Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 47 Changes

   After returning from Qianmin Street, Lieutenant Colonel Field held the first general officer meeting of the Military Police Department of the Army Headquarters in Moritz's apartment.

  Number of participants: three;

   Moderator: Lieutenant Colonel Field;

  Clerk: Warrant Lieutenant Montagne.

  [Because Major Moritz's hearing has not been restored, what was said to Major Moritz in the previous chapter and this chapter are all written down by Winters and shown to Major Moritz, and will not be repeated. ]

   "Senior, there are only three of us. The major can't hear anything, so you don't have to be so serious, right?" Winters said with tears and laughter as he buried himself in writing the minutes of the meeting. He had already started calling him senior. After going to Qianmin Street once, he became a little closer to the two regular officers of the Gendarmerie.

"This is the first general meeting of officers in the military police department, of course it has to be formal." Field said with a smile: "If you want to hold a general meeting of all officers, you need at least three officers. Before, there were only me and Moritz in the military police department. This meeting can't be held. Now adding you, there are exactly three... Hey, don't record these words in the meeting minutes."

   Winters began to tick off the words he just recorded: "Does the warrant officer count? I'm not an official officer yet."

   "The "Regulations" do not stipulate that warrant officers are not counted, so don't be so rigid. Apprenticeships are just a process."

   "I take the liberty to ask, haven't you been a trainee officer before me?"

   "Haha, no."

   Moritz, curled up on the recliner under a thin blanket, snored at an untimely time. Although the major temporarily lost his hearing and could only perceive some vague sounds through bone conduction, his sleep quality was better because of this.

  Field smashed his hat in Moritz's face in dissatisfaction.

Major    woke up, wiped his saliva, sat up, and asked at a loss, "Is the meeting over?"

   "[The swear words that would make the saint in the portrait cover his ears]...and don't put swear words on the minutes!"

   "Okay." Winters ticked off the words he had just written again.

   After some sorting out, the first all officers' meeting of the Military Police Department of the Army Headquarters finally started in a tense, serious and lively atmosphere.

   In addition to making the lieutenant colonel addicted, this meeting was about one thing: saving the careers of the two colonels. To prevent them from being kicked from the current cold bench to a colder bench one day in the future - such as the war history office.

  In the Cenas Alliance, the military systematically made it almost impossible to dismiss an officer. So officers who make mistakes are usually kicked down a few ranks and then kicked to the bench. This indirectly caused the war histories of the republic armies to read sour.

  Don't worry about Winters, he is only a trainee officer now, and even if the case is overturned in the future, he will not be involved. But Field and Moritz were two alumni who treated him well, so he wanted to do his part in the careers of both seniors.

Lieutenant Colonel    ordered Moritz and Winters to stop forming small groups, and to report to him completely and without concealment everything they saw and heard at the dock that day.

   It's actually Moritz's fault for this incident. The major and Winters said they would discuss secretly, and Winters kept silent and waited for the major to come to him. As a result, after leaving the customs prison, two bottles of spirits were eaten, and Moritz forgot about it.

   So it is only now that Field has learned from two key eyewitnesses what happened on the dock that day.

   "You mean there might be a spellcaster in the dead?"

   "I'm not sure, but I think that person should have used deviance."

"It would be interesting if the one who died was a spellcaster." Lieutenant Colonel Field's expression also became solemn: "There are more than a dozen spellcasters in the Marine Blue Army, and whoever is missing can be found out, I will check this matter. …And the Assassins among the dockers?”

"right."

   "Not wearing a mask?"

"No."

   "Do you remember what it looks like?"

But the faces of those assassins who pretended to be dockworkers were so ordinary, so ordinary that they had no features at all. Winters couldn't explain them clearly after describing them for a long time. An assassin was standing in front of me, I could recognize it, but I really couldn't understand it by words alone."

"There are familiar faces among the porters. They should remember something. Hmph, there are a few people at the dock who are in control, and they can't be porters if they have the strength. Whoever introduces them, who guarantees them, Just check it out."

   Winters suddenly remembered the swift sword he had snatched up: "I snatched an assassin's sword. When the assassin blew up the pier, the sword fell into the water. Do you want someone to fish it?"

"You can hire some good sailors to fish it tomorrow." Field's right fingers tapped on the wine glass unconsciously, he frowned for a while, and said, "You can try, but I guess it should be swept away by the tide."

   "And the gun. I kicked one of the assassin's guns into the water. The assassin's gun is weird and can be fired without a arquebus. And it's short enough to be used with one hand."

   "Isn't the **** talking? Someone charged a few reed guns at an exorbitant price." Field said as a matter of course.

   Winterstache: "What is a reed gun? First time I heard of it."

"I haven't heard of normal. The reed gun is a newly invented gun in the north. It uses a machine bracket instead of a match to ignite. It's been a few days after it was introduced to Hailan. It's still a rare thing, and I don't have it either." Lieutenant Colonel Field tried Dip a finger in the wine to draw a schematic diagram on the table, but failed: "If you have the real thing, you can understand it at a glance."

   After researching for a long time, two investigation directions were finally determined. One was to investigate the recent disappearance and death of the Marine Blue Army casters;

   There are two other clues that Field doesn't have much hope for: the sword and gun the Assassin had dropped into the sea; and the Brotherhood of Coachmen who may have helped the Assassin deal with the carriage.

  Although there has not been any real progress, at least it is no longer as clueless as before, which is gratifying.

  Major Moritz's sick leave was cancelled by Field. The lieutenant colonel's original words were: "If you continue to leave, you will be choked to death by your own vomit sooner or later. You should go back to the headquarters and be on duty."

   Carrying ten steel cones given by the major, plus a target plate, Winters was excited to start practicing the flying arrow technique when he returned home.

According to Major Moritz, the target plate should be hung ten steps away first. On the premise of ensuring the power, when can the ten arrows be used to hit the silver coins more than eight times, and then push the target plate five steps away, and gradually increase distance.

   But he remembered that he was going to visit Benwei's house again, so he put away the training equipment again. Taking the flour and meat that Mother Marita had bought as gifts, they rode straight to Ben Venuto's house.

When    was still in elementary school, Winters would often go to Benway's for "dock meals". Dock rice, as the name suggests, is the food that the dock workers eat, heavy oil and salt—and then sugar began to be heavy again when sugar was cheap. Most people are not used to eating, but the workers have the strength to work when they eat this kind of food.

   Winters especially likes this kind of food with heavy oil, salt and sugar, but Kesha generally doesn’t make this kind of food, and Winters is not allowed to eat too much. So Winters secretly went to Benway's house to satisfy his cravings, and Benway's mother never mind putting an extra plate for Winters.

  The place where Ben Venuto lives is not far from the pier, but compared to the bustling pier, the neighborhood of the dock workers is not so beautiful. The whole piece of low wooden houses is connected together, and the dirt road paved with cinders is muddy whenever it rains.

  Benway's family of twenty-two—if Winters had gone to the Commonwealth and his family hadn't grown any more in the last few years—lived in two little houses next to each other. The walls of the two originally independent houses were opened up, and the children grew up. The small courtyard behind the original house was converted into a shed, and an attic was added on the roof of the bungalow.

  Benwei's elders are all Va'en people, who fled to Hailan to escape the war more than 30 years ago. Vine people generally have a strong sense of family, they like to get together when they are prosperous, but they hold tighter when they are unlucky.

   It's hard to say it's because of some kind of strong brotherhood, but a valuable lesson from the hard days that a family must be united in order to survive.

   So Benwei's family is not only his parents and siblings, but also his cousins ​​and siblings. Although a large family lives in two houses, although it is very crowded, it also has a different kind of warmth.

   But Winters, who happily rode to the Benwei house, was surprised to find that the Benwei house was empty now, and there was no one in the lively house.

   "Moved?" Winters was dumbfounded. He thought, "No, Ben Weiming said he didn't move."

  The doors of the two houses were locked. Looking in through the gaps in the door panels, it was dark inside, and nothing could be seen.

   Winters knocked on the door of Benway's neighbor's house, and an old man opened a crack and stared at Winters vigilantly.

   "Sir, where are the people next door?"

   The old man looked at Winters' saber and then at Winters' boots, and said in a hoarse voice, "Don't ask me if I don't know anything."

   At this time, Winters only changed back to the military boots, not the military uniform, and was still wearing the clothes he went to the sneaker's street. He thought to himself: Could it be that this old man treats me as a bad person?

   The old man was about to close the door after he had finished speaking. Winters hurriedly stretched out his foot and jammed the door, explaining, "I'm a friend of Ben Venuto."

   "Friend? Do you take me for an old idiot?" The old man said sarcastically, "How could Benwei have friends like you in military boots."

   A stick came out from the crack of the door, Winters took a step back, and the old man took advantage of the switch to close the door. No matter how much Winters knocked, it would not open again.

   The atmosphere on the street also began to change, something Winters was keenly aware of. There was not a single pedestrian on the dirt road between the two rows of houses. The hostess closed the doors and windows one after another and drove the children who were playing on the street back home.

   Winters could feel a pair of watchful eyes staring at him behind the wooden window.

   He knocked on another neighbor's door, and the knock echoed in the hallway of the house. No one opened the door, but Winters was sure someone was at the door.

   He asked softly towards the crack of the door: "I am a classmate at the Benvenuto Army Junior School. Could you please tell me what happened to his house? I will do my best to help him."

   Still no one answered.

   "Then please help me deliver these things to Benwei." Winters put the meat and flour he brought at the door of the neighbor's house and stepped on the forcible spin to go home.

"Something must have happened to Benwei's house, or maybe someone was hiding." Winters thought to himself: "Looking at the attitude of these neighbors, Benwei should be fine. The old man said 'you' and 'the one in military boots'. '? Could it be that some soldiers are looking for trouble for Benwei? Maybe I can ask the **** in the sneaky street to check?"

  ——cut——

Enduring the phantom limb pain, he picked up the steel cone for practice from the ground. After self-testing, Winters came to the conclusion that with this weight of the steel cone, he could only use the arrows twelve times with all his strength. The power of the launched steel cone will be greatly attenuated.

   With all his strength, without considering the power, he can use the flying arrow technique twenty-nine times. If he tried to continue, the phantom limb pain would be so intense that Winters could not enter the spellcasting state.

   This is probably the limit state that Major Moritz said.

   However, after Winters discovered the fire in the Victory Arsenal, his haste spells seemed to have improved a bit compared to before. He had no hard evidence, just a vague feeling.

   Could it be that using spells beyond the limit can more effectively improve your spell ability?

   This question may have to be answered by asking a few other spellcasters who, like Winters, were unconscious that day.

   And Winters considers that if he is practicing on his own, this level is already the limit. His phantom limb pain wasn't strong enough to knock him unconscious, but it kept him from continuing to cast spells.

Winters recalled the day of the fire in the arsenal. It was difficult to continue to cast spells with a little lack of concentration, but that day he had clearly reached his limit, and the phantom limb pain was so strong that it could be called torture, but still Stay in the cast state.

   He not only conjectured: "Could it be that the simultaneous use of spells by a large number of spellcasters will cause some kind of uncontrollable effect like a chorus?"

   He thought for a while. If he wanted to confirm this conjecture, he would need to convene a large number of spellcasters to reproduce the situation on the day of the fire in the arsenal. The opportunity to use so many spellcasters in a concentrated manner is rare. You can talk to your uncle about this idea, but even Antonio has to apply to the Council of Thirteen to use so many spellcasters.

   And if this conjecture is true, it is of great significance to the caster. The more valuable the news, the more cautious it should be. If you find that there might be a gold mine somewhere, it's best to check it out quietly before deciding what to do next.

   So Winters instinctively wanted to keep it a secret first, so he decided not to share this idea with anyone until he gathered more information.

   It was already night, and Winters had set up the practice room in the basement. Because he found that he was shooting targets in the bedroom, the whole family could not live in peace. Practicing magic in the yard is weird again. So in the end, I had to "hide" to the basement to practice the flying arrow technique.

   Back in the bedroom, Winters drank a glass of bitter water that Major Moritz had given him from the herbs.

Major    is right, this herb does have a sleeping effect. After drinking it for a while, Winters felt warm all over, and although there was still a vague phantom limb pain, the eyelids had begun to fight.

   He lay down on the bed, ready to rest.

   But as soon as he closed his eyes, there was a series of goosebumps outside the door. Winters reluctantly got out of bed and opened the door. The general and the general squatted at the door.

  Cats are obsessive-compulsive creatures, and many of their actions in life have no purpose, just to do something for the sake of doing something.

   If the cat wants to enter a room, it will keep scratching the door panel until someone opens it for him.

  But after the owner opens the door for the cat, it may lose interest.

   The general, who was still making a noise just now, saw Winters open the door and swaggered away. The little general was bleating and jumping happily onto Winters' bed.

   Winters was speechless, closed the door again, and lay back again.

   The little general was lying on the edge of his pillow, curled up into a small ball, as if planning to sleep here.

  No one knew when he fell asleep. Under the effect of the medicine, Winters quickly lost consciousness.

   Winters in the dream seemed to float in a dark sea with a dark sky overhead. He can't swim, but in this sea he can't drown, he can't sink.

   He just floated, floated, as if he could float until the end of time.

   Until someone smashed his chest with a sledgehammer.

   The pain was so painful that Winters couldn't help groaning.

   The man who hit him with the sledgehammer said something:

   "Meow!"

   Winters' consciousness has awakened, but his eyelids can't be opened.

   In fact, he was already more experienced in this situation, and he was sure that the little general must have jumped on him from the top of the closet again.

   The little general who was squatting on Winters' chest roared a second time, "Meow."

   This is the sound that the little general makes before the fight with the wild cat.

   Winters opened his eyes, ready to get up and get the little general out of the bedroom.

   He saw a humanoid creature crawling through the window into his bedroom.

Thanks to the social justice old man for the recommendation ticket, and thanks to the book friend 20181013204343295 for the recommendation ticket. Well, I received a listing notice today, but I only have more than 100 collections, and I have never applied for listing. Is it necessary to have 200,000 words on the shelves? ?

   In addition, cats jump on people when they are sleeping... Oh, that feeling, book lovers who own cats should all understand.

   (end of this chapter)