67 The Results of Time

After half a month of enjoying freedom in the forest Yun returned with Long Wuying to the tor they met at the first time, where she could address the groups being brought back by their Lieutenants.

As the groups began to line up in formations this time Yun noticed that they were wearing unit crests on their left shoulders, indicating what squad and what corps they belonged to. Additionally their armor and clothing were all dark colored now as well, giving them better camouflage in the dark forests they would frequently be fighting in.

Once all the corps were gathered in front of her she gestured the Lieutenants to join her for a quick meeting before addressing them. She praised the Lieutenants for their good work with the unit discipline and uniformity before sending them back to rest in front of their units.

"Welcome back, all of you! Hopefully you've all had a very productive half month learning to work with each other and understand team tactics. This round of testing will be different, so pay attention!

"Unlike last time, you will not fight any teams within your own corps. This will prevent matches where the teams already know eachother's tactics and techniques, creating an opportunity for one team to take advantage of greater knowledge or to outright cheat the system.

"With that said, you'll also all be split into different camps this time. Each corps will be camped on one side of the quarry, far enough from it that it's not visible. These camps will be under the control of the Lieutenants, and myself and Commander Wuying will occasionally visit, or even attempt to break in. Keep your guard up! If we're attempting to infiltrate we will not do it from the direction of the quarry, but other infiltration squads might.

"Additionally we may periodically grab a random squad from a camp and set them on a mission to infiltrate another camp. Lieutenants may also send squads to do this. Successful infiltrators will be given extra points, but there will be no punishment for failure. The guards will not receive rewards for successful defenses.

Now, let us begin. First Lieutenant, please follow Commander Wuying to determine your camp's location, Second Lieutenant follow myself. Your opponents do not know which camp is on which side, nor the exact location of the other camps, thus scouting your terrain will also be important. Today will be your day of setup. No scouting, no fighting. Tomorrow at dawn will begin the test. Let's go!"

Wuying and Yun leapt off the tor at the same time and began walking in the direction of the quarry, but along separate paths to keep the squads behind them from knowing their opponent's location. After a few hours they both returned and lead the other two corps to their camps.

Soon enough all four groups were settled in, and Yun and Wuying had also set up their tents on the corners of the quarry. With the assistance of the Sect they had four additional observers, two at each of the other corners, to assist them this time. Yun had arranged everything she could, and she'd even requested some traps be created within the quarry to keep the competitors on their toes, not that they knew about this.

After three days the first battle began and excitement began to invade the minds of all the Lynhär in the camps. The first match went extremely well, and strangely no traps were encountered in this very straight-forward battle. The squad chosen from Gao Mao's corps was significantly weaker than their opponents, causing an easy victory of near outright domination.

Within the next few months many battles occurred, some of them even outside the pit where the officially judged competition was taking place. After about three months they had completed half of the battles, but Gao Mao's face was incredibly dark as he requested a meeting with the commanders.

Slamming his fist down on the war room table, he nearly shouted at them.

"This is outrageous, you're trying to tell me that the random lottery for who fights who has given my squads the short end of the stick every time!? Not one of my squads has won, they've all been decimated by their opponents."

Yun smiled slightly, "Maomao, are you trying to say that this Yun has been targeting you? I'd say it's more likely that you just failed to train quality squads compared to your competitors. They've all been having wins and losses due to the random lottery, yet you're the only Lieutenant with the nerve to complain the system is rigged. How is that? Maybe you're doing this intentionally to set me up? 'Help, the commander is corrupt, remove her!'?" With a 'pah' Yun spit on the ground in front of Gao Mao. "Grow up, MaoMao. This Yun doesn't have time for your antics anymore. This meeting is over."

Yun stood up and walked out of the tent, quickly followed by Wuying and the curses streaming forth at her back from Gao Mao.

"Yun, don't you think this is taking it a little too far?" Wuying asked her in a secret way, using his qi to prevent others from hearing it by distorting the vibrations that spread out from his mouth.

"Wuying, this fool thinks he can target me and get away with it. He needs to understand that what he does implicates those under him. If he can't learn such a basic thing then this Yun will remove him from this war and replace him with another capable Lieutenant. If he is stupid enough to keep this up he'll get his underlings killed later on."

Long Wuying sighed heavily, "Understood, Commander. Wuying will watch out for these things and learn from you."

"Don't sound so solemn, Wuying. It's not like we're killing him, just a little punishment. His squads have scored mediocre even without considering winning and losing, he just doesn't understand that victory isn't that important in these battles. The other leaders have already figured out that scores are not influenced by victory, but merely by skill and teamwork displayed."

"You're right, of course. Will you provide his squads opportunities to be victorious?"

Smiling mischeviously, Yun replied, "Of course, this Yun can't make it feel too much like she's targeting him. His squads will win quite a few future battles, but unless their performance as a team goes up it won't matter for their final rankings. He he he he . . . . . "