains who could not remember things, most guards could learn it quite well within a month or two.

Once these two items were examined, the final one was spear techniques.

Most of these guards learned the spear, with only a small minority possessing ancestral martial arts and being skilled in other weapons as an exception.

Spear techniques were easy to learn but difficult to master.

Even a fool, given a long spear and allowed to practice for ten days to half a month, could learn to thrust forward and kill.

Yet wanting to thoroughly master it and reach consummate proficiency required a very long time.

Chen Mo had studied spear techniques for two months. The basic moves of thrusting, parrying, lifting, stabbing, and sweeping were all practiced fairly well, but compared to those veteran soldiers who had entered the camp long ago, he still fell far behind.

In the end he only took a B-minus.

However, with the four items combined, he still received an A evaluation.

Not just him, guard after guard was undergoing the assessment, and their scores naturally varied in height and depth.

Obtaining tier A or B evaluations naturally brought joy; tier C meant neither merit nor fault, and it was fortunate that the remaining time today could be used to rest.

As for tier D, not only would they have to undergo training afterwards, but next month they would also have their two days of rest docked.

Originally they only had three days of rest in a month, and now for them only a single day remained.

The treatment enjoyed by these guards could not be said to be the best in all of Great Qian, but looking across the entire Xingyuan Prefecture, it was definitely second to none.

Therefore, the training was also the most rigorous.

Collecting the reward of one tael of silver obtained from his A evaluation, Chen Mo walked back to his own barracks, waiting to eat the midday banquet that rewarded them.

Inside his barracks, there was still only him alone, and no one else had moved in.

Nowadays there were many barracks and few guards. Most veteran soldiers huddled together and lived in groups, so for the dozens of newly arrived guards like them, even if each person lived in a single room, the remainder would be more than enough.

Chen Mo had even specially entrusted Mo Hu to help, asking him not to arrange for anyone else to be assigned to this room when he turned back.

The reason he used was also very simple, which was that he still had a good friend undergoing training, and if that person also became a guard, the two of them could live together later on.

If someone else were to be assigned in, it would be troublesome to ask people to leave later.

The reason he wanted to live alone was also because he harbored certain secrets that were inconvenient for others to see.

As for what to do when Ma Cai eventually moved in, he would think of a way when the time came.

Mo Hu directly agreed to his request, as he also wielded some authority within the Guard Camp.

Although during this period Chen Mo poured his heart and soul into eating and training, he basically asked nothing about other matters in the Guard Camp, apart from having a slightly better relationship with Mo Hu and knowing a few new recruits who trained alongside him.

As for the others in the Guard Camp, he was not very familiar with them.

Yet where there were people, factions formed—this was an inevitable matter.

The entire Guard Camp was roughly divided into three factions: the fellow-clansmen faction, the fellow-townsman faction, and the neutral faction.

The fellow-clansmen were General Sun's relatives by blood, sharing the same surname with him, and their leader was General Sun's paternal nephew.

The relationship between the fellow-townsman faction and General Sun was likewise extremely close.

Because General Sun not only had his father's relatives, but also his mother's relatives and wife's relatives; the leader of this faction was General Sun's maternal nephew.

Within these two major factions, there were further numerous minor factions, with struggles and cooperation among them, though these were no longer things Chen Mo, an outsider, could understand at present.

Aside from the two major factions, there was also a middle faction of more than thirty people. This faction was led by Mo Dao and Mo Hu.

One portion consisted of people who did not want to participate in the struggles of the other two factions, while another portion consisted of people who joined the Guard Camp for various other reasons.

Chen Mo had more contact with Mo Hu, and by now had also been categorized into this faction.

There was no help for it; he was neither of the same clan nor from the same hometown. Apart from this faction, the other factions would not take him in.

Choosing a side in matters like this was not something he could avoid just by refusing to. If one wanted to remain strictly neutral, unless their strength was high enough.

Yet he was still far from that point. Finding a faction to join meant that at least it was good to enjoy the shade under a big tree.

Lying in the room to rest, Chen Mo once again took the Crimson Bloodstone out from his bosom. Ever since he obtained this stone, he took it out to toy with it from time to time.

Yet until now, he had not discovered any function or abnormality in this stone.

"Hurry and go eat; Adoptive Father has also come today." Mo Hu knocked on the door of the room and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Having had quite a lot of contact with him during this period, Chen Mo also roughly understood his relationship with General Sun.

Mo Hu and Mo Dao were both adopted sons of General Sun, and the reason Mo Hu was called Fifth Brother was because he ranked fifth among the numerous adopted sons.

The few individuals ahead of him could call him Fifth Brother, but most of the other guards called him Fifth Brother anyway.

Taking adopted sons in military camps was a common method, mainly to deepen ties.

Moreover, only after taking an adopted son would a general feel at ease cultivating him.

Guards betraying their master or defecting to another, versus an adopted son stabbing an adopted father in the back—the utter contempt suffered in the two scenarios were completely different concepts.

Especially for a guard like Mo Hu, who originally had no great ties to General Sun, if he defected to someone else, even fewer people would say idle gossip.

Therefore, before promoting and cultivating him, people would often first take him as an adopted son.

If he himself wanted to gain General Sun's heavy trust in the future, he would most likely have to pay respects to him as an adopted father as well.

"I'm coming." Chen Mo stood up from the bed with a spring and walked out of the room.

The food they could eat at noon today would be several times more lavish than usual, and eating meat until full was an absolute certainty. If there was any extra, they might even be able to slip some back to serve as a midnight snack.

As for the point that General Sun had also come today, he conversely did not care about it very much.