The First Order

Ren Xiaosu was squatting in the snow. The blizzard had become terrifyingly heavy. However, he did not at all care because he was fully focused on the seeds he had just planted into the ground.

After planting the Bramble, Ren Xiaosu had traded for another five seeds.

There were about ten different types of seeds in the window slot of the vending machine. But after inserting the gratitude tokens, the vending machine dispensed another four Bramble seeds and one khaki-colored seed.

It seemed that Seeds was similar to the Explosive Poker item that he had. It was easier for him to get his hands on the more common seeds. When he traded for Explosive Poker, three and four were the most common cards dispensed by the vending machine. Occasionally, it would also dispense out one or two 5s, but Ren Xiaosu had never seen any higher-numbered cards than that.

The Brambles behaved in a very aggressive manner. Ren Xiaosu reckoned that if supernatural beings entered its attack range, few people would survive an attack. So Ren Xiaosu was still quite satisfied with this new product.

But what use did this khaki-colored seed have?

After this seed was planted, it sprouted at a much slower rate. It wasn’t until ten minutes later that green buds started sprouting out of the ground.

He could see the buds starting to grow. But even at this point, the plant did not seem like anything special.

A moment later, Ren Xiaosu was stunned. He watched a pocketlike structure form at the top of the plant. His mental consciousness then connected with it.

When Ren Xiaosu focused his mind, a potato about the size of a fist shot out at high speed from the pocketlike structure of the plant. It was just like firing an artillery shell.

This was… a potato shooter!

What the hell! Ren Xiaosu was speechless. He already understood how this plant worked through its connection with his consciousness. It turned out to be an automatic rifle of the plant kingdom that could shoot up to 30 potatoes each day.

Ren Xiaosu felt that it couldn’t get any more useless than this. Any automatic rifle would be more powerful than this thing, alright? Guns could not only shoot faster, they were also more lethal than this.

It seemed like other than being automatically alert to its surroundings, there was nothing else good about it.

Moreover, wouldn’t it be a waste to spit out all those potatoes? They were food after all!

Ren Xiaosu suddenly looked at the Potato Shooter: “Spit out the potatoes for me.’

The Potato Shooter spat out the remaining 29 potatoes that it had stored underground. Ren Xiaosu smacked his lips. “High-speed food production, that’s pretty useful. We can have potatoes for dinner tonight.”

Even the palace did not expect Ren Xiaosu to use an offensive plant like this as a food crop.

But all of a sudden, he heard the crunching of snow coming from across the way. Ren Xiaosu immediately raised his guard. Someone was walking over from the opposite side!

Currently, the rest of the Li Consortium’s regular forces were garrisoned at the front line at Mt. Fengyi. What regular force would venture out into these mountains for no apparent reason? Everyone would travel by the main roads, and only special forces like the Divine Arms Battalion would trek through mountains and rivers.

Could they be from the Divine Arms Battalion as well? But they were not moving in the same direction.

If so… they must be enemies!

Ren Xiaosu quietly withdrew. When he stepped on the snowy ground, he used the tiptoes so he would not make a sound.

He retreated to a distance far away and hid behind a large tree. There shouldn’t be that many enemy troops and they were most probably just a scouting party. The only thing he did not know was whether they were from the Qing Consortium or the Yang Consortium.

He saw 30 people walking cautiously in the snow in a long single file. They had people taking turns to forge a path in the snow as they moved along like wolves.

Ren Xiaosu waited for them to enter the range of the Brambles. This way he could also observe how the plant actually worked.

But the enemy was pretty astute too. The snowfall was not heavy enough to conceal Ren Xiaosu’s footprints in the time it took for him to hide. So the advance party immediately stopped in their tracks when they saw his footprints.

The entire troop immediately fanned out in the snow so they could take control of their surroundings.

“Be careful, someone was here just now!”

“Judging by the tracks in the snow, they must have decided to leave after hearing our footsteps.”

“Did our plan get leaked?”

“I’m not sure, but look for the tango’s trail. It should only be one person!”

Ren Xiaosu was a little disappointed. They just needed to come a little closer and they would have stepped into the attack radius of the Brambles. The Brambles had an attack range of dozens of meters.

However, Ren Xiaosu’s eyes lit up. Although the Brambles were in a fixed spot, he could control the Potato Shooter to initiate an attack!

Ren Xiaosu focused his mind and controlled the Potato Shooter to attack in an attempt to test its power, but he found it did not respond to him.

Was this a fucking fake? Why wasn’t it shooting any potatoes?

Oh wait, he had already taken all the potatoes and put them into his backpack. So it wasn’t the Potato Shooter that was to blame…

Ren Xiaosu was certain by now that these were the combat troops of the Qing Consortium after watching them from afar. Although he was on familiar terms with Fatty Luo, neither of them would hold back if they bumped into each other on the battlefield. War is war.

Furthermore, weren’t Qing Zhen and Luo Lan under house arrest now? So these soldiers wouldn’t have anything to do with them, right?

Suddenly, the Qing Consortium’s combat troops switched on the flashlights attached to their automatic rifles. With the light illuminating the snow, they followed Ren Xiaosu’s footprints and locked onto a large tree he was taking cover behind.

In the deep snow, there was no way of hiding those footprints. Unless Ren Xiaosu could fly.

To be honest, Ren Xiaosu did not expect the Qing Consortium’s troops to be so careful and vigilant. The Qing Consortium’s troops looked at one another and said, “Affirmative, it’s only one person.”

“Don’t let him escape in case he exposes our whereabouts by reporting it,” the platoon commander said calmly. As long as they were certain it was only one person, it would be easy to handle.

“Don’t shoot yet. There might be troops nearby. This isn’t a place where refugees would appear. It could be a nanosoldier from the Divine Arms Battalion that we’re facing.”

The Qing Consortium’s combat troops carefully analyzed Ren Xiaosu’s possible identity and motives in order to determine their next course of action.

They only came here after receiving intel that suggested the Divine Arms Battalion had disappeared shortly after setting off for this location. They expected the enemy would appear in these forested mountains.

As they discussed, someone attached a silencer to their muzzle. As the advance party, they couldn’t alert their enemies. The battle would have to be fought quickly in secret.

“Advance!” The platoon commander said, “Adopt Offensive Approach Formation.”

Under normal circumstances, the advance guard would generally only adopt three types of battle formations. One was the basic approach formation where the entire platoon would stand in a straight line with the lead person holding his gun up at full alert and aiming ahead, while the rest of the rear platoon members would keep their guards up and point their guns at the left and right flanks. The other was the defensive approach formation where one combatant would guard the platoon’s rear by aiming their rifle in the opposite direction of advance.

Meanwhile, the offensive approach formation would have all the members advance in a staggered manner where the first, second, and third combatants would be at full alert and aim ahead. The second and third members would stand at staggered positions to the left and right rear behind the first member to provide covering fire.