Iron Powder and Spellcaster

Is wrestling fun? Winters asked.

Winters and Ike were walking off the field, helping each other take off their training armor.

The weapon of criticism is obviously not as good as the criticism of the weapon. Winters punched Ike on the back hard.

Ike is Axel's nickname, and Axel's friends usually call him this.

The fist hit Ike with a muffled sound, but Ike felt nothing - he was still wearing training armor, and Winters' bones were numb with pain.

Hurry up and get this cumbersome thing off of me. If I keep it on for a while, someone will really die. Ike agreed.

The training armor they wear is essentially half of the full body armor of the cavalry. This kind of armor is difficult to put on by one person and even more troublesome to take off.

Therefore, in swordsmanship classes, two people fighting each other help each other put on and remove armor.

After the two took off their training armor, they hurriedly took off their armor. Their armor was completely soaked as if they had just been fished out of the water.

The reason why Xia Tian's sword fight is so painful is that this cotton coat bears as much responsibility as the sun.

In the Senas Gulf area, this kind of cotton armor can be used as winter clothing, but wearing such a suit in summer becomes a kind of torture.

How did the knights wear this thing to fight in the summer? Did they have to wear a chainmail armor again? Ike sighed as he took off his clothes.

If we don't fight in the summer, the war will be over. If we have to fight, the enemy will have to wear such a complete outfit anyway, so who can endure it better. Winters continued the contentless chat.

They put their swords and armor on the stone bench, ran naked to the large water tank in the corner of the training room, and started pouring fresh salt water.

Where does the light salt water come from? It was the swordsmanship instructor who had prepared a large vat in advance, enough for the people in the training room to drink from it.

People in this era do not understand what ion balance is, nor do they understand what water intoxication is.

But the instructors at Lu Academy already knew that you should never drink a lot of water after sweating violently, otherwise your life would be in danger.

For this valuable experience, they paid two lives as tuition.

The light salt water in the swordsmanship class actually contains such a profound and simple truth: using a certain technique does not mean that you need to understand the deep principles of this technique.

The bird doesn't know why it can fly, it just can fly.

After drinking happily, the two slowly walked to the stone bench where the equipment was stored.

In the competition venue, the clanging sound of long swords rang out and stopped.

Ike still remembered how an officer should behave, and Winters lay down on the ground. The cool touch of the stone made him feel very comfortable.

As soon as the body relaxed, the pain came again.

The pain in his left shoulder reminded him all the time: You just lost eight points in a row.

He looked at his left shoulder. A large area had been bruised blue, and the bruises spread to the collarbone.

Seriously. Winters coughed and said, I thought I was split in two by you just now.

Ike also saw the bruises on Winters' shoulders, and he felt a little guilty: I should have restrained my strength.

Does Winters really have a grudge against Ike? of course not.

He knew very well: it was normal to compete with swords and bump into each other. If there is no danger, why wear heavy armor?

Ned has a special training sword for long swordsmanship, which is safer.

However, the instructor insisted that the cadets compete with real swords without sharp edges. Either it would be unsafe or they would suffer minor injuries from time to time.

Winters didn't care about Ike's sword. He had nothing to say because he was nervous and subconsciously covered his next questions.

His throat moved, and he deliberately avoided eye contact, pretending to be focused on the field, and only showed the back of Ike's head.

He showed a nonchalant attitude and asked Ike casually: I'm even curious, how on earth did I get seventeen points? How many rounds did you give up to me?

No. Ike's tone was natural and sincere: When we fight, we only think about winning, and we don't care about giving up points? I was also beaten impatiently by you, and in the end I couldn't even hold back my sword.

Winters exhaled softly, and the more he pretended not to care, the more he cared in his heart. Being able to get match point in the hands of a master is an honor in itself.

He suddenly felt a little regretful, because he really had a chance to win this game.

No matter what you think in your heart, you must not show timidity on your lips. Winters laughed and said: Fart! I think you have already thought of the script. Let me get the match point first, and then make a comeback.

Ike laughed too.

The swordsmen on the field played a wonderful round of offense and defense, and Winters and Ike also applauded.

You... actually need more practice. Ike suddenly said seriously: Practice strength first, and then spend more time on swordsmanship. You were the one who won just now.

The two of them were shirtless, and Ike's muscles were obviously more muscular than Winters'.

Winters' figure could only be politely described as well-proportioned, but far from strong.

You never engage in self-discipline training or practice more. You have never lifted a stone bell or pulled a stone roller. You spend most of your time catching up on sleep. Ike concluded: You can also get seventeen points this way. I think you are powerful enough.

Winters was speechless: I really don't know if you are praising me or mocking me...

Of course it's a compliment! The highest praise! Ike suddenly stood up, drew out his sword, and made three air swings.

Every time, the sword swept the same trajectory and stopped at the same position, exactly.

Egger held the long sword and said to Winters: The power of muskets relies on gunpowder, but the power of swordsmanship relies on muscles. Skills cannot replace strength. If you don't practice strength...

Stop talking. Winters interrupted Ike: Go away, I'm looking for something.

What?

I want to get into the cracks in the ground.

I'm really complimenting you.

Winters changed to a more comfortable lying position and said lazily: The truth hurts more than lies. Just spare me, Master.

The Master in Winters's mouth is the abbreviation of Fencing Master.

In the Senas League, this is not a title that can be used casually.

It is a formal title that needs to be certified by the Blacksmiths Guild.

Only swordsman masters whose swordsmanship theories are widely recognized and studied are qualified to be selected as swordsman masters.

To date, no living person has received this honor.

Ike has arms and waist, broad shoulders and long body. The most powerful thing is that he always has his brains in hand when sword fighting. He is a natural swordsman.

He only started to learn Ned's long sword when he entered the preparatory school, and soon he defeated all the invincible opponents in his class. Even Winters, who had practiced Ned's long sword since he was a child, could not defeat him.

When Ike's strength matures, he is upgraded to an invincible fighter of all ages.

Everyone who was an officer from the Lu Academy had learned Ned's long sword skills. But no matter who comes, they can't score 20 points in Ike's hands.

It can be said that Lu Yuan can no longer test Ike's depth.

His level is a level higher than everyone here. He is the uncrowned king, the chief swordsman without a title.

So I don't know when, Ike got the nickname Master of Swordsmanship, which was soon shortened to Master.

When the chatting atmosphere is pleasant, even the teacher will jokingly call him Master.

A year ago, General Taylor, the Minister of War of the United Provinces, came to inspect the Army Academy. When he learned that the officer cadet in front of him was named Axel, he blurted out: Are you that master?

Since then, the nickname has spread further.

But Winters rarely uses the nickname because it carries a hint of a curse—no living person has ever held the title.

You...I guess when you come back next year, your current foundation will be lost. Ike said to Winters earnestly.

Winters is still lazy: In my opinion, for a military commander, a wise mind is more important than well-developed muscles. It is my unshirkable responsibility to maintain adequate sleep.

And think about it, what if I practice hard but still can't beat you? Wouldn't that be a huge loss? Winters made a calculation: So if I don't practice, I won't lose.

Veneta people. Ike didn't know whether to laugh or cry: Veneta people!

Winters turned over: I was sent to the United Provinces to study at the preparatory school when I was thirteen years old. If you say that I am from Veneta, the Veneta people may still regard me as a United Provinces person. If you say that I am a Venetian, If there is any problem with the people of Tajikistan, it must be because they were spoiled by the bad influence in the United Provinces.

The sound of sword fighting stopped, and another group of officers and cadets came to suffer.

Sometimes I can't help but think. Ike suddenly felt sad: The owners of these armors have practiced using weapons longer than me, and they wear thicker armor than me. In the end, they were dragged off their horses and killed. Death? Does personal bravery really mean anything to war?

What you said is a bit immoral. Winters laughed loudly: Steal my line. After all, you have to lose before you are qualified to make such remarks.

Ike said more seriously: I have had this idea for a long time. I understand why you don't practice swordsmanship. You are a spell caster, so I can compete with you in swordsmanship. If it were on a real battlefield, you could kill with just one spell. I.

…

It's no secret that there are spellcasters among the officer cadets. Even if it is a secret, it cannot be hidden from the classmates who get along day and night.

For most people—including quasi-officers like Ike, who has years of education—the image of a spellcaster is forever associated with pointed hats, tall towers, old men with white beards, and bizarre folklore.

If he hadn't attended a military school, Ike would never have seen a spellcaster who could breathe - and certainly not one who couldn't.

People with magical talents are rare.

Compared with giving birth to a child with magic talent, it is more difficult to select talented people from the vast crowd and train them to become magicians.

It’s so difficult that people who are not magicians would have no idea where to start.

The known magicians in this world are all royal magicians/court magicians of feudal monarchs.

They are scholars, advisors, bodyguards and thugs of emperors, khans, sultans and great nobles, serving only the top of the feudal group.

Magicians walked in the palaces of feudal monarchs, and ordinary people had no chance to see them - they should also pray that they would not see magicians.

Who are those court mages who use pseudonyms? Are they really human? At what age were they selected? How were they trained to become magicians?

These secrets may only be known to the magicians and rulers themselves.

The screening technology for potential candidates, the training program for magicians, and the methods for realizing spells are all secrets strictly guarded by the top echelons of the ruling group.

Ordinary people's understanding of magicians is basically somewhere between if you cry again, the witch will snatch you away and eat you and the brave prince wins an empire by receiving a magic sword from a reclusive mage.

Of course, the Senas Alliance, a country established by common people overthrowing the emperor and nobles, could not have magicians.

Not only are there no magicians, the Alliance is also the main victim of the feudal ruling class's monopoly on magical power.

In the Sovereign War in which the Allied forces won the country's independence, countless officers and soldiers died at the hands of the court wizards maintained by Richard IV.

Every time the Mad King puts a court mage on the battlefield, it will cause a bloody storm.

And until the emperor retreated, the alliance militiamen failed to capture or kill any court mage alive.

The Alliance's magical warfare force was born after the war.

After the emperor withdrew his troops and the alliance was established.

The magician without magic talent, Army Major General, and scholar [Antoine Laurent] summarized his experience of facing court wizards many times during the war, and finally figured out how to identify humans with magic talent.

General Antoine Laurent immediately invented matching detection tools.

From this moment on, the Alliance Army will screen children and teenagers with magical talents within the Alliance every year.

Then they use reasoning, bribery, intimidation and other methods to persuade the parents of these children and enroll all these children into military academies at all levels.

The seeds are there, but new problems arise one after another.

How to train a child with magical talent to become a magician like a court mage? Everyone in the alliance turned black.

The magician's training system is one of the core competitiveness of the ruling group. It has always been a secret and has no external experience to draw from.

It was General Antoine Laurent who took the lead in establishing the Army Magical Combat Bureau and began to cross the river by feeling the stones.

Starting from a blank sheet of paper, the Magic Combat Bureau struggled to explore ways to train spellcasters and implement spells.

Today, 25 years after its establishment, the Magic Combat Bureau has finally made some achievements.

The combat bureau initially divided magic into two major disciplines: magic and alchemy, and divided spells into three categories: fire, acceleration, and sound.

Twelve spells were reproduced, and a spellcaster training system with independent intellectual property rights was initially formed.

Because in the traditional sense, a magician is equivalent to a court mage.

In order to show the difference, the alliance did not continue to use the title magician, but instead called its own spellcasters spellcasters.

In fact, even the Magic Warfare Bureau doesn't know whether the path they are taking is right or wrong.

The senior leaders of the republics generally believe that although the Magic Warfare Bureau claims to be training magicians, the level of spellcasters is too different from the court mages they saw back then.

The intuitive feeling is also a bit different - maybe it's due to the lack of mystery due to standing too close.

But alliance spellcasters can indeed reproduce some of the spell effects seen on the battlefield that year.

As the saying goes: Have you never eaten pork, and haven't seen a pig running?

But the current situation is very special. The Alliance Army has only been injured by pigs. Not only did they not eat the pork, they also did not see clearly how the pigs ran away.

Although the republics did not know whether the route opened by General Antoine Laurent was right or wrong, they still firmly supported the Magic War Bureau to continue on its path based on the simple thought of something is better than nothing.

Winters is a spellcaster, but he was identified as having a talent for spells only after entering the Army Infant School.

Among the 171 military cadets in his class, 21 cadets are spell casters.

This is a quite astonishing proportion. Nearly half of the spellcasters of Winters' age in the Gulf League are here.

The other half of spellcasters are mainly women, and a small number of men who are not physically suitable to be officers.

All casters studied in the infantry and cavalry departments, but none in the artillery department (the Army Officers Academy only has these three subjects).

This is because one of the design goals of the Army's spellcaster training system is to produce as many front-line officers as possible with spellcasting abilities.

The late General Antoine Laurent believed that the Alliance would not be able to cultivate top-level magic users at the level of court mage for a long time.

Since we cannot follow the elite route like feudal countries, we can only win by quantity.

Compared with the madman Richard IV's cautious use of magicians in war, the Alliance military's strategy is to deploy magical warfare forces to the front line of the battlefield and train as many officers with magical abilities as possible.

However, there were some deviations in the implementation of this policy in the end...

…

Winters originally thought that the students in the military academy would at least have a basic understanding of spell casters, but he did not expect that even Ike thought that he could kill people with a single spell.

He reluctantly denied: I don't practice swordsmanship because I am lazy, and it has nothing to do with the identity of the spell caster. What about the spell caster? Why don't you still beat me up?

But I can't beat you if you use magic. Ike took it for granted.

How do you want me to explain this to you? Winters covered his face and let out a long sigh.