Oath Of Iron And Fire

Chapter 2 What is a spellcaster?

"You want to wrestle too? Are you still a human being?" Winters and Ike, who had just come down from the arena, were helping each other take off their training armor.

The weapon of criticism is obviously not as good as the criticism of the weapon. Winters became more and more angry, so he punched Ike on the back. Ike is Axel's nickname, and Axel's friends usually call him that.

The fist hit Ike with a dull thud, but Ike didn't feel anything - he was still wearing training armor. Winters was in so much pain that tears came out of his eyes.

"You're right, I'm not a human being. Help me take off this burden. If I wear it any longer, someone might die." Ike supported Winters helplessly.

The training armor they wore was essentially half of the cavalry's full body armor. This kind of armor could not be put on by one person, let alone taken off, so in the sword class, the students would fight against each other and help each other put on and take off the armor.

This insincere self-criticism made Winters even more angry, and he punched Ike in the back again. But this time he was smarter and helped Ike take off his armor first, causing Ike to groan in pain.

After taking off their training armor, the two men hurriedly stripped off their upper body combat suits. Their combat suits were completely wet, as if they had just been pulled out of the water.

Fencers suffer so much during fencing in the summer, and this cotton coat bears at least as much responsibility as the sun. The Senas Bay area where Winters is now has a natural heat reservoir like the sea, so the climate is warm.

Therefore, in the Gulf region, this kind of cotton military clothing can be used as winter clothing, but wearing it in summer becomes a torture.

"How did those knights fight in the summer wearing such things? They must have worn an extra set of chain mail than us, right?" Ike sighed as he took off his clothes.

"It would be better if we don't have to fight in the summer. If we have to fight, the enemy will have to wear a complete set of clothes anyway, so it will just be a matter of who can endure it longer." Winters threw the clothes he took off to the ground and answered without thinking.

They put their swords and armor on the stone bench, ran shirtless to the big water tank in the corner of the training room, picked up the ladles and started drinking the salt water.

Where did the salt water come from? The swordsmanship instructor prepared a large vat of it in advance, enough for all the students in the training room to drink.

People of this era did not understand what ion balance was, nor did they understand what water intoxication was. However, the teachers at the Army Military Academy already knew that after sweating violently, one must not drink a large amount of water to quench thirst, otherwise one's life would be in danger.

They paid the price of two lives for this valuable experience.

The salt water in the sword fighting class actually contains a profound and simple truth: using a certain technique does not mean you need to understand the underlying principles of this technique. Birds can fly without understanding aerodynamics.

Unfortunately, Winters, who was standing by the water tank and gulping down water, had no sudden enlightenment at all. His mind was full of the game that had just happened.

Putting down the water scoop, the two men leisurely walked back to the stone bench where they put their equipment. In the square competition field, the clinking sound of long swords clashing was heard from time to time. The competition was still going on, this time it was another group of swordsmen.

Ike seemed to still remember the proper manners for an officer, but Winters, without a care in the world about appearance, just laid down on the ground. The cool touch of the stone floor made him feel particularly comfortable.

But as soon as he relaxed, the pain returned. The pain in Winters' left shoulder was reminding him: You just lost eight points in a row.

He looked down at his left shoulder. A large area of his shoulder was bruised blue by Ike's heavy blow. The bruises spread to his collarbone. All the places Winters could see were bruised. It was conceivable that the places like his shoulder socket that he couldn't see were also bruised.

"Look at that." Winters pointed to his shoulder and said, "I thought you broke my bone just now. If I wasn't wearing armor, I think you could have cut me in two with this sword."

Ike saw the purple bruise on Winters' shoulder, and he said guiltily, "It's true that I didn't control the strength well. I should have restrained myself in that situation just now. I was also shocked when the sword hit you. I didn't expect it to hit so hard."

But did Winters really blame Ike? Of course not. He had no complaints against his friend. He knew very well that it was normal to have some bumps and bruises in a sword fight. If there was no danger, why would they wear all this armor?

Even though there are safer training swords, the instructor still let them use unsharpened real swords to compete. He wanted them to have the effect of getting minor injuries from time to time.

Deep down, Winters didn't care about Ike's sword attack on him. Winters didn't realize that he was talking trash because he was nervous, unconsciously looking for topics to cover up what he was going to ask next.

If you ask him directly, he can't ask. He will feel ashamed, afraid that the atmosphere will be awkward, and worried that he won't hear the truth.

When a group of boys are together day and night, sentimentality will be despised and everyone will try their best to pretend to be a tough guy who doesn't care about anything, and Winters is the same.

Winters' throat moved. He deliberately avoided eye contact with Ike, pretending that his attention was focused on the competition in the arena, and only showed Ike the back of his head. He asked Ike in the most relaxed tone he could, "Did you deliberately let me win in the first few rounds?"

Winters couldn't see Ike's expression, but he could tell that Ike's tone was very natural: "No, I never deliberately played badly or got stabbed on purpose. You played really well in the first few rounds, very steadily. When you got the match point, I really felt that you were going to lose this time. I was anxious and couldn't control the strength of the sword in my hand. Otherwise, I wouldn't have hit you so hard."

Winters was in a good mood now, as he was now sure that he was ahead of Ike because of his strength, and not because he was deliberately let down. Thinking of this, he suddenly felt regretful, because this also meant that he really had a chance to win the game, and it was his own final gaffe that caused him to lose the game.

But no matter what he thought in his heart, he must not show his fear. Winters said with a chuckle: "Bullshit, I think you have thought it through. Let me get the match point first, and then you can make a comeback."

Ike laughed when he heard this.

The fencers on the field put up a wonderful round of attack and defense, and Winters and Ike clapped their hands in admiration.

"I think if you spend more time exercising and practicing swordsmanship, you would definitely have won just now." Ike looked at Winters's lacking arms, then looked at his own arms that were obviously more muscular, and suddenly said seriously.

Ike began to present facts and reason: "Look, you haven't practiced swordsmanship in your spare time, right? You only practiced during swordsmanship class, and you didn't practice when you weren't in class. Also, you haven't trained your strength, have you? You haven't lifted a stone bell or pulled a millstone, have you?"

"You can get 17 points like this. You've done it. I think that's impressive enough." Ike finally came to the conclusion.

"I really don't know whether you are praising me or mocking me." Winters looked at Ike's strong arms and chest muscles and said with a wry smile.

"Of course I'm praising you." Ike picked up the long sword, sat on the stone bench and swung it twice, then said to Winters: "Think about it, swordsmanship is essentially a martial art that relies on on-the-spot judgment and one's own strength. You don't deliberately practice strength, your muscles are not well developed, and you will naturally suffer in a sword fight. You don't practice swordsmanship diligently, so you..."

"Stop talking, stand up, I'm going to find something." Winters quickly interrupted Ike.

"What are you looking for?" Ike stood up puzzled.

"I'm going to find a c***k in the ground to crawl into." Winters.

"I'm really praising you," Ike said sincerely.

The truth hurts more than a lie. Winters couldn't bear it any longer and begged for mercy: "Please stop talking, Master. I'm so ashamed that I want to hang myself. When I get home, I promise to train extra every day and keep lifting weights to develop a body of muscle like yours."

The "Master" Winters mentioned was the abbreviation of "Fencing Master". In the Alliance, Fencing Master was not a title that swordsmen could use casually to flatter each other, but an official title that required certification from the Blacksmith Guild.

Only those sword masters who have great influence and whose sword theories are widely recognized and studied can be certified as "Sword Masters". And so far, no living person has been able to get this honor. The title of Sword Master has only been awarded posthumously to the dead.

Ike is extremely skilled in longsword swordplay. When he was in preparatory school, no one in his class could beat him. At that time, Ike had to be punished by adults. When Ike finished puberty and fully developed, he became invincible in all age groups.

All the soldiers from the Army Officer Academy had learned longsword in fencing class, but no one, from teachers to students, could get 20 points from Ike. Winters dared to say responsibly that the Army Officer Academy could no longer test Ike's level. Ike's level was a level higher than everyone else here. Ike was the uncertified chief swordsman of the military academy.

So I don't know when Ike started to have a nickname "Master of Swordsmanship" in school, which was soon shortened to "Master". When the conversation was in a good mood, even the teachers would jokingly call him "Master".

The most famous incident was when Winters and Ike were in their second year, General Taylor, the Minister of the Army of the Republic of the Provinces, came to inspect the teaching situation at the military academy. When he learned that the student in front of him was called Axel, he blurted out: "Are you the master?" The students around him were shocked. From then on, the nickname of the master spread even further.

However, although this nickname was a recognition of Ike's swordsmanship within the military academy on the one hand, it was also a secret disparagement of him on the other hand: because no living person had ever been given this title.

This is a nickname that has both positive and negative meanings. Ike himself doesn't seem to care about this nickname. He has never considered himself a master of swordsmanship, but he doesn't get angry when others call him a master.

However, as a good friend of Ike, Winters would never call Ike "Master" unless they were spitting trash at each other for fun. Winters did not like the curse implied in this word.

Hearing Winters call him "Master", Ike also laughed and scolded: "It's strange that you can practice. You don't practice at school, but you can practice diligently every day when you get home? Students who don't study at school say they will study hard at home. Do you believe it? And you said you want to train your tendons? When you come back from Hailan next year, I think you will lose all your sword skills now."

Winters blushed and said shamelessly, "In my opinion, for a prospective officer who will assume battlefield command responsibilities in the future, a wise mind is more important than developed muscles. So getting enough sleep is my military duty."

Winters then began to settle accounts with Ike: "Do the math again. What if I still can't beat you after a year of training? Anyway, I can't beat you even if I don't practice. If I still can't beat you after training, then I'm at a huge loss, right? So not practicing means preserving the capital, and preserving the capital means not losing money."

"You see, if you don't practice you won't lose anything, but if you practice you'll probably lose a lot. So not practicing is like making a big profit. I'm already satisfied with the seventeen points, and I don't think I can beat you even if I practice." Winters confidently preached his own twisted logic.

"If you can't beat me after practicing, you'll lose a lot, so not practicing is equivalent to making a big profit. You people from the blue sea are really business geniuses." Ike didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"I was sent to the United Provinces Republic to study at the military preparatory school when I was thirteen. You said I was from the Sea Blue, but the Sea Blue people probably still regarded me as a Shanqian person." Winters said with a sly smile: "Your criticism of me is equivalent to criticizing yourselves. If there is any problem with me, a person from the Sea Blue Republic, it must be because I have been corrupted by you people from the United Provinces Republic.

The clinking sounds of swords stopped, and the group of students who were fencing behind Winters and Ike decided the winner. They both repeated the actions of Winters and Ike: they quickly took off their training armor and upper body armor, then rushed to the water tank and drank the salt water.

Another group of new students went up to suffer. Ike watched them fighting with long swords and suddenly said sadly: "Sometimes I can't help but wonder, what's the point of us practicing swordsmanship with so much sweat? Think about the owners of these armors. They wear an extra layer of chain mail and have practiced weapons longer than us."

Winters was dumbfounded, but Ike continued, "I only started learning swordsmanship when I was in the Army Junior School. The owners of these armors could have been trained to be warriors since they were young. But in the end, weren't they dragged off their horses and stabbed to death? Were they shot to death with muskets? Does personal bravery really have any meaning in war?"

Winters was almost choked by Ike's erratic stance: "You are so immoral to steal my lines, aren't you? Are you qualified to say that? At least you have to lose before to be qualified to make such remarks, right?"

"I've actually had this idea for a long time. I can understand why you don't like to practice swordsmanship. You are a spellcaster, so it doesn't matter if you don't practice swordsmanship. I can still compete with you in swordsmanship, but if it's a real battlefield, I might die if you use a spell. Swordsmanship really doesn't make much sense for a spellcaster." Ike looked directly into Winters' eyes and said seriously.

Winters and Ike had known each other since they entered the prep school six years ago, and it was no secret that some of the cadets were spellcasters. In Winters's view, spellcasters were just one more spellcaster course than ordinary cadets.

At other times, everyone attended classes in the same classroom, ate in the same cafeteria, and slept in the same dormitory. There was nothing special about it. But it was not until today that Winters discovered that Ike lacked the most basic understanding of the Alliance spellcasters.

This is actually not surprising, because for most people - including quasi-officers like Ike who have received many years of education - the image of a spellcaster is associated with pointed hats, tall towers, white-bearded old men, and all kinds of supernatural folk tales.

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

People with magic talent are rare. Compared to giving birth to a child with magic talent, it is more difficult to select a gifted person from the vast sea of people and train him to become a magician. It is so difficult that people who are not magicians don't know where to start.

All the magicians known in this world are the royal magicians/court magicians of feudal monarchs. They are scholars, consultants, bodyguards and thugs of emperors, khans, sultans and nobles, and they only serve the top level of feudal groups.

Magicians walked in the courts of feudal monarchs, and common people had no chance to see them - and they should pray not to see magicians.

Who are those court wizards who use aliases? Are they really human? At what age are they selected? How are they trained to become wizards? These secrets are probably known only to the wizards and rulers themselves.

The selection technology of potential talents, the training program of magicians, and the method of implementing spells are all strictly guarded secrets by the top of the ruling group. The common people's understanding of magicians is basically between "if you cry again, the witch will catch you and eat you" and "the brave prince won an empire by giving him a magic sword from the hermit wizard."

The Great Bay Alliance, a country founded by common people who overthrew the emperor and the nobles, certainly could not have magicians. Not only did it not have magicians, but the Great Bay Alliance was also the main victim of the feudal rulers' monopoly on magic power.

In the war of sovereignty that the militia won over the country, a large number of officers and soldiers died at the hands of the court wizards raised by Richard IV. Every time Richard the Mad sent court wizards to the battlefield, it would cause a bloody storm. And until the emperor withdrew his troops, the allied militia failed to capture or kill any court wizard alive.

The Alliance's magic warfare power was born after the war. After the Emperor withdrew his troops and the Great Bay Alliance was established, Antoine Laurent, a "magician without magic talent", an army general, and a great scholar, summarized his combat experience of facing court mages many times during the war, and finally discovered how to identify humans with magic talent.

General Antoine Laurent then invented a matching detection tool. From that moment on, the Alliance Army screened children and teenagers with magical talents throughout the Alliance every year, and then used reasoning, bribery, intimidation and other methods to "persuade" the parents of these children to enroll all of these children in schools at all levels run by the Army.

The seedlings were there, but new problems followed. How to train a child with a talent for magic to become a magician like a court mage? Everyone in the army was completely in the dark.

The magician training system is one of the core competitiveness of the ruling group and has always been a secret. There is no external experience to learn from. It was General Antoine Laurent who took the lead in establishing the Army Magic Operations Bureau and began to cross the river by feeling the stones. Starting from a blank sheet of paper, it was difficult to explore the way to train spellcasters and the method of realizing spells.

To date, the Army Magic Warfare Bureau has been established for 25 years, and has only just made a few achievements. The Magic Warfare Bureau has initially divided magic into two major disciplines: sorcery and alchemy, and initially divided spells into three categories: fire, acceleration, and sound. It has found twelve ways to implement spells and has initially formed a spellcaster training system with "independent intellectual property rights".

Because in the traditional sense, a magician is equivalent to a court wizard. In order to distinguish them, the military does not use the term magician, but instead calls their own people with magic powers "spellcasters."

In fact, even the Magic Warfare Bureau didn't know whether the path they were taking was right or wrong. The military leaders generally believed that although the Magic Warfare Bureau claimed to be training magicians, the level of spellcasters was too far behind the court magicians they had seen in the past. The intuitive feeling was also a little different - it might be because they were standing too close, which led to a lack of mystery.

But Alliance spellcasters can indeed reproduce some of the spell effects that were seen on the battlefield back then.

As the saying goes: "You have never eaten pork, but you have seen pigs run."

But the current situation is very special. The Union Army has only been hit by pigs. Not only did they not eat pork, they also did not see clearly how the pigs run.

Although the military did not know whether the route opened up by General Antoine Laurent was right or wrong, based on the simple idea that "something is better than nothing", they still firmly supported the Magic Operations Bureau to continue moving forward.

Winters is a spellcaster, but he was identified as having a talent for magic only after entering the Army Junior School. Among the 171 cadets in his class, 21 were spellcasters.

This is a rather astonishing ratio, nearly half of the spellcasters of the same age as Winters in the Gulf Alliance are here, and the other half are mainly women, as well as a small number of men who are not physically suitable to be officers.

All of these spellcasters studied in the infantry and cavalry departments, but none in the artillery department (the Army Officer Academy only has these three subjects). This is because one of the design goals of the Army's spellcaster training system is to train as many front-line officers as possible with spellcasting abilities.

The late General Antoine Laurent believed that the Alliance would not be able to train top-level magicians at the level of court wizards for a long time. Since it was impossible to take the elite route like feudal countries, it could only win by quantity.

Compared to Richard IV's cautious use of magicians in war, the alliance military's strategy was to deploy magic warfare forces to the front line of the battlefield and train as many officers with magic abilities as possible. However, the implementation of this strategy eventually led to some deviations, which we will not discuss here for now.

Winters originally thought that his classmates at the military academy would at least have a basic understanding of spellcasters, but he didn't expect that even Ike thought he could kill people with just one spell.

He shook his head and waved his hands to deny it quickly: "I'm not, I didn't, don't talk nonsense. I don't like to practice swordsmanship because I'm lazy, don't raise it to the status of a spellcaster. Besides, what's wrong with being a spellcaster? Didn't you just beat me up?"

"But I can't beat you if you use magic." Ike said as a matter of course.

"How can I explain this?" Winters covered his face and let out a long sigh.