A few minutes passed, during which Rickert had filled in the required documents to officially adopt Jasmine as his foster-daughter. He had long since prepared a number of these documents for such an occasion. However what he had never expected was that the child he would adopt would be such a prodigy. If she lived up to the potential that she had displayed so far, he did not even need to recruit anyone else into his faction. Just her alone would be enough to change the fate of the empire!

Rickert glanced at Jasmine with a warm gaze in his eyes and chose his next words carefully. He had to let her know that while yes her exam was flawless if you looked at the questions alone but it had also been very clear that she did not have a clue that she should also think of the bigger picture. She had never considered rations or where the battle would take place for starters. There was one answer which clearly showed that she was lacking in this aspect.

The question had stated the following: 'You have command of a ten thousand strong army and are currently near the Ygdrasil forest. The enemy numbers one hundred thousand strong and is three days away from your position. Describe your course of actions.'. Jasmine had chosen a rather drastic answer to this question. She had chosen to head deep into the forest and to leave a visible trail for her enemies. During her trek deeper into the forest she would prepare numerous traps. When the enemy arrived and headed into the forest, she would direct her army to be out of the wind before burning the forest down.

While this was a good tactic, there was only one huge problem with it being used in this situation. The Ygdrasil forest was the largest, most ancient forest in the empire and countless citizens depended on it to survive. Even if the fire was well controlled, burning would still spell disaster.

There had been many other questions Jasmine had answered in a similar matter. No matter if the battle happened near a city, near a mine, near farming fields or any other type of infrastructure that was important to the economy or happiness of the people in the empire, she showed a complete disregard for it and only focused on how to win the battle in the most effective way possible.

Rickert realized this was a huge problem and praised himself lucky that Jasmine was still young. Once strategists settled into this sort of mindset, it was very difficult to change it. Luckily, Jasmine still had to experience much of the world and thus as long as she was properly guided in the right direction, it should not be all too hard to change her view on things.

Moreover, this situation made him realize that there was a problem with the examination itself. War is not about one army versus another one. If it were, the empire would not have to spend nearly as many resources into grooming a strategist as they currently did. Thus he decided that after today the examination needed some changes.

Rickert stroked his chin, wrinkles appearing on his face as he lost himself in his thoughts. 'Still, how do I explain the problem to Jasmine. She's just a small girl. Even if I point out what is wrong, she might not understand it. Moreover, she might not want to accept it in the first place. Everything she knows so far has been taught to her by her parents and if I suddenly blurt out that what she has been taught is not completely correct, she will most likely not have a positive reaction to it. I need to find a way to that allows her to realize what is wrong with her way of thinking. The only problem with that is... she's so young. Hmm... what if I showed her the war room? That might broaden her vision. Hmm... that might do.'

A constant stream of thoughts flashed through Rickert's mind as he realized that there might have been a lot more things Jasmine had yet to learn. His expression suddenly shifted into that of alarm. He looked at Jasmine and asked. "Jasmine, have you ever learned anything besides battle tactics? For example, anything to do with supplies, keeping the integrity of the troops or equipment management?"

The small girl slowly shook her head, confirming Rickert's suspicions.

This situation was less than ideal. Even though her battle tactics and general view of tactics was great, Jasmine had no clue of everything else a strategist needed to be aware of. In a normal situation, this was not a bad thing, but Jasmine knew high-level tactics without realizing what she needed or required to utilize them. While troop count and tactics were one thing, there was a vast amount of other things a strategist needed to be aware of and take into account before being able to successfully command an army.

A sigh escaped Rickert's mouth. 'Training her might become more troublesome now. Oh well, first things first we have to show her that she has to broaden her vision.'

"Jasmine, follow me." He said as he walked to the right side of the room and opened the door to the adjacent war room. Normally he wouldn't let anyone inside the war room, but Rickert saw no harm in letting Jasmine in. The war table was clear after all. He knew the position of each of the empire's many armies by heart.

Even though he had stepped down as minister of war, he was still updated on any troop movements the empire made and the current minister of war frequently asked for his advice in troop movements.

The war room was a large, empty room which had a number of chairs neatly stacked next to the door. Besides the chairs, only an extremely large and heavy table sat in the middle of the room. Displayed on the table was an exquisitely sculpted map of the continent, with the territory of every known faction clearly mapped. The mountains, forests, significant rivers and other important landmarks had all been sculpted by hand, each one true to their real size.

It could be said that this war table was unique in this world. There was none other of his kind. No one had ever thought of sculpting a true to scale map of the continent. At least not until Rickert came along. At a very young age, he had realized that merely choosing the terrain you fight on wisely, can change a crushing defeat into a Pyrrhic victory. Conventional maps could never quite satisfy Rickert, hence he had long ago specifically requested the construction of this one particular map. It had been constructed in such a way that he could take it with him wherever he went and as such, it had always accompanied him.

On the map, one could see that the Ambiox empire lied near the middle of the continent. Due to recent victories, the size of the empire had increased to span about five percent of the entire continent. While it might not seem like an overly large percentage, the rest of the continent was divided by hundreds of small tribes, kingdoms and empires. What was more surprising, was that the empire used to be one of those small kingdoms just a mere two hundred years ago. Even more unbelievable was the fact that twenty years ago the kingdom had not even occupied one percent of the whole continent. Ever since Rickert had taken over as minister of war, the empire's advance had been unstoppable.

Rickert sighed as he remembered all this, a hint of regret filling his heart. While the empire had expanded quickly, it had also become riddled with opportunists and as a result, it had become less cohesive as a whole. The myriad of factions and tribes that the empire consisted of constantly fought with each other to gain an inkling of an advantage over one another. To him, the whole situation felt like a powder keg that was going to explode sooner rather than later. If his own vision had been broader in the past, things would not have escalated to the current state, but alas what could he do by himself now that things had reached this point? He had never restrained those eager to take territory to himself, on many occasions he had even given the land freely himself.

Luckily enough, the empire was currently in a quite peculiar situation as their advance had been halted. To the east lied vast open plains, home to a single enormous nomadic tribe that they currently didn't dare face. On more than one occasion they had clashed and in each skirmish, they had been worse off than the nomads. Rickert had never chosen to clash with them and had only pushed into territory the tribe had not been interested in.

To the north, the empire had conquered everything up to the Azure mountains. The majority of the citizens never understood why the empire never pressed further north as the Azure mountains were known to be rich in ores. However, the top brass knew exceedingly well that if they really wanted to push further, they would have to pay a heavy price.

The azure mountains were home to a large variety of small tribes. While each tribe only numbered a few hundred to a few thousand warriors, the mountains were their home. On top of that the mountain tribes continuously fought against each other over even the smallest gripes, so no one dared to underestimate their strength. Couple that with their familiarity of the treacherous terrain and it was no wonder that the empire was hesitant to push further north.

Hence the empire only had two options for the time being. Push south or push west. Neither was a magnificent option as the kingdoms bordering their southern border had formed an alliance they could not look down on and the empires to the west sported quite a large number of famous strategists that were far from easy to deal with. This locked the empire into a stalemate, a stalemate which in Rickert's opinion had bought the empire some much needed time. Based on the reports he had gotten he knew that it would not be all too hard for him to change the current situation if he personally went to the front lines. Yet he knew that the order for him to set out to the front lines would never come, something he felt glad about.

Rickert had feared that if the empire had continued to depend on him alone to shoulder the burden of conquering more territory, they would likely be dealt a crushing blow the moment of his death, which would be an opportune moment for another faction to rise to power.

The Emperor and Rickert had spent many hours discussing these topics and it had caused the former no small amount of worries. While his achievements as an Emperor dwarfed that of his ancestors, the throne had never been as unstable as before. Rickert stepping down as minister of war had given them some more time to deal with their internal issues but both of them knew that something had to change if they were to avoid disaster.

In the end what they had decided on was for Rickert to step down as minister of war so he could focus on starting his own faction. He would then seek another supreme strategist that had yet to affiliate himself with any of the factions, something that had seemed like an impossible task. He had found Master Ian early on, but he had been unable to convince him to his cause.

"Mister?" Rickert snapped back to reality as Jasmine called out to him while gently tugging his left sleeve. A soft sigh escaped his mouth. He always briefly lost himself in his own thoughts when he saw the war table. He could not help it, he simply had too many things on his mind. He reached out and absentmindedly patted Jasmine.

"Sorry, I lost myself in my thoughts for a moment." He said before he picked Jasmine up and placed her on a chair, helping her to get a good overview of the war table.

"Uwaah... pretty!" Jasmine gasped as she looked at the detailed war table. Her parents had a war table with a map of the continent as well, but it was not nearly as detailed and as pretty as the one before her. Moreover, this was not just a "flat" map, it was a delicately sculpted masterpiece! Her gaze darted across the map as she took all of it in.

A gentle smile suffused around Rickert's lips as he watched Jasmine's expressions. 'Children can be so damn adorable at times.' He thought. He opened one of the cabinets under the war table and took out an assortment of differed coloured pawns that he used to indicate army positions on the war table. He took out four colours; red, blue, yellow and green.

He chose a random kingdom that bordered three others, chose the colour blue for it and set the armies up in such a way that there were two armies at each border. Then, he took the remainder of the blue kingdom's armies, placed them at the southern border and put the yellow kingdom's armies right across them. As for the green and red kingdoms, he placed two armies a distance of the border and put the rest of the armies down in a random fashion as the position for the red and green kingdom's armies did not really matter.

After giving the board one final glance, he looked at Jasmine who had been carefully observing his every move and pointed at one of the armies at the frontline that guarded the left flank. "To keep it simple, all the troops are spearmen. That blue army is ten thousand strong, the yellow army is fifty thousand strong. The other armies that are faced off against each other have similar troop numbers to each other. What would you do?"

Jasmine squinted her eyes as she looked at the board. Her instinct told her that she should withdraw her troops to preserve strength as she couldn't win a straight up clash. Yet as she imagined doing so, she couldn't help but glance at the other armies across the board. If she really withdrew, the army that was facing her could move about freely. Realisation flashed across her face, she had never been taught how to deal with a situation like this. She had only ever been taught how to win against other armies by choosing her battles wisely. "Stall?" she quietly asked, unsure of her answer.

Rickert nodded and continued as he moved another blue pawn next to the ten thousand one. "Now imagine the situation as follows. Instead of one army of ten thousand, you have an army of ten thousand and an army of twenty thousand. What would you do?"

Jasmine sank in thought. She was quick on the uptake. The previous question showed that there was more she had to take into account than just her own troops and the similar situation with the first question had helped her realize this. While she could use the ten thousand troops to draw in the fifty thousand and then flank from both sides with ten thousand each, she started to wonder what else she could do with the troops at her disposal. Her attention inadvertently shifted to the rest of the battlefield.

A few minutes passed before Jasmine finally spoke up. "I'm not sure." She started and then stilled as she continued to think.

In the end, she had not been able to think of the best way to act and that bothered her. She could just fight her own fight and depend on her allies to win their own battle. She could also stall with her ten or twenty thousand troops and use the rest to aid her allies in various ways, be it flanking or harassing. Another thing she could do was to just join up with another army and take the battle from there. The problem was that... none of these actions that she could do was wrong in her mind. Each would reach a similar goal.

On top of that, she had never been taught how to deal with these kinds of situations. Whenever her parents had taught her it concerned one or multiple armies that she controlled. Thus she had never had to think about things like allies and how they would react and how her actions could influence the rest of a war or battlefield. All Jasmine knew was winning a single battle. Her face scrunched up as she kept thinking about what to do.

A calm smile sat on Rickert's face. This is what he wanted. He wanted to see her thinking about what to do. To have so many options, yet none that seemed better than the other at a first glance. He really wondered what she would choose to do in the end.

ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Silence reigned over the room until Jasmine finally cried out, stamping her foot on the wooden chair. "I don't know! There are too many things to think of! Unfair!"

hahaha. Laughter resounded throughout the room. "Jasmine. War is not fair. There will always be too many things to think of. Just think of what you think is the best thing to do."

Jasmine pouted and replied in an uncertain tone. "I think I would fight, use ten thousand to stall and make the rest of the troops do a pincer move. You?"

"Me? I would not do anything straight away. I would try to wait out the day and let most of my troops rest. Once night falls and the enemies retreat to rest up, I would send in a few soldiers to burn as much of their supplies and tents as possible. As soon as the flames are blazing, I would march my troops in and encircle them. I would force the enemy to fight near the raging fire. I would utilize a shield wall formation and order my soldiers push the enemies into the flames."

"In truth, the tactic I am describing right now might not be the best one either. Unless we have more information, whatever tactic you feel has the most chance of succeeding will be the best one to choose. If we had more information on the enemy officers, if we had different troop compositions or even something as simple as heavy fog settling on the battlefield, a whole array of new possible strategies would have opened up."

Rickert took out more pawns and changed the situation time and time again, continuously asking Jasmine what would do in this new situation. Slowly but surely she started to grasp the general concept. At times she answered quickly, at others she took her time and considered the situation of the battlefield as a whole. Her answers still ended up to be too restrained, too focused on what she had been taught so far, but he knew that changing this could not happen in a day. Still, Jasmine already had the makings of a grand strategist in her. She just needed proper guidance and most importantly, she needed to experience the wide open world.

Only when their stomachs started to growl did the duo take their eyes of the war table. The two of them looked at each other and laughed. "Jasmine... what would you like to eat?"

"Jasmine... what would you like to eat? You can choose whatever you want."

"I can choose? Whatever I want?" She asked, a baffled expression on her face."

"Of course! We have to celebrate that you are now my foster-daughter after all!" Rickert said, then pausing momentarily. "Oh. I guess I should also go shopping with you tomorrow. We need you to get some proper clothes."

Jasmine's eyes brightened up at the mention of new clothes. She had always adored shopping for clothes! She was very peculiar in the type of clothes she wore. Before she became an orphan, she would almost always be dressed in a colourful qipao. When she was young, a travelling merchant from a country at the other side of the continent had visited their home town and she fell in love with it at first sight. Ever since she had almost always dressed in a qipao.The only exceptions to this were the sparse events where she was to wear a formal dress.

grumble grumble. Jasmine's stomach reminded her that she was hungry and that she was allowed to choose whatever she wanted. Her lips curled upwards and an honest smile appeared on her face. "I want to eat a strawberry pie!"

"Haha, strawberry pie it is!" Laughter rang out through the war room once more as Rickert offered Jasmine's hand, both of them leaving to find themselves some strawberry pie.