Chapter 343 A New Tool (1/2)

Arran's life in thecas, he would study Captain Kaleesh's e contained within the writings It was difficult work, and at first, Arran struggled to keep his focus as he memorized the dense texts

Yet as the days passed, he slowly developed so And while he was still far froether unpleasant

Hidden within the inscrutable writings lay nuht and wisdom, and even if he only picked up on some of them, he was surprised to discover that they helped increase his understanding of the world

This wasn't just true of the captain's oritings, but also of thethe stack of manuscripts, y and tactics

Arran had previously thought of war as little e-scale battles, but now, he developed soanization that shaped and decided conflicts

Yet to his surprise, he also discovered that many of the manuscripts directly contradicted each other

Soed whenever it offered even a slight advantage, while others said battle should only be a last resort And while so decided battles, others firistics

When Arran asked Captain Kaleesh about his opinion on these questions, the ine there's soiven you those texts if I didn't think they contained wisdoht… I'd say all of them are, at tireement While he still understood less of these nized that none of the manuscripts' authors had arrived at their conclusions easily

Yet studying strategy was not all that Arran did

In the evenings, he spent his ti the sa of theress wasn't anywhere near as fast as he would have liked Although his true insight into binding and severing helped hi for, he found that only made a shts hidden within the Foran to realize how different they were from each other

Each represented a piece of understanding of the world, and each holly different from all the others And to learn the the fa so

He did not let the lack of results discourage hi-term endeavor, and he did not expect to find success any time soon But if he continued his practice, he was confident the ould eventually pay off

And then, wedged in between , there were the afternoons

Whenever his group of mercenaries wasn't down in thethe them sos

The latter bit provedthan expected While each of the borderlanders was a skilled Body Refiner and only few of the the movements of four dozen people was no si by and jeering in laughter

Yet here, Ervin showed hiined

The eant had no small amount of experience, and with his terse co before Arran's h formations

While the borderlanders'to take their proper positions, Arran knew that thethey lacked was practice But withcamp, there was still plenty of tirew accusto rarely left hiress he ood spirits were raised even further when his weapons arrived, delivered by a weaponsmith from the nearby town — a bald, brawny man who observed at Arran with curiosity as he inspected his new tools

A brief examination was all it took for Arran to know that the weapons were exactly as he'd wanted Sturdy yet well-crafted, they lacked any unnecessary decoration, their design focused purely on function rather than form

Yet even after Arran expressed his approval and unloaded the weapons fro

”Is there so?” Theone, is all” He laughed, then continued, ”It took three of us just to load it onto the cart”

At that moment, Captain Kaleesh joined the weapon, an arin appeared on the captain's face

”I wouldn'tthat, myself,” the captain said ”I've seenquite like… that”

Arran sighed, but he could not blame them for their reaction

The weapon was exactly as he'd described — a giant sword, with a six-foot blade and a footlong hilt That alone would have been enough to raise eyebrows, but the sword's blade was unlike that of a normal sword