In the living room of the lord's wooden house.
"My lord, we found the nest of the black-tailed fog scorpion. There are about 400 of them!"
"They're about 25 kilometers southwest of Blazing Sun City. Furthermore, we discovered that there was a Green bronze-tier advance grade leader among them. It is also a scarlet lord!"
Man Nao, who had just returned, reported.
It is really a scarlet lord!?
Zhou Zhou's expression turned into a smile.
Fear of its strength was the least of what he felt.
At least finding a way to hoard the Promotion Energy to a single subject was proving more difficult.
It was just a Green bronze-tier grade scarlet lord, not even strong enough to face off with Hui Teng and Bai Yung.
As for Nezario, he could transform the body of the scarlet lord into hot ashes with just his dragon breath.
"Are there any issues?" Zhou Zhou asked.
"No, we can detect monsters hiding in our surroundings in advance with the blood eye potion."
"The mechanostriders given to us by my Lord allows us to use high movement speed to avoid them. None of them could catch up to us."
Man Nao replied.
Zhou Zhou nodded.
"Inform Lu Chong and Huang Sai to get ready then! Tomorrow, they'll deal with these black-tailed fog scorpions and their scarlet lord."
"Understood!" Man Nao said respectfully before leaving.
As for how Lu Chong and Huang Sai alone would deal with the 400 black-tailed fog scorpions and their scarlet lord, that would be discovered tomorrow.
'For tomorrow's battle, their strength alone won't cut it. They'll have to up their mobility on the battlefield or the way they deal with multiple opponents.'
Knowing fully well the type of army he desire to build, Zhou Zhou didn't dare allow incompetence.
The army he envisioned might not be possible in the cerulean planet, but after seeing the prowess of Nezario and the tiers of soldiers, he knew an army that was built solely around individual strength rather than in numbers was possible.
"I hope my soldiers don't disappoint me," Zhou Zhou muttered before returning back to the lord's wooden house.
..
"How the hell can the 2 of us alone face off against 400 fog monsters and their lord that is a Green bronze-tier advance grade scarlet lord?" receiving the order from Man Nao, Huang Sai couldn't help but cry out.
"Facing a higher number of enemies alone isn't unheard of, but those able to pull it off are usually heroes or soldiers of top kingdoms, empires and divine kingdoms."
Having spent almost 2 decades as a soldier, Lu Chong had heard some legends circulated in the army.
"But we can't compare to those soldiers! Damn, I'm going to die tomorrow," Huang Sai lay weakly on the ground as he said.
"I did tell you what the lord said to me, didn't I?" Bai Yung spoke to Huang Sai.
"I thought we would have time to train for that!"
"We can't just learn to battle above the standard of our grades in a day! Or even a week for god's sake!"
Huang Sai couldn't help but cry out louder.
"And I just became a military professional yesterday."
Hearing the cry of their senior in the army, Sun Can and Qin We glanced at each other before shaking their heads,
They had no words to comfort him.
"You know, there's no reason to raise your combat strength in order to deal with the 401 fog monsters tomorrow," bringing a ray of hope to Lu Chong and Huang Sai's world of despair, Bai Yung said.
"Really!?" Huang Sai sat up in an instant, "what is it!?"
Focusing his gaze on Bai Yung, Lu Chong also wanted to know what his solution is.
"In battle, the number of opponents that can attack you is determined by 2 things..."
Muttering a bit out loud, Qin We voiced, "the size of your body or that of the opponents."
"That's right." Bai Yung concord as he smiled at Qin We.
"So, what you're saying is that we won't really be facing the attacks of four hundred and one opponents at once. Is that it?"
Lu Chong asked, understanding the idea between Bai Yung's words.
"That's it. As long as you both can handle maybe 24 attacks at once, you should be able to easy scale through with your strengths," Bai Yung answered.
"Wait, how can 24 black-tailed fog scorpions attack us at once? Aren't they like a meter to 2 meters huge? Even 20 humans can't launch an attack on a single human at once!"
Huang Sai picked out a glitch.
"It's 8 black-tailed fog scorpions attacking at once. But they can strike with their pincers and their tails, bringing the possible attacks we face at once to 24."
Lu Chong explained to his partner for the fatal battle.
"Why can't we just make use of the mental manipulation skill? That's part of our combat strength, right?"
Looking at Man Nao with pleading eyes, Huang Sai asked.
"It's the Lord's order. I'm just the messenger," Man Nao shook his head.
"Actually, you can both stay close to each other during the battle," Sun Can spoke.
"That's right!" Lu Chong exclaimed, catching on what Sun Can meant.
"If we do that, rather than facing 8 opponents each, we might only have to face 10 opponents as once, bringing the attacks we face from 48 to 15!"
"You'll have my back, and I'll have yours!" Huang Sai eyes sparkled as he also caught on.
"I'm glad you're both excited, but you might end up dead if you both accidentally clash into each other due to your proximity."
Hui Teng, who hasn't spoken since, finally gave his piece.
"That's true..." Lu Chong and Huang Sai looked at each other and saw the solemnness in their eyes.
"The lord wouldn't give you a mission that is guaranteed to kill you, so, there's hope. And that hope is in the both of you."
Hui Teng said seeing how silent the 2 soldiers were.
Standing up, Huang Sai's expression was hard as he looked at Lu Chong, "let's practice!"
"Practice? But there are no fog monsters close to the territory. We've killed the scarlet lord closest to us," Lu Chong said.
"We have monsters who are dozens of times faster and stronger than 400 black-tailed fog scorpions. We'll be their punching bag until we can defend against their attacks."
Huang Sai's voice didn't falter as he said to Lu Chong.
The entire soldiers were silent after hearing Huang Sai.
Was this same guy who was just crying a couple of minutes ago?
"The lord wasn't blind to choose you as a soldier!" Hui Teng laughed as he rose to his feet.
Taking out the sword and shield on his back, he said, "I'm ready anytime you are."
Smiling, Bai Yung also stood up, his spear in hand.
"Be careful," he said.
Jumping to his feet, Lu Chong also took out his spear.
Looking at each other, he and Huang Sai nodded before focusing on the 2 White silver-tier elementary grade soldiers in front of them.
"Begin," they said together as they took their battle stances.
Whoosh!
…
At night, the scarlet fog quietly descended.
The world was covered in a strange scarlet fog, invoking fear.
Zhou Zhou and Nezario stood inside the protective shield and looked at the quiet scarlet fog outside of the novice lord's protective barrier.
'There really won't be any new fog monsters even at night. Never mind, so be it. Let the soldiers have a good sleep tonight.'
'Next time, we'll go further away from the city before returning 4 hours later." Zhou Zhou thought.
For a moment, he was not used to it.
Then, he looked in the direction of the monster ranch outside of the protection barrier and moved towards it.
Nezario flew beside him.
The both of them entered through the gates of the monster ranch and soon saw Mu Gu.
Mu Gu also noticed Zhou Zhou
"Greetings, my lord." Mu Gu was a little surprised.
After some hesitation, he said.
"My lord, forgive me for being rude. The scarlet fog is extremely strange, and it will reach its peak at night. It's better for you to tread carefully at this time."
"It's okay. Didn't I bring him out with me?" Zhou Zhou pointed at the curious baby, Nezario, which was looking around.
The tension in Mu Gu's face eased when he saw the baby dragon. "I overstepped my boundary."
Zhou Zhou did not take it to heart; instead, he looked at the small fence beside him.
This small fence was only about 20 square meters, and there was a black iron-tier advance grade desert fog Lizard lying inside.
It was the one that Bai Yung had captured earlier in the day.
He also caught a black-tailed fog scorpion that was at the black iron-tier elementary grade.
However, since there was no second monster ranch, its limbs and tail were temporarily cut off and tied up.
"How does the monster ranch work?" Zhou Zhou retracted his gaze and asked curiously.
"My lord, why don't you wait for a while? You'll know when the time comes." Mu Gu smiled.
Zhou Zhou nodded.
A moment later, the bored Zhou Zhou suddenly saw a scarlet fog descend from the sky and charge straight into the body of the desert fog lizard.
The desert fog lizard's body trembled, and then a scarlet light shot out of its lower body.
In the blink of an eye, that light landed in the large fence and turned into a black iron-tier elementary grade desert fog lizard.
It looked around blankly and then got up.
Soon, it saw Zhou Zhou and Mu Gu. The desert fog lizard immediately roared and rushed towards them aggressively.
Zhou Zhou was just about to control it with mental manipulation when Mu Gu rushed over at an extremely fast speed and reached out to touch its head.
The desert fog lizard became still.
Zhou Zhou had a White silver-tier elementary grade mental potential, therefore, when Mu Gu touched his head, he could sense that this subordinate seemed to have released a mental perception that had the ability to pacify.
"Is this the unique ability of a monster rancher?" He clicked his tongue in wonder.
In the next hour, More than 100 black iron-tier elementary grade desert fog lizards were nurtured.
However, they were all ordinary black iron-tier elementary grade desert fog lizards.
"At this rate of birth… the monster ranch can produce at least 1,000 desert fog lizards a night. Can this hold?" Zhou Zhou asked.
"It really can't. Therefore, I will let them fight among themselves and devour each other."
"This way, not only can we reduce their numbers, but we can also use this method to give birth to black iron-tier advance grade, Green bronze-tier elementary grade, and even lord type fog monsters!"
"However, there won't be any scarlet lords amongst them. The lord type monster would only have the authority of a lord, and not the rank of a scarlet lord."
Mu Gu said.
Zhou Zhou nodded in realization.
The monster ranch also uses this method to nurture high-level monsters.
"Why can't a scarlet lord be born?" He asked.
"Because my lord's monster ranch originates from the lord's talent and is protected by the Supreme Will."
"The Supreme Will won't allow the Crimson Overlord to invade this place. Naturally, there's no way for the lord of scarlet to be born here." Mu Gu said.
Zhou Zhou felt that it was a pity he could not artificially create the scarlet lord that was capable to dropping lord talent crystal fragments.
After that, he returned to Blazing Sun City with Nezario.
..