After accompanying Hilda on a tour of the armory, weapons showroom, dungeon, storage room, and more, it was almost time for dinner. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 During the info, they met Anna, who was looking for the shield in the armory, and invited her to come along, after finding the shield, of course. Today's dinner was a fraction of their day's hunting catch, plus some stock game, a standard knight's dinner.

As military aristocrats who have been engaged in the high-risk profession of war activities all their lives, it is their disposition to be happy in time. In addition to martial arts, in general, they are also very good at eating, drinking, and having fun. Part of the fun was the hunting activities of Salian and Anna, which Hilda had already seen.

Now it's time to let Hilda know what they eat and drink, and in a knightly diner, there are usually no appetizers, and there is a saying in the Empire: he who can eat is never a coward. The knights of Tutonia were proud of their huge appetite and drinking, and were not very particular about the elaborate food, but it was necessary to have enough food.

Anna, Salian, Hilda, and Yulia, who was already in the dining room, sat around and Yulia was not seen as a servant at the family gathering. A roasted swan was served in front of Anna as an appetizer, while Salian and Yulia ate a vegetarian dish and served her a platter of her favorite game after asking Hilda.

Before anyone else could notice, Anna's empty basin had been removed. As a last resort, she can only serve her directly as the staple food, two roast dairy sheep and one roast dairy cow. As a magician who pays attention to table manners, Yulia's appetite is almost negligible, Anna is about the same as the food of two Salians, and after Hilda began to eat and drink with her mouth, Salian felt that her appetite was almost as good as Anna's, according to her own words, she was a girl who was growing her body, and she should eat too much. This made Salian feel that the cost of making Hilda a daughter was a bit too high for the time being, that is, the stage of early investment.

As for drinking, the more good the better, but Anna doesn't need any good wine, she just needs plenty of local beer and wine. And in order to please Hilda, Salian took out the "Tears of the Goddess" wine treasured in the cellar, which was a reward from the Emperor Majesty from Salian's grandfather, only the winery of the royal domain on the Veron River was produced, the Hohenstlingen family only received a total of 500 liters, and only about 10 liters were consumed every year, and today Hilda drank 10 liters, for the next few days, Salian felt very stressed.

After the meal, when the fruit was served, Salian announced the itinerary for the next few days, the two guests were entertained tomorrow as originally planned, and the day after tomorrow Salian would go to Constance to submit a mission, by the way, they could walk around the bazaar and the shopping street, and the three girls could buy some of their favorite things, this suggestion was well received by the girls, and the matter was so happily decided.

After the meal, Anna continued to go to the armory to kill time, Yulia took Hilda to see the room prepared for her, and Salian went to the study, where he and Moro still had work to do. Morrow, the important letter that arrived today, was already ready for Salian, and there were many things that he needed to decide.

The first is a letter from the Zolvík master.

After reading the letter, Salian said to Moreau: "Uncle Moreau, things are going well with Master Zolvik, and the ten thousand gold coins that Manstel gave to the Prime Minister and the Emperor's advisers through our network have not been in vain. The day before yesterday, the Emperor's Council of the Emperor had formally appointed Baron Manstel von Altmannshofen, a former member of the City Council of Konstanz, as the new Chief Mayor of Konstanz. Through this position we have obtained for him, his annual income can be increased by two thousand to three thousand guilders, not counting other hidden benefits, and I can already imagine how happy he will be when he learns this news tomorrow. In this way, we have a stronger foundation in Schwartenen, and his vote as the representative of the South West Cities Alliance is also ours. ”

After Moro nodded in agreement, he replied to Salyan, "Yes, young master, this is indeed good news. In addition, there is another news today that I don't know if it's good or bad, you look at this letter. ”

Salian took the letter, it turned out to be a military secret letter from the fortress of Sarenis, it was encrypted with alchemy according to the top secret standard, a piece of garbled code transmitted through space magic, and Salian held the translation that had been decoded. Correspondence using this method indicates the urgency of the situation.

Sure enough, the contents of this secret letter shocked Salian, to the effect that Duke Kerzen had made a secret pact with the neighboring Kingdom of Gniezno, a neighbor to the northeast of the Divine Grace Empire. The secret treaty stipulates that the current old king of the Kingdom of Ingniezno, Eastlau II, who has no heirs, will welcome the current Duke of Kerzen, Moritz von Eppenzel, as the ****, and can inherit his throne of Gniezno after the death of the old king.

This secret contract was obtained by Dietrich, Salian's uncle who remained in the territory of New Mac, through a high-ranking agent who was lurking around the Duke of Kirzen. In order to guard against this most ambitious neighbor near the Novomark Territory, Dietrich spent no less, and now it has finally paid off.

"Young Master, if something really happens, it will be very bad for us, our New Mark Territory will be surrounded by Duke Kerzen's territory from due east to southwest, this is a very serious situation. ”

Salian held his chin and thought for a moment, then raised his head and said to Moreau, "Uncle Moreau, this matter has been good news for us at least recently. Listen to me, this secret treaty should be known only to us except for the two parties to the treaty, and in due course we will inform our common neighbor with Gniezno, the Knights of the Brotherhood of the Sword in the easternmost part of the empire, and I believe that the Grand Master of the Knights who learned of the contents of this secret treaty will be more disturbed than us, because the territory of the Knights is almost completely deep into Gniezno, like a dagger piercing Gniezno's heart. Gniezno has always had the idea of annexing the entire Order, but fortunately we have always supported the Order. ”

"Now that Kerzen and Gniezno are united, if the Duke can go one step further to become Emperor, then the Knights' realm will rightfully be appropriated by him in the name of obstructing the affairs of the Empire, or some other excuse. With the Kingdom of Gniezno, which has deep contradictions with the Knights, this kind of excuse is not difficult to find, and at that time, all imperial ranks will not be able to be enemies of the emperor, and we will not be able to interfere. Salian paused to take a sip and continued.

"As long as this news is brought to the attention of Mr. Grand Master at the right time, the Knights will support our candidate at the hierarchical meeting to elect the Emperor, for they know that I will never support the election of the Duke of Kirzen, who has a conflict of interest with me, and that only by supporting us can we keep ourselves. But remember not to leak the news too soon, no one here knows about this except you, right?"

After listening carefully to Salian's words, Morrow replied, "Of course, this is translated by my own hand, and on the other side is a secret document made by your uncle Dietrich himself with alchemy. ”

"That's good, I hope this news can get us another important vote, the Knights of the Brotherhood of the Sword are the rank of the princes of the church, the Grand Master has an independent vote, and he must not give up, and all the counts of Schwartenen together are only one vote for the division of the Earl's Council. ”

"One more point, if there are more votes for the election of the Duke of Kirzen, we can also make this secret pact completely public through our agents. In this case, I believe that most of the imperial ranks will be unhappy, and no one will like an emperor who is too strong. ”

After the discussion was settled, Salian lit the paper in his hand with the candle on the desk, and continued: "Unfortunately, the Duke of Kirzen's dream has been known to us, so this secret contract will become his nightmare, hahahaha!"

The burning piece of paper floated wonderfully from Sallian's hand, and he watched intently as it slowly became engulfed in flames as it flew alone, until even the last of the dust had cleared, and Salian said to Morrow, "If there is nothing else to do, I will rest, and I am tired from hunting today." ”

Then, after Moreau bowed and retired, Salian did not rush to sleep, he turned a weapon on the wall of the study, but this time it was not the sword, but a shield, and used it to open another secret door in the study, which led to the weapons showroom and the secret study, both of which were the private space of the castle owner. Here are the most important secrets of the Hohenstringen family, or novelties and books that are of interest to each generation of patriarchs.

Salian first came to the weapons exhibition room, in addition to the various high-level magic weapons and props displayed in the crystal glass cover, the most eye-catching thing here is the new magic gun placed on a huge experimental table, this kind of magic equipment that can be used by ordinary people without a mage, and can be used by ordinary people only a few times of training, but the armor on the horror knights has changed from chain mail to heavy plate armor. Now it's one of Salian's favorite toys and research objects.

The latest model, which he improved, had a diameter of 20 millimeters, a steel pipe 600 millimeters long, a wooden handle 900 millimeters long, and a total length of 1.5 meters. Its principle is to use the trigger mounted on the handle of the gun to push a special high-density magic crystal placed on the serpentine rod into the medicine chamber at the back of the metal gun tube, and stimulate the "magic explosion powder" stored in it made of three different attributes of magic crystal powder, so as to form a strong thrust to launch the lead bullet in the gun at high speed. This greatly improved "one-style" magic gun of Salian can pierce through a two-millimeter-thick sheet of homogeneous steel with a 30-gram lead bullet from a distance of ninety paces.

Of course, there are many disadvantages to the magic gun. For example, because it is impossible to seal the barrel and lead bullet, some energy is wasted, and the accuracy is also poor. The reliability is very low, because the "magic explosion powder" technology is not yet mature, it is still difficult to control, easy to explode, or block the barrel and affect the life. In addition, even the most skilled master will need twelve steps to operate it, and he can only shoot a maximum of two shots per minute. And the range is limited, and it is completely incomparable with bows and arrows. You must know that the sniper archers of the strongest Long-eared Mountain Forest Kingdom at that time could use a two-meter long bow to fire three arrows in a row from two hundred meters away, and these three arrows could also hit a target at the same time, and the strongest of those ace archers could shoot at a range of three hundred meters.

But Salian knew very well that this was a weapon that could change the entire shape of warfare. It has a lot of room for improvement, and its range, accuracy, and power are constantly improving, and when its reliability is improved and the cost is reduced, it will definitely become popular. It cost Salian a lot of money to improve the toy, and alas, the wide range of hobbies brought about a rapid drain on money. Fortunately, this thing is not a waste, and you can make a fortune with peace of mind after mass production, Salian said to himself in his heart.

After playing with the toy for a while, Salian sat down at his research table, which was covered with drawings of magic guns and ruler drawing tools, which he didn't have the energy to do today. He just took out the dagger he had just hunted, the crystal of the strange ox, and the synthetic magic crystal, and wanted to take a good look at them before he went to sleep.

According to some of Salian's memories from the necromancer, this magic crystal is the magic encyclopedia of an outstanding necromancer in history, and it is an extremely precious treasure for the current dark mage.

Although Salian's ability to control the genre can read some of the memories of his opponents, he is not a professional master of spiritual magic, and some top figures are even able to copy and modify the memories of specific subjects. Compared to them, the Terror Knights can only roughly grasp some memories in the opponent's mind, so they can't directly learn the opponent's various skills, and they still have to learn it on their own.

He placed the magic crystal on the central tray of the all-in-one magic analyzer (second generation) that Dietrich had given him, and tried to unlock the seal of the magic crystal with several different energy fluctuations.

He also tested his magic affinity when he was a child, but unfortunately, like most horror knights, since he already has the extraordinary talent of willpower, it is indeed too greedy to be endowed with another talent, and his magic affinity is not surprisingly low. The only consolation is that his mental power is very strong, and combined with willpower, it is the best talent for cultivating the Terror Knight Control School.

While he was thinking about it, the All-Effect Magic Parser (2nd Generation) was also trying to break the seal of the crystal with various powers. It's a pity that God doesn't fulfill people's wishes, no matter what means can't lift the seal of this magic crystal, it seems that the magic crystal can only be honestly sold to the Magicians' Guild in Constance, and there will definitely be people there who want it.

After giving up the study of the magic crystal, Salian focused his attention on the magic dagger, which the adult black dragon entrusted to the necromancer along with the egg before he died, and the true origin of the dagger could not be found from the mage's memory, because the dragons love to collect treasures, and at the same time have a long life, so they can only guess its age from the shape.

Salian attached a pair of magic monocles to his left eye, a rare magic item that could be used to magnify what he saw tenfold, and he carefully examined every detail on the dagger, studying it as an archaeological subject, but found no useful clues. Because books such as "The Great Illustrated Book of Ancient Weapons" are not available to Salian, and can only be found in the Royal Library or the Academy of Magic, it seems that they can only exchange it for rewards with the Adventurers' Association first, and then take it back and study it slowly.

Finally, there is the crystal obtained from the body of the strange cow, which should be called the magic core in more scientific terms, a source of monster power, which can generally only be found in the stronger demon objects above the fourth level. Research in this area is still extremely backward, and high-level monsters are not so easy to kill. Salian was even more clueless about this, so he had to find a place in the weapons showroom and put it away.

Before going to bed, he read for a while in his secret study the Meditations of the Stoic Emperor Aurelius, which Moreau had brought to him, to refine his mind, and this contraband, which was strictly restricted by the Church, allowed him to sleep better.