Chapter Summaries

Wu Ming returned to Shushi and organized the Southwestern Garrison Headquarters’ fifty thousand soldiers into a plan for training and regional deployment. With a temporary training camp secured and a permanent headquarters under construction, he prepared to concentrate the remaining troops for intensive training.

• Wu Ming returned to Shushi and found that the former Southwestern Patrol Division base had become the Southwestern Garrison Headquarters.
• Wu Ming outlined plans to station troops in cities and along waterways while forming the elite Southwestern Guard for emergencies.
• Zhao Qingran told Wu Ming that the Southwest Military Region had agreed to lend its vacant base for training.
• Wu Ming reviewed how forty-seven thousand recruited veterans were being screened, trained, and assigned alongside the Independent Regiment’s three thousand soldiers.
• Wu Ming ordered Zhao Qingran to transfer troops from temporary camps to the military region’s base and continue seeking a permanent headquarters.
• Zhao Qingran reported that construction was underway on a new base near Dujiangyan, and Wu Ming approved the plan.

Wu Ming built up the Southwest Garrison Headquarters and accepted military ranks for himself and Ruan Qingzhu while preparing for the coming monster threat. The chapter ended with Zhao Minghui reporting that Kyoto was under attack by a powerful flock of monsters and asking the pair to save the city.

• Wu Ming used mutated medicinal herbs to train twenty thousand soldiers, while he and Ruan Qingzhu increased their strength and Zhu Hongyu and Wu Zhanguo advanced to Intermediate Battle General.
• Zhao Minghui asked Wu Ming to take the college entrance exams so the state could admit him to National Defense University and grant him a military rank; Wu Ming also requested a rank for Ruan Qingzhu.
• Wu Ming and Ruan Qingzhu sat the exams, placed first and second in the province, and received special admission letters from National Defense University.
• Wu Ming selected ten thousand of the twenty thousand trained soldiers for the Southwestern Guard and assigned the rest to guard important waterways.
• Zhao Minghui brought Wu Ming and Ruan Qingzhu their graduation certificates and military uniforms, and they held a simple rank-conferral ceremony.
• Zhao Minghui received an urgent call and told Wu Ming and Ruan Qingzhu that a seventh-level Black-Crowned Golden Eagle and its monster flock were attacking Kyoto, whose defenses might fail within an hour.