At three o'clock in the afternoon of November 22, 1621, the two airships that Roland had sent to Icewind Dale were still on their way, and the letters sent by the "McManus Magic Fax Machine" had been delivered to Bloom Wrought Iron.

With an average altitude of 3,000 feet, the Crest Plateau is a natural boundary marker dividing the Far East from the north. The climate of the plateau area is cold, and at the end of November it is the middle of winter when the snow is falling, and the "Ice Wind Valley" is like its name, with ice and snow everywhere, the north wind is howling, and there are no people for hundreds of miles.

However, in this freezing environment, a special unit belonging to the Kolath Legion is conducting daily training.

"Hurry up! Bastard, fall behind again, believe it or not, kick your ass! ”

"Rush over that hill! Don't worry, just rush over! Your mechanical armor is strong enough to fall is no big deal! ”

"Watch out for skis! If you're dexterous enough, you'll be able to navigate the snowy mountains with the help of these two 'steel duck flippers'! ”

A whole hundred mechanical armors are being trained in the snowy mountains, and the silver paint is very confusing, almost blending in with the background of the silver coating. Each machine armor is assigned two pilots, the main engine is responsible for maneuvering the machine armor to complete the tactical actions specified by the instructor, and the assistant pilot is responsible for reconnaissance and communication liaison. Not only are these modified Yangbo mechs more suitable for land combat, but they are also equipped with a new magic guide intercom in the cabin, so that the instructor can easily give instant instruction to each mechanical armor, and the assistant pilot has to endure the instructor's angry roar all day long.

In addition to the 200 pilots who are being trained, the 2nd Armored Knights also has a maintenance battalion and 300 dwarven mechanics on standby to provide meticulous services to these expensive steel giants.

It has been less than a year since the establishment of the Second Armored Knights Regiment, but the regimental commander and chief instructor Bloom Wrought Iron is very confident in the unit he has personally trained, and has claimed more than once that although the Second Armored Knights Regiment is a little less qualified than the first regiment, its combat effectiveness is much stronger than the first regiment.

The dwarven drunken boast can't be taken seriously, but Bloom does have a reason to be proud.

The Kingdom of Kolas currently has two special units with "mechanical armor" as a vehicle and combat platform, that is, the "Far Eastern Armored Knights", of which the first regiment is directly under the command of Crown Prince Roland Kolas, and the high-level elven ranger Flanis from Eagle Island serves as an instructor, selecting pilots from elves and half-elves, and the candidates first ensure that the agility attribute is passed, and the flexibility is far beyond ordinary people, and then the height, weight, strength and physique and other links are screened. The Second Armored Knights selected pilots in the opposite direction, using Icewind Dale as a base to select pilots from among the dwarves, first ensuring that the conditions such as height, weight, and physique met the criteria, and then screening them for flexibility.

Dwarves are generally short, have a low center of gravity, a stable lower plate, a strong physique, thick skin, are born with dark vision, and have a strong resistance to dizziness caused by bumps and concussions...... These are all physiological advantages of driving mechanical armor. Spiritually, the Dwarves are strong-willed (rather stubborn), hard-working, disciplined, and have a racial flair for operating and repairing mechanical devices - a minor glitch in mechanical armor allows the Dwarven Pilot to do it himself without relying too much on the Mechanic.

The only threshold for dwarves to drive mechanical armor is agility, and it is difficult for a stubby and short body to make exaggerated juggling moves like an elf or a halfling, and driving mechanical armor requires a high degree of flexibility and reaction speed. However, from another point of view, the agility of the dwarves is indeed not as good as that of the elves, but from the tens of thousands of young dwarves, it is not difficult to screen out hundreds of pilots whose agility attributes meet the requirements of armored knights, in comparison, the elven population in the Far East is far less than that of the dwarves, and it is much more difficult to screen candidates who meet many criteria such as height, strength, and physique.

Bloom Wrought Iron stood at the top of a snow-covered mountain, the hatch of his exclusive mechanical armor open, letting the wind and snow blow into the cabin, staining his sideburns and beard silver white, like a serious little old man.

It's been almost two years since he returned home from his trip to the Northlands, and the Dwarven Prince of Icewind Dale seems to be more mature and stable than before, and his strength has also improved considerably, and his successful advancement to the "Dwarven Defender" is only a small achievement, and he is now focusing more on training recruits than his personal cultivation - the rookies in the valley who are driving the mechanical armor off-road march are all his students.

"Commander, it seems that the quality of the new batch of skis is not bad, and after training all day, there has been no scrapping."

Bloom's assistant pilot, Kirov Wrought Iron, was a young dwarven officer, whose handsome face, light beard, and short-sighted glasses made him seem a bit unusual, not quite in line with the usual image of a dwarf—or more appropriately prejudiced. Bloom didn't like the sissy cousin at first, but it couldn't be helped, as Kirov was a dwarven mage, a protégé of his father, the would-be legendary archmage Bratu Wrought Iron, and the "smartest dwarf" of the younger generation of the Wrought Iron family. He had to give Kirov a little face, allowing him to sit next to him and copy and write, record and organize the training data of the armored knights, and point out areas for improvement based on statistics.

After a period of time together, Bloom found Kirov's work to be quite useful, greatly improving the training efficiency of the armored knights, and greatly changed his opinion of his cousin and chief of staff of the second armored knight regiment.

Kirov's "skis" are metal attachments attached to the soles of mechanical armor, shaped like two small sampans, which can carry nearly 4 tons of mechanical armor and glide at high speed on soft snow.

Skis alone are not enough to ensure that the armored riders can pass through the mountains and mountains, especially when flying over the snow-covered slopes, the mechanical armor falls from the air at high speed, like a meteorite smashing into the snow, and along with the skis, it is not so easy to fall directly into the snow pit that is up to five feet deep.

"Moradin is on top, when are these bastards going to learn to be smarter, do they have to put a warning sign in them to remember that there's a snow pit fifty yards wide and two yards deep?"

Witnessing a succession of mechanical armor sturdy and stumbling into a puddle of snow, struggling on all fours, Bloom was angry and amused.

"It's been snowing for the past few days, the pits are full of snow, and it looks no different from flat ground, and it's understandable that the lads have made mistakes in judgment." Kirov laughed and excused his men.