Chapter 284: Kendall City — Waru's Training and New Progress on Armor

Jier planted the wooden pole on the ground, pursed his lips, and suddenly felt a deep sense of frustration.

As expected of the person whom all the guards considered the most talented with a long spear, this keen sense of distance and bold self-confidence were things Jier could never have imagined.

"Come on. Shall we continue?" Waru stepped back a few paces, opening up the distance from Jier as he asked.

"Alright! Let's continue!" Jier regained his confidence; although he might be far inferior to the other in terms of talent, he believed his excellent learning ability would bring him rapid progress.

The two clashed, the sound of wooden pole striking wooden pole ringing out with a rapid *clack-clack*.

This time, Jier no longer made large-scale attacks or lunges; he held his stance firmly, letting Waru make no headway. Jier felt that compared to attacking, he had to first master the defensive techniques of using a long spear.

Waru's attacks hit a snag against Jier's defense, but he remained cheerful; to him, if just fighting back and forth like this was no different from his usual training, then this money was far too easy to earn.

His family had arrived in Kendall City relatively late and failed to obtain good land near Kendall City, and his family members were unwilling to live far from the town on a farm at a distance from the city.

Thus, his father had to run to a piece of the family's land far away to work every day, while his mother had to make small ornaments out of wood and cloth at home to earn some money.

Among the children in the family, he was the oldest, and as the eldest son, he had to shoulder the heavy burdens of the family.

Fortunately, a few years ago during militia training, while he was clearing stones from the fields, he saw the chaotic training of the militia at the time and, thinking it was nothing special, voiced his mockery of those militiamen.

This angered the adult militiamen who had come from various villages to train, leading to a conflict, and in the end, he had no choice but to engage in a mock battle with those humiliated militiamen.

The militiamen, who had originally intended to teach him a lesson, ended up being beaten black and blue by this lad who had just reached adulthood, which also caught the attention of Knight Kela, who was presiding over the training.

Knight Kela bet him one Gold Coin that if he could win against one of his town guards, he could win a Gold Coin from him; if he lost, he would have to kneel and apologize to the militiamen he had defeated, and he would not be allowed to approach the vicinity of the militia training again.

As it turned out, that very day, Knight Kela had to send someone back to the city to fetch another bag of Gold Coins to pay the bet.

As for Waru's family, who had originally been crammed into a single rented room, they moved into a small house on the edge of the wealthy district a few days later. With the arrangements of the elders in their family, the Gold Coins won that day were used not only to purchase a house large enough for the whole family to live in but also to buy a batch of high-quality fields near the city.

Logically speaking, at that time, their family should have been considered to have a small amount of assets with this money, but Waru's father was targeted. The gangs in the city heard this news, which sounded amazing, and with honeyed words, he fell into the trap of the city's gambling dens in no time.

By the next morning, his father had lost all the money the family had, except for the house and the newly purchased land, on the gambling table.

Just like that, the Waru family had to go back to honestly farming and working to make a living.

Waru himself joined the Kendall City Guard, which had been recruiting him; there was no worry about food or drink there, the work was leisurely, and the monthly salary was decent.

After Jier became familiar with Waru's basic offensive patterns, he let Waru defend while he tried to apply the offensive patterns he had just learned against Waru.

For one, he could become familiar with these more powerful offensive patterns of Waru's, and for another, he could see how Waru defended against his own moves.

Jier thrust the wooden pole forward along the ground, and after closing the distance, he struck the pole upward violently; Waru nimbly dodged this strike with a sidestep, and then, after Jier's wooden pole reached its highest point, the wooden pole in his hand pressed down, directly cutting off Jier's follow-up offensive.

Jier gripped the middle section of the wooden pole, and after getting close to Waru, he swung the wooden pole along with the rotation of his body, forcing Waru to retreat.

However, Waru only retreated two steps, and after opening up a suitable attack distance, he immediately sent the wooden pole in his hand forward, aiming directly at the center of Jier's chest.

Jier originally didn't want to block, but he vaguely felt that this move of Waru's was a bit strange, so he still chose the safe route: while stepping back, he stopped the wooden pole that was swinging and rotating around his body to parry Waru's strike.

Unexpectedly, when Jier nimbly parried the strike, he discovered that Waru's strike was just a feint, and Waru opposite him laughed very happily: "Jier! You were scared! Haha."

This sentence made Jier immediately realize that during practice, he had always placed himself a level below Waru, subconsciously thinking he couldn't beat Waru; sure enough, in the clash just now, the opponent had made an unusual move without any frills, yet Jier's side had assumed Waru must be hiding a finishing move and had actively abandoned his offensive advantage.

Realizing this, Jier charged forward again, using the same old routine; with the swinging and waving of the wooden pole in his palms and wrists, he quickly approached Waru's body.

As long as he didn't make any mistakes in his own movements and advanced fast enough, not giving the opponent space to execute moves, he would have the upper hand.

And this time, he would no longer fall for Waru's tricks; unless the opponent truly broke this move, other feints and real moves would no longer be of any use.

Unexpectedly, Waru changed his previous behavior; instead of opening up distance from the approaching Jier, he went into a half-squat, with one end of the wooden pole in his hand braced against the ground and the other pointing directly at Jier, who was closing in.

Jier, who was continuously swinging and waving the wooden pole in his hand, couldn't stop and thus crashed right into Waru's wooden pole. As a result, because one end of Waru's wooden pole was braced against the ground, it had a very stable point of force, and in the collision with the wooden pole in Jier's hand, it remained steady without shaking. Instead, Jier's wooden pole flew out of his hand under the impact.

The thrown wooden pole spun and landed in the donkey pen in the backyard, causing some donkeys that were curiously watching the scene to be startled and start braying.

Jier had to run over to soothe the frightened donkeys; fortunately, when he came over to practice in the mornings, he sometimes felt it was convenient to add water to the donkeys' stone troughs for them to drink.

These donkeys knew Jier and recognized him. So, they were relatively accepting of Jier's soothing, and they soon calmed down.

Upstairs at the Merchant Guild next door, some of the shop assistants who were watching Jier and Waru's training laughed out loud; they had recently heard various stories about Jier, all about Jier defeating various opponents, but they hadn't expected that today in the backyard, he would be defeated one after another by a city gate guard.

A Merchant Guild steward who had heard the story of Knight Kela losing a large sum of money to a commoner lad a few years ago recognized Waru, this young man with great talent for the long spear, and hurriedly shared the story with the other shop assistants who didn't know.

Only then did everyone understand that it wasn't that Jier wasn't powerful, but that his opponent, the guard Waru, was simply too powerful with the long spear.

For some time afterward, Jier and Waru took turns as attacker and defender. Waru hadn't sparred with anyone for a long time, and this practice made him overly happy. As for Jier, he was constantly correcting the various small mistakes he made in combat during the repeated sparring sessions, while rapidly learning Waru's various offensive and defensive routines; as for Waru's combat thinking and awareness, that was something Jier found difficult to master.

After all, he didn't use the long spear as his primary offensive weapon. With that new shield, his combat focus had to be placed on sword and shield; after all, the combat advantage of sword and shield was that it was very powerful in dealing with various situations, which was very suitable for someone like him who often had to go out on adventures.

The combat advantage of the long spear, however, was that it was the weapon with the highest attack distance and range, excluding projectile weapons. Facing various beasts and monsters, it had the advantage of the first strike and safety.

After all, beasts and monsters rarely had attack methods longer than a long spear. Most of them relied on their own bodies and instincts to fight.

Soon, it was noon.

Jier was exhausted and had no strength left, and so was Waru. Although Waru had held the advantage in all the previous fights, his physical strength had been consumed in earnest.

Compared to Waru, who had also exhausted his physical strength, Jier rested for a while leaning against the steps in the backyard and quickly recovered his energy.

Seeing that the sun was getting late, Jier ended this martial arts practice with Waru.

He handed the prepared bag of copper coins to Waru, and Waru weighed the bag and went home happily.

Although the sun in the sky was at its noon position, the ground in winter didn't have a shred of warmth. The ravenous Jier put away the two wooden poles used for practice, ate a big meal in the dining hall, and returned to his room to sleep for a while.

In the afternoon, he ordered two sets of close-fitting soft sheepskin inner armor at the tailor shop where he had previously ordered the wolf-fur cloak. Compared to hard cowhide armor, iron armor was heavier, and the hard metal surface also caused significant wear and tear to the clothes he wore inside the armor.

Not wanting to have a set of clothes worn out by the armor every time he wore it, Jier had no choice but to buy two sets of these.

The owner of the tailor shop was quite interested in what Jier had ordered; the last time Jier had him process and make many sets of wolf-fur cloaks, he had already become somewhat famous. Because his friends had all seen the wolf-fur cloaks made here being worn by the city gate guards.

People who left the city would see the city gate guards every day, and in this way, those who knew him all knew that he could make these practical warm cloaks to be worn over clothes in winter.

It was just that the raw materials for this kind of cloak were hard to come by. After all, the Wild Wolves in winter were very ferocious existences. No one dared to encounter those gregarious beasts in the wild, let alone hunt them. After all, even that female knight in the city and her team of hunters couldn't take down the large packs of wild wolves ravaging near Umi Lake Village.

Settling for the next best thing, everyone set their sights on domestic livestock.

The body size of a domestic dog was too small; it was fine to piece a few together to make a mattress, but to make a cloak, one had to use a whole piece of hide to make it look authentic.

Therefore, families who had members who needed to be active outside the house all day long chose sheepskin as a substitute.

An old sheep was just about enough to cover a person's main torso; if it was a bit short, then it had to rely on the tailor's exquisite sewing skills to skillfully fill in with some other animal hides or cloth.

Jier and the owner of the tailor shop drank dried flower tea while drawing the design of the soft sheepskin inner armor on the blueprint.

Looking at the inner armor design on the blueprint, Jier suddenly had an idea; perhaps he could make a set of frame-style load-bearing clothing specifically to be paired with the iron armor outside the inner armor.

While letting the tailor boss measure and record the various widths of his body, Jier pondered the feasibility of this idea.

"So, boss, when can this thing be finished?" Jier asked after the boss finished measuring the data, having recorded his height, leg length, arm length, waist circumference, and arm thickness on the Inner Armor blueprint.

After recording all the data in one go, the tailor boss replied to Jier's question: "If I have the materials, I can find someone to start working on it tomorrow. However, sheepskin has been in short supply lately, so I have to go to the farms outside the city to collect some. I'll have to wait until I return before I can start the trial production."

"That's fine. Here is the deposit, keep it safe. Since it won't be ready so soon, I'll come back to pick it up after a while. Farewell then."

"Take care on your way, I will definitely finish it as soon as possible."

After taking his leave and departing the tailor shop, Jier hurried over to Ganna's armor workshop.

Ganna had already started forging the Faceplate for the Helmet; compared to the previous Faceplate which was made of iron, he was using steel with better performance to craft this one.

After hammering out the prototype of the Faceplate, Ganna placed another piece of metal material into the furnace to heat, then turned around to speak with Jier.

Jier told Ganna about the method he had just thought of. Although Ganna's eyes lit up, he still found it difficult.

After all, he was only a young Craftsman who had just entered the field of armor making. Although his master was very experienced, he was only perfunctorily fulfilling his agreement with the Kendall Baron and had not been coming by much lately.

Everything had to be figured out by Ganna himself.

Regarding the method Jier proposed, although Ganna thought it was good, he didn't know if it would work for the time being, and as for how to do it specifically, he had no sample and didn't know what to start with.

Hearing Ganna's confusion, Jier took out the blueprint directly and used a Charcoal Pencil to draw a rough shape of what he was considering on it.

First was the soft sheepskin Inner Armor ordered previously, then the parts for the new armor, and then the load-bearing garment with a sense of framework that he had conceived.

The so-called sense of framework meant that the subsequent iron armor parts would be directly connected to this frame, and this frame would be fixed onto the sheepskin Inner Armor through things like tighten-able leather straps.

Such a set of things, separated from each other yet connected together, although looking troublesome, did indeed eliminate some of the drawbacks of armor directly contacting the body.

In this way, the connecting parts of the armor could be made a bit rougher, and the possibility for error tolerance was also widened.

Even if Ganna lacked experience and the simple iron armor connection structure he created was inconvenient, it would not cause more obstruction to his body. Moreover, the weight of the armor could also be layered and decomposed through this thing, allowing more parts of the body to make contact.

Ganna looked at the blueprint Jier drew, discussed it with Jier for a long time, pondered for a while, and also proposed some of his own improvement plans. Jier moved away from the position in front of the blueprint, let Ganna sit down, and listened to the improvement plans of his Craftsman friend.

"First of all, I think the method of the Inner Armor you mentioned is fine, but its connection part with this load-bearing garment cannot be connected with leather straps." Ganna said, pointing to the two connection points Jier drew on the blueprint.

"Why?" Jier asked curiously, as he felt that using leather straps would be fine.

"Have you thought about it? Putting on the Inner Armor first, then the load-bearing garment, and then installing armor parts on the load-bearing garment—isn't that a bit too troublesome?" Ganna said while curling his fingers; for every point he made, he curled one finger.

Jier smiled; looking at it this way, it was indeed quite troublesome. Then a flash of inspiration struck him: "You mean, we can connect this load-bearing garment with the Inner Armor? Make it into one piece of clothing?"

Ganna nodded; that was what he meant.

"Secondly, if we do it this way, this combination of the load-bearing garment and the Inner Armor can be considered half an armor. Does it need some protection?"

Regarding this question, Jier thought for a while and felt it was unnecessary, but strengthening the overall integrity of the Inner Armor was a must.

Otherwise, after wearing the full set of armor, if he made a move and the Inner Armor inside tore apart, that would be bad.

Afterward, Jier and Ganna each came up with some concepts to solve the problem of the connections between the armor parts. Since the main weight of each armor part was shared by the Inner Armor, there was no need to consider the load-bearing issue for the protective connections between the various armor parts; they only needed to provide closed protection between each other.

Jier's drawing ability was decent; he drew out what he envisioned. Without considering the iron armor parts for now, the shape of the Inner Armor with the main load-bearing capacity appeared on a new sheet of paper.

Looking at this new Inner Armor design, Jier asked Ganna to forge the metal parts other than the leather and cloth based on this, while he had to go to the previous tailor shop and have them craft the Inner Armor according to his new blueprint.

Jier copied another version of this blueprint and wrote down the various points to note for this new Inner Armor in the blank spaces on the paper using text.

After bidding farewell to Ganna, Jier took advantage of the fact that it wasn't dark yet and hurried to the tailor shop in the Wild Grape Market of the slum district.

"Jier, what's wrong? Is there anything that needs to be modified?" The tailor shop boss was looking at the previous blueprint when he saw Jier return.

"Hehe, I discussed it with a friend just now, and the previous soft sheepskin Inner Armor has been completely overturned and redone. Take a look, this is the new design pattern we drew." Jier rolled up the original Inner Armor blueprint, set it aside, and spread out the newly drawn blueprint on the table.

The tailor shop boss looked at this drastically changed Inner Armor; his expression was first surprised, then helpless. He pointed to the various metal parts and high-strength hard leather parts on the Inner Armor and said: "I can't make these things here. You have to go to those people in the Craftsman District."

Jier smiled: "It's fine. I will go to the relevant Craftsmen to handle the relevant parts; you only need to complete the parts of this that are easy to handle and sew, the soft sheepskin material."

The tailor shop boss looked at the new blueprint and felt that although the new blueprint was complex, the things he needed to handle had actually become fewer, so he nodded and put away the new blueprint.

Seeing that the tailor boss agreed to the new blueprint plan, Jier bid farewell and left.

Tomorrow, he planned to go out and see what that thing that repeatedly caused people to go missing on the road in the west of Kendall City really was—whether it was human, ghost, or Monster.