“Zhu Ying!” Looking at this handsome and charismatic young man, Ren Yun Du instantly squinted his eyes.
This man was the genius of the Zhu Family. Ever since he was young, he led armies into wars and always had successful campaigns. He was conferred the title of ‘Commander’ when he was still pretty young. It was a title that was one rank higher than his.
A commander was a rank in the military, yet, it still wasn’t a very high rank.
“Deputy Commander, what have you come here for?” Staring at Ren Yun Du, Zhu Ying laughed as he asked.
Of course, Zhu Ying recognised Ren Yun Du.
“I am here by the Eighth prince’s orders to carry out a mission. This is the official military dispatch!” Ren Yun Du answered while casually waving his hand. A thin document appeared in his palms.
Zhu Ying did not even check through the document before nodding his head and saying, “this is General Zhu Long’s order, the lot of you will be deployed to stand guard at the surrounding mine to help the guards over there. Ensure the safety of the mine!”
“What?” Ren Yun Du’s face fell, they were all geniuses of the Shen Wu Academy and were all high ranked Martial Emperors.
Especially for him, as a peak Rank 9 Martial Emperor, his strength was almost equal to an average Martial Honourable.
Yet, General Zhu Long actually ordered them to guard a small mine.
Guarding a small mine wasn’t simple at all. It was laborious work as they had to operate the mine.
This Zhu Long, was he seeing them as mere labourers?
The other disciples of Shen Wu Academy also wore dark looks on their faces. They were here to participate in a war.
If a battle happened, they would fight. If a battle didn’t happen, they would continue their regular cultivation.
“What? You dare to defy the general’s orders?” With a dispassionate look, Zhu Ying asked coldly.
“No!” Although Ren Yun Du was angry, he didn’t dare to publicly defy an order. Since they were deployed to this area, they had to comply with the orders of the general here.
“That’s good, this is the general’s orders, you all may go!” Zhu Ying nodded his head. Then, he swung his arm and a jade seal flew from above.
Ren Yun Du took the jade seal and casually checked it. There was the general’s oral command that ordered him to lead the group to guard the mine.
“Lets go!” Ren Yun Du did not speak further before commanding the group away. They flew in the west direction and quickly disappeared into the horizon.
“Commander, are you really letting those men guard the mine?” A tall troop of the alpha team asked Zhu Ying curiously.
“Of course not!”
Zhu Ying shook his head and with a cold look, he laughed, “those men are the claws of the Eighth prince, Gu Tian Yi. Do you know why the Eighth prince has continuously sent men to participate in the war in recent years?”
“Is it to increase his strength?” The black alpha troop asked.
“That’s right! Once these people leave Shen Wu Academy and enter the military, they will greatly increase Eighth prince’s power!”
Zhu Ying said, and with that a cold flash passed through his eyes before he continued, “however, Eighth prince’s power is still far from Third and First prince. It is still too weak!”
“I see!” The black alpha troop exclaimed in realisation as a smirk played on his face. It seemed like Third prince was starting to take action against Eighth prince.
And his first step was to chop off Eighth prince’s claws.
The mine wasn’t far off from Black Mountain Fort and it was located deep in the mountain range in the middle of a few mountains.
Not long later, the Shen Wu Academy group arrived at the mine.
Looking far ahead, there wasn’t a single soul in the area and it seemed like a barren land.
Everyone could feel a strong but mysterious power rising from the ground.
“Let’s go down!” Ren Yun Du instructed the group before leading them down and entering the mountain range.
“Who are you?”
The moment the group went down, a loud and booming murderous voice filled the place.
Shoosh shoosh shoosh!!
Then, numerous black alpha troops flew from the caves and surrounded the group.
These troops were all Martial Kings and Martial Royals. There were less than 50 Martial Emperors.
A skinny man was their leader as he donned a bronze military outfit and wore the aura of a Martial Honourable.
“I come by General Zhu Long’s orders to help guard this mine!” Ren Yun Du saluted the general as he said.
“The seal!” Glancing at the group before him, the general coldly demanded.
Hearing this, Ren Yun Du immediately gave the jade seal to the general.
The commander checked the jade pendant before nodding his head and cupping his fists towards Ren Yun Du. In a low voice, he said, “Deputy Commander Ren, pardon my rudeness!”
Although the general was a Martial Honourable, he was also a deputy commander and, as such, was of the same military status as Ren Yun Du.
However, although he apologised to Ren Yun Du, he did not seem sincere at all.
“You are too polite!” Ren Yun Du also cupped his fists towards the man.
“Since you are here, you will have to listen to my orders from now on. Are you okay with that?” The commander asked.
“Yes!” The group nodded.
“That’s good. You guys will first dig your own tunnels to stay in and then allocate guards to guard the place. We will rotate every month and begin digging for resources next month!” The commander instructured.
“Yes!” Ren Yun Du helplessly nodded his head. Since he was sent here, he could only go by his superior’s orders.
However, they would probably not be able to obtain any benefits from this deployment this time.
Luckily, this deployment was not long. He had requested to the Military Quarters a deployment of 6 months. Once these 6 months were up, they would immediately collect their things and leave.
With that, the group quickly began action and dug numerous holes to serve as their living quarters.
In the following days, the lot of them really became guards and stood guard daily at the mine.
Now only this, they were divided into 18 small groups to stay on look out at the mine.
This mine was located in the big mountain range and was connected to the dragon’s vein of the earth. Numerous Spiritual Stones were here and occasionally, a few Lower Spiritual Crystals could be found.
Hence, this area often suffered from attacks by Tuo Luo Country and Blood Pupil Clan. They therefore had to stand guard here.
Time flew by quickly and in the blink of an eye, one month had passed. Nothing happened and all was calm in this one month.
As for Su Mo, he had successfully broken through to the Rank 5 Martial Emperor Realm within this period of time.
He had refined enough that the bottleneck to the next realm was easily broken. It was much easier and smoother than him forcefully breaking through.
This day, the group of them were all gathered up to meet the general.
“Now, the lot of you will dig for Spiritual Stones in the next month. There will be someone supervising you as you dig. If anyone dares to slack off, they will definitely be killed mercilessly!” The general warned the men, his voice was cold and unfeeling.