Trouble at large

There was still quite a bit of time before they would need to leave towards the tournament held some distance away.

Currently, the only thing they knew about it right now was that it would be starting in a couple of months, and when going there, they would need to stop at Hefei City on their way.

Before that Xiao Fan hoped that he would be at the Body Activation realm, and of course to take part there he would need to get his sight back.

Without his sight, things would be completely different, but like Du Lan, he reasoned that Cao Cao would have interfered or offered services to cure him if the damage was permanent.

He was right as morning the next day when he woke up he could see the light and hazy figures of objects. His eyes had opened but seemed to be healing a bit still as his eye vision was hazy.

However recovering his sight this fast was better than he could have imagined, as he had been prepared to spend weeks without his eyes and live with the help of Du Lan.

Gladdened by this, he jumps off his bed and walks to the kitchen where Du Lan was already preparing breakfast for them.

¨Du Lan good news. I can see again¨

Du Lan turned around to face the person coming inside. ¨Good this will ease things considerably¨ Yet in her voice there was a small feeling of loss in this for her; the best opportunity to get closer to him had now closed.

¨I'll eat something, and then find Uruk. Since for him to ask me to see him must he have something important to tell¨ Which to Du Lan nodded and continued her cooking.

Xiao Fan sat on his chair and while reading the First Steps Towards Medicine book if there was something about his situation, and there were texts about it 'some cultivators might feel different things when they breakthrough' He read.

Things like hallucination, power loss across the board and on and on, it would seem that upgrading your body against nature had some side effects.

The only thing that was made sure was that there was a lot of things that could happen and the severity of them moved at random.

He then thought that this should have been a self-evident as even evolving into a mutant or a cultivator made you lose conscience as your heart became different.

During that, the body entered some transformation face as a butterfly would in its cocoon, so difficulties should be expected.

¨Du Lan has your sister had anything special happen to her when she would advance grades?¨ Only one he could know about as reference was her sister through her, so he asked.

Du Lan thought for a moment before responding ¨No I think she hasn't had anything happen to her, why ask?¨

¨I just thought of something, forget it for now. I'll tell you about it later¨ No success with her so back to reading the book it was.

Reading his book, there became another thing evident to him; his eyes would wander from the book towards Du Lan cooking.

Still, he had no clue why he would turn his eyes from the book, but after moments something became evident to him.

Every time his eyes would wander towards her would they stay around her long silver hair or her to round balls below her slim waist.

Doing this so much Xiao Fan was slowly giving in to the realisation of why he was doing so and didn't try to stop it as much anymore.

Then after her coming with the meal she had cooked, would sometimes his eyes again wander from his book or the plate towards that face on the other side of the table.

After he had eaten and cleared his head, Xiao Fan made his way towards Uruks cave house, and as he was walking towards it, he noticed that there was much more action happening around him.

The monkeys in the tribe were much livelier than when he had

come, and this liveliness was in the form of duels and brawls happening constantly.

He would soon be informed about this when he walked for the first time into Uruks house.

¨Uruk!¨ He called from the door.

¨Xiao Fan come here!¨ Came monkeys shout running through the walls of a hallway.

Following this sound, he came into a small office looking room.

Where Uruk was with a few other monkeys or more appropriately mutants, sitting around a rock table that was surrounded by stools also crafted from rocks.

The first thing that was noted about him was how he had had a breakthrough to the third level; drawing mixed feelings.

¨So it seems that the woman wasn't lying. Congratulations on the breakthrough!¨ Uruk happily said to him.

Uruk took that he had broken through from looking at Xiao Fan who looked like a mess that had had one.

Meanwhile, as Uruk and few others were happily congratulating him, some didn't like this at all.

These were monkeys who had been third grade like the previous second in command and would have soon made a challenge on Xiao Fan.

But now following Xiao Fan's breakthrough, everyone would let others test the water before acting.

Everyone wanted to be the second in command, but challenging the second in command would also mean becoming a rival or an enemy of his; if you can't win why risk it?

¨Thank you chief¨ He made a small bow towards the old monkey Uruk and then took a seat next to him like the one he had killed had been sitting.

Sitting on it, he was happily smiling at the monkeys who were visibly frustrated at him.

¨Now that Xiao Fan has joined us we will be finally be making a move¨

Xiao Fan frowned and immediately cut him off ¨What move?¨ He hadn't heard of anything about a move? Had something come up or what was happening, not knowing he hastily asked questions.

Uruk looked at him a bit ¨Because of someone reignited the want for territorial expansion to acquire more resources and so on the tribe has been bothering me to start a war against the other mutant tribes around us¨ Uruk explained with a heavy emphasis on the word ¨Someone¨.

Xiao Fan had thought about expanding his area of control with the monkey tribe but so soon? Was the animal some type of animals which given the opportunity would strike without preparation?

In his plans, they would gather up strength before attacking there was no attacking with their current troops and the few new mutants.

It now would seem that he had overestimated the patience of the tribe he was in second in command and would now be leading half baked troops; not even taking consideration his problems.

However, now that things had turned like this, he would still need to get the most out of it and quickly came up with a plan that was driving his own benefit while looking like a punishment.

¨Well I didn't think this would happen so soon, and as it is this thing that started because of me. I'll offer to lead the troops from the front my self while bearing any responsibilities¨

He acted like he was making it a self-punishment and sacrifice; however, this would also mean him leading the monkeys giving him also the command and training of them to him.

¨Good you shall lead the army on the frontline by yourself¨ Uruk still being a monkey thought that his idea of punishment was okay, and didn't think during that moment that this would be a scheme.

¨Thank you for your patience with me. I will be sure to maximise our gains while minimising casulties¨ And while his face might seem regretful of his decision and then one of righteously proclaiming about taking any responsibility amongst others things, but on the inside he had a smirk.

Uruk then stood up and gave his verdict ¨Xiao Fan you will be leading my tribe's soldiers in a campaign against the Gorilla tribe and the Lion tribe that are the closest two tribes around us.

As we have now come to a conclusion, we will end this session and if anyone of you has anything you know where to complain¨ Uruk concluded before dismissing everyone.

In the short gathering including the strongest monkeys in the tribe, they had concluded their problem, while no one noticed the person having the biggest gains was Xiao Fan who had come here to be punished.

Before this meeting, he only had small control over the other monkeys, but now things were different he had an order from Uruk to lead them to conquer more living space for them.

This was the same thing as truly making him the second most influential person. Until the campaign ended whereafter, he would lose some of that power, yet in the long turn it would pay itself back.

Now having true power only below Uruk, Xiao Fan could order any monkey to do his bidding, which was a great increase in his position.

However, there also came a new challenge for General Fan that being that he would actually need to conquer the land successfully and with minimal losses.

It would be a hard task. For he did not know how to maintain, use, or anything about his new job of leading an army.

His task was also hardened by the fact that he had no knowledge of the enemy. He would need to turn to Du Lan with this one.

However, when she heard about such things, she just looked weirdly back at him.

¨How should I know anything about those tribes? The Greenwood town doesn't even know that the Monkey tribe is here so how could we know about any other tribes?¨

¨From what I heard you could now just ask one of the monkeys or get them to scout information about for your upcoming campaign¨ She added.

Still hearing about this even if she didn't know anything about said tribes was she still very ecstatic about his new order, as this would significantly raise his status and power and from that, she would also prosper.

¨Good idea lets go and gather them up then¨

Following her plan, he gathered all of the monkeys who were marked as tribe soldiers.

Simply meaning that they were of fighting age and had some abilities. It was a general term, yet he paid little mind as in front of him there was hundreds of monkeys and around twenty mutants.

Not a bad group Xiao Fan thought as he looked at the monkeys below him. He didn't know the scale of other tribes he needed to face and if this was enough, but soon he would know.

The first thing was that for a moment, he looked around to find the familiar face he had already acquainted with to get him to be a confidant for him.

He was the ¨big brother¨ and the first monkey opponent of his.

The somewhat burly mutant had already expected to be picked out to do some more confidential duties and so gladly accepted the mission to scout the other tribes.

Big brother also requested a few other monkeys to go with him which to Xiao Fan agreed and let them leave to pack up, as it would possibly take a week for them to get back, so them leaving the sooner the better.

Then he looked again below him at the mass of monkeys and made some rough units of them with distinctions between mutant and mortal monkeys forming two cores.

The monkeys took a minute to figure everything out, but in minutes they did form into two separate groups or cores.

He also named these to cores ¨Mutant of the Right¨ and ¨Mortals of the Left¨

Now that he had groups, he would need to train these groups.

However, training the mutants was abandoned from the start due to not having any time to do so. He wanted his short training to have an impact, so he focussed on the mortals.

And so after dismissing the mutants, the first thing was to make the monkey still left make lines of ten monkeys each.

Listening to his orders seemed to be working well, as the rumours about their friends being trashed for not listening was in every monkey's head.

Xiao Fan could see how nicely they made the lines ten monkeys each. There was not a single thing going wrong so far.

When they had completed the order and formed ten full lines, and one line that wasn't full did Xiao Fan name the half-strength squad the supply squad.

There weren't many supplies a monkey army would need, but he might take some things with him, plus he would make them do some miscellaneous things.

The forming now done, he again he dismissed all but the first combat squad and left the base with them and Du Lan to hunt and train outside the base.

Where he taught them basic things a human could think about war. There must be a book about it, but he still didn't think it would do much good to get one only for this.

The training was anyways mostly squad combat and one on one combat with the monkeys.

Spending the whole day doing so made them somewhat understand fighting in a line and its advantages compared to a chaotic melee.

Then during the next day, the first combat squad was told to keep practising as he had shown them.

While he took the second combat squad and with new-found knowledge and experience from yesterday did he do the same type of training with the second combat squad.

This sequence was done four times to four different combat squads before ¨big brother¨ whos real name was Lei came back with all of the requested monkeys back from their scouting mission.

From what Lei had then told him was that the Lion and Gorilla tribes didn't have even knowledge about the Monkey tribe.

Their numbers were the same Xiao Fan had under him with a peak Body Warming realm chief in both tribes.

There was only one other thing they wanted to note down, that was how both tribes were in extremely defensible positions around the forest, and that attacking those wasn't even a thing to think about without expecting massive losses.

This might sound bad, but for what he thought the report wasn't that bad, he had been mostly concerned about if either party had a Body Activation realm strong mutant.

Since in that case, he would have needed to ask help from Uruk or think a very integrate plan, but without one, he wasn't worried anymore.

So he could now march out towards conquest.