When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

Chapter 1350: Chapter 1268: Graduation Exam

In the golden autumn of September, the sky was high and the clouds were sparse.

The weather was so clear that it was hard to believe it was autumn.

Fields, streams, shrubs, fences... everything sparkled under the autumn sun, so glaringly clean and so serenely peaceful it was almost exhausting.

Yet the autumn wind was restless, always being torn apart by the countless whistling shells and bullets, emitting a sharp whistling sound.

However, not far from the sound of the bombardment, the soldiers had set up a canopy, inside of which sat a group of officers and staff led by the Saint’s Grandson.

Since they were near Black Snake Bay, His Holiness the Pope was still wearing a Black Snake Bay shirt, holding a coconut to drink from, looking extremely composed.

As for the staff and military cadets behind him, they were sweating profusely, feeling cold on their backs.

All of them had wide-open, dark-circled eyes, staring intently, fists clenched tightly.

"Why the long faces, have some coconut." Horn turned to look and handed over a coconut with a playful grin.

"We’re not thirsty, Your Holiness," a military cadet forced a smile.

"Look at you, you need to know how to learn and how to play, this is your graduation trip, why the long faces?"

Why the long faces, wasn’t that a rhetorical question?

They call it a graduation trip, but it’s really a graduation exam!

Every graduation season, Horn and Hakuto would take active-duty officers and cadets from Saint Danji to conduct exercises in some border area.

The method of the exercise was that Hakuto would serve as the judge, and the active-duty officers and staff cadets would provide battle plans.

Then, the officers and military cadets would act as infantry, cavalry, and artillery officers of this local army, executing the staff’s plans.

Hakuto would score based on the planning level of the staff and the execution level of the officers.

Those with high scores start high; those with low scores go to local defense regiments, and those who fail have to retake the course.

The officers and staff all turned their hateful gaze towards Hakuto.

What kind of lousy trick did this old bastard come up with; it didn’t exist in previous sessions, only started in the last two.

Horn liked this method very much, it allowed for exercises, trained the staff team, and selected new staff and officers, achieving three goals at once.

Seeing the cadets were too nervous to speak coherently, Horn looked at Jeanne, who was frowning, with some boredom.

"What’s wrong?"

"Nothing, I was just thinking that if corpse explosion can push iron balls so far, what if they throw bodies over for corpse explosions instead?"

"Actually, on the battlefield, corpse explosion at most blows up and injures a few, hardly kills anyone."

"Why?"

"Corpse explosion converts the biological energy of the body into thermal energy, causing gas expansion..." Horn scratched his head, "Without confinement and gas tightness, its power is not as great as imagined."

At this point, Horn couldn’t help but frown with a bitter smile.

Fate is truly absurd.

He couldn’t find any alchemical substance that could rapidly expand gas, yet Serafe easily found one, albeit in this form.

He even felt a bit jealous of Serafe.

Because the knowledge he brought from Earth could be perfectly applied to these gas-expansion-propelled weapons.

However, the only area where Serafe fell short was that she also couldn’t break through the limitations of the steam engine.

So far, Horn has not seen Serafe engage in any blood steam engines or blood reactors for industrial production.

According to the investigation by Cheka in the coastal territories and the information transmitted from the Royal Court, they still operated in the form of concentrated state-owned artisan workshops.

The Holy Alliance, however, had spent twenty years to complete preliminary industrialization and transition to production.

Serafe seemed to have made rapid advances in military technology but sacrificed other areas like a lame giant.

"A lame giant?" The whistling rang in his ears again, but Horn couldn’t help but laugh.

Wasn’t his Spring Industry also a lame giant?

He had to rely on wizards of certain families or sects to process and generate many of his industries and materials through special spells.

Once all the wizards from this family or sect died, a link in this industry would vanish, and the entire product line would immediately stop.

Unless he could develop machines capable of casting spells automatically, like magic automata, otherwise, he would always be constrained.

This might even turn that sect or family into hidden aristocrats.

Relying on alchemical methods to replace all the spell methods, there was currently no possibility of that.

At this moment, Jeanne, who had finally read the entire Howl Cannon report, patted him on the thigh: "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing," Horn shook his head, "Has there been a report on the vampires’ movements?"

"Yes, we’ve received bad news from White Sands and Eagle’s Claw Bay, they might be planning to make a move on Alexei’s side."

"Has a message been sent to Alexei?"

"Yes, it was transmitted via signal device first thing in the morning."

"How’s the situation over there?"

Jeanne pursed her lips and shook her head: "Not great, it’s said that twenty thousand vampires are coming to support, and the Norn frontlines are pulling back troops. Many local nobles willing to rebel are now refusing to do so."

"What about the local civilians?"

"Need I say? They’re fleeing in droves. If it weren’t for the implementation of the military farm system, the population loss would be even greater."

Horn couldn’t help feeling disappointed, but upon reflection, it made sense. The vampires were old foes, victorious and annexing so many territories since they landed.

The two Thousand River Valley wars took five years, and the Holy Alliance only managed to capture one Thousand River Valley.

Vampires took only two years to capture the Roaring Corridor (almost equal to the entire Bear Castle Territory), five coastal territories, and the Xilan Islands.

On the land of the Roaring Corridor, vampires had been constantly victorious.

With the exception of the Holy Alliance.

They faced the Norn people’s records, but they had always been victorious for sure.

If they don’t run, would they stay and die?

"Building the nation of the Norn people is truly a daunting task," Horn looked at Jeanne, "Do you think I’m overzealous?"

"No," Jeanne shook her head seriously, "They will face this one day anyway, better sooner than later."

Stunned for a moment, Horn half sighed, half laughed: "There will be a day when the Norn people can stand on their own, then they can consider the existence of the Earthly Heaven."

"What about the battle situation in the north at Shattered Stone Plain..." Petier took out a memorandum.

Rubbing the chair armrest with his fingers, Horn contemplated for a long while: "Deploy the Eastern Battle Group to support, just the opportunity for those three new battle groups to see blood."

By this time in 1462, six battle groups had already been recruited, and another six had been halfway trained, expected to be equipped and deployed next year.

Of course, in the Red Leaf Hill area, there were also three foreign battle groups from Falan in training.

Charles intended to make them a model army to replicate to other parts of the Falan Army.

Though that would be very difficult.

The Holy Alliance could recruit troops so enthusiastically because they had nearly a decade of the foundation for "extraordinary" transformation.

Not to mention the adults, even among newborns, there were many born Blessed.

Even if they weren’t born Blessed, after taking the Divine Favor vaccine, their mana was more than those who acquired the Holy Favor Seed later.

Along with the increasing production of Holy Favor Seeds each year, it supported the existence of 20 battle groups.

Switching to Falan, ten battle groups might not be manageable.

Thinking of Falan, Horn couldn’t help but worry again; could they withstand the Royal Court’s army, which had grown stronger like a snowball?

The Fourth El Alliance seemed like the Holy Alliance and his two weak spots.

They often needed a firefighter role, yet these two positions were irreplaceable, making it particularly frustrating.

Looking up at the south-flying geese, Horn felt a sudden melancholy; autumn had come, and peace was destined not to last long.

Contemplating for a second, Horn quickly recovered from the sorrowful autumn: "Regarding the battle situation at Shattered Stone Plain, have the staff plans been completed?"

"Nine options." Bernardo couldn’t help but speak up beside him, "We have nine ways to hold them off."

"So confident, don’t boast now."

Hakuto chuckled, "Your Holiness, you forgot that last year’s Saint Danji graduation trip exam was a simulation of Bacon Castle."

Horn then realized, never underestimate the cadets for the wisdom at the peak of their lives aiming to graduate.

"Alright, but we still need to be realistic." Putting down the binoculars, Horn stood up, "In that case, once we crush the enemy, let’s immediately execute the plan regarding Prince Kongdai’s bloodline."

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