[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-21":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283499,4467,"Chapter 21: Chapter Twenty: The Wood Family","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-21",21,"\u003Cp>From Wendeng Port to the Wood family’s territory, if the weather is good, riding horseback takes only six or seven days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But reality always differs slightly from theory; spending nights outdoors in the wild is not merely unpleasant—it’s unsafe. That’s why both chose to depart in the morning, to gain more time to reach a distant village or town before nightfall, then set out again the next morning.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the snowmelt, some sections of the road remained muddy; only after two days of travel did they finally step onto firmer ground, their cloaks coated with a thin crust of mud. Another six days of stopping and starting through villages passed before they returned to Wood Town on the evening of the ninth day.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like most settlements, Wood Town was built near a water source, nestled in a river valley flanked by low hills, backed by mountains and facing the river, with a narrow, elongated terrain. The river’s width was about ten meters—not wide, yet difficult to cross.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Old Wood was young, the town had developed only on one side of the river; to cross, one had to detour far upstream to a shallow spot, or choose between swimming and taking a boat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Old Wood, deeply resentful of this inconvenience, used leftover stone from building the castle to construct a stone bridge across the river—a genuine public service.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now, Ryan and Kraft were crossing that stone bridge, heading through town toward the castle atop the small hill behind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The castle’s location was exceptionally comfortable. The low hill behind the town sloped gently toward Wood Town and the river, while its rear was a steep cliff face—defending against enemies approaching only from the front slope greatly reduced the need for rear defenses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the same time, this gentle slope made any assault exhausting, draining energy and eliminating the possibility of a charge upward; defenders, however, could roll downhill during counterattacks, gaining enough momentum in a short distance to fling attackers into the air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over thirty years, Old Wood first cleared the trees from the hilltop, using the timber to build a temporary wooden palisade, then erected massive stone towers as the castle’s core, surrounded by removable wooden structures: stables, workshops, and kitchens.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This phase lasted over a decade, accounting for half the entire project—until Kraft’s birth, the castle’s outer perimeter remained wooden walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The prolonged construction stemmed from economic and practical considerations. Though the territory theoretically included Wood Town and several nearby villages, and the family’s wealth was decent among minor nobles, a newly established house had more than just this one expense; Old Wood also had to provide land and livelihoods for his old comrades who returned with him, and their descendants would serve the Wood family.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wood Town was no military stronghold. A family castle could effectively deter risks—but only if those risks existed to begin with. Even if war ever broke out, no army would bother sending a detachment to attack here; a messenger sent to symbolically receive the lord’s surrender would suffice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only when the timing was right—or when Old Wood felt the family’s finances had improved—did the Wood family begin replacing the wooden palisades with proper stone curtain walls.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The smaller scale of the work allowed Old Wood to stubbornly raise the curtain wall to over three meters, and with its crenellations, it would prove highly useful once the family could afford enough crossbows and bows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The auxiliary buildings, patched and expanded over decades, were gradually replaced by the expanding towers, merging into a solid, tower-integrated fortress. At last, the entire castle matured into a nasty, hard-to-take, unnecessary-to-take nuisance—perfect as an inheritance for a family.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By the time Kraft came of age, in recent years the family had paved the road from the castle gate to the town with crushed stone, eliminating many slipping problems for horses and carts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft and Ryan followed the zigzagging path upward; the setting sun sank slowly behind the castle, casting elongated shadows across the sparse, gently sloping hillside. Future enemies would each evening be engulfed by its shadow, struggling to haul their cumbersome siege engines up the slope, wary of heavy boulders rolling down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even an otherworldly soul had to marvel at its power in the age of cold weapons: with sufficient water and food stores, it would take several times its number of men to besiege such a stone complex.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Large siege engines could never be dragged here; once the stone bridge below the river was destroyed in wartime, even getting across was a nightmare. Any wooden machines built on-site would be nearly impossible to push uphill. Then, after immense effort, they’d reach the castle gates to face a band of militia led by professional warriors—pure torment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>True enough, the Wood family maintained a standing armed force, ever vigilant. Though small—only a dozen or so men—they were mostly retired comrades who had served alongside Old Wood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Old Wood prospered, they received land and estates nearby; they, too, were men who, like Old Wood, enjoyed training the younger generation, forming a lineage of professional soldiers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The men Kraft’s father took to battle were precisely these “personal troops,” supplemented by hastily armed militia—a small army. His tragic death was sheer bad luck, not due to any lack of skill in these men trained since childhood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Kraft’s generation, young peers also trained within the castle, though most would spend their lives guarding it, never seeing the battlefield or its riches.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the dimming light, flickering torchlight could be seen at the castle gate—the night watchmen holding their torches. Faint metallic clinks echoed faintly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“John? Or George? Don’t shut the gate yet!” Kraft shouted. “No, I don’t want to wait outside while you fiddle with that damn winch.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ah, our young baron is back!” came the laughter from the other side; the metallic clinks ceased. A young face with a torch leaned over the wall. “Come in.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I warn you one last time, George—there’s only one baron here!” Kraft, on good terms with these youths—having trained together under Old Wood, and country nobles having little ceremony—added, “Don’t I have a name?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ryan and Kraft led their horses to the stables, then found Old Wood and Anderson enjoying dinner in the dining hall. By candlelight, the long table held bread, thick soup, and castle-made sausages; the white-haired elder and the balding middle-aged man sat at the table, the scene like a TV public service ad about caring for elderly villagers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“My dear Kraft, you’ve finally returned! Anderson and I were just talking about you.” The burly elder set down his bread and warmly welcomed his grandson. “And Ryan, come, sit down—you must be starving.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So you still didn’t meet that man?” When Ryan pulled out the stone hand after they’d finished eating, Old Wood suddenly remembered what Kraft had set out to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The round trip had taken nearly a month—from snowfall to thaw, half the winter had passed; had Ryan not brought back the gift, everyone might have forgotten entirely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Indeed, just a clumsy fraud—he burned his own hand and died before we even reached Wendeng Port,” Kraft crossed his arms, sighing. “Less interesting than the things Ryan bought—this hand won’t set itself on fire.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Haha, true enough,” Anderson took the hand from Old Wood, examined it, and saw nothing remarkable. “But it does look intriguing. Did the seller say where it came from?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No, but I doubt it’s from within Nos.,” Ryan kept his expression calm. “As for interesting things, look to Kraft—you’ll never guess what happened.” He paused for effect, though his grin betrayed him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Surely not that Kraft got accepted into Wendeng Port Academy?” Old Wood guessed the most absurd possibility, making Anderson laugh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What’s wrong? Why are you both silent? What’s this mysterious, interesting thing?” Anderson’s laughter halted, thinking he’d laughed at the wrong moment.\u003C\u002Fp>",1312,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","8c19a86884ee89db8978a7e5dfe52228b0f7b3cd8689b7af2acc58ffbe497eda","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-22","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-20",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]