Chapter 89: Chapter 89

If the first time was luck, and the second time was better luck, then the third, fourth, and even more times could no longer be explained away by luck.

Discovering new wounded personnel one after another, Jason went from initial surprise and shock to eventual numbness in less than ten minutes.

By the end, he completely abandoned his own ideas and simply followed Ron’s guidance to find the next wounded person.

“Jason, is this the Ron you’re always talking about?”

“That’s right, but don’t get any ideas! He’s already engaged to my daughter!”

Jason stared warily at the companions who had gathered around, reiterating his relationship with Ron. The others exchanged smiles and didn’t say much more, merely making indirect inquiries about Ron’s situation, clearly still harboring some thoughts.

Before long, Jason’s captain, Andre, also arrived. Under Ron’s guidance, their squad had found a total of eight unconscious, critically wounded soldiers. As for the other three, they had already lost their signs of life by the time they were found.

But regardless, Andre was still very grateful to Ron for his outstanding contribution to the search for the wounded. Even though those wounded soldiers weren’t members of his squad, the Sis Territory was only so big, and the Formal Knights all more or less knew one another.

“Ron, I won’t say much in the way of thanks. Later, I’ll apply to the territory for some rewards on your behalf. I hope you can put these rewards to good use and advance to Knight as quickly as possible.”

“Captain Andre, I was just doing my duty.”

However, Ron didn’t refuse the rewards mentioned by the other party. He genuinely needed rewards like Ignition Potions right now. Even though using more Ignition Potions had already begun to yield diminishing marginal returns, they could ultimately still accelerate his advancement speed.

Moreover, given his far superior enhancement duration compared to others (roughly two to three times that of other Apprentices, with even higher enhancement efficiency), his consumption of Ignition Potions would inherently be slightly higher than the rest.

But at present, he only had the territory’s allocated first-month share of two vials, the five vials originally gifted by Jason, the three vials from yesterday’s trial rewards, and the ten vials given by Instructor Morris last night.

For now, Ron’s reserves of Ignition Potions were quite ample, even bordering on extravagant. After all, an ordinary Apprentice consuming two vials a month was already considered remarkable.

Meanwhile, he could consume four to five vials a month, approaching the standard of a Formal Knight. There was indeed some waste involved in this, but it was also a necessary price for rapid progress.

Deducting the one vial wasted during his initial private experimentation, Ron now had a total of just fourteen Ignition Potions at his disposal. If Morris hadn’t supported him with ten vials last night, then next month, even including the territory’s allocation, he would only have six.

That really might not be enough!

Was he supposed to rely on support from Jason or Instructor Morris every month?

That was clearly unrealistic.

Ron preferred to earn more Ignition Potions through his own abilities, just like helping to rapidly search for the wounded right now, or his performance during yesterday’s trial. This way, he could accept the potions with a clear conscience.

…

On the road back from the Eastern District of Sis Town, Jason couldn’t help but marvel, “I never expected that in just one month, you would have changed this much!”

“After realizing the cruelty of this world, I could only constantly change myself to adapt to it,” Ron said with a calm expression.

Back on Earth, he had never imagined that he would one day become as disciplined, focused, and diligent as he was now. People were indeed easily changed by their environment.

In such a crappy time, how could he not give it his all!

“By the way, how did you discover those unconscious wounded just now?” Jason asked curiously.

Due to the highly governed environment of the territory, coupled with external threats, genuine conflicts between territorial subjects were exceedingly rare; it was mostly mutual help and assistance.

What Jason was thinking now was that if Ron’s method could be popularized, it could not only be used for searching for the wounded like today, but even for tracking enemies.

Regarding this, Ron naturally couldn’t directly say that he could see so-called Pollution Secret Patterns. He had tested others, and they couldn’t see those Pollution Secret Patterns or any other kind of Secret Patterns.

And in this world that he hadn’t yet fully understood, Ron could display a certain level of talent, but he didn’t want to appear too different from everyone else.

The people of this world were extremely sensitive to anomalies.

If he spoke up and was then deemed to be suffering from an Evil Spirit Invasion, wouldn’t that be the greatest injustice!

After a moment of consideration, he decided to attribute everything to intuition. This was talent, and talent was very difficult to explain clearly.

Hearing this explanation, even though Jason had already suspected as much, he still couldn’t help feeling somewhat disappointed. “Forget it, let’s not talk about this anymore. My only regret right now is not paying attention to you sooner.”

“Even if you had paid attention to ‘me’ sooner, it wouldn’t have been any use! I hadn’t even arrived yet!” Ron remained silent on the surface, but couldn’t help roasting him inwardly.

…

Soon, the two returned to Liya’s house. Seeing the two return safely, Aunt Mary immediately stepped forward to inspect Jason’s physical condition. After confirming there were no issues, she couldn’t help but grumble:

“Why didn’t you know to have someone bring a message back! Do you know how worried Liya and I were!”

“I’m sorry, once I got busy, I forgot. It won’t happen again.” Jason immediately admitted his fault.

In front of Ron, Aunt Mary didn’t continue her complaints, but instead changed the topic: “I’ll go prepare lunch for you. Are you still going out this afternoon?”

“I have a mission and still need to go out. Ron doesn’t need to.”

“Mhm.”

…

Just as Aunt Mary and Liya were preparing lunch, Jason pulled Ron out to the yard outside, saying he wanted to spar a bit. Ron instantly felt a headache coming on.

“Uncle Jason, I didn’t bring a training sword. How are we supposed to spar!”

What Ron currently had on him was still the Standard Longsword he had carried when he heard the commotion last night and went to assemble at the square. It was sharpened, which was far too careless for a sparring match.

But Jason still insisted, “We don’t need swords. Let’s have a spar between Knights!”

“A spar between Knights?”

“That’s right!”

Saying so, Jason took the lead in removing his leather armor, then took off his shirt entirely, revealing a solid, bare upper body, and gestured for Ron to do the same:

“Hurry up, take off your armor and shirt.”

If he hadn’t known Jason’s character so well, Ron would truly have felt like he was facing “Brother Jason” in a certain sense, and the other party’s request also reminded him of the spar between the two Knights he had witnessed during his very first training session.

“Do all Knights just love brawling shirtless?” A wicked thought flashed through Ron’s mind, but he immediately erased it.

Quickly removing his leather armor and stripping off his shirt, a gust of cold wind immediately raised a layer of goosebumps on Ron’s skin. Fortunately, the temperature was still bearable, and after moving around a bit, he recovered.