Nan Bei’s Perspective

Nan Bei’s eyes flashed across the four faces of his new teammates. The tallest was a severe looking man with dark eyes and darker hair. The shortest was a very young looking man whose soft green eyes exuded vitality. The other two were a male female duo with deep brown skin and large soulful eyes. They looked almost too similar despite their differing genders. Twins.

“Okay everyone. In order to more easily familiarize yourselves with each other and your mission I’ll take my leave,” the Vice Sect Master who had, unbeknownst to Nan Bei, guided him into the room swiftly shut the door behind Nan Bei. Nan Bei stared wordlessly at the stone door until a polite cough pulled his attention to the four people behind him.

“Good. You’re here, sir” The severe faced man stated waving his hand at the table behind the four that had a large map that had dozens of markings on it. “Here’s the mission det-“

“Hey!” The green eyed man interrupted as he looked rapidly from the the dark eyes of the severe man to Nan Bei’s amber ones. “Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?”

“Ah. Yes. I’m Sai Cao Tuan. Dao of Metal.” Sai Cao Tuan introduced himself after quickly pulling his dark eyes from the map on the table. “Call me Sai. Everyone else does.”

The green eyed man bounced forward arm extended to shake Nan Bei’s hand. “I’m Rowan. Fusion Dao of Golden Life.” Nan Bei’s eyes widened at the strange and unique combination. That might be extremely useful. Nan Bei thought to himself.

The twins glanced at each other before simultaneously speaking out. “I’m Taio(Taia), Dao of Golden Water.” At this Nan Bei nodded as he had seen the gourds on their hips.

At this point Sai gestured impatiently at the map on the table. “We know who you are, sir. Now will you check our work so far.” Nan Bei nodded as he moved toward the map and surveyed the plans. Surprise filled his gaze and slowly evolved into shock and disgust. He looked at the four of them. “I can’t do this plan.”

“Your plan is to destroy the entire land just to kill a small army. This is against my Dao. I can’t allow you to do this.” As Nan Bei continued Sai’s frown grew deeper with each word. “Your plans are… monstrous. Despicable.”

The map showed plans to poison a flowing water source the enemy was drinking from. Which would not only affect them but countless other humans as well as the entire ecosystem. Plans to burn an entire plan downwind of them in order to smoke them out and plans to poison the smoke. Details about the possibility of purchasing a large amount of poison from the Hidden Tincture Business group to the far East of the Golden River Sect. To use their poisons in an attempt to maneuver the plentiful Dao of Water experts in the Golden Water Sect to literally make it rain poison on the opponent.

“These are the plans we’ve spent a lot of effort to craft and refine.” The Twins said in unison their deep dark brown eyes glaring reproachfully at their new captain. Nan Bei’s face twisted as he chewed on his lower lip. His anxiously darting amber eyes seemed to lose their golden luster as he tried to rapidly come up with an alternate plan. A few minutes went by as Rowan nervously watched Nan Bei think.

“What if…” Nan Bei trailed off his mind working a mile a minute. “What if we used the river?”

Rowan who had also had misgivings about the plan immediately latched on to what Nan Bei had to say. His face lit up as he questioned Nan Bei. “Use the river? Like to attack them? The river is too big for even an army to impact. Its a direct branch from the Southern Great River. It’s around 600 feet wide. Over 180 meters!”

Nan Bei nodded his face lighting up as he looked at the map. “We can use it. Not to attack but to turn their entire camp into a mud pit. Our sect excels at carrying things inside of water. If we merely change our direction to carrying large amounts of normal water into dirt until its feet of mud and then completely dry it in an instant...”

Sai’s face changed as the severe look faded as he swept his black hair from his face with a slightly painful looking smile. “Brilliant. We can bury the entire army at once. They must have also calculated we’d be unable to use the river as a source of attack. But with this method we can really ruin them. The average cultivation level of their army is third level foes. First Circle cultivators. The amount of Body refinement and Qi refinement foes will be about equal. Of course those first and second level soldiers will be entirely useless in the face of this. Second and Third circle Qi layer experts should be able to escape the burial though.”

“In time of course they will. The more important point is that while the soldiers are putting the water back into the river as quickly as possible the Officers and Us will be able to quickly capture the opposing experts.” Nan Bei finished off his plan before sternly adding with extra emphasis. “Putting the clean water back into the river.”

Rowan nodded quickly looking from Nan Bei to Sai and back again. The twins despite having faces full of disgruntlement did the same in perfect unison. Sai who had reigned in his emotions mulled over the new proposal for several moments before shaking his his head and looking at Nan Bei. “I can’t really say no due to you being the leader. But I feel we need to look at the pros and cons. Rowan!”

Rowan quickly stepped forward. “Pros are it’s very cheap. It effectively does everything the original plan did without directly killing anyone allowing for a larger amount of prisoners of war as well as not affecting the ecosystem or other individuals that use the water from this river. Finally it manages to better maintain our image and pride as heroes of one of the top sects of Good alignment.”

Rowan paused for a moment and looked down for a second to gather his thoughts before continuing. “Cons include overexertion of the personal energy of a large amount of soldiers and a larger amount of combat between higher level forces. As well as the necessity of finding a place to keep the prisoners of war afterwards. Considering we don’t currently have a location for such an endeavor.”

Sai nodded and opened his mouth before the twins interrupted. “Nan Bei can just ask the Vice Sect Master to prepare something. A prison encampment or dungeon or something. Right?”

Nan Bei nodded while thinking about the other cons of his plan. That would be a simple fix to the biggest con. “The overexertion won’t be an issue either because according to the map there aren’t any other forces nearby.” Nan Bei paused before adding. "Honestly the fact they had a General leading this minor army is surprising considering their three major armies are in their cities in the South Western hemisphere of the Middle Ring.

“It’s because his post there was tactical, we think. To put pressure on our southern army.” Sai quickly stated his eyes flashing. He then added quietly. “Which it achieved for quite some time.”

Nan Bei continued his mind clear and determined. “Then we have a plan now. We just have to join up with the army to make sure it’s viable.”

Rowan nodded quickly before stating, “There shouldn’t be any issues. Logistically the army is ready to move out at any point. The concentration of Water type Cultivators is naturally high in all of our armies so that won’t be a problem. The only problem will be transportation of the prisoners but we should be able to recruit the army to do that as well for contribution points.”

Sai nodded. “Okay then it’s settled. Nan Bei you’ll have to set off now while we’ll catch up at the Southern Army. That way none of the potential spies in the Sect will know about our little meet up.”

Nan Bei nodded before walking towards the door. As he opened it up he turned back. “It was nice to meet you all and I look forward to working with you.” They all agreed and said their farewells. Rowans’ cheery goodbye was the last thing Nan Bei heard before leaving.