Preparations to Break Camp

Landen had no inkling that Albert, the man he respected most, was drifting further and further away from him in ideology. He simply assumed Albert was exhausted from his recent frequent travels and required a long rest. Although Landen himself wanted to take a two-day break, the magical beasts in the surrounding rivers had been hunted to near extinction, and the pastures were clearly struggling to support the ravages of their large flock of sheep.

After returning from the hunt, Landen summoned the various team leaders to order the camp to break ground the following day, then went off to deliver meat chunks to the children.

The camp now followed a very fixed procedure for breaking ground. First, Fang and Neil would conduct wide-range reconnaissance, searching along several river channels for medium-to-large barbarian camps. Once a target was located, Landen would lead the main force to launch a frontal assault or a surprise attack, followed by the migration of the camp's main body to the new location. During the migration, the mana-less individuals in each tent were responsible for their own quarters. Albert no longer participated in combat; instead, he led the mana-wielders of the Gallop Territory to supervise the entire relocation. According to the traditions of Landen's camp, newly rescued human mana-wielders were not required to fight alongside Landen during their first migration, only to assist with the move.

Just this morning, Neil had rescued five human mana-wielders, obtained—as Landen put it—by trading forty-odd cavalrymen and five foals. Neil remembered the atmosphere being excellent; upon hearing they weren't there to attack, Old Horse-Leg had shown great enthusiasm and was so grateful for Landen's willingness to trade peacefully that he even followed Neil back to Landen's camp at noon to express his thanks in person. Landen had warmly welcomed Old Horse-Leg and the few barbarian cavalrymen who accompanied him, even gifting them some gold coins and stating that if Old Horse-Leg's tribe managed to raise the foals he had traded, Landen would be willing to buy them back.

"Are we really not going to take Old Horse-Leg down?" Neil asked Landen as he watched the man depart.

"Of course not. He is the first tribal leader to submit to me and sell me mana-wielder slaves. I'm still waiting for him to spread word of my strength to the other tribes on the plains."

Among the five mana-wielders sent by Old Horse-Leg was a Junior Knight. That afternoon, Landen made an exception and took this knight, Cavry Senster, out hunting, allowing him to eat more magical beast meat to recover his strength and Battle Qi as quickly as possible.

During their conversation that afternoon, the new knight, Cavry Senster, mentioned that before being bought by Old Horse-Leg, he had spent two years in a tribe called the Eagle Tribe. This tribe possessed a Battle Priest capable of sharing vision with the eagles and peregrine falcons kept by the tribe for short periods, effectively becoming an Eagle-Eye Priest. Thanks to this priest's ability, the tribe had grown to the size of the former Wandering Badger Tribe. Just a month ago, Cavry had accompanied Old Horse-Leg's tribe on a trade with the Eagle Tribe, and he predicted that Landen's camp would inevitably encounter them on the road heading east.

The Eagle Tribe also participated in the annual alliance of the Grey Goose Tribe, but they were uninterested in trading for Black-Scaled Horses; instead, they were far more interested in trading human mana-wielder slaves. Because mana-wielders frequently escaped from medium-sized tribes, there were always wandering human mana-wielders on the Gallop Plains. The Eagle Tribe's Battle Priest enjoyed releasing his hunting eagles and peregrine falcons daily to scout for and capture lone or stray human mana-wielders.

The Eagle Tribe held more mana-wielder slaves, and without a doubt, a tribe that relied on the slave trade as a pillar industry would view Landen, a rescuer of slaves, as a mortal enemy. It was impossible for Landen to purchase slaves from the Eagle Tribe or make peace with them. The Eagle's Battle Priest would become a troublesome opponent. Consequently, after breaking camp, Neil's vanguard would maintain a distance of about 10 kilometers from Landen and the main camp. While this distance provided sufficient warning time and strategic space against barbarian cavalry, it was insufficient against the eyes in the sky.

Once a battle began, the Battle Priest could easily use his reconnaissance methods to bypass Neil and Landen's forces and strike directly at the main camp. Conversely, if Landen kept too many forces at the camp, the Eagle Tribe could quickly flee. Landen had considered strategies to force the Eagle Tribe to split their forces, but the most pressing issue now was the uncertainty of whether the Eagle's Battle Priest had already set his sights on them.

Even if the Eagle Tribe had merely noticed his camp, it meant they were now on guard.

Based on the estimations of Landen, Neil, and Cavry, the Eagle Tribe was likely about 50 kilometers to the east. Landen and his group should encounter them after their next migration, but there was a fear that the Eagle Tribe would discover Landen's camp as soon as they set up their next base.

When the Two Suns rose, Neil set out with his 12 barbarian cavalrymen, accompanied by Fang. Landen led his own 20-man knight squad to march eastward. Following last night's discussion, Landen instructed Neil to continue probing for information upon encountering medium-sized camps, specifically asking if they had seen the Eagle Tribe. If they confirmed they hadn't, Neil was to inquire about the possibility of trading for human mana-wielders.

Last night, Fang had also explained that Patch was already able to communicate with a puppy. After discovering Patch's ability, Fang decided to lend his best companion, an adult Black Mastiff named Yellow Tail, to the boy. The bond between man and dog was so strong they could even communicate telepathically. After a crash course the previous night, Patch was roughly familiar with Yellow Tail's expressive habits. Fang's plan was simple: he would accompany Neil on forward reconnaissance, while Yellow Tail would serve as the liaison between Neil's forward cavalry and Landen's knight squad.

Hearing this, Landen was most curious about why Patch and Fang could talk to animals, so he specifically asked Greyhound Gunter about it.

"Our family's ability is etched into our bloodline, My Lord," Greyhound Gunter said with a hint of pride.

"Then how does Patch have this ability? Is he perhaps Fang's long-lost brother?"

"Hahaha, you are truly humorous. In truth, whether among Mages, Priests, or Knights, many families possess such abilities. Communicating with beasts is not uncommon for mana-wielders, but the rarest aspect of my family's bloodline is the ability to discern the bloodline of livestock."

Greyhound's answer was rather general, and it wasn't until Albert came over to explain that Landen finally understood.

For human mana-wielders, the ability to communicate with the beast-kin was quite common. The reason lay in the fact that before the rise of the human race, the world had been ruled for a long time by various Magic Beast Gods. A Magic Beast God was a powerful magical beast that, through constant warfare and consumption, had devoured the bloodlines of other powerful beasts to gradually attain an immortal body. However, immortality of the body alone only allowed a magical beast to reach the rank of a Demigod. These Demigod beasts would occupy a territory and demand that the intelligent life within it worship them. Throughout history, most beast-kin and humans gradually began to offer sacrifices to these powerful beasts and acknowledged their divinity, and the strongest among the Demigod beasts ascended to become Magic Beast Gods.

Various human transcendents had attempted to communicate with these Magic Beast Gods or their descendants. Consequently, after continuous bloodline evolution, many families developed the ability to communicate with low-to-mid-level magical beasts or ordinary animals. In the former Gallop Kingdom, long-term warfare with the Beastmen made such bloodlines even more common. The Gunter family, to which Greyhound and Fang belonged, had served the Gallop Royal Family for generations by raising canine magical beasts. Their family was not only proficient in raising, communicating with, and driving animals, but more importantly, they could crudely identify the purity of magical beast bloodlines in ordinary animals, which was why they were so highly valued by the Gallop Family for generations.

Understood, your family are the horse-judges of the canine world, Landen thought, finally grasping the nature of the Greyhound knight family's bloodline. "Can your family communicate with eagles?"

"That is quite difficult. We can only communicate with parrots," Fang replied.