76: Summoning, divination

Night fell, in a room on the third floor of the castle.

Lister and Red were discussing the issue of expanding the Knight Squad.

According to the laws of the kingdom, a Baron Territory is allowed to have a maximum of 50 Full Knights and 1,000 Soldiers.

This restriction is extremely loose, and it could be said that the regulations were completely relaxed to allow Baron lords to expand at will.

The reason for such loose regulations is that the royal family is certain that Baron lords cannot possess so many knights and Soldiers, and also because the royal family needs to maintain the dominant position of the knight nobility in the kingdom.

The ruling system of the kingdom is, after all, rule by knights. Every noble lord is a knight himself, or rather, belongs to the knight faction, and the King of the kingdom is the biggest knight leader of all.

The magicians of the Church are external competitors who need to be constantly suppressed.

Currently, according to the situation in Ironthorn Territory, let alone the stipulated number of knights, it is impossible to even recruit enough Soldiers.

Of course, if you truly have the capability and financial resources to support so many knights and Soldiers, you could even exceed the limit.

The royal family would not do anything to you; on the contrary, they would praise you highly and try their best to pull you into the royal faction.

However, these are things Lister can only think about now. After all, besides his ten Full Knights and one Apprentice Knight, he only has the seven cavalrymen and twenty-two infantrymen from his initial foundation.

As for the one missing cavalryman and two infantrymen, two of the infantrymen became Full Knights: Sinclair and Marjorie.

And that cavalryman is the Soldier Tony Matthew, who was previously sent to deliver a letter; thanks to Lister's reward, he has now become the only Apprentice Knight in the territory.

Although the number of both knights and Soldiers is small, in terms of strength, among all the Baron lords in the kingdom, Lister can definitely be considered very strong.

This is naturally due to the confidence brought to him by the Silver Knight Red, as well as the two High-Rank Bronze knights, Locke and Carlyle.

"Young Master Lister, because not everyone can learn the Breathing Technique, according to the current development situation in the territory, I suggest that we try our best to expand the number of Apprentice Knights to at least 20."

"If someone among them can advance to become a Full Knight, that would certainly be great, but even if they don't, they can still become the backbone of Ironthorn Territory."

"These people can first be selected from the initial group brought from the Viscount Territory. If they don't meet the requirements, then let the Serfs of Ironthorn Territory compete through assessments."

After listening to Red's suggestion, Lister nodded and said: "Your idea is good. However, while selecting Apprentice Knights, we can also conduct the selection of ordinary Soldiers."

"...Hmm, for now, let's recruit 50 people. Select them from all the young men in the territory, with 20 years old as the minimum limit."

"As for the minimum age for Apprentice Knight selection, set it at 16 years old. You will be in charge of this matter, with Hobbes assisting you."

"Once the two of you have discussed this as soon as possible tomorrow, start the recruitment and selection work immediately."

Red said respectfully: "Understood."

After all matters were arranged, Red respectfully took his leave.

...

Lister took a bath, glanced at the three little ones who had already fallen asleep, and returned to his bed to begin today's divination.

Because yesterday's divination did not provide any useful information, he was quite looking forward to today's divination.

With a thought, three divination messages slowly appeared on the blank page of the ancient book.

【Divination 1: Late tonight, the knight sent by Viscount Connor Kimmler to seek help will finally arrive at your territory, after almost running a horse to death.】

【Divination 2: Tomorrow noon, among the dozen or so Barbarian Bulls you captured, one will give birth to a new calf. It has activated a trace of the Flame Bull bloodline hidden in its body and has a high probability of becoming a magical beast with the strength of a Silver Knight in the future.】

【Divination 3: The Soldier Polite Adonis, whom you sent to Tulip Territory this morning to deliver a letter to Ellis Clifford, will pick up three Black-Veined Wood Crystals left behind by a caravan attacked by bandits while passing through the buffer zone on the edge of Baron Jonathan Steven's territory tomorrow afternoon. He will bring them back and present them to you. They are excellent auxiliary forging materials.】

Flame Bull bloodline!

At a glance, Lister's eyes were drawn to these words in the second divination message.

He did not expect that among these dozen or so Barbarian Bulls, there could be such a good opportunity.

Activating bloodlines generally refers to activating the magical beast bloodline hidden in the body. Apart from the conventional way where the parents are magical beasts and thus possess the bloodline, there is no complete conclusion yet on other ways to possess hidden magical beast bloodlines.

There are all sorts of messy guesses and theories, but the alchemists' theory is the most daring and incredible.

They believe that every wild beast should possess a hidden magical beast bloodline, it is just a matter of how much bloodline residue remains.

As for how much truth there is to this statement, Lister is not clear either.

Of course, he has no interest or energy to study these things now. Anyway, as long as the creatures in his own territory have this opportunity, that is enough.

Like this divination message, the content of the third divination message also made him overjoyed.

Black-Veined Wood is a type of wood that is not abundant and grows in harsh environments. The whole body is extremely hard, and its hardness is even higher than fine iron. It can be used for building high-end houses, as the shafts of long weapons, and so on.

And Black-Veined Wood Crystals are special crystals that randomly appear in the heartwood of Black-Veined Wood that has been nourished by special energy in the air for many years.

Its production is very rare, its hardness is more than ten times harder than the Black-Veined Wood itself, and because it is produced by absorbing special energy, it has some special effects and cannot be produced through cultivation.

Therefore, Forgemasters are partial to it and will try every means to obtain it to embed it in their forging hammers.

In this way, not only is it extremely labor-saving for forging, but the special energy within the crystal will nourish the item being forged during the forging process, enhancing the unique properties of the item itself with even stronger effects.

"Tsk tsk, has my good luck started to spread to my subordinates?" Lister exclaimed with a rather good mood.

However, besides being happy, he was more surprised. According to the divination message, the Soldier Polite Adonis did not keep the Black-Veined Wood Crystals for himself to sell for money, but honestly presented them to him.

Although Polite Adonis might not have understood the value of the Black-Veined Wood Crystals because they are precious and uncommon, from the appearance, most people would not treat it as an ordinary item.

At least most people, upon seeing such an item that they don't understand but can tell is not ordinary, would keep it for themselves to find out its value.

That Polite Adonis could hand it over without hesitation is definitely a very good display of loyalty to Lister.

Although it is not good for a subordinate to lack ability, compared to having ability but not being loyal, a leader would often choose the former. At least, that is what Lister thinks.