Three days after the incident at the Seven-Treasures Pavilion, the quiet truce along the eastern ridge shattered.
The Iron-Bear Clan did not launch a full-scale invasion, but they struck where the Lin Clan’s economy bled most: Mine Shaft No. 4, the primary source of high-purity spirit steel. Under the cover of early morning fog, thirty armored mercenaries led by Iron-Bear Clan’s Fourth Elder Xiong Lie forcibly occupied the processing yard, driving out the Lin Clan’s civilian miners and seizing two tons of refined ore.
In the Great Ancestral Hall, the atmosphere was suffocatingly tense.
Patriarch Lin Feng sat upon the central high chair, his weathered face dark with anger. Surrounding the long stone table were the five governing elders and senior martial commanders. Maps of the eastern ridge lay unrolled across the table, marked with red wood counters representing enemy patrol routes.
"Xiong Lie has brought twenty Level 1, Sub-Level 3 guards and five mid-tier sub-level squad leaders," First Elder Lin Zhen said, his finger tapping heavily on the map. "He is personally holding the processing yard at Level 2, Sub-Level 2 of Meridian Cleansing. If we send a full battalion, it becomes an open war that will draw the attention of the provincial authorities. If we do nothing, our monthly iron trade collapses."
Standing near the back of the chamber behind his father, ten-year-old Lin Xuan listened to the discussion with a cold, quiet smirk beneath his calm exterior.
They are treating a simple spatial bottleneck like a grand strategic crisis, Lin Xuan thought, analyzing the map layout. Mine Shaft No. 4 is flanked by a sixty-degree shale slope on the north and a narrow gorge on the east. Heavy troops cannot maneuver there efficiently.
Second Elder Lin Shan stepped forward, slamming his broad palm onto the table. "I will take twenty inner guards and clear the processing yard myself. Xiong Lie thinks our Lin Family has grown soft!" You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.
"Sending brute force into a narrow gorge is wasteful, Father," Lin Xuan’s clear, young voice cut through the heavy hall.
The elders froze. First Elder Lin Zhen glared at the boy, his brow furrowing in irritation. "Lin Xuan! This is a council of war, not your personal classroom!"
Patriarch Lin Feng raised a weathered hand, silencing the First Elder. The old Patriarch turned his deep, heavy gaze onto his nine-year-old grandson. "Speak, Xuan'er. What does your mind see?"
Lin Xuan stepped forward with absolute poise, walking right up to the edge of the strategic map. He did not look at the elders with deference; he looked at the board as an engineer evaluating a broken machine.
"The Iron-Bear Clan’s formation is front-heavy," Lin Xuan explained calmly, pointing a small finger at the eastern gorge entrance. "They have deployed their heaviest armor at the front archway, assuming we will charge down the main road. But because their Fourth Elder Xiong Lie uses a Earth-Pith element technique, his movement radius is anchor-bound to the flat quarry floor."
He shifted a blue wooden counter representing the Lin Clan guards to a narrow high-ground ledge above the quarry.
"If we send six archers equipped with thermal-expansion arrowheads to the northern shale ridge, we can trigger a minor rockslide that cuts off their rear retreat," Lin Xuan continued, his voice sharp with clinical precision. "Simultaneously, a squad of eight cultivators at Level 1, Sub-Level 2 using fluid flank-strike cycles can sweep down from the high ledge. Their heavy armor will prevent them from pivoting fast enough. You don't need twenty inner guards, Father. Fourteen men executing optimized line vectors will clear the yard in under twenty minutes with zero casualties."
Silence fell over the Ancestral Hall.
The martial commanders stared at the map, rapidly calculating the terrain, vectors, and force dynamics Lin Xuan had laid out. Second Elder Lin Shan blinked in disbelief, while Patriarch Lin Feng’s dark eyes flashed with profound amazement.
"Good... brilliant!" Patriarch Lin Feng declared, a rare smile breaking across his stern face. "Shan'er, take fourteen men and execute Xuan'er’s plan immediately!"
Lin Xuan stepped back into the shadows, bowing faintly as his father rushed out to assemble the squad.
Primitive minds react to aggression with emotion, Lin Xuan thought, feeling an intoxicating wave of superiority wash over him as the elders began praising his tactical genius. Give me a lever and a clear system map, and I can move any mountain in this small valley.
He returned to his private courtyard, completely confident in the outcome. Two hours later, word arrived from the ridge: Mine Shaft No. 4 had been retaken exactly as calculated. The Iron-Bear Clan mercenaries were routed, Fourth Elder Xiong Lie was forced to retreat with heavy injuries, and the Lin Clan did not lose a single soldier.
The victory sealed Lin Xuan’s reputation within the clan. He was no longer just a dual-root prodigy; he was being hailed as a once-in-a-millennium strategist destined to lead Stonebrook into a golden age.
Lin Xuan absorbed the praise like dry soil drinking rain, his delusions growing taller and more rigid by the day—entirely unaware that high above the clouds, far beyond the reach of local squabbles, the true rulers of the province were already turning their eyes toward the mountains.