Chương 62: 62：Tier 2 Identify Talent

Even though these two hundred-odd people were currently starved to skin and bone, their stances, the subconscious way they gripped stones and wooden clubs, and the calluses on the webbing of their hands betrayed their true identities. Less than thirty percent of them were original refugees from the Misty Swamp. The remaining seventy percent—over a hundred and fifty men—were all regular army veterans captured from the front lines, primarily from the Holy Halycon Empire and the Silvermoon Kingdom!

In cold-weapon warfare, the cost of training a recruit into a veteran was astronomically high. Even if you gave a simple dirt farmer the finest full-body black steel armor, there was still an eighty percent chance he would wet his pants, drop his spear, and flee when faced with a fanatical Orc charge. But these men were different. They had suffered inhuman torture in the Colosseum's death rows and had watched their own comrades be eaten alive by Orcs.

Their hatred for the greenskins was carved into their very marrow. Most crucially, they had survived the most brutal battlefield meat-grinders; they had seen blood and understood formations. As long as they were given a full meal and equipped with a set of black iron armor, their hatred would transform into the fiercest battle intent! This was an elite combat force that only needed a little polishing! Soren strode over to a massive, fallen deadwood log and looked down at the crowd.

The buzzing whispers by the stream instantly vanished. Everyone looked up, their eyes filled with god-like reverence as they gazed at the man who had dragged them out of hell. They had all heard the name "Soren" just moments ago. Soren pointed into the depths of the thick fog.

"You are now free. I am giving you two choices."

"First, leave. For the sake of our shared humanity, those who wish to go can collect three days' worth of hardtack from my adjutant. This is my final act of mercy to you. As for whether you can make it out of this swamp alive, that depends on whether the gods watch over you."

"Second, those willing to stay will swear loyalty to me. My rules are simple: you will eat your fill, and you will follow me to slaughter our way back into those Orc encampments and reclaim our dignity!" The crowd fell into a dead silence. After a long while, a few middle-aged men with bitter, sorrowful faces shakily stepped forward. They were the local refugees of the Misty Swamp. The leading man's eyes welled with tears.

"Lord... Lord Soren."

"We thank you for saving our lives, but... but our wives and children are still hiding in Viper Village on the northern side of the swamp. If we die, they'll all starve. We have to go back to find them..." They thought that defying a powerful lord's face like this would bring about a fatal disaster. But Soren simply nodded calmly.

"Ein, take them to get their rations." The men were moved to tears of gratitude. Before leaving, they used a tree branch to draw a detailed topographical map in the sand by the stream, revealing the hiding spots of several secret human refugee settlements, even marking the blind spots of the Orc wolf cavalry patrols.

"My Lord, there are still many capable fighters in these settlements. If you ever march your army there, just raise your banner, and they will definitely join you!" Soren firmly committed the map's terrain to memory and gave them a slight nod. Following that, a divide also appeared among the regular army veterans. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. A portion of the Empire and Kingdom soldiers stepped forward.

Their eyes were filled with struggle, but they ultimately lowered their heads.

"Commander, you are a peerless leader, but our homes are in Whitestream City. Our elderly mothers and unwed brides are still waiting for us to return. We..." Soren coldly cut them off with a wave of his hand.

"Go back to your hometowns. Try not to die on the way." These veterans knelt on the ground and kowtowed heavily to Soren three times. Picking up their hardtack, they resolutely disappeared into the thick fog, heading back toward the human realms. As waves wash away the sand to reveal gold, Soren only wanted absolutely loyal warriors. When those who chose to leave had scattered, what remained were exactly seventy-six gaunt, wounded soldiers, whose eyes were gradually igniting with a burning fire.

They had no attachments left. Their families had perhaps long perished under the iron hooves of the Orcs, or perhaps their lives were always considered worthless to begin with. Now, all that was left in their destinies was revenge. The seventy-six veterans, led by an old Kingdom sergeant major missing half an ear, uniformly dropped to one knee.

"Commander! Former Third Border Defense Battalion of the Silvermoon Kingdom, and remnants of Halycon... Seventy-six men reporting!"

"We are homeless! Please take us in! As long as you give us a bite to eat, even if there is a mountain of blades ahead, wherever the tip of your sword points, we will trample it flat for you!"

"Very good." The stiff, cold corners of Soren's mouth finally curled into a smile.

"Whole army, move out. We return to Greywater Village!" Two hours later. The procession passed through layers of miasma zones and returned to the territory of Greywater Village. When the stilt-house clusters built against towering ancient trees, along with the geothermal blast furnace billowing thick smoke in the distance, appeared in everyone's line of sight, all the prisoners of war were stunned by the village. Chevaux-de-frise and barricades defended the settlement flawlessly.

They could even see three or four human soldiers patrolling on direwolves. Head of Logistics Kyle and Quartermaster Fina Hawthorne had already received reports from the goblin scouts. They brought the personnel who had stayed behind in the village out to greet them.

"Good heavens..." Kyle looked at the extra seventy-plus people at the back of the contingent, his face bursting with wild joy. He knew perfectly well how precious organized human recruits were in the Misty Swamp. Fina's pretty face also glowed with radiance due to the accelerated development of the territory.

"Newcomers? Take them all to the hot water pools out back to bathe, and use plant ash to delouse them! Issue a set of coarse cloth garments to everyone first."

"Uncle Kyle, go to the storehouse and open three barrels of Swamp Tubers starch. Cut up some dried meat, add salt and herbs, and boil a massive pot of meat porridge! Make it thick!" Smelling the rich aroma of meat and seeing the dry, safe camp, the seventy-six veterans who had survived hell finally broke down. In the Colosseum, even the victors could only snatch and gnaw on raw, bloody meat. Meat porridge? Hot water? This was simply paradise!

Inside the village, the old goblin blacksmith Cook led his apprentices, watching in worship as Soren walked past. And the goblin named Little Ka, whom Soren had rescued, was currently carrying a full bowl of meat broth. Like presenting a treasure, he insisted on delivering it first to the newly arrived bald Monk, Renn. He knew that these people would protect him from now on. Soren ignored the noisy resettlement outside.

He handed the subsequent formation tasks to Gary and Ein, ordering them to split up the seventy-six men as quickly as possible and integrate them into the structures of the frontline and reserve troops to begin rehabilitative training. Soren climbed the ladder alone and entered his own wooden command post cabin. Deep in his mind, the system notification chimed. [Ding!] [Battlefield Settlement Complete.] [Campaign Evaluation: Successfully broke through the Bloody Colosseum's blockade, utilized psychological blind spots to defeat the enemy, and successfully ensured the survival of the target subject: [Monk Renn].] [The Host has completed the mission to help Renn escape.] [Mission Rewards Issued: Talent Skill [Identify Talent] upgrade initiating...] [Skill Upgrade Complete.] [Skill Details Interface: Tier 2 Identify Talent] As the system detailed the explanation, a sharp glint burst from Soren's eyes.

He instantly understood the terrifying aspect of this upgrade. Previously, although his [Identify Talent] skill was absurdly powerful—allowing him to see a person's hidden talents directly—it had a fundamental prerequisite: face-to-face contact. Even if an individual was a peerless divine general, as long as they were hidden in the fog or standing more than ten meters away in a crowd out of his line of sight, Soren would be completely in the dark. But now, the mechanics had fundamentally changed.

[Passive Skill: Area Talent Detection] [Current Detection Radius: A 10-kilometer radius centered on the Host.] [The Host no longer requires visual contact. As long as a talent with high-grade potential enters this radius, the system will light up a striking marker in the Host's mind to provide an alert.]"Automatic reception... Area detection." Soren stood by the window, looking down at the endless swamp enveloped in thick fog below.

In this harsh, otherworldly environment, shrouded in year-round fog with visibility of less than fifty meters...

"This means that as long as I march my troops through this swamp, it's like I'm walking around with a life-form radar." He no longer had to worry about brushing past peerless prodigies. Whether the person was huddled in some dog hole or hidden within a massive enemy army. Even if they were just a chore-doing farmer, as long as they possessed a high-grade talent, their aptitude would act like a blazing torch in the dark of night, directly fed back to him by the system.

This meant that gathering the various talents needed to develop his territory would no longer rely on blind luck.