Three weeks later…

Cornelius had finally recovered enough that he was not forced to stay within the infirmary, it helped that his mana adaptation had reached the formation stage. The formation stage allowed his body to handle far more mana than previously possible, which allowed the healers to speed up his recovery process. Cornelius was standing in front of the mirror in his newly appointed room, as a captain he was given some liberties. His room was simply but a far cry from the barracks he had been living in since his time in the fort, it was adorned with a simple bed and a desk made of wood it wasn't a large room but it was his and that was all that mattered.

As he was looking in the mirror he noticed that he was no longer the angry lordling who wanted revenge but that he had matured, the scar running along his face gave him quite the imposing visage as well as the countless other scars that littered his body, his muscles were far more defined. He truly looked every bit like the warrior he is, snapping out of his stupor he sighed as he put onhis military uniform, the captains uniform was different from the normal gray of the soldiers uniform, it was black with blue accents with two gold stripes adorning his shoulders on each side.

As he finished getting dressed he exited his room and made his way to the war room, whenhe arrived he knocked on the door before entering. Inside the others were already there waiting for him, Commander Zoan sat at the head of the table with General Myers sitting to his right and Captain Zagreus sitting to his left, there were three other people sitting at the table all of varying different ranks and positions. The table was adorned with a map of the Frozen Plains with wood figures depicting key positions and possible strategies. During the past three weeks Cornelius had periodically interrogated his Kalethi prisoner and uncovered some important information in the process, the Commander looked up from the map, all discussions stopped as they noticed the new arrival.

“Ah, Captain Cornelius it is good that you could finally join us we were just about to begin discussing possible strategies for the invasion,” the Commander said his voice booming around the room.

“Yes, the healers finally gave me clearance to leave,” Cornelius said as he gave a furitave glance at an unassuming woman sitting at the edge of the table, she was the head healer of the fortress and an extremely stubborn woman even when he was at full recovery due to his advancement of his mana adaptation she had insisted he stay for another week to ensure he was fine.

“I do not see how we can avoid detection even with smaller units,” a simple looking man sitting at the third chair from the end. “I was getting there, my plan is risky but the reward would be just as great, what I would suggest is that we attack during the winter,” his statement was met with outrage but was yet again silenced by the Commander “Explain your reasoning behind that,” he said giving Cornelius the chance to explain.

“Well during winter is the only time where the Kalethi do not patrol their area, which is the perfect time to approach un noticed besides that also limits their ability to procure more food and supplies so our sabotage would impact them far greater. And when they are weakened we can use their own traditions against them, we can invoke the Drukai where the leaders face each other and the winner gets command of their territories, this way we can beat them with minimal loss,” his words causing the leaders around him to yet again to go silent.

“Good, good please take a seat so that we may begin,” the Commander said motioning to a chair on the far left corner of the table.

“I say we approach from the north, that way we cut around there most guarded bases,” a short broad shouldered man said as Cornelius took his seat, the man elaborated by moving a few of the wooden figures as an example of his point.

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“Captain Asmond, that is foolish our information states that this area,” Captain Zagreus pointed to the place on the map that they would have to traverse to reach the suggested approach “Is a monster den, not just any monsters mind you but the infamous Blood wolves we would not get there unscathed,” he said while toppling over the figures that represented the soldiers.

“Then what would you suggest,” Captain Asmond said with a snear.

“Simple, we could always split our army and attack two fronts at once, that way we can do more in less time, or we could smoke them out,” Captain Zagreus suggested.

“No that wont work they may be savages but they are born warriors we would just be sending our soldiers to die,” General Myers spoke up for the first time “What would you suggest?” he said looking straight at Cornelius “You know the most about our enemies,”.

As everyones heads turned to look at him he sighed he really hated politics “Based on the information I have gathered all these choices would result in defeat,” he said simply, the others started cursing saying things like what would a greenthorn like him know. Commander Zoan silenced them all with a raise of his hand “Elaborate,” was all he said.

“To put it simply, we are wholly unprepared for the environment. And that says nothing of our enemies, to ensure victory we have to change our tactics. You are all planning as if you expect to fight an army but that is not the Kalethi’s tactics, they will try and break our spirit before they ever even engage us in battle,” he said the silence at the table lasted for a while before General Myers spoke up “Then what do you suggest,” he asked raising a brow in curiosity. “From the information I have gathered facing them as an army would be futile, so instead we operate in specialized units. We put a focus on sabotage and subterfuge, we burn their store houses, we poison their wells and water sources and to be able to do that they should not know that we are coming,” he paused giving them time to digest the information.

“I do not see how we can avoid detection even with smaller units,” a simple looking man sitting at the third chair from the end. “I was getting there, my plan is risky but the reward would be just as great, what I would suggest is that we attack during the winter,” his statement was met with outrage but was yet again silenced by the Commander “Explain your reasoning behind that,” he said giving Cornelius the chance to explain.

“Well during winter is the only time where the Kalethi do not patrol their area, which is the perfect time to approach un noticed besides that also limits their ability to procure more food and supplies so our sabotage would impact them far greater. And when they are weakened we can use their own traditions against them, we can invoke the Drukai where the leaders face each other and the winner gets command of their territories, this way we can beat them with minimal loss,” his words causing the leaders around him to yet again to go silent.

“Hmm, we will have to think on this,” the Commander said breaking the silence, just like that his first war council ended flawlessly just as he had predicted.

Cornelius made his way back to his room to solidify his thoughts and ponder on what comes next, because for the next few months he would have little time to rest as is usual of a war. Just as he was about to call it a night he noticed an envelope neatly placed on his bed, picking it up he saw the Princes wax seal and promptly broke it.

‘First of I want to start off by stating that you have exceeded expectations thus far, as such we have been able to speed up some of our developments. We have slowly but surely been solidifying my claim to the throne, which has caused my older brother to start loosing his patients causing him to make more mistakes that serve toonly further solidify my claim.

The problem now is that all eyes are now on me and my allies so be careful, they will try to sabotage you and you must not allow that to happen. We have word that assassins have already been hired to eliminate you, but we are not really worried about that. At the bottom of the envelope is a memorie cube with information in regards to runemancy to expand your repertoire.

Best regards Prince shtad,’

Just as the letter stated inside of the envelope was a small cube covered in various runic symbols, he had heard of memorie cubes before a magical item capable of storing memories just as the name suggests. He imbued some mana into the cube causing the runes to glow, he was assaulted with a stream of information in regards to runes, it almost over loaded his system so he quickly cut his mana flow from the cube and the information stopped, it seems he would have to experiment to be able to use it correctly but nonetheless he was quite pleased with the gift.