Chapter 75 The Army of Lanthanor
A smile appeared on Daneel's face as he saw that things were slowly falling into place one by one.
Teleporting back to his room, he sat on his bed and started analyzing the information on the parchment. Although information collected over the years had given him a rough idea about the structure of the army, getting concrete details from such a reliable source was the best option.
Even if Laravel only gave the information he knew, it would still be useful. Besides, Daneel's plan never included competing against the army directly anyway. With the current strength of his faction, it was, of course, impossible to do so.
The army of Lanthanor was split into 2 major sections: the fighter army and the mage army.
The Fighter Army was majorly composed of citizens who were tested to have low talent. The criteria to get in was quite simple; many men and women could directly sign up and be selected, granted that there was an open spot and that they passed the fitness test.
The reasons behind the threshold being so low were the constant border conflicts that threatened the Kingdom, and also the sheer size of the border walls which needed to be patrolled. The number of regular soldiers in the army reached a maximum of 200,000, with almost all of them having reached at most the level of a 1st Grade Human Fighter. This was the number that could be maintained with the budget allocated to the army.
Only with a few months of training, they would be sent to the border to man the walls. If they were lucky, they would seldom get involved in conflicts and spend most of their military life patrolling the walls, after which they could comfortably retire to the countryside with a handsome pension. If not, they could get involved in a conflict on the first day and die. Still, many signed up due to the guaranteed food and pay.
As for those with medium or high potential, they would be given more resources and time to gain skills that might save them on the battlefield before being deployed as squad leaders. If they earned enough merits and advanced in level, they could rise through the ranks and command more and more soldiers.
The soldiers that Daneel had seen during the procession wearing the grey epaulets were the elites that were picked out from those who earned top merits in the border struggles. These soldiers would be trained to be the force that would be sent out in case a conflict exceeded the level which a platoon of regular soldiers could handle. The minimum requirement to be part of this force was to reach the level of an Eminent Human Fighter, like Daneel. The number of soldiers in this troop fluctuated around 3000. Considering that the total population in the Kingdom numbered in the millions, this was quite a low number. After all, the rarity of being born with medium or high potential was quite high.
Finally, the soldiers who had worn red epaulets were the elites among elites. One at least had to reach the level of a 6th Grade Eminent Human Fighter before they could join this force. With the best resources in hand, their goal was to protect the Kingdom in case any deadly force threatened to wipe it out. Also, they were the ones who also acted as the spies and infiltrators who gathered information from enemy nations.
The former two groups were simply called as "soldiers" and "elite soldiers", but this section of the army had a special name: "The Red Demons." Equipped with the best trinkets, their red epaulets signified the enormous amount of blood they shed to reach their position.
Just 500 of these soldiers could be maintained by the Kingdom at any point.
There were 3 commanders in total. 2 commanders at the level of Exalted Human Fighters reported directly to the King. One was in control of the regular soldiers, while the other governed the elite corps.
As for the last commander, she was an Exalted Human Mage who controlled the Mage Corps.
Unlike the regular soldiers who were thrown into battle to temper themselves and grow stronger, the Mage Corps always ensured that their members would be the least at risk in any conflict.
This was because of the rarity of someone being born with a mageroot.
The Mage Corps was constituted of two forces: Mage Soldiers and Mage Elites. All Amateur Human Mages belonged to the former while Eminent Human Mages advanced into the latter.
The information regarding this corps was the most secretly guarded; even Laravel did not know their number, specialty or even the location of their Headquarters. All he knew was that the Mage Soldiers were rumored to be around 1000 strong while the Mage Elites had at most 200 members.
200 Eminent Human Mages?!
Daneel felt shocked seeing this information. The strength of the Kingdom could indeed not be underestimated at all.
Again, he felt lucky that he did not even try to make a plan that would result in a head on conflict.
As for the information about those inside the capital, there were around 5000 constables who held the peace. Of these, very few even reached the Amateur Human Fighter level and the strongest was another Exalted Human Fighter who lead them.
Head reeling from the overload of information, Daneel fell back on the bed and started to decide what to do next. His preparations were going well, but the one thing he still needed to find out was the date of attack.
The forces inside the Kingdom would definitely not wait the whole month to attack. But, they would also not attack right away before gathering the information regarding the exact relation between the Withering Leaf Sect and the Eldest priest. In fact, Daneel was still waiting for information regarding the sect.
As he was thinking of the options he had, he was reminded of his Master who he seldom met after he had rejected the Church's offer. On asking later, he found out that the mysterious and incredible drunken step he had seen was given by the Church and he was sworn by magical oath to not divulge its details to anyone. Also, on asking the system, he found out that analyzing the technique was impossible. Although he had been slightly expecting this, it was still a disappointing find. A spell system was after all something developed by centuries of study by the greatest of minds.
But, now that he had the upgraded system, he was excited to find out if it was possible to analyze it.
After the upgrade, the Phenomena Analysis Module-2 had upgraded to Phenomena Analysis Module-3, yet he hadn't tested it out yet and thus didn't know if it could analyze and develop new spells which it hadn't been able to do so before.
Also, he was itching to spar with someone to test out his power after breaking through. Although Master Jonah had some kind of agreement with the church, he was still a trustworthy ally according to Kellor.
Clapping his hands with eagerness, Daneel got up and prepared to teleport to his master's cottage.