A Knight's Secret Techniques

Due to the recent attack of the orcs, the city owner Viscount Dickens had been feeling stressed. As a great knight, Viscount Dickens would much rather take his sword out and slash the team of orcs that had entered Harvest City. He would like it much more than sitting in the City Palace, hearing news about his citizens or other castle owners being attacked by the orcs.

Yesterday, Viscount Dickens had received a dead body of a Worgen and a map, sent from Harry Castle. After a bit of investigation, he found that the maps depicted the gathering location of the Orc squad. The orc squad would gather up in a few days and get ready to leave the human world with their flying beasts. This meant that the attack was almost over. If Viscount Dickens did not take action now to seek revenge, as a Viscount of the duke, he would be badly embarrassed. It would affect his status.

This morning, Viscount Dickens had already ordered a troop of a thousand to ambushed at the location marked on the map. This time, Viscount Dickens had dispatched 3 elite knights and 30 knights. This small troop of a thousand was an elite troop. They possessed enough fighting power to withstand a small-scale battle. 

According to the Knight of Marshall's letter, this information was obtained by his adopted son, Master blacksmith Abel, after killing a wolfrider with a bear trap. Viscount Dickens was very intrigued by this new Master Blacksmith of Harvest City. As far as he knew, this Master Blacksmith was awarded the title of 'master' through forging magic weapons. Viscount Dickens has been considering whether he should ask this new Master to forge a magic weapon for him. 

"My Lord, someone from Mathew Castle wants to come in and report a funeral," said the butler.

When Viscount Dickens heard these words, he knew that another castle had been attacked. He then said to the butler "Let him in." 

After a while, a lost and frighten servant entered. He cried as he came in, "My Lord, Lord Matthew and every single member of his family had lost their lives in the orc's attacks. " 

The abolishment of a noble family was not a trivial matter. Viscount Dickens knew about the Mathew family. Although they were very small, with only inherited around 100 square miles of land, they still had around 100 years of history.

 "Quickly, tell me what happened," said Viscount Dickens. Perhaps it was because of trauma or the lack of experience, but the servant had not explained the matter clearly. He continued to speak with a stutter.

It was no use. Under normal circumstances, if Lord Matthew wanted to report something to Viscount Dickens, he would send his butler Ken, or he would even direct go to the city palace himself. 

As a result of this attack, the butler could no longer leave Matthew Castle. Therefore, they could only send a more well-spoken servant, one who was capable of reporting the current situation. 

The servant understood the intent of Viscount Dickens. At this time, he also remembered what butler Ken had told him. It was said that "Upon arriving at the city palace, get to the point as soon as possible. The city lord would not have time to slowly listen to you".

The servant proceeded to explain, "In the evening, a group of wolfriders attacked the castle. The gates of Matthew Castle was opened, and the wolfriders entered. When they began their massacre, Master Abel was passing by, and he helped us defended them together. After Master Abel made sure the castle was organized again, butler Ken ordered me to report to the lord of the city."

 Finally, after all that mumbling, the servant was able to explain the situation clearly.

Master Abel again? Viscount Dickens did not expect that at all. These kinds of actions, such as rescuing a noble family in danger were appreciated and respected by all nobles. Although Abel failed to save the life of Lord Matthew, the castle was still completely preserved. If an orc attack was successful, they would kill all the people they could find and burn the castle down. 

Master Abel must be rewarded for this deed, as well as for providing the orc's gathering map. If the ambush was successful, these 2 deeds combined would be enough for extra rewards from the king of the Duchy. These military service rewards were very difficult to be called off by anyone. Because even if the king was daring enough to reject it, he would have to risk having his citizens give up on fighting for him in the future. All the nobles and the king understood this by heart. Although throughout these years, the king had tried to suppress the influence of the nobles, if they were qualified for an outstanding military service reward, they would always be rewarded in a way that was equitable to their service.

"I will send people to Matthew Castle. You can go back now", Viscount Dickens said calmly. 

After the servant left, Viscount Dickens thought of Master Abel again. He must repay Master Abel well. A young master of his age must have extraordinary achievements in the future. If Abel needed any help, Viscount Dickens would definitely do his best to help him. By doing so, it would definitely yield a good return in the future.

In fact, normally a native person who had attained the title of Master Blacksmith, such as Abel, would at least be given a lord position to persuade him to serve the Duchy. However, Duchy of Carmel was a bit different when it came to that regard. Its king had always hated the nobles. The king could not care less about gaining or losing a lord or two.

When Abel returned to Harry Castle, the first thing he did was play with Black Wind for a while. The small mount wolf, Black Wind, had recently gained a lot of weight. it has been eating very well, and every day it would enthusiastically run around in Abel's room. Abel did not want to bring it out to the public square, due to the recent attack of the orcs. Since the public square was full of people, many of whom would despise being near a mounted wolf.

Due to the recent events, Abel never had the chance to have dinner with the Knight of Marshall—until tonight since the orcs had now be driven away. The knight of Marshall could finally relax, and sit down to have dinner. 

After the two had finished their meal, the Knight of Marshall called Abel to his study room. The maid poured and delivered 2 cups of coffee into the room. She added some spices to the knight of Marshall's coffee. However, when she was about to also add it to Abel's cup, she was stopped by Abel.

"Abel, sometimes you have to tell yourself, it's your decision." Said The Marshall Knight as he began to smell the aroma of the coffee, and took a sip. He closed his eyes blissfully, enjoying the taste of coffee mixed with the spices in his mouth. 

Abel couldn't bear the sight of the Knight of Marshall enjoying his spiced coffee. Just how were spices so trendy amongst the nobles? Luckily for Abel, the chefs in Harry Castle didn't add too much of it to his plates. If the taste got too extreme, he might even consider cooking his own meals from now on. Actually, no. Just to teach them a lesson, he might even start his own restaurant business.

"Whatever you say... Uncle Marshall." 

 "Abel, you are a Master Blacksmith now. Your forging ability has greatly exceeded my expectations. As you know, I am one of the oldest sons of the Harry family in Bakong City. Even I left my family since I got rewarded with a knight's estate, I was still allowed to learn about my family's inherent secret techniques of knights. You are my successor, I can bring you back to Bakong city to learn those techniques. But, of course, there are some techniques you can learn directly from me," said the Knight of Marshall seriously.

Abel had already learned some secret techniques of knights inherited by the Bennett family. However, since he was not an official knight, he could not apply most of those secret techniques. Moreover, if Abel was not already a level 5 novice knight, the knight of Marshall would not have told him any of this.

The only secret technique that Abel had learned to apply from the Bennett family, was the knight's breathing technique. Which allowed the qi to be generated faster from to core, and form a meridian. The other 3 pearls of wisdom he learned but he couldn't apply included:

The knight's acceleration technique, which was using combat qi to lift the speed of one's body.

The knight's outbreak technique: which was enhanced one's outbreak power by 3 times, but the core would be weaker the following one hour.

The solid defense: which could only be applied with a shield. It uses combat qi to connect the shield with the ground, creating an ultra-strong defense in one direction.

"Uncle Marshall, what secret techniques can you teach me now?" Abel was not afraid of overloading himself with secret techniques. Since he processed the power of Will, he could learn almost anything much faster than anyone. 

"So far, I've only known two secret techniques. One was the knight charging technique, and the other was the knight's mount acceleration technique," the Knight of Marshall explained, " These 2 secrets can only be used on a mount, and that's why I am so different from the Knight of Bennett. The Knight of Bennett believes that the most important characteristics of a knight are balance and diversity. That's why he spent his time mastering all kinds of common knight weapons such as big swords, shields, bows, long spears, and axes. On the other hand, I am an expert in horsemanship, big swords, and long spears. I believe that horsemanship is the only essential characteristic of a knight. For the weapons that I use, all I need is a big sword for close distance battles, medium distance battle I'll use long spears, and for long distances, I'll use a bow. With the mastery of these three weapons, I managed to attain enough outstanding military service to receive my own knight's estate.

The Knight of Marshall did not deny that the Knight of Bennett's military service was not outstanding. This was because back then, the requirement for gaining the title of a Lord was too high. As beginner knights, both the knight of Marshall and the knight of Bennett were way too insufficient to obtain such title.