Chapter 10: The Night of the Legendary Beginning

  Horn's home was also in the old town, hidden behind a row of dilapidated wooden houses with shiny facades. The house was truly decrepit, its wooden walls a moldy grey color, pockmarked with tiny holes from insect infestations. When the door opened, several mice scurried out from the bed and table, jumping down to the floor and calmly sauntering into their holes, as if they were the true owners of the house. Upon entering, a musty smell wafted up, filling one's nostrils.

  Horne was already used to all this, and after entering the house, he patted the only wooden bed in the narrow room and said: "There's only one bed, let's make do with it for a night."

  This place is much better than the shelter's conditions, Luo Lin naturally had no opinion, poor families don't have so many demands, and can't afford to be picky either.

  Both of them had eaten and drunk enough, and there were no lights in the room, so they both lay down on the bed to rest without undressing.

  It was still early and neither of them could sleep, so they chatted casually, talking about dock topics. As they chatted, Luo Lin suddenly asked: "Horn, what are your plans for the future?"

  "What about me?" Horn fell silent for a moment, his voice sinking down: "No plans, just take it one day at a time."

  "Really?"

  "...Really." Horn replied with some difficulty.

  Luolin knew he wasn't content with being ordinary, but hadn't admitted it to himself. He didn't ask any further questions and instead began speaking his own thoughts: "I want to make a change."

  "Change what? Change the status quo?"

  "Yes. I don't aspire to join the ranks of the vain and proud nobility, nor do I envy those who are empty and superficial. I hope that one day I can find my own place in this world, where my name will be sung by traveling bards across the continent. I hope that in the epic tales, my name will shine with a dazzling golden light." Roline said softly, her voice calm and gentle, like a peaceful river flowing smoothly, but beneath the surface, there was a turbulent undercurrent, which was the surging ambition of the young girl.

  Horne clearly felt this, and he was silent for a long time. He smiled bitterly: "You're really greedy. In my most beautiful dreams, I just wanted to be a small nobleman. You want to become a legendary hero who will go down in history. Don't go out and say this, or people will laugh at you."

  Rolin smiled and sat up, causing the wooden bed to creak loudly as if it was about to collapse. He gazed at Horn sleeping on the other end of the bed through the moonlight shining in from the window and said seriously: "Horn, you lied earlier. You have plans in your heart, and you also have ambition. You're just like me, hoping to get rid of all this decay and oldness!"

  Horne fell silent once again, and after a long while, he burst out laughing. At first, it was just laughter, but as he laughed on, his emotions began to get out of control, his expression becoming somewhat manic, until finally, tears streamed down his face.

  "You're right, Luo Lin, you're right. I'm telling you the truth. I'm not willing to stay in this broken wooden house and rot away with him. I also want to change my situation, I also want to move forward, every moment I think about it! But do you know how difficult it is? I don't have any magical talent, no money to learn proper martial arts, nothing at all. The contemptuous glances from those old masters who ride horses are like knives cutting into my heart, but what can I do? I'm powerless. I've tried before, not just once, but I failed, yes, I failed, and I'm only fit to be a poor dock thug... no, not a thug, a hoodlum!"

  Horne suddenly burst out, his voice getting louder and louder. Later on, he completely lost control of his emotions, slapping the bed board with all his might, almost shattering this poor bed board to pieces.

  Luolin didn't interrupt, just listened to him on the side, letting him vent his emotions. When he calmed down and stopped pounding the bed, she lightly said: "It's a good thing you can vent sometimes, don't always keep it bottled up inside."

  "I'm really sorry." Horn felt ashamed of his loss of composure, earlier he didn't know why, but suddenly lost control and let out the bitter feelings in his heart. Now thinking about it, probably because Rolen was someone similar to him.

  They all come from humble origins and none of them are resigned to their fate. They're all trying every means possible to climb up, so you could say they share a common goal.

  It's really great to find someone like that among a group of ordinary people who are satisfied with the status quo and bent over by reality. Hohen felt a little lucky.

  "No big deal. What I'm saying is that just two hours ago, I got an opportunity, a chance to become a Guardian of the Law." Luo Lin said with a smile.

  "Mage Guardian?" Horn's eyes lit up, he deeply understood the nobility of mages, to become a mage guardian, what great fortune!

  When he said this, Luo Lin closely observed Horn's reaction. He wanted to subdue Horn, but he had to figure out his character and personality first. If his character was not good, it meant that he was not worthy of driving the future commander, and he would immediately give up, so as to avoid suffering from the backlash in the future.

  The result of his observation was that Horn was envious but not jealous, which was good; this man was worth getting to know. But it was only a preliminary finding, and Rollin continued to probe.

  "I met the second daughter of Holm Lin, she's a novice mage. She saw me kill the shark and was very impressed with my bravery, so she gave me an opportunity to become her guard, which is a very difficult test. If I somehow complete it, then she'll accept me, but I think she's definitely betting that I won't be able to finish it, haha." Rolen laughed.

  "What is it testing?" Horn asked.

  "She had me go alone into the depths of the wetlands to investigate a troll thief's lair." Rolen told him candidly.

  "Hmm, this is indeed very difficult, but the opportunity is rare, you must complete it." Horn furrowed his brow, he had almost lost his life as a child when he sneaked into the wetlands to play and was bitten by a venomous snake, if not for a passing herbalist who happened to be there, he would have been dead.

  "I understand, opportunities are rare." Luo Lin nodded.

  "I happen to know an antidote for snake venom, very effective, perhaps useful for you." Horn reported a prescription and then explained the detailed usage. This prescription had saved his life, he remembered it firmly.

  Luolin listened, this is indeed the formula for the basic solution, the usage and ratio are all correct, this Horn is really helping him with a true heart, he doesn't have that kind of jealous mind that ordinary people usually have.

  It's only natural, someone who can grow into a future commander of the Allied Forces wouldn't lack even this bit of life wisdom. Rolin felt at ease and sincerely thanked him: "Thank you, you've helped me out a lot."

  "We're friends, Lorin. If this weren't a test, I'd even go with you to investigate." Horn said with a smile.

  "Maybe later, if I really become Miss Davi's guard, I'll find a way to give you new opportunities."

  Horne nodded vigorously, his heart invigorated, he felt that he had seen hope again, and this hope was in this newly made friend... no, they should already be good friends.

  He has the same ideals and pursuits as him, and his skills are not small either. He is not a big-talking but useless person. More importantly, this Luo Lin is very sincere to him, such friends are hard to come by, which makes Horen feel that he must also treat him with sincerity.

  He thought for a moment, then took out his own sword and handed it to Rolen: "Can you use a sword?"

  "I know a little."

  "Take this sword first for self-defense, there are many beasts in the wetlands, and swords are better than daggers against those beasts."

  Luo Lin wasn't being pretentious, taking over the iron sword: "This time my success rate has increased a lot."

  "Haha."

  Afterwards, the two of them started chatting casually, talking nonsense from all directions, and both felt very comfortable.

  Luo Lin felt that although this Horn was somewhat cynical, he was indeed very intelligent and had a unique perspective on many things. He often looked at problems from a completely new angle and solved them in an unconventional way.

  Horn felt that the frail and weak Loring had an extremely rare broad vision and insight, he could always guess the follow-up development of a thing, every time he guessed it accurately, and he could also infer the future development trend of Vandom from a trivial matter, the analysis process was extremely precise and sophisticated, making him suddenly enlightened. The longer they talked, the more Horn admired Loring.

  For a moment, both of them felt like they had known each other for a long time and regretted not meeting earlier. This old broken wooden house couldn't block the joyful mood between them.

  At this time, no one on the continent knew about this nocturnal conversation, and even if they did, they wouldn't care, because the identities of the conversationalists were too humble, and whatever they said, nobody would pay attention.

  But under the pen of a certain Timekeeper Dragon, this night was set as the beginning of a legend. Although he himself was also somewhat unclear about the specific reason for doing so, he simply felt that this night was extraordinary.

  However, the giant dragon would not go out of its way to investigate, for tracing the timeline of the future is a very foolish thing. He also had enough patience to wait, believing that time itself would bring the answers before him.

  Roland didn't fall asleep until deep into the night, and when he woke up at dawn, he went to buy ten kilograms of dried bacon as his rations for the journey. He also bought a simple leather armor set, leg wraps, and gloves, spending all five silver coins he had on hand.

  Wearing his leather armor and holding Horn's iron sword, Loring looked at his own attributes again.

  Host: Luo Lin.

  Race: Human.

  Level: 2

  Vitality: 11

  Strength: 9

  Coordination: 9

  Special Skills: Basic Swordsmanship.

  Armor: 2 (ordinary leather armor, can exempt minor injuries)

  Weapon: Ordinary Iron Sword (Triggers Basic Swordsmanship)

  Strength and coordination are still below average standards, but the gap is already very small. In terms of vitality, he has exceeded the standard, which gives him better endurance than ordinary people.

  After everything was ready, Luo Lin bid farewell to Huo Nian and left the city, heading towards the Wetland.