BXBX NOVEL Chapter 164 Templar Knight (3)
"We have one member of our merry little bad to wait for, who is Ork Champion and Holy Apostle of the Green Gods, Dharzug; I am certain that you are aware of his existence, Julius."
Samiel stated to his personal knight, to which the man in question slowly nodded his head, not bothering to hide his distaste for the Orks. The House of Crawford hated Orks and everything related to even a bit to the greenskins with passion, ad this hatred was passed through generations from Crawfords, leading to the first Crawford, the founder of their House.
The first Crawford, the founder of the House of Crawford, was initially a soldier slave in some long destroyed Middle World in the slave legion of some Empire that existed in the said Middle World, even though all of that happened countless Epochs ago, the House of Crawford still bore the grudge like it happened today.
The greatest enemies that were in those lands were, of course, the Greenskins, as the Green Tide was taking everything by storm.
When the Empire collapsed, the Crawford fought his way through the mountains of corpses of Greenskins, as he slaughtered Orks, Ogres, Goblins, Hobgoblins and other abominations that were bred by the Greenskins.
Later, he led a small group of survivors to the safe lands, which he came to rule. From then on, the survivors created their own society, which was hell-bent on fighting and killing Greenskisn and they hated them with passion.
From that small society, the entire nation grew through the conquest of the Holy Templar Order when the founder of the House of Crawford created the Knight Order better to coordinate their forces against the immeasurable hordes of Greenskins.
"Certainly, Holy Son. While I am not thrilled at working with savage beasts like Orks, I cannot deny their power and usability."
Stated Juulius Crawford stoically, not letting his emotions cloud his judgment. Even though he personally hated the Greenskins, he knew that due to circumstances, sometimes it was better to ally with them rather than to fight them.
And from the loos at the ork who was sitting there, Juulius could sense that without using the secret techniques of the Hosue Crawford and the Holy Templar Order, he wouldn't have any chance to win against the humongous greenskin.
Not to mention he knew when to admit that even the Greenskins had their uses, especially in the situations when the decision was made by the Gods they served, then there was no room for defiance, and the only thing they could was to carry out the orders faithfully as always the proper servant should.
Meanwhile, Yvraine wasn't thrilled at the idea at first, but in the end, she relented to it and saw some positives. She had to admit that Dharzug was an extremely powerful Silver-Tier Ork as well as Champion and Holy Apostle of the Green Gods, so his social status within the ork society was naturally very high.
***
Several next days proceeded as usual, with Samiel training or learning Magic while he was getting better acquainted with his personal knight, Paladin and member of the Holy Templar Order of the Hall of Kadath, the Heir Apparent of House of Crawford, Juulius Raynold Crawford.
Juulius Crawford was stoical and ever present with the sense of the Chivalry Code of the Holy Templar Order; he always attended to his duty and never relaxed even for a second he was carrying out the duty as the personal knight of the Holy Son of Hall of Kadath.
Samiel learned Juulius Crawford was a Professional with a Unique-Class Paladin of Outer Gods, like the other members of the House of Crawford, because it was a hereditary Class among the members of the direct lineage of the House of Crawford. It was common knowledge that every member of the Holy Templar Order had some Paladin-related Class, some were strong and some were weaker, though just the basic Class of Paladin on its own was Rare-Class.
Because of that, the Holy Templar Order members were mostly from the various Knight Houses and Aristocratic Lineages that were vassals or direct members of the Hall of Kadath, living in various Low, Middle and High Worlds, who were always sending their descendants to the Holy Templar Order with each generation.
There were even entire worlds dedicated to training the Knights for the Holy Templar Order in a similar fashion in which the powerful Demon Tribe trained their armies because only the best of the best was worthy of joining the Holy Templar Order and serve the Outer Gods as their mortal instrument on the Material Plane.
He was prodigious with a blade, probably on the same level as Yvraine, though his style was vastly different because he followed what one would term almost stereotype for Paladins or Holy Knights as a whole.
Set up of sword and shield.
Of course, he was very good at the close combat area, far better than Samiel could through his talent or capabilities, and Samiel was often able to beat him only through a combination of Architect's calculations and some luck on his side. If not for that, in the pure contest of martial prowess without his magical capabilities or Undead at play, then Samiel would lose, as the weapon masteries weren't really his forte.
Though it mostly depended on Architect's calculations because it didn't take long to analyze Juulius's combat style completely. One of the greatest weaknesses that the Paladin had, was predictability; his combat style was very predictable because it didn't take Architect even a few minutes after the complete analysis to adjust to it completely.
Only a few times managed Juulius to surprise Samiel during the spar when he did something which wasn't accounted into the calculations. And Juulius was clearly aware of the fact; that was why he was always fighting with his familiar by his side; that way, he would get some sort of unpredictability to the battle.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, Yvraine's sword style was completely based on unpredictability to the point where even Architect's calculation provided hundreds of possibilities with each strike, so Samiel had a way harder time sparring with her than with Juulius.
"Can we stop already? I want to return to reading my Grimoires... this is not any fun at all..."
Samiel asked as he was in the middle of a spar against Juulius. From the day the Paladin of the Holy Templar Order became his personal knight, he was sparring with him almost daily, something which greatly annoyed Samiel. He didn't like exercises or similar things; it was taking his time from properly studying Magic.
"I know, my Lord. But I have noticed that you have been severely neglecting your physical exercises, especially the training in weapon mastery and the close-quarter combat."
Answered the Paladin of the Holy Templar Order because such was the truth. Since he got new grimoires and magic tomes, he was spending way more time learning and practicing the Magic than he should, to the point where he started neglecting the physical training like he was doing before.
Of course, for Samiel, the core of his power was lying in the Magic and secrets of the Arcane; he wasn't a warrior or anything. Of course, he complied with his requests of Juulius because if he didn't practice enough, his Master would certainly notice and scold him for not upholding his standards.
At least, if nothing else, these training seasons were giving him a steady increasement in his proficiency the because he was often receiving many notifications from the Akashic Records about the increment and growth in this area, exactly just like now.
[Proficiency with the Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with the Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with the skill Trident Mastery has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with the skill Trident Mastery has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with the skill Trident Mastery has been increased by 1%.]
After Samiel dismissed five translucent windows that were appearing before his eyes one after another, he returned his attention to the ongoing fight, as they were still in the middle of sparring, though he was most delighted by the growth in his Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim, as that one proved to be very hard to grow at a later date.
If he had to say one thing that came from these spars on a regular basis was, of course, the growth of proficiency in his Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim because that one was something that was stagnating greatly, and right now, it started growing once more after a longer period of stagnation.
[Proficiency with the Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with the skill Trident Mastery has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler has been increased by 1%.]
[Proficiency with Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler has been increased by 1%.]
After another half an hour of intense sparring, Samiel received another five notifications from the Akashic Records, which he dispersed as he noticed the growth of the proficiency in his abilities and skills. The proficiency with his Lord-Class Knight of Niflheim has already reached 37%, which was not bad considering the fact that he was only a Bronze-Tier, technically speaking of course.
Aside from that, his proficiency Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler has reached 39%, only 1% from reaching the 40%, as that one was progressing very smoothly. Mainly because Samiel was using the Winter Ruler every day and at every possibility he had; thus, the growth in that area was relatively fast than in other things.
Other effects of the Winter Ruler were also strengthened capacity to use the Winter Magic at a much higher and easier level; thus, he trained the Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler as much as possible because it was an overall enhancement in strength.
After the spar was finally over, Samiel departed to study his Magic tomes on the Warding Magic, which was doing for the past time, since he got his hands on them. He was already working his way to master Intermediate Warding Magic and could now cast and do even more complex Wards than before.
Warding was an interesting subject for Magic because it was a very versatile branch of Magic. It could be used in many ways, be it offensive, defensive or supportive means; the Warding Magic covered them all.
Of course, the knowledge on the creation of Wards and, at the later stages of the Warding Magic, the Bounded Fields, which were highly complex Wards, that only Legendaries could create due to not only their complexity but also requirements for erecting such things. Ironically though, based on Architect's calculations, Samiel should be able to create the Bounded Fields on his own if he became Peak Gold-Tier Professional.
Creating Wards was essentially based on three main aspects. The first one was the knowledge over the Warding Magic and Magical Theory, the second was the Runic Array of the War and the third was calculation capabilities to calculate the exact location of every rune that one was engraving when creating the Wards.
Because Samiel had Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect, he was able o handle probably the hardest part when creating Wards and Bounded Fields, which were the calculations; he was able to handle them within several seconds due to basically being a living and walking supercomputer-like a Living AI.
And such in this manner, weeks went by one by one, as soon enough, several months passed since the moment Samiel accepted his knight and Paladin, Juulius Crawford.
Time flew really fast when one was having fun or constantly doing something.