Chapter 15 Cultivating the Darkness and Serving the Light
Taking advantage of the darkness, Federico first led Lu Xiao to find the location of the pigeon cage, and then led him to a mixed neighborhood in Florence, where he met a thief leader called Cunning Arc - La Volpe.
Sly Fox is tall and thin, and his figure looks a bit thin, but it does not affect his flexible movements at all.
La Volpe was even more agile than Giovanni when moving on the rooftop, and Lu Xiao and Federico were completely unable to keep up with his pace of action.
When Lu Xiao arrived at the testing location designated by La Volpe out of breath, Xiaohu folded his arms calmly and looked at him with a half-smile. Federico was also wiping sweat next to him, obviously he had just
Arrived not long ago.
"Young man from the East, your free running skills still need to be improved. If you want to freely walk through the rooftops of Florence, your current level is far from enough."
La Volpe jumped lightly on the roof a few times and came to Lu Xiao's side. She reached out and patted his shoulder: "If you want to improve your abilities as soon as possible, come to me when you are free from work."
"But you'd better be mentally prepared in advance. My training won't be easy to complete. Don't blame me if you fall from the stairs."
At the next stop, Federico took Lu Xiao to a... brothel called Looking for Roses.
Lu Xiao looked at Federico with a strange expression: "You don't want to go in now...relax, do you?"
Federico laughed and waved his hands: "How could it be? No matter how dissolute I am, I will never mess around when I'm doing business."
"The owner of this brothel is a senior member of the Brotherhood. She is also the leader of the courtesans in Florence. You will most likely need the help of her and her girls when you act in Florence in the future."
The socialite leader Federico introduced to Lu Xiao was named Paula. When he saw this middle-aged beauty who still had charm, Lu Xiao immediately recalled her identity.
'So that's it, she is the madam who helped and taught Ezio the techniques of stealth and theft in Assassin's Creed 2.'
The meeting with Paula didn't last long. Night was when her store was busiest. After briefly chatting with Lu Xiao and the other two, Paula quickly returned to the store to greet the customers who came to visit her.
After following Federico to meet Luciano Beccani, the leader of the Florence mercenary guild, the two finally returned officially.
It was already around 2 o'clock in the middle of the night, and the whole of Florence was silent. Lu Xiao and Federico both subconsciously stepped lightly on the roof to avoid disturbing the sleeping citizens below.
Jumping from the roof back to the atrium of the Auditore mansion, Federico dusted himself off and said, "What I'm showing you today are only the members of the Brotherhood who hide in three religions and nine streams."
"Father should also introduce you to some high-level assassins in Florence recently, or allies who are willing to secretly assist the Brotherhood."
"Florence is very large and prosperous. With the assistance and cooperation of Lorenzo Medici, the Assassin's influence has taken root deeply in this city. The Templars have always regarded Feileng Cui as a difficult thorn in their side."
"Although the Brotherhood has the upper hand in Florence, we cannot take it lightly. The Templar forces headed by the Pazzi family have been secretly eyeing the dominance of the Medici family."
"Patch?"
Lu Xiao was stunned for a moment, and then said suddenly: "By the way, Mario also said that the Pazzi family's bank is located in Florence."
Federico yawned tiredly: "That's right, it's the Pazzi family you fought off in Monteriggioni before. Those indomitable candies are very troublesome. You will have the opportunity to come into contact with them in the future."
"That's it for today. Go back and have a good rest. Your life should be very colorful in the future, so be mentally prepared."
…
Just as Federico joked, Lu Xiao had an extremely fulfilling life in the following period.
Since the Templars were temporarily dormant in Florence, Giovanni devoted more of his energy to his work as a banker.
In addition to managing his own Auditore International Bank, Giovanni also needs to help Lorenzo, who is busy with city affairs, manage Medici Bank. This is the fundamental reason why he said that he was too involved in banking affairs.
.
In order to maintain his alliance with the Medici family, Giovanni sacrificed a lot of his personal time, in exchange for the status and wealth of the Auditore family, as well as his deep friendship with Renzo.
The Brotherhood has no important tasks to perform for the time being. Lu Xiao, who is eager to improve his personal abilities, takes the initiative to find La Volpe and accepts his devil training for days, traveling around the vast rooftop space of Feilengcui.
Although the training process was very hard, the progress visible in the attribute panel gave Lu Xiao the motivation to persevere. His free running skill was never completed and turned into F, then E, which can be considered a small gain.
In the evening, Lu Xiao had to follow Giovanni, who was freed from official duties, to train how to use the hidden sword skillfully.
The hidden sword is very compact and thin, so it cannot be used roughly like a conventional weapon.
Just like what Giovanni demonstrated in the previous mission, the hidden sword requires more skill, trying to remove the force of the enemy's attack from the side as much as possible, so as to avoid the fragile blade from bearing the attack from the front.
Time is fair to everyone, but for dedicated people and bored people, they have completely different perceptions of time.
I believe many people have had this experience. When they are doing nothing, they always feel that time passes very slowly, but when they are concentrating on doing something, they feel that a long time is fleeting.
Three months passed in a blink of an eye. While Ezio was still living the life of a dandy on the streets chasing chickens and chasing dogs all day long, the hard-working Lu Xiao had already mastered the skills of being a young man under the training of many seniors in the fraternity.
The qualifications of a qualified assassin.
Senior members of the Florentine Brotherhood gathered in a rare gathering in the secret basement of the Auditore mansion. The wall of this basement opposite the staircase was carved with a beautiful and huge Assassin emblem.
As the leader of the Assassins in Florence, Giovanni sat on the main seat, the mercenary leader Luciano, the courtesan leader Paola, the thieves leader La Volpe, as well as many architects and artists who were hiding their identities as assassins.
Get together.
Seeing that all the attendees had arrived, Giovanni stood up from his seat and began to preside over the meeting.
"Assassins, we have called you here today to witness a young rookie officially joining our ranks."
Giovanni stretched out his hand to signal to Lu Xiao, who was standing behind him.
At this time, Lu Xiao had already put on the assassin uniform specially made by the tailors of the Auditore family according to his requirements.
Lu Xiao did not intend to use eye-catching white as the background color like Giovanni. In order to facilitate concealment, he chose a light gray tone. The whole outfit looks relatively inconspicuous, but it still uses exquisite fancy designs on the cuffs, collar and other parts.
See the exquisite craftsmanship of the tailor.
Taking off the hood on his head, Lu Xiao stepped forward and stood next to Giovanni.
"Lu Xiao, from the Ming Dynasty in the far east, is a member of the Assassin inheritance family and possesses the eagle vision symbolized by the Forerunner bloodline."
"It took him less than a year and relied on his own diligence and hard work to complete the full set of assassin training."
Giovanni's tone gradually became passionate: "In the name of Mario Auditore, the leader of the Italian Assassin Brotherhood, I, Giovanni Auditore, formally invite Lu Xiao to join the Assassin Brotherhood and become one of us.
."
After obtaining the approval of other important Assassin members, Giovanni personally took out a strange-shaped iron from the brazier nearby.
Witnessed by other brotherhood members, Lu Xiao, who had already been mentally prepared, stretched out his right hand.
Giovanni carefully clamped the slender red soldering iron on Lu Xiao's ring finger. As the high temperature burned the flesh, the "click" sound came out, and the corners of Lu Xiao's mouth couldn't help but twitch in pain.
When the soldering iron was removed, Lu Xiao's ring finger was imprinted with a deep assassin's mark.
This ceremony is a process that all new assassins must go through to join the association. Compared with the previous ceremony of cutting off the ring finger, today's initiation ceremony has become much more civilized.
All the assassins present stood up solemnly, put their right hands on their chests and recited the Creed of the Assassin Brotherhood.
"While others blindly pursue the truth, please remember that all is false."
"While others are bound by morals and laws, remember that all things are allowed."
Lu Xiao lowered his head and followed Giovanni and others in chanting in a low voice: "We work in the darkness and serve the light."