The Little Map's Abilities

The path through the forest was far from smooth, and the horses could not help but jolt as they traveled.

This made things difficult for Ye Wei'an.

He could feel the soft, warm body in his arms swaying gently with the rhythm, and the fragrant strands of hair occasionally brushing against his jaw caused him to lose focus for a moment, nearly losing his grip on the reins.

The squad galloped forward at full speed.

To avoid potential enemy eyes, they followed Cain's lead and bypassed the trade route, turning instead onto a more concealed path.

The squad raced along the forest trail for about an hour.

While guiding his mount and enjoying the soft body in his arms, Ye Wei'an habitually kept an eye on the mini-map in the top-right corner of his vision.

Suddenly, several red markers lit up in the area representing a bend in the road ahead.

"Cain, hold up!" He immediately pulled the reins and pointed toward a denser patch of woods ahead, "Something's wrong up there; there might be an ambush."

Hearing this, Cain raised a hand to signal the team to stop. He looked in the direction Ye Wei'an pointed, but saw only silent bushes and crooked old trees, detecting nothing unusual. A flicker of doubt crossed his eyes, but remembering the various extraordinary methods the young master had displayed, he chose to trust him.

"Harold," he lowered his voice, "go scout it out, be careful."

"Understood!" Harold dismounted nimbly, drew his short sword, and like a nimble cat, crouched low and moved forward silently under the cover of the bushes.

In less than a quarter of an hour, he returned with an expression of disgust and relief: "It's Goblins, young master. A small group, about a dozen or so, hiding behind that dirt mound ahead. It looks like they're trying to ambush passersby."

Hearing that it was only Goblins, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

These small, green-skinned creatures were practically the weakest humanoid monsters in Faerûn; they were short, cowardly, and greedy.

A single Goblin might not even be able to beat a farmer holding a pitchfork; they only posed a threat when gathered in large numbers.

"Young master, what do you think?" Cain looked at Ye Wei'an for instructions.

"Let's clear them out while we're at it," Ye Wei'an said decisively. They were just Goblins; it would be a waste not to kill them, and at least he could earn some experience.

Cain nodded and immediately formulated a battle plan.

The plan was quite simple: Cain and Renn would flank from the left, Harold would circle around the right, and Ye Wei'an would stay back with Ailian and rain down magic.

Once the warriors were in position, Ye Wei'an waved his hand and fired the first shot with a cantrip.

"Spellfire Flame."

A beam of blue-white arcane fire bloomed out of thin air above the head of a Goblin that was busy sticking its rear in the air while setting a tripwire.

"Gah—!"

The Goblin didn't even have time to scream before its head was instantly ignited by the high temperature of the Spellfire, and it quickly ceased to move.

"Yaku! Yaku! (Enemy attack!)" The Goblin group erupted in chaos, screaming and scattering in all directions.

"Charge!" Cain barked, rushing out alongside Harold and Renn.

The longsword in Cain's hand traced a semicircle in the air, the heavy blade whistling as it sliced through the necks of two Goblins.

Harold's shield easily knocked a Goblin flying, followed immediately by a finishing strike.

Renn was even more efficient, charging directly into the densest part of the group and clearing two with a single horizontal sweep of his axe.

The battle proceeded extremely quickly; the Goblins were as fragile as wheat stalks in front of professional combatants.

Ye Wei'an sat securely on his horse, holding the little maid, and whenever a Goblin tried to fire a stray arrow or attempted to flee, he would follow up with a shot of Spellfire Flame.

Every flicker of the blue-white fire represented the extinguishing of a life.

A few minutes later, the forest returned to silence, with only the faint sizzling sound of residual Spellfire on the corpses.

A string of experience notifications popped up in his vision, and Ye Wei'an's experience points rose directly to LV.3 (764/1800), which was a decent gain.

The only pity was that these Goblins were absolute paupers.

Their tattered leather armor reeked of urine and wasn't even worth taking as loot, and their rusted short swords had too many impurities to even be worth melting down as scrap metal.

"Pah, a waste of effort," Renn kicked a Goblin corpse and cursed under his breath.

Cain wiped the blood from his longsword, sheathed it, and returned to the front of the horse.

When he looked at Ye Wei'an again, the respect in his eyes had deepened.

During his service in the Purple Dragon Order, it wasn't as if he hadn't worked with battlemages before.

In his experience, the destructive power of those low-to-mid-tier battlemages was no higher than Ye Wei'an's.

But beyond that, they were completely clueless.

This young master Ye Wei'an... was a complete anomaly.

He was terrifyingly omnipotent for his age: he could use powerful offensive spells, cast divine healing arts that only priests could master, and even possessed interrogation methods that defied understanding.

And now, he could even foresee an ambush...

Among all the mages he had ever met, those capable of such feats were all long-established powerhouses.

Yet young master Ye Wei'an had only been studying at the Battlemage Academy for four years, was still a mere magic apprentice, and some even claimed he had "mediocre talent"?!

If there are any more magic apprentices with such mediocre talent, please give me a dozen.

"Young master's magic is truly breathtaking," Cain said sincerely, his attitude even more respectful than before, "I look forward to your guidance on the road ahead."

The power structure of the team had quietly shifted.

If Ye Wei'an had previously only been tagging along and following Cain's arrangements, he was now truly the commander of the squad.

Consequently, the journey that followed seemed almost impossibly smooth to Cain and the two warriors.

Ye Wei'an rode at the very front of the group, handing the reins to Ailian in front of him while focusing most of his attention on the minimap, occasionally calling out directions:

"Skirt around that swamp to the front-left; we'll take the western hills instead."

"The canyon ahead is too narrow and poses a risk of rockfalls; we'll take the gentle slope to the south."

Many of the paths he chose deviated completely from the routes Cain remembered as being relatively "safe."

At first, Cain was not without his concerns.

But the encounters that followed completely dispelled all his doubts.

Once, Ye Wei'an insisted on bypassing a seemingly flat clearing in the woods.

Afterward, Harold looked back and saw that, under the sunlight, the shadows of that clearing were faintly covered in a sticky, reflective sheen—it was the webbing of giant spiders.

Another time, the team abandoned a shortcut and spent an extra quarter-hour climbing over a scree slope.

Just as they were taking a short break at the top, a heart-stopping roar and the sound of snapping trees echoed from below. A massive, shaggy figure could be vaguely seen rampaging through the forest in a fury; it appeared to be an Owlbear—a powerful magical beast with the massive body of a bear and the sharp beak and claws of an owl, known for its intense territorial nature.

The minimap could display not only enemies but also terrain.

For instance, a depression that looked like nothing more than a patch of shrubs was actually a quagmire that could trap a horse's leg; a slope covered in fallen leaves that appeared solid actually hid loose, slippery gravel underneath.

These features were difficult to spot with the naked eye, but they were laid bare on the minimap.

What Cain found most inconceivable was that every time Young Master Ye Wei'an seemed to take a detour, by the time they finally emerged from the dense forest and rejoined a path he recognized, Cain would realize they hadn't just perfectly avoided all potential dangers—the journey had actually been significantly faster than if they had dutifully followed the "safe" roads he knew!

"Sir," Harold couldn't help but lean in toward Cain during a rest stop, "how does the young master... do it? Have you traveled these paths before?"

Cain slowly shook his head, his gaze resting on the young master, who was currently teasing the little maid.

"No. I am only familiar with a few fixed forest trails. To completely abandon established paths like this and precisely avoid every bit of trouble in unfamiliar territory..." He paused, his voice filled with deep emotion, "Even the most experienced scouts or rangers would need to conduct repeated reconnaissance and testing; it is absolutely impossible to do this... as if he were walking with a map that had everything marked out."

He recalled his experiences with the Purple Dragon Order.

Those battle-mages could use spells to scout specific areas, but they could never plan an optimal route with such persistence and efficiency.

"This is not something that can be achieved by spells alone," Cain finally whispered, "This is... a talent beyond our understanding. Following the young master's orders is the greatest guarantee of safety for us all."

Renn took a swig of water and muttered, "I'm feeling very confident now... the young master might really be able to drag that mastermind hiding in the town out into the light."