Chapter 21
The Knight Rankings
Samwell came in the fourth month of 1063 and the year was reaching its end. Hans and the family didn't have much time left to idle around, so he left his vainglorious ego to fend for itself after failing to think of a solution about the fire beast and accepted to look for help in the knight king's book.
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> PAGE 10
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> FAILING OF VEGANBIND
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> You would have made mutated a seed or two on your own, but they might not have been strong enough. Let me tell you, the place where this spell failed.
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> First - on armoured type beasts, generally speaking, those beasts have strength and momentum that is hard to retrain. The poison becomes useless because it doesn't penetrate the armour.
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> Second - on fire type beasts, fire easily burns the wood, which is the general rule and commonsense of the world.
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> Third - on slimy beasts, they could slip from any sort of grip. The only way to beat them is by using blunt force.
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It was time that he stopped being surprised by the author's far-sightedness but he was still got amazed by him once again. He only felt the need to overcome fire type, but the author already had pointed out the places where he would feel his power lacking. He expected Sam to include solutions to these problems as well, and he became happy after reading the next lines.
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> For the first problem, you ought to increase the tensile strength of your vine by mutating the seed by OrganicIron. And on dealing with these strong type beasts, use the terrain and trees to slow them down. Restraining their body won't work alone. Make your vines act as chains nailed to the trees or boulders.
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> For the second, there is a deep underwater plant known as Tubula, a plant with tube-like stems. It eats planktons by filtering the water. Its hollow stem stores water. Fusing it with your VeganBind will give you two advantages. First one, the vines will become heavy and second fireproof until your vines have water inside.
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Hans already fused the OrganicIron and for his fire problem, he found the solution. Sam wanted to have water running inside the vines, which was a completely different element, so he was unsure if it can produce water in the vines. With doubt, he read the third solution to save his time.
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> For the third problem, it's pretty simple actually. Instead of blunt force that we do not have, we will slice it by fusing the vines with a blade leaf plant; it possesses sharp-edged leaves. The plant had evolved itself to avoid being eaten by herbivores. I don't know how the vines would change after these modifications, but I am sure it would help you learn.
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> The above listed problems are just a few that I could think of right now, but I am sure these will not be the only ones you would face, so keep striving on to make this stronger on your own.
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Hans requested the two new plants from Rudolf, which made the old knight whine, but he had no choice except to go on this elementary quest of resource gathering. Getting the blade leaf was way easy because he already knew its location, but Tubula was the problem. Apart from eating reptiles, he also hated seawater and Hans was asking him to dive deep to pluck this thing.
Three days have passed since Rudolf went to collect the plants, and Hans was seriously worried about him. He might have always teased him, but deep down, he cared for his grandpa’s safety. They were already running out of food, so he decided to go for another hunt.
Sierra couldn't allow the child to go alone, so she tagged along. Hans could feel that his grandma was a big deal, but all he had heard about her was a mage that specialised in healing others. Hans acted mature all of a sudden and asked her to follow closely while reciting the dos and don'ts about hunting that he had learned from Rudolf. She genuinely listened to the lecturing child who was pretending to be a professional hunter.
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While trekking up the hill, a FrostBird ambushed the duo. The white flying bird with a wing span greater than ten metres. It was nothing like what Hans had faced till now alone, and it was his first time facing a flying beast, too. His VeganBind failed to reach the bird and the frost bird dived at them after skilfully manoeuvring around the slithering vines. Hans was readying himself to release the crying seed, but at that moment.
Sierra glowed in gold and said,
HigherPower
With her extended hand, five concentrated circles came out and before Hans could realise anything, the bird lost its life with no injury and fell right in front of him.
It was Hans's first time seeing a regular spell in action. He read that the concentrated circles represented tiers of the spell and seeing her spell had five, that meant it was a fifth-tier spell. He was feeling embarrassed that he boasted about him being a professional hunter and talked big about protecting her.
He always thought that Sierra was a healing mage, but her killing a FrostBird with a single spell was enough to prove her capability of giving and taking life as well. Seeing him shocked, Sierra asked him,
What are you surprised about? Fetch our dinner.
Hans snapped out of his embarrassment and dragged the bird with the VeganBind while Sierra led them back home. The boy didn't talk much on their way, but he was thinking; the couple was so strong, so what could be threatening enough for Sam to make him for them? Another thought came to his mind, so he asked Sierra in a low voice,
Granny, Gramps is ranked ninth, which means there are eight more people stronger than him, right?
Sierra nodded in affirmation and added,
The knight association ranked them and every ranked knight has a chance to climb higher once a year, but Rudolf never challenged anyone, so I don't know how much stronger he is compared to others above him.
Then who is the strongest?
You have heard his name before, Norwin, Samwell’s father.
What kind of person he is?
A straight-up jerk. If it was possible, I would have killed that bast… man.
Is he that strong?
Yes, squeaky, he is a knight of Ice's aura, and additionally, he has several beasts accompanying him. That man also possessed the world's strongest blessed sword, making him an absolute monster in terms of strength.
Did gramps ever fight him?
No, but they used to be friends, but not so much now.
So Norwin, was he ever defeated?
Sierra smiled and replied,
As I have told you, when you are a ranked knight, you are allowed to challenge higher knights once a year and if you defeat them; you get their rank and another chance to challenge higher rank at the same time as a reward.
Hans asked in curiosity,
So did he get defeated?
Yes, a knight came and defeated Rudolf and kept climbing the ranks and almost beheaded Norwin.
Let me guess, it was Sam, right?
Sierra warmly smiled and nodded in affirmation. Hans was feeling proud like it was his own achievement. He laughed, thinking about how much Norwin would have suffered humiliation when he got his rank back as a charity because the ranked one died. He lowered his head and got sad all of a sudden and Sierra asked him, noticing his sullen mood after the excitement of the previous conversation,
What got you down all of a sudden?
It's just I can't participate in ranked battles, mages don't have that right?
Yes, mages prefer to be low-key,
Hans pouted.
But they should also have rankings too.
Sierra responded with an explanation.
For a mage, the element of surprise is everything. These showy fights take that away from you as your weakness and strength become public knowledge.
Hans understood, but he was still not content, like every kid he dreamed to be known in the world. He might have glanced over the purpose of his creation, but this fact was like a splinter in the feet that kept reminding him of Sam’s words. So he wanted to prove to himself that his existence was not just for the sake of Sierra and Rudolf, and making a name for himself and getting acknowledged by the world was the only thing that an eight-year-old could think of.
Waiting for Rudolf was becoming tedious since the three days wait turned into ten days, but Sierra’s confidence was not budging a bit that he would return safe and sound. He was also interested in knowing their story, but Sierra was adamant about not telling him.
In those ten days, he called treants two more times because of his boredom, but he did not acquire anything significant but only the knowledge of the plant species which felt irrelevant to him at this time. The thought of creating a stronger VeganBind with the thing Sam mentioned was the only thing lingering in his mind, neglecting the vast knowledge he just got from treants.
With the help of treants, Hans mastered the sprout spell and could easily create a small farm of different kinds. According to Sierra, the fruits and products of Hans’s created plants were rich in mana that was in high demand among nobles and aspirants. She joked with him about becoming a wealthy farmer instead of a mage. After all, money was another way to protect themselves.
Using your special abilities to earn money was not unheard of. The wealthiest person in this world had used her special ability to glance into the future and obtained the undiscovered mines and potential knights and mages early.
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