Chapter 86

The soldiers continued walking with Timothy throughout the campgrounds and showed no signs of stopping. Looking around, Timothy saw that this was indeed a large military camp. There were many powerful experts located within and they were all either training very hard with drills, or others were creating things like blacksmiths and alchemists.

Seeing such a sight made Timothy reevaluate not joining the military of a kingdom, because it looked to be a very good idea if someone wanted to grow their strength very quickly and efficiently. However, there were other perks if he were to choose not to join a military which included that he would not be strapped down for an extended period of time.

Depending on a soldier's rank within the military and their cultivation levels, would determine how long their contracts would last with said force. Usually, the military did not discriminate on an expert's strength or background, because there was always a need for more personnel. Plus, due to the harsh training, an Elementary stage cultivator could quickly ascend to the Intermediate stage of cultivation in a rather short amount of time which would help the military's overall potential.

From what he was able to see, Timothy realized that the lowest cultivation stage of the experts within the camp were actually Intermediate stages. Such a force could easily overtake a large clan if needed which made him feel a slight level of fear since Stone Kingdom was still considered well below average compared to all of the human kingdoms that existed in the world.

Wouldn't this mean that the top human kingdom's military force be full to the brim of only immortal level cultivators? Such a thought caused Timothy's mind to go blank as the group continued walking. Several minutes later, they stopped in front of a small building which is one of the only three buildings within the camp.

The group had passed two other buildings on the way over to this one which were the Dining hall and the Quartermaster hall. The sign on the entry to this building stated that it was the Headquarters. Timothy began to mentally prepare himself, because in just a few moments, he would most likely be faced with the general level military commander who was in charge of the entire camp!

Part of the group walked into the building while the rest stood guard at the door of the building. As they continued walking, Timothy could not help but notice the many experts who were within the building. It looked like they were all Advance stage experts and working on different tasks, many of which were paperwork based.

One of the guards gently knocked on the door after the group told them that Timothy was the child who had come into view, and that they were present to hand him over to the general. After a voice sounded off that it was okay to open the door, the other guard opened it up as the small group walked into the room.

Sitting at a large desk, was a very large and muscular man who was wearing very flashy armor that looked to be very expensive and high quality. The man gestured for the group to make Timothy sit on the chair across from him. After Timothy sat down, only two of the remaining five remained within the room as the other three exited to head back to their posts.

"My men noticed that you were coming from Bark Kingdom's side of the Monster's Wasteland. I do not care about your background or the reason why you chose to make your way all of the way over from that side to our Stone Kingdom's side, but I do expect some answers on why you felt that it was appropriate to approach my camp here when there is plenty of space to head back and forth?" the man who was clearly the general of the camp asked Timothy with a stern voice and cold expression.

"Please forgive me, on my way over to this side of the Monster's Wasteland, I came across a group of four soldiers." Timothy said before explaining all of the events that took place. He did not initially reach for his pocket to show the general the storage ring with everything in it, because he did not want to appear as a liar.

"Give me the storage ring so I can see which squad it was that was captured by that demon beast. As long as you are not lying, you will be free to leave immediately, but if even just a single item is missing from their storage rings, you will be captured as a prisoner of war and sent to one of the many mines that our Stone Kingdom controls to work until Bark Kingdom sees enough value in you to request a release!" the general after listening, told Timothy with a bright light in his eyes.

Timothy was no longer willing to delay as he took the storage ring out of his pocket as he handed it to one of the soldiers behind him in order to give it to the general. He was unwilling to directly hand it over to him, just in case it was a trap. The soldier quickly handed over the storage ring, as the general looked through all of its contents.

"Very good, those four were all good men, but it was their choice to chase down the bounty. It was a special case, otherwise I would not have sent them over to scout out the area and capture or eliminate that traitor to our human race. Our military would never lower ourselves to collect bounty requests, but it came from the Empress herself, so it was not like I could have denied such a request." the general said after looking through the storage ring for some time.