Before Melgor took the gold coin out from his sleeve, Ren Xiaosu had never seen the currency of the Kingdom of Sorcerers before. This was because he had no need for it.
In some myths, coins were a representation of fate.
It was not that coins had some kind of special meaning to them but that people had a habit of tossing a coin to decide their fate.
For example, a person might toss a coin to decide whether to go left or right or whether to have supper or not. There were even examples of people tossing a coin to decide whether to be a good or bad person. Such decisions were made on a whim.
The tossed coin would ring pleasantly as it spun in midair, and by the time it landed, some people’s fates would be decided.
Ren Xiaosu held the gold coin from Melgor and smiled without saying a word. So it turned out the people he was looking for were both on this coin.
Wasn’t this such a coincidence?
He flicked the coin high up into the air with his thumb. The gold coin glittered brightly as the busts of the Tudor and Norman family heads on both sides of the coin alternated under the golden glow of the campfire. When the tossed coin reached its highest point, it slowed down and continued spinning in the reverse direction. The coin that represented fate landed back in Ren Xiaosu’s hand.
Curious, Melgor asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m tossing a coin to decide fate,” Ren Xiaosu replied with a smile. “Don’t believe in such things.” Melgor remarked, “How can you toss a coin to decide your own fate?”
When Ren Xiaosu opened his palm, the bust of the Tudor family head happened to be facing up. He smiled and said, “It’s not my fate that I’m deciding.”
Melgor hesitated for a moment and asked, “Then whose?”
Ren Xiaosu placed the gold coin back in Melgor’s hand. “I’m using it to decide the fate of others.”
As the campfire flickered, Melgor suddenly felt that Ren Xiaosu’s demeanor and tone revealed a ruthless side he had never seen before.
In fact, the coins Ren Xiaosu had seen before usually bore the portraits of people who were already dead. For example, Qing Zhen’s great grandfather’s portrait was on the Qing Consortium’s currency, while the Northwest’s coins featured the fourth generation fortress commander’s portrait. It was very rare for anyone still alive to be featured as portraits on coins.
Therefore, the practice of featuring a living person’s portrait on coins in the Kingdom of Sorcerers really left Ren Xiaosu quite surprised.
But it did not matter. He could just turn those two people featured on the coins into dead people.
Ren Xiaosu’s main objective on this trip to the Kingdom of Sorcerers was to carry out his Prosperous Northwest 3.0 plan.
So what was exactly the Prosperous Northwest 3.0 plan? It was to enhance the core competitiveness of the Northwest. On top of that, he wanted to deal with the threat of the Kingdom of Sorcerers once and for all.
Ren Xiaosu had had an in-depth discussion with P5092. P5092 expressed that sooner or later, a war would break out between the Northwest and the Wang Consortium. Although the Wang Consortium had already unified the Central Plains and completed a series of seemingly impossible feats, and Wang Shengzhi’s name would definitely go down in the annals of history because of this, his ideals would not stop there.
Therefore, if Ren Xiaosu and the others wanted the Northwest to have a higher chance of winning in the upcoming war, solving the possibility of being attacked from both sides would be absolutely necessary. From the look of things, it seemed the Kingdom of Sorcerers had no intention of invading the Northwest in the near term. However, nothing was absolute in this world. What if the Wang Consortium were to send an envoy here?
Based on the Wang Consortium’s past actions, this was a very strong possibility.
There was another possibility, and it was that the Wang Consortium’s envoy might have already arrived in the Kingdom of Sorcerers.
Thus, Ren Xiaosu would have to do his best to destroy the Kingdom of Sorcerers’ warring capabilities on this trip.
That night, the most cool-headed P5092 told Ren Xiaosu, “Ren Xiaosu, the moment you return to the Northwest, you’ll no longer be that refugee boy who can only drift along with the decisions of others. Commander Zhang has already started handing over the fate of the Northwest to you, and close to ten million Northwestern people also have expectations for you. Maybe you might be very carefree when you only have to think about what’s for your next meal or set up a stall in the market with Ms. Xiaojin like you used to, but that kind of life isn’t yours to live anymore. You’re destined to be the next leader of the Northwest, so you should understand what your duties are.”
P5092, who always kept a level head, said, “I’m not saying this because I want to show you I know more than you as your subordinate, but I’m certain the blood flowing within you is fully ready for this. Don’t reject it anymore and just accept your calling.”
As such, Ren Xiaosu went to Fortress 178 alone the next day to face the expectations of everyone in the Northwest and the responsibilities that came with it.
Fundamentally, his purpose in coming to the Kingdom of Sorcerers was to cause a massacre. The archmages were not innocent either because they all bore a blood debt numbering more than 200,000 Fortress 178 martyrs.
Of course, Ren Xiaosu would also not miss out on recruiting any candidates here who were suitable for the Prosperous Northwest.
Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu smiled at Melgor. “Do you know what the Prosperous Northwest means?”
Melgor was taken aback. “The Prosperous Northwest? Never heard of it.”
“Never mind, you’ll find out soon.”
In the dark of the night, someone suddenly lifted the curtain door of the carriage where the young sorceress, An’an, was in. A figure dressed in black bolted out and headed stealthily in the direction the bandits had retreated.
When she arrived at the battlefield, she could only see a pile of melting ice and flesh.
An’an looked around the battlefield. When she saw the mysterious magic circle next to the bounty hunter’s corpse, she was bewildered.
Then she went around the entire battlefield again, and after finding no other abnormalities, turned and headed back to the carriage.
The middle-aged woman was waiting for An’an throughout. When she saw her return, she asked, “Did you discover anything?” “Those bandits were likely instigated by someone, and the instigator should be a bounty hunter from one of the big sorcerer clans. That bounty hunter silenced all the remaining bandits who made it out.” An’an continued, “But just like how the mantis stalked the cicada unaware there was an oriole behind, the bounty hunter also got ambushed by someone else. Moreover, there were traces of Bloodline Summoning at the scene. That’s what I found odd. A bounty hunter is only a fringe figure in the sorcerer clans, so how did he cast a secretive spell like Bloodline Summoning? Such spells are only taught to immediate clan members.”
The middle-aged woman thought for a moment and said, “Although bounty hunters are usually fringe figures in the sorcerer clans, that’s not an absolute. Some bounty hunters are actually not outsiders but illegitimate children of the family. You know that some archmages can have up to hundreds of children, so the possibility of fathering illegitimate children shouldn’t be surprising. The laws of the Magi state that illegitimate children of the clans have no right of inheritance to become sorcerers, so a way around it is to sever their blood ties to their parents and become bounty hunters of the clan. Of course, such illegitimate children are generally doted on by the archmages. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have specially taught them sorcery.”
“That’s a thing? Then some archmage must be rather agonized by the loss,” An’an gloated. “Moreover, I suspect the bounty hunter was sent by the Tudor family, because the air temperature at the scene was relatively low. I also saw a large amount of residual ice.” “The Tudor family?” The middle-aged woman pondered it for a moment before saying, “Who do you think they’re targeting?”
“Melgor.” An’an said firmly, “On the night Ren Xiaosu pursued me, he asked if I was sent by the Tudor family!”
“Then they have the same enemy as us.” The middle-aged woman started laughing. “Who knows, they might even bring us some other surprises.”