After a blissful night's sleep at the inn, he had stirred up no more shenanigans this time. He had simply slept soundly through the night, sweeping away all his earlier exhaustion.
Brimming with energy, he headed to the recruitment station first thing in the morning.
The city gates had only just opened, and the recruitment station was just setting up. Several men in gleaming armor, who looked like "high-ranking soldiers," were making preparations.
Wang Qi looked around and found that nobody else had arrived yet. He had beaten everyone to it.
After all, recruitment had already been underway here for three days. Any outstanding recruits in Jiqiu County would already have been screened.
Wang Qi was probably the first arrival on the final day.
He walked over and stood before the recruitment registration desk without saying a word, simply staring at the "high-ranking soldier" still arranging his papers and writing tools... The man looked like a scholar, perhaps a clerk.
What worldly experience would a genuine mountain hunter have in this day and age? He needed to act a little dull and timid too.
The clerk handling registration finished arranging the things in his hands before looking up at Wang Qi with mild curiosity. "Here to enlist?"
Wang Qi nodded blankly without answering.
The clerk clearly found nothing strange about that. He simply asked, "Name?"
"Wang Qi."
"Can you read?"
Wang Qi hesitated at this question, then said, "Only a little."
The clerk sounded surprised. "Even knowing a little is no small thing. Who taught you?"
In this day and age, ordinary commoners naturally had no right to possess knowledge. Being able to read was already quite an accomplishment.
Wang Qi answered again, "My father taught me some, and the old village head taught me some too."
The clerk seemed a little pleased to hear this. "So you're someone willing to better himself... Good. Remember what I say: learning more characters will help you in our camp."
"Yes." Wang Qi hurriedly acknowledged him. Why did it feel as though knowing how to read had already earned him special treatment?
"Since you can read, you can write your own name, can't you? Here, write it yourself." The clerk placed the paper and brush directly before him.
Wang Qi wasted no time. He picked up the brush and wrote his name in crooked strokes.
His handwriting was rather ugly, since he had never actually practiced writing with a brush.
The clerk, however, was quite satisfied. It was already remarkable for a country bumpkin to recognize a few characters. Ugly handwriting was only to be expected.
His interest was immediately piqued-or rather, he began the first assessment.
Instead of taking back the paper and brush, the clerk said, "Then write down where you're from, your background, and where you live."
Wang Qi put on a troubled expression... It was just right.
But he genuinely was troubled too.
He added, "There are some characters I don't know..."
"Leave blanks for the ones you don't know." The clerk waved a hand.
Nobody else had arrived yet anyway, so he was using Wang Qi to while away his idle time.
Wang Qi then bent over the paper and wrote a line: Xqiu X Wang X inch hunt X father Wang Dashan mother none
He struggled a little as he wrote, because he nearly added punctuation out of habit.
The line made the clerk's eyes swim a little, but he finally deciphered it: hunter from Wang Family Village, Jiqiu County; father, Wang Dashan; mother, none.
Still, Wang Qi's ability to recognize even these characters was quite satisfactory. The clerk quickly copied this information into another little booklet, then added a final note: basic reading and writing ability.
Wang Qi had sharp eyes. A quick glance at the booklet told him that it must be the roster for this recruitment drive.
There were nearly thirty names on the page he saw, yet his was the only one with such a note beside it.
That alone made him feel that his chances were secure.
Apart from deliberately replacing the character for "village" with "inch," he really had not known how to write the other missing characters... He did not know traditional characters.
Now satisfied with Wang Qi's literacy, the clerk asked, "I see you've brought your own bow and arrows, and you're a hunter by background. You're applying to the Archer Company, then?"
Wang Qi hurriedly nodded.
But the clerk added, "That bow of yours must be a mountain hunting bow. It's relatively light, with a weaker draw. If you're selected, you'll still be issued a proper war bow."
Wang Qi kept nodding, playing his wooden persona to perfection.
The clerk marked him down as an archer, then said, "Go to the drill ground. Someone there will test you. People are starting to arrive here, so I don't have time to chat."
As he spoke, he tossed Wang Qi a wooden tag with his name written on the front.
Wang Qi hurriedly cupped his fist in thanks, then headed toward the makeshift drill ground behind the registration official.
After a single glance, he naturally headed toward the area where archery targets stood.
The "high-ranking soldier" at the archery range was clearly a junior officer skilled in archery. Wang Qi could roughly judge that from the way he carried himself as he walked and the calluses on his fingertips.
The officer looked Wang Qi over, then his expression softened slightly. "You've got a pair of long, ape-like arms suited to archery. With that build, even someone with no foundation could soon develop passable shooting skills."
"Tell me what you're good at."
Wang Qi had already prepared his answer for this assessment. "Shooting fast..."
The officer was a little surprised. Recruits who came here generally claimed to shoot accurately. This was the first time he had encountered someone like Wang Qi who claimed to shoot fast.
So he took a war bow hanging on a nearby rack and tossed it to Wang Qi. "Use this bow. Shoot twenty arrows in succession."
Wang Qi hurriedly complied... Somewhat disappointed, he set down the short bow he had brought. Homemade bows like his apparently weren't well regarded in the army.
He picked up the bow and arrows, then tried drawing the string for the first time... Sure enough, this standard-issue war bow had a draw weight half again as heavy as his short bow's. Its killing power and range would increase accordingly.
But that was still no challenge for him. As warm internal energy circulated through his body, he easily drew the bow fully, took a brief aim, and loosed an arrow.
Thock!
The arrow struck the target thirty paces away, but lodged at its upper edge, narrowly avoiding a miss.
He had not yet adjusted to the draw weight, though he hadn't really put his mind to it either.
He paused slightly before his second arrow, and this time he hit the bull's-eye area on the target thirty paces away.
By now, he was getting a feel for the war bow. His shooting speed began to increase, and the targets he hit grew farther and farther away.
The most distant targets on this drill ground stood a hundred and twenty paces away, but Wang Qi's keen eyes had already noticed that those targets bore no traces of arrow strikes.
In other words, the farthest target anyone here had hit was a hundred paces away.
Well, he felt there was no need to stand out so much, so he sent most of his arrows toward the target eighty paces away, merely ensuring that they all hit it.
Of course, he did not deliberately aim for the bull's-eye, since he was now demonstrating a shooting speed of roughly two arrows per breath.
Although he could have doubled that speed with his familiar short bow, even this left the recruiting officer watching in open-mouthed astonishment...
Two arrows per breath, all reliably hitting a target eighty paces away-how should one describe that performance...? His accuracy was not especially outstanding, but his shooting speed was genuinely impressive. More importantly, he was consistent.
It was nothing unusual for rapid-fire archery to achieve this. Indeed, a fully developed rapid-fire technique could produce five arrows in a single breath.
But that required the archer to hold the arrows in his hand beforehand using a special grip. Wang Qi, on the other hand, was picking up, nocking, and shooting each arrow individually...
This demonstration alone had already made Wang Qi, in the officer's mind, an exceptional prospect who needed only a little polishing to soar straight into the sky.
Moreover, there was one thing the officer had not mentioned: the targets eighty and a hundred paces away were for his own regular practice. Applicants enlisting as archers used targets no farther than sixty paces away.
Wang Qi had kept Wang Dashan's warning firmly in mind: he must not stand out too much... Yet even after cutting his displayed ability in half, he had still gone beyond the norm.
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