Chapter 21: Formidable Ability
Perhaps the reason Yu Lanfeng had come to this small-scale battlefield was because of that Yineng beast. Otherwise, given his status, he would have at most dispatched a capable subordinate to command the operation.
He himself should have remained at the primary front, the place where danger was most likely to occur.
This Yineng beast was very special, perhaps the first of its kind discovered within the Empire, so…
Nan Yu took a deep breath. Now was not the time to think about that. What he needed to do was help the hardworking officers in this room clear their mental pollution—at the very least, he had to ease their suffering.
Even though they were all grown men much older than him, looking at them made his heart ache, but there wasn’t much time for that right now.
Nan Yu quickly sat in a chair and used his wide sleeves to hide his space button, then carefully took out the Nianshen Cao. When it emerged, it appeared directly within the wide sleeve of his outer robe, so no one else could see it.
Furthermore, the spirits of the officers here were in poor shape, so no one noticed anything unusual about Nan Yu. He sat there with narrowed eyes, half-leaning back in his chair to rest, while holding the miniature Nianshen Cao in its pot within his sleeves. He was focused on recovering his mental power.
Indeed, while the Nianshen Cao absorbed a tiny bit of mental power every time, the feedback it gave Nan Yu was excellent.
As his mental power circulated through the Nianshen Cao, it became much purer. As the purity of his mental power increased, his control improved, and his ability to clear mental pollution became stronger.
Eventually, this accumulation would lead to a qualitative change, allowing him to successfully break through to become a High-Level Jingshenli Zhe.
After about two hours, Nan Yu found that his recovery was going quite well, so he stowed the Nianshen Cao pot and stood up, walking toward the first bed.
“I’m going to start the second round of clearing mental pollution now. After this, you can move around freely, but you cannot go out to join the battle. Come back tomorrow morning for a third round, and you can only head out after I’ve given my approval, understood?”
His voice was quite soft, but in the quiet room, everyone heard him clearly.
The person lying in the bed he was standing by immediately raised a hand in a gesture. “No problem. They are officers like me, but they’re also soldiers under my command. If they don’t listen, I’ll thrash them for you!”
The corners of Nan Yu’s mouth curled up. “Alright, then I’ll thank you in advance. Now, close your eyes and relax”.
“Same as before: remember not to resist my mental power, or the effectiveness of the clearing will be greatly reduced”.
When he had first tried to clear the mental pollution for these officers, he had faced considerable resistance, which had cost him quite a lot of energy. But after the first time, their acceptance of his mental power had become much more open.
Thus, this second round went much more smoothly.
In truth, the first time is always the hardest; the second time is much easier. Consequently, it only took about five minutes per person.
Several more hours passed by the time he had gone through everyone in the room.
This time, he was truly exhausted.
He slumped into a chair, eyes closed and head in his hands, looking as if he had severely overexerted his mental power.
The officers in the room were now able to move normally, so they all looked at him with concern.
“Captain, what should we do?”
Nan Yu knew they were worried about him, but he wasn’t in any real trouble; he just had a temporary headache from the massive mental power consumption.
“I’m fine. I want to go back and rest for a bit. I’ll be better after some sleep”.
But as he said this, he suddenly remembered—he didn’t seem to have a place to rest?
The highest-ranking officer here, the one who had said everyone was his soldier, directly picked Nan Yu up in a bridal carry. “Don’t worry. We don’t need to lie down anymore anyway. You can sleep in any of these beds. Get some good rest, and we’ll get you something to eat”.
Before Nan Yu could even be surprised, he was placed on one of the beds. Though the bed was hard, it was better than having nowhere to rest.
“Then… then thank you, Uncle”.
Uncle…!
Everyone stifled their laughter, not daring to mock their captain.
The consequences would be dire, so almost everyone turned away and covered their mouths tightly, fearing they might accidentally laugh out loud.
Regardless, the first person to let out a sound would surely face the harshest “punishment”.
Fortunately, the captain quickly accepted the title. After all, the child looked only about ten or fifteen, while he was an Yineng Zhe nearing two hundred years old. Many ability users his age were already great-grandfathers. He wasn’t married, but there was certainly no problem with this little one calling him “Uncle”.
However, his acceptance didn’t mean he would be magnanimous enough to let them laugh at him.
“Fall in! Stand straight, form ranks, and forward march!!”
Their destination was the cafeteria. Along the way, many people saw this orderly squad heading toward the mess hall.
It was at this moment that Yu Lanfeng happened to return. “Hmm?”
He ran straight into the squad of soldiers.
“Marshal!!”
Yu Lanfeng nodded. “I remember you are…”
“Marshal, the Jingshenli Zhe in charge of us said we are free to move around for now”.
Yu Lanfeng saw that while their mental state hadn’t reached the point where they could head to the front lines, they indeed weren’t hindered in their normal activities. He didn’t even need to look; alarm devices were installed everywhere, and if someone whose mental pollution exceeded the warning threshold was moving around outside, they would be detected within five seconds.
Since they could come out so openly, they must have returned to normal.
“Who is the Jingshenli Zhe in charge of you?”
“It’s the newcomer, Nan Yu. He’s an incredibly powerful Jingshenli Zhe. It didn’t take long at all for him to let us move freely again”.
If it were any other mental power user, it would have taken at least five Low-Level Jingshenli Zhe working non-stop for three or four days to achieve this.
Yu Lanfeng was shocked—truly shocked. He had originally thought Nan Yu’s help would merely ease the shortage of mental power users, but it seemed he had underestimated him.
He truly hadn’t expected that Nan Yu, as only a Middle-Level Jingshenli Zhe, could achieve this in less than a day.
“That… Marshal…”
“Where is he?” Yu Lanfeng asked.
“Reporting to the Marshal, the Jingshenli Zhe Nan Yu is currently resting in the ward. He’s exhausted”.
“Alright, dismiss”.
Yu Lanfeng then headed toward where Nan Yu was resting. He knew which ward those men had been in, so he found it quickly.
When he pushed the door open, he saw that Nan Yu had already fallen asleep.
His thin frame was lying on the bed under a blanket, his face flushed, sleeping deeply and warmly.
Recommended Reads
