Chapter 8: In a trance_1

Felen, despite its lengthy history, had no significant teachings on tactics and strategy to speak of.

There was simply no way around it; in this world's history, the first half belonged to the Giant Dragons and Giants, the middle shone with the Elves, and only in the last few millennia had humans slowly taken the stage. During this time, a few human civilizations had flourished, either investing in the psychic power tech tree or the magic technology tree. Take the Nesserel Empire for instance; they even managed to develop Floating Cities. What use did they have for strategic tactics when they could just fly their Floating Cities above their enemy's Capital and bombard them with magic in a face-to-face tactic?

But the most important aspect was the high presence of magic in Felen, which resulted in incredibly powerful individuals. Some creatures were immensely strong, and Giant Dragons filled the skies. Most civilizations were like isolated city-states—Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep City were the most typical examples.

Many strategies revolved around individual combat prowess. Rarely was there a need to deploy troops for battles, so naturally, few devoted their thoughts to this area.

This didn't mean that tactics and strategy were utterly useless. Did you not see how the God of War Tempus, the number one battle fanatic amongst all the Gods, had covertly nurtured a bastard daughter, the Red Knight? Taking advantage of the turmoil among the Gods last year, he promptly promoted her to his affiliated deity, in charge of divine positions related to scheming. He probably saw potential in this area.

As for tactics and strategy, Zhang You's ancestors were the clearest on the subject. Forced by Father Zhang in a 'force-feeding' fashion, he had read many ancient texts on the topic, including the Martial Arts Seven Books, which contained the military treatises of seven schools—"The Art of War by Sun Tzu," "The Art of War by Wu," "The Six Secret Teachings," "Sima's Art of War," "The Three Strategies," "The Book of Wei Liaozi," and "Questions and Replies of Lord Li Wei."

Of course, reading was one thing, and memorizing was another, especially those obscure ancient texts.

At the moment, all Gaven could remember was the tactic from "The Art of War by Sun Tzu" that retreat was the best strategy.

Books proved precious at times of need.

The ancients never lied; had I known this day would come, I would have memorized the Martial Arts Seven Books thoroughly.

Gaven was not one to give up easily. After delivering Zalanda's summoning orders to the hands of the Nort Militia captains, he hurried back to his room, locked the doors and windows, set a simple alarm trap, slipped into bed still clothed and holding his one-handed sword, and within seconds, entered a state of trance.

This was a special ability granted by the Elf Bloodline flowing in Gaven, a unique trance known to the Elves.

Trance is the common term, but the Elves prefer to call it meditation—a semi-conscious deep meditation. Four hours of deep meditation was equivalent to a good eight hours' sleep for normal humans. This also explained why the Elves were immune to sleep magic—unless knocked unconscious, they rarely entered sleep.

Whether standing, lying, or sitting down, they could enter a trance, but the best effect was undeniably lying on a comfortable bed because, once in a trance, the body also relaxed.

The trance state was extremely mysterious, not only could one sense one's body as well as the surroundings within a radius of four or five meters, but the consciousness also became highly active, especially the memories in the mind that rolled out like movie clips, allowing one to savor them all over again.

This was the reason why Elves, with their lifespans of seven or eight centuries, still had crystal-clear memories of events that happened centuries ago; they always deeply explored their memories during meditation.

However, exactly which memories would surface was not entirely under Gaven's control. It somewhat involved dreams but was not entirely the same.

Zhang You the Second firmly believed in the existence of psychic powers because, on occasion, he would slip into a trance during deep sleep.

According to the only useful method Zhang You the Second could conjecture, it was "daily thoughts, nightly dreams."

By reinforcing one's memories of a certain matter before sleep and entering trance afterward, the most likely memories to surface would be related to that matter. Of course, one might also truly dream and have all sorts of bizarre things come to mind.

A dreamless night.

Gaven couldn't bring any ancient military treatises to mind but did churn out a hundred and eighty pieces of Tang and Song poetry, which would be utterly useless in Felen. Translated into the common tongue, these would completely lose the poetic essence, and natives of Felen wouldn't appreciate them at all.

When Gaven finished his trance, the sky was just beginning to brighten.

But someone had risen even earlier than him. Zalanda had been running east and west with the captains of the Nort Militia, arranging their tactical deployment; it was unclear if they had gone without sleep all night or had merely taken a brief nap.

Compared to them, Gaven was still a bit too relaxed.

Zalanda and his team fully embraced the concept of every minute counting, knowing that the sooner they evacuated from Nort Castle, the fewer uncertainties they would face.

To invite the enemy in.

To implement this strategy, the most challenging part wasn't luring the enemy in, but convincing one's own people to accept this bold and dangerous plan.

If Rogan were to lead this plan, don't even think about it; it would never succeed because his own people would start fighting amongst themselves first.

If Zalanda were to implement it in his own territory at Nort Castle, then it wouldn't be a problem at all.

The reason Gaven dared to propose this plan to Zalanda yesterday was based on this very understanding.

"Today, we fight not for Thacel, nor for the Nort Family, not even for myself, Zalanda, but for ourselves, and victory will surely be ours!" Zalanda, clad in battle attire, sat on his warhorse, lowered his face armor, and raised his longsword high, brimming with fighting spirit.

"Victory will surely be ours!"

"Victory will surely be ours!!"

"Victory will surely be ours!!!"

The entire Nort Castle's will to fight was ignited by just a few short sentences from Zalanda.

"Open the gates!" Zalanda ordered once again.

Amid the creaking and grinding of heavy mechanisms, the thick gates of Nort City slowly opened, like a monster opening its mouth, waiting for the prey to deliver themselves to its jaws.

"Haka... guh..."—Goblin "What's going on?"

"*Sahala..."—Goblin "I don't know!"

"Gahala..."—Goblin "Charge, the humans are running away!"

The sudden response of Nort City threw the goblin tribe outside into disarray, a shrill and piercing cacophony in Goblin discussing the humans' unusual actions. But with their meager intelligence, they couldn't come to any sensible conclusions.

When a small green-skinned dwarf began shrieking and waving his crude weapon, charging toward the city gates of Nort, the other goblins didn't need any encouragement from the hobgoblins behind them and howled as they joined the charge.

There's a reason goblins are nicknamed 'cannon fodder fools.' Their actions at this moment fully explained the origin of the term 'fool.'

Especially the goblins running at the front, boldly charging through the city gate, spurred on even more goblins behind them, who rushed to join the onslaught.

In their minds, once they could break through the human gates, the humans would be like sheep to the slaughter, ready to be carved up, despite being nearly twice their size and build.