245 Mage’s Temptation Part 2 (1/2)

Saleen was determined to keep those pirates, and Lex would certainly not oppose to it. Saleen had a good idea, but there were some technical problems. The shape of the ship’s bottom had been designed specifically against waves, and if the alchemical boat were to be dragged rigidly under it, it would not only slow the ship down, but also affect the ship’s balance.

Lex did not put forth a more appropriate idea. She merely rejected Saleen’s design and added a sturdy hook to the tail of the pirate ship, using chains to drag the secret alchemical boat made from the pan’s turtle.

Even so, dragging an alchemical boat behind them would still affect the speed of the pirate ship and would endanger them when there were storms.

By now, the pirates on the beach were completely obedient and had removed all of the things irrelevant to the voyage from the ship under Daniel’s command. A large amount of fresh water, dried vegetables, dried sliced meat, and uncooked rice were transported ashore. There were not many goods onboard, and the several hundred gold coins turned in by the pirates were given back to them by Saleen.

These gold coins only amounted to the worth of a single grade-4 magic nucleus, but the pirates had risked their lives for those coins, most of which had been taken by the former captain of the pirate ship and buried on his island.

After two heavy showers within three days and a storm that had struck close to this unnamed ghost fog island, the pirate camp had been blown to a mess. After seeing Lex’s alchemical boat nearing its desired state, Saleen went to the pirate camp, called over Jupiter, and counted the number of pirates.

Not all of the men on the pirate ship were pirates. Some of them were kidnapped sailors who had not been rescued and had no choice but to live as pirates. In fact, this was also one of the reasons that a team of pirates could be sustained. No one was born with the wish to become a pirate, and all four empires held the same attitude towards pirates: execution.

Even if those captive pirates who had lived on a pirate ship for a long time had done nothing, no one would bother to check whether they were innocent after catching them. Over time, these sailors would also become new pirates.

Saleen separated these sailors, totalling over forty, from the rest of the pirates. Saleen needed sailors, and these sailors had nowhere to go and had not become complete pirates. They were exactly the manpower that Saleen wanted.

Saleen ordered these over forty pirates to take care of the four seriously injured pirates, and put the rest of the pirates into stringent training.

Saleen knew nothing about the cultivation of sword aura, and even if he did, he could not teach so many pirates. Although the cultivation of the sword aura was not as strict as that of magic, it also needed to be inherited. One could teach themselves to become a junior swordsmaster, and after that, they would need special guidance from a teacher.

Saleen ordered Jupiter to train those pirates to cultivate their sword auras. Leaving out those injured pirates who could not partake in the training, there were one hundred and twenty-eight strong pirates in total.

After examining the weapons and armor of those pirates, Saleen was disappointed. The pirates were skilled in combat, but they had miserable equipment. He asked for over one hundred sets of leather armor from Lex and used these to replace the pirates’ old sets. Their weapons were also replaced with shorter straight knives.

In Saleen’s opinion, the pirates would not be at an advantage when it came to close combat on the sea. Pirates had stone artillery and heavy crossbows, and could attack unhurriedly after crashing into the sails or rudders of their enemies. If they needed to jump on deck and fight in close combat, those guys with no spirit of cooperation, just as Lex said, would be less useful than a squadron of cavalry.

Nevertheless, they would be the first of Saleen’s warriors. As a mage, it was normal for him to not be too skilled at this. Neither Sika nor Nailisi could help him. Sika was not good at positioned combat and knew nothing about battle at sea, and Nailisi knew little about this, even less than Saleen.

Saleen did not ask Lex for help. He simply ordered these pirates to familiarize themselves with their new armor and weapons and trained them every day on how to maintain their equipment. He also asked for ten storage boxes from Lex. This Qin army equipment required a mage apprentice to open and had the same room inside as it was seen from the outside.

The only advantage of this box was that it was completely sealed, isolating the room inside from the outside environment. Food stored in this box would never decay unless the box was broken.

Saleen chose ten young pirates to take care of these ten boxes that were filled with good dried sliced meat, not the musty goods that the pirates stored. These ten boxes of food could help the pirates survive for a longtime and maintain their fighting strength even when they could not fish.

Lex finally finished her alchemical ship, came to the seaside, and simply smiled upon seeing the pirates who had begun to possess discipline after being trained by Saleen. When it came to the actual battlefield, any small attacks by her warriors would reveal the pirates’ true strength. Saleen was only training them superficially. A true army would require several years of time to form its combat effectiveness.

In Qin, the training of a professional serviceman began at an early age. A boy would be taught martial arts at twelve, and sword aura cultivation at fourteen. A child with average talent would become a junior swordsman at sixteen and could receive the formal training of a soldier.

This process would take four years, during which those children were trained to be disciplined and could perform under the command of any professional officer. The next four years would be battle array training and cavalry training. Among all those warriors, some would be selected as archers, crossbow men, light cavalry, heavy cavalry, hoplite, and so on.

The kind of training they had been ordered to conduct by Saleen was just a joke in Lex’s eyes.

Lex called Daniel and they went on the pirate ship to repair the main mast. She had five fully constructed puppets, and together with Daniel’s death creature, they lifted the broken mast without any trouble and put it back into the place where it had used to be. Lex used a two meter long metal sleeve to fix it there, and cast a Fossilization spell for refinement.