Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Bud is one of the only three externally admitted cadets in Winters's class, and he should be the most powerful among the three.

Because most of the external admissions to the Army Officer Academy are from the artillery department, which is an exception for the admission of talents with mathematical talents.

But Bard studied in the cavalry department, and the cavalry department had no outside enrollees for six full years before Bard.

When the United Provinces Republic was still the Duke of Piedmont, starting from Bard's grandfather, their family relied on raising horses for Count Mennai's family.

From the time when the old earl was still alive, he had been raised until the old earl's grandson inherited the title.

Whenever he has time, Bud's grandfather will take his two sons to cultivate the family's dozen acres of land. Although life is hard, at least you don’t have to worry about not having enough food and clothing.

But Bud's grandfather never dreamed of the outbreak of the Sovereignty War.

In their eyes, life is peaceful and subsistence, and they never thought that this state would be broken.

When the Galevenists were destroying churches everywhere, the Bard family had already vaguely felt that a storm was coming.

However, three generations of their family have been dedicated grooms who have made a living by raising horses for the earl. They can do nothing but feed the earl's horses.

When the first Guitu City riot occurred, the militiamen captured the city.

The Bards were feeding the Count's horses, but the Count stood still because he was not a royalist;

When the first Kuitu City uprising was suppressed, the army of the governor appointed by the emperor entered the city.

The Bards were feeding the Count's horses, but the Count stood still because he did not support the militia either;

When the second uprising occurred in Guitucheng, the militiamen cooperated internally and externally to attack Guitucheng and trapped the governor in the castle tower.

The Bard family was feeding the count's horses, but the count continued to stand still. He chose to wait and see;

When the second suppression of Guitu City failed, the Battle of the Golden Saddle ended, and the royalist nobles in the Piedmont Dukedom were completely wiped out.

The Bader family was feeding the count's horses, but the count still stood still. He planned to continue to wait and see;

Finally, the emperor released his vicious dog, the Duke of Arléans.

The Duke of Arléans declared that all nobles who did not die in the Battle of the Golden Saddle were traitors.

The Bards are feeding the Earl...oh, there's no need to feed the horses this time.

Because all the war horses were taken to fight by Count Mennai, the nobles of the Piedmont Dukedom could no longer sit back and watch.

The Bader family switched to feeding the count's cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks.

The Duke of Arlean was defeated and committed suicide, and the Bard family thought they could finally continue to feed the count horses.

They did not expect that the militiamen and the anti-imperialist nobles who were fighting side by side yesterday would start fighting again today.

Knights in helmets and swords patrolled the royal road, killing all suspicious pedestrians without trial, just to intercept the couriers who were linking up with the militias in various cities;

Lone swordsmen wandered the forest paths, carrying long swords and matchlock guns wrapped in black cloth, waiting for opportunities to assassinate any nobles they could find.

The civil war finally ended with the victory of the militia, and no more duke was elected. The land was renamed [United Republic of the Seventeen Provinces of the Piedmont], referred to as the United Provinces Republic.

Bard's family no longer had to worry about going back to feed the count's horses, because the militiamen's knives were faster than the Duke of Orleans's, and their attacks were more ruthless than the Duke of Orleans'.

There is no longer Count Mennai, and no one in Count Mennai's family is left, old or young.

The Republic of the United Provinces will no longer fall into the hands of the nobles, because there are no living nobles in the United Provinces who dare to claim the title.

The Bard family thought that things would end like this: although they could no longer feed the count's horses, they could at least go back to manage the family's land.

The Bard family did not expect that they were waiting for Richard IV's personal conquest.

And it’s no longer just the United Provinces Republic, the Sea Blue Royal Territory, the Plateau Dukedom… the entire land between the two mountains and the empire are being sucked into the whirlpool.

The original count of Mennai - now the province of Mennai - was again reduced to ashes.

The unripe crops were trampled and burned, and the defeated soldiers were more terrifying than the robbers.

Bud's father lost his father, brother, sister and all his children during the war.

The Bader family was completely bankrupt. They had a small piece of land but no food.

In desperation, Bud's father mortgaged the small piece of land at home to the Green Heart Abbey near the village.

The couple took refuge in the protection of the monastery and became tenant farmers of the monastery.

The Sovereignty War ended completely, the Emperor withdrew his troops, the Senas Alliance was formally established, and the couple gave birth to Bard.

For Bud's parents, life as a sharecropper saw no way out.

They could barely survive and were destined to be unable to save enough money to redeem their land.

So the only thing Bud's parents could hope for was to let Bud enter a monastery and become a monk.

But monks are serious registered clergy. How can a child from a poor family become a monk?

The monastery will not accept a young man with nothing. If he wants to become a monk, he must bring a property to the monastery.

The monastery only welcomes brothers who bring land deeds and gold and silver to join them.

Bud has been working as a servant in the monastery as long as he can remember, first responsible for low-level chores such as cleaning toilets. He is diligent, careful and taciturn.

So he was soon removed from the most menial chores and put in charge of cleaning the manuscript rooms and library of Green Heart Abbey.

A kind monk taught him literacy and Old Tongue, and Bard taught himself Old Tongue through the Old Tongue/Old Tongue dictionary.

Since he was able to read, Bard spent all his free time in the library of Green Heart Abbey.

He has read a large number of ancient books and materials preserved in monasteries, and taught himself Arithmetic and Principles of Geometry by ancient imperial scholars and the Medicine of the Fremen.

At the same time, his status in the monastery also continued to improve: from cleaning the library to being responsible for cleaning valuable sacred vessels and saints' relics, and then becoming the personal servant of the abbot, responsible for helping the abbot with accounting .

But the more Bard learned about the monastery, the more desperate he became. Because he knew that he would never become a monk, and he would never end his life as a tenant farmer and a servant.

By chance, Bud learned about the existence of the Army Officers Academy from a visitor to the monastery, and learned that the Army Officers Academy had no tuition fees and no application restrictions.

So when Bud was sixteen years old, he decided to give it a try and set out from his hometown of Gerald Village with the six small silver shields and three pieces of black bread he had saved, and walked one hundred kilometers to Guitu City.

Relying on his ancestral horse-raising skills and outstanding cultural test scores, Bud was miraculously admitted to the cavalry department of the Army Officer Academy. He also became the only off-campus student in the cavalry department in six years.

Bud and Winters met in horse classes.

[Note: Horsemanship and Equestrian are two courses]

In terms of equestrian skills, Bud is far inferior to Winters; but in terms of the ability to take care of horses, Winters can't keep up with Bud.

When they first met, Winters was just curious about where this strange young farm boy learned to trim hoofs.

As they got to know each other longer, Winters discovered more and more that Bud had advantages that he did not have, such as being gentle, patient, and rarely losing his temper.

Winters lacks these qualities, so he unconsciously gravitates towards people who have them.

And Winters' non-charity friendship also made Bud feel comfortable.

Over time, the two became very good friends.

Every time I think of Bard, I automatically imagine that my reliable comrade KV-2 has the cross-eyed look of my cat.