The First Order

Translator: Legge

As the grandiose group made their way north, some people were looking through the gap in a covered carriage with their gaze locked on Ren Xiaosu's back.

Ren Xiaosu flipped through his book unsteadily as he rode slowly on his horse. The horses knew to keep with the group, so he did not have to worry it would veer off course.

Ren Xiaosu quite liked the feeling of the autonomous riding. There was no need for him to control the horse himself, and it would not deviate from the group either.

In the past, when Luo Lan talked to him about artificial intelligence, he said it had quite a broad application field, with one of them being autonomous driving.

For example, if someone needed to travel a long distance, they would only need to set a destination after getting in the vehicle. Once that was done, they could just sleep all the way until they arrived.

Ren Xiaosu thought that even though he did not fully understand what artificial intelligence was, he could still enjoy the feeling of being driven around autonomously.

As Ren Xiaosu was letting his imagination run wild, he seemed wholly unaware there were people spying on him at the back of the group.

Someone in that carriage asked softly, "Was he the one who troubled you so much?"

Someone else in the carriage answered in a quiet voice, "Yes, that's him."

"Are you sure he's not a sorcerer?" someone asked. "We calculated the route and speed of your escape last night. If he were just a normal person, he couldn't have caught up to you without the aid of sorcery."

"Ican't be sure he's a sorcerer, but what I can be sure of is that he did not cast any spells during the pursuit," the young sorceress answered.

"That's a little strange then. Could that person have been born with superior physical fitness compared to normal people?" someone wondered.

"I think so. I saw him leap a dozen meters with my own eyes while I was escaping. Normal people don't have such fitness. We've also tested it out before. Without spell enhancement, eight to nine meters is probably the limit for us," the young sorceress replied. "So we have to be more careful than usual."

"He should count himself unlucky. We were already leaving under the guise of the trade caravan, but they came knocking on our door," another person said in a low voice.

Based on what he just said, this group of bounty hunters had given up on the mission and were planning to return north.

But coincidentally, Melgor and his band suddenly joined up with the trade caravan.

"By the way, didn't you say there was another person in a white mask? Can you identify him from his physique?" someone asked.

"No. White Mask's physique is similar to this young man's, but I can't confirm who it is," the young sorceress answered. "When I was trying to escape, White Mask's presence was crushing. I found him utterly terrifying. If you guys hadn't arrived in time, I'd probably have died there."

"Wait, could White Mask be Melgor?" someone asked. "It feels to me that Melgor's height and physique seem to fit the criteria quite well."

"That's true." The young sorceress thought back and said, "But why would he need to put on a mask?"

Ren Xiaosu was entirely unaware of how much more trouble White Mask would cause. Melgor, Liu Ting, and Li Chengguo believed White Mask was the assassin, while the young sorceress thought Melgor was White Mask.

What a mess!

Ren Xiaosu sat on his horse and paged through the Introduction to Sorcery in an attempt to find any information of value.

After the Introduction to Sorcery was edited, the contents of the book had become shambles. Many of the things written did not seem to fit together and baffled the reader.

It was no wonder Melgor and the others did not want to read it. There really was not much value in reading this book.

Li Chengguo and Liu Ting were still memorizing vocabulary in the carriage. When Ren Xiaosu got bored of reading, he put down the Introduction to Sorcery and spurred his horse towards the front of the traveling caravan.

As Ren Xiaosu moved forward, he scrutinized everyone he could see. This was mainly to check if there were any suspicious people in the caravan.

Before he could go far, the knight commander, Mox, approached him and said, "Sir, you shouldn't move about as you please. If there's an assassin hiding in the caravan, you might get put in danger."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Ren Xiaosu answered in seriousness, "They can't hurt me."

Merckx was speechless. After Ren Xiaosu left, one of his subordinates came over and said, "There's no need to worry about him. Our mission is to protect Lord Melgor, anyway, so it's not our business if anything untoward happens to that kid."

"True." Mox sighed and said, "Let's ignore him then. Remember to stay vigilant."

"Understood."

Before long, Ren Xiaosu came back from his stroll of the front of the trade caravan. This time, he rode his horse towards the back of the group.

When he passed by a certain carriage, he found it a little strange.

It was the end of May, and the scorching sun hanging overhead was shining so fiercely it felt like you could even smell your own hair burning. Almost all the carriages had lifted their curtains to keep the air flowing.

But the strange thing about this carriage was that the windows were firmly blocked by the curtains, while the curtain door was also tied shut.

There was nothing unusual about the coachman, but weren't the people on the inside afraid of getting heatstroke?

A moment later, Ren Xiaosu reached out and tried to pull open the window. But before he could do so, someone lifted the curtain from the inside.

A middle-aged woman had a stunned look on her face when she saw Ren Xiaosu and his outstretched arm. Then she said with a polite smile, "Are you Lord Melgor's newly recruited steward? I saw you on the streets when you all entered the city. You're really quite handsome."

"Hahahahaha, that so?" Ren Xiaosu laughed happily.

"Is something the matter?" the middle-aged woman asked with a smile.

Ren Xiaosu looked through the window and examined what was inside the carriage. He said, "It's nothing, I was just wondering, don't you find it hot?"

"Oh, you see, I fell sick a few days ago, and the doctor in town said that I mustn't catch a chill," the middle-aged woman said with a smile.

"I see." Ren Xiaosu breathed a sigh of relief and said with a smile, "It's alright then. I was just a little curious, so don't worry."

After that, Ren Xiaosu was about to spur his horse to continue to the back of the trade caravan when the middle-aged woman suddenly said, "Why don't… would you like to enter the carriage and have a seat, sir? I have some issues I'd like to discuss with you."

This woman was wearing a layered dress with a plunging neckline and lace ruffles on her collar. She had a fair complexion.

When she saw Ren Xiaosu looking over, the woman even leaned forward a little more. It was as though she was trying to make it easier for his eyes to see her.

"Ahem, there's no need for that." Ren Xiaosu clenched his legs around the horse's rib cage and left quickly.

From the back, it almost felt like he was fleeing.

The middle-aged woman giggled. "That's interesting. He's different from those sorcerers who look decent but have dirty minds.."