Imperial Crown

Although Raven basically gave full authority to Eric for the daily training of the army, it did not mean that he was not attentive.

More than half of the production capacity of the forge was used for the Eagle Army.

After the establishment of the commercial alliance, a large number of livestock and poultry were purchased in order to keep the army in high-intensity training and have reliable combat capabilities.

Why are the scale of many nobles and elite private soldiers not large?

Why, even after the war with the Death Hand Cult, the nobles paid attention to the construction of the army, but the most purchased were still inferior weapons and equipment?

Because they could not afford it.

In order to keep the army combat-ready, long-term and high-intensity training is required. To maintain high-intensity training, it is not enough to just provide some bread, oatmeal, and pickles, but also a lot of protein and fat supplements.

Otherwise, daily training alone can tire people to death!

In fact, the cost of food for the Eagle Army alone is more than 500 gold coins per month, which is already half of the annual income of many barons.

What's more, there are thousands of gold coins worth of sophisticated equipment equipped for this team every month.

According to the average level of the Nord Province army, Raven's Eagle Army is well-armed.

"So, I would like to ask the Baron to personally check the results of this period of time." Eric said.

Raven readily agreed and came to the barracks.

The barracks of 5,000 people not only have living areas, but also daily training grounds. Its scale is not inferior to most towns today.

The soldiers gathered in the martial arts field.

The sky was clear and the sun shone on the earth, shining on the armor and weapons of the soldiers, and the white mist exhaled by the soldiers intertwined.

Even if Raven was rich, it would be impossible for all the troops to be equipped with heavy armor.

Therefore, the entire Eagle Army, except for the 500-man guard battalion directly led by Eric, and officers of all levels above the centurion who wore full-body plate armor, all wore leather armor plated with iron powder.

A legion of 5,500 people, composed of eleven 500-man battalions, also has a complete range of arms.

The whole regiment of the personal guards was composed of cavalrymen, and they were also the most deterrent and destructive heavy cavalrymen on the battlefield of this era. Each person was equipped with a lance, a round shield, a long sword, and three javelins.

In addition, there were two regiments of light cavalrymen, two regiments of pikemen, three regiments of sword and shield soldiers, two regiments of crossbowmen, and one regiment of archers.

Since each regiment was composed of three detachments, when necessary, a legion could also be split into smaller units with complete arms configurations.

Accompanied by the sound of horns and flags, the army dispersed and began to practice formation changes.

The Arden phalanx, with pikemen as the vanguard and sword and shield soldiers as the flanks, was used for frontal attack.

The Spanda phalanx, with sword and shield soldiers as the outer layer and pikemen inside, looked like a giant hedgehog and was used for defense.

The Recher phalanx, with sword and shield soldiers outside and pikemen inside, all squatted down to make room for archers and crossbowmen, and the light cavalry guarded both sides of the flank.

The Sanxon wedge formation, with heavy cavalry as the blade and light cavalry as the flank, was accompanied by a rain of arrows from archers to cover the advance.

The formation changed quickly and without any delay. If this level could be demonstrated in actual combat, it would be considered elite on the entire continent.

Raven looked at the changing formation and nodded slowly: "Eric, thank you for your hard work during this period."

"It's all I should do, sir." Eric said: "If it weren't for the queue training method you taught before, let alone just over a year, even if I was given another year, I might not be able to train to this level."

Eric was not just flattering Raven.

In this era, the more military experience a person has, the more he values ​​discipline.

The power of the mercenary guild spread across the continent. The personal qualities and equipment of the mercenaries who are born and die all day long are undoubtedly far superior to those of regular soldiers.

There are also precedents for countries and forces to buy mercenaries to fight for them in wars.

But throughout history, mercenary groups have never played a decisive role in any large-scale war.

In the final analysis, it all comes down to discipline.

And the queue training brought by Raven is the best way to cultivate discipline.

A well-disciplined soldier may not have the outstanding personal martial arts of a mercenary, but in large-scale legionary combat, the least important thing is personal force.

The simplest example is that in the face of the magic of a magician, in the face of sound effects, light effects, and the reality of large-scale deaths of comrades, the mercenary group may collapse at the touch of a button, while the trained soldiers can still stick to the battlefield.

This is why, although Raven has adopted the current military system of the empire, the bottom construction still adopts the three-three system.

Too dense formations will become live targets for the opponent's magicians on the battlefield!

Not only Raven is paying attention to the battlefield, but also the orphans in a small field separated next to it.

There are a total of about 100 people, all of whom are good seedlings carefully selected from orphans. In addition to studying in the orphanage every day, they also have to come to the military camp for intensive training every weekend.

Compared with the real swords and guns of the regular troops of the Eagle Army, their training content seems a bit miserable. They use wooden equipment, and the daily content, apart from formations, is basic sword-wielding, gun-wielding, and blocking training, which can be described as boring.

If there is something fun, it is the competitive javelin training. Whenever this happens, the orphans will be very excited and eager to compete with each other to see who can throw more accurately and farther.

However, the events that usually follow are not so fun, and they make them quite uncomfortable.

Their instructor, Knight Simon, will have people bring many wooden horses - although they are made of wood, they are different from ordinary wooden horses. They are connected to thick iron springs underneath. After sitting on them, they will shake and often make people vomit their lunch.

The training requirement is to hold on for as long as possible without touching the ground with both feet.

Sometimes when they finally get their balance, the instructor will come over and kick them, letting them experience what it means to be dizzy!

This kind of training is boring and difficult, and it always makes them look ugly, which makes them not so optimistic about the future.

But today, the Eagle Army's assembly drill opened their eyes!

They lay on the fence at the edge of the field, and their eyes were shining.

More than 5,000 people, when they move, they seem to be a whole, everyone's face is full of determination and seriousness, looking so...

handsome!

Raven also noticed them and asked: "What is the quality of these children?"

"Children who can survive the war are all good." Eric said: "Except for a few who really can't practice, most can last more than half an hour on your special wooden horse."

The reason for doing this is that Raven wants to train these orphans into the first batch of horned hippogryph cavalry.

Although the female horned hippogryphs strengthened by him are docile, birds are birds after all, and flying is still bumpy, especially when they often need to fly high, land low, and turn.

If you can't adapt, spit on the horned hippogryph in the sky, that would be great fun.

After the battle formation exercise, Raven gave a routine speech, the content was also very simple, nothing more than to have an extra meal tonight, and then encouraged them to continue to strengthen their training.

At the same time, he also threw out a carrot that he couldn't eat for the time being: those who performed well could be qualified to take the God-given potion.

As Eric left the barracks amid the cheers of the soldiers, he wanted to say something several times, but he didn't dare to speak.

Although Raven saw what he meant, he didn't point it out.

As time went by, the extraordinary people under his command improved.

Simon, Link and Volaf, the first batch of extraordinary people, have all reached the level of first-level nine stars and ten stars, and are on the verge of a breakthrough.

Eric himself has also reached the level of second-level ten stars, and he only needs a third-level mineral to start trying to advance.

Raven didn't let Eric send him back to Eagle Castle, and sent Volaf away first, enjoying the rare time alone.

The breeze blew, bringing up the uncompacted snow on the dead trees on the roadside, and the fine snow foam flew up, got into the collar and cuffs, and melted clean in Raven's breath.

If you widen your vision, you can see a silver field with dots of dark golden light on it, which are the remnants of fallen leaves in autumn.

Further away, there are snow-capped mountains. Under the vast snow, the pines and cypresses reveal their deep green color.

Just looking at this scene, Raven's mood will be much relieved.

Looking over the mountain, he thought of Lux again. He didn't know where she was now and how she was doing.

The branches beside the road suddenly swayed, and the snow hit Raven's shoulders. Looking up, he saw a squirrel jumping between the branches. Just as he caught his eye, it disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Raven smiled, urged his warhorse again, and hurried back to Eagle Castle slowly.

After changing his clothes, Raven came to the secret room with coffee, opened the Deep Blue Platform, and started shopping according to the planned content.

The first one was the simplified version of the Intellectual Magic Network worth 570,000 gold coins - if you buy it, you can't get the formula for the magic upgrade potion.

But this intellectual magic net is a production tool that can bring more profits. In a short period of time, Raven's magic power cannot reach the third level and ten stars, so there is no rush to upgrade the magic potion.

Then there are the combat skills used by various knights.

It is shameful to say that the combat skills passed down by the Griffith family are all dedicated to bloodthirsty fighting spirit, but Raven's subordinates who have mastered bloodthirsty fighting spirit do not have it.

And for a long time before, Raven was too poor to buy fighting skills. When he could afford it, the war was over.

Now that the extraordinary people around him are about to break through, it is a good opportunity to buy some fighting skills. Otherwise, it will be spread that the knights of the Griffith family are all poor people who don't know any combat skills, which is not good.

Four breakthrough materials, a total of 3771 gold coins, the bulk of which is still on Eric.

In addition, there are seven series of combat skills from level one to level two: earth, water, fire, wind, ice, darkness, and shadow.

Earth, water, fire and wind are the most common and have the widest application range. Goel, who died on the bloody highlands, had earth fighting spirit; Volaf had ice fighting spirit, and dark fighting spirit belonged to another personal soldier Otto. As for shadow fighting skills, they were prepared for Mansene.

Moreover, Raven has not forgotten his ambition to establish the Twelve Constellations Legion.

Even though fighting skills are much cheaper than magic of the same level, it cost Raven 9,773 gold coins to buy 14 fighting skills.

Finally, Raven added 600 second-level magic cores of various attributes, spending 35,771 gold coins.

After doing all this, the gold coins on the account dropped to just over 200,000.

Raven was even a little used to this, and could only silently convince himself that there would be opportunities to make money in the future.

After placing the order, it’s just a matter of waiting.

During this time, Raven was not idle. While meditating and accumulating magic power in his magic core, he began to try to choose the magic he wanted to engrave in the magic pool.

For most magicians, this step is actually very simple. After all, the elements of affinity are limited, and the magic that can be mastered at the third level is also quite limited. Four or five types are already quite impressive.

But for Raven, that's not the case at all.

Among the magics he has mastered, there are 5 first-level magics, 8 second-level magics, and counting the six types purchased last time, there are as many as 11 third-level magics!

Other mages have more low-level magic and less high-level magic. Raven is completely upside down.

This is the advantage brought by full attribute affinity. It can use the most appropriate magic according to different battle situations.

But sometimes the advantages are also disadvantages. It takes a lot of brain cells to choose one type of magic from a total of 24 types.

Necromantic magic was the first to be excluded. Not to mention that the Church of Light could not accept this kind of thing. It also had a very poor reputation among the five major forces of the human race. Unless Raven wanted to establish a necromantic kingdom, it must not be taken into consideration.

In this case, there are still as many as 16 types of magic to choose from.

He has affinity with all attributes, so he has never thought of choosing one type of magic from each type and engraving it on the magic pool. However, after studying "The Way of the Mage" and other classics, he has left this idea behind. .

The above describes many adverse consequences of engraving two or three types of magic. The lightest one is that the advancement speed is greatly slowed down. The most serious one may even be reversely contaminated by magic power and turn into an indescribable monster.

So for several days, besides meditating and working, Raven lined up these 16 kinds of magic in front of him and considered them carefully.

When it comes to the future, you can't be careless.

This is still the case today.

Raven sometimes laments why he doesn't have a teacher.

None of the powerful people he knew were magicians. Anno was a witch, Crouch was a magician, and Tyrone and Montreal were knights. No one could give him advice or help at this step.

After taking a sip of coffee, suddenly, with a meow, Xikreit came out of nowhere, glanced at the magic in front of Raven, raised his paw slightly, and threw one of them into Raven's hand.

Raven took it and took a look, and suddenly felt a little dazed.

It is the most common first-level magic on the mainland and can be mastered by all magicians with flame affinity.

Fireball.

"You let me choose it?" Raven asked.

"If you want to build a castle, you have to start with the foundation." Xikret said nonchalantly: "Of course, this is just my suggestion."

Raven frowned and remained silent.

…