Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Many rules in this world are well executed when they are first established, but as time goes by, they gradually lose their original flavor. Just like when Marshal Ned Smith formulated the "Night Regulations" for the Army Officers' Academy, it stipulated that all instructors, regardless of rank or position, must take turns at night duty.

When Marshal Ned became Principal Ned, the rule was executed to the letter. Because Ned Smith was not the kind of man who only paid lip service, when he set a rule, he would truly bring a small blanket to the instructors' duty room to take the night shift. With him setting an example, everyone dutifully took their turn, and no one dared to shirk their responsibilities.

But after Principal Ned stepped down, this regulation slowly evolved into the current "rule": those assigned to night duty were all newly employed, of low rank and single men living in staff dormitories. Not only had the instructors' scheduling changed, but the way the students took their night duties also no longer followed the original design.

The original plan of each person standing guard for four hours, patrolling for four hours, and then catching up on four hours of sleep somehow changed so that third-year students could go into the duty room and fall asleep immediately, while the first and second-year students miserably stood guard for six hours and patrolled for six hours.

So, before Winters was promoted to the third year, what he hated most was night duty. A great passion of Winters' life was sleeping; he would become particularly irritable when he was sleep-deprived and would develop a strong self-destructive tendency.

Thus, when Winters entered the third year, every time he was on night duty, he would lay down in the student duty room and sleep soundly, feeling utterly justified, because in his view, he had already done his share of duty in the previous two years, and now it was his turn to sleep.

It's precisely this psychology of humans that allows so many blatantly bullying and irrational rules to exist and persist in this world.

Because these "bullying systems" all preserved a channel for advancement, a glimmer of hope, they promised those who were oppressed: "Just endure the pain now, and you will have your day sitting on top of others."

The saying goes that as long as a daughter-in-law doesn't die, she will eventually become a mother-in-law; junior single instructors will eventually be promoted and marry; lower grade officer cadets will eventually become upperclassmen in the third year. Therefore, with a little hope in their hearts, everyone clenched their teeth and endured, waiting for their day to bully others.

But they often failed to realize that the design of this "bully/victim perpetual motion machine" actually caused everyone to endure much more unnecessary pain.

Enduring the torment of three "eight hours of duty, four hours of sleep" night shifts was not as much as enduring a single "grueling twelve-hour shift followed by a day of classes."

A Silk Country sage named Treeman commented on this distorted system: "It takes a generation to endure the hard times of being bullied, yet be noble enough not to bully others, to break this cycle."

This time on duty, Winters didn't just dive into the student duty room and fall asleep as before; instead, he picked up a long halberd, ready to patrol. It wasn't because Winters had an epiphany; he couldn't possibly think that deeply at this stage. In fact, today was not his turn to be on duty; he had specifically swapped with someone else just to seek out Bard.

Bard was also from The Federated Provinces of the Republic. Unlike Aike, however, his home was not in Guidao City, but in a small village over a hundred kilometers away from the city's west gate.

The military of the Alliance Country—or more precisely, The Federated Provinces of the Republic—had a fervent hobby of "running schools." This hobby was theoretically supposed to have been inherited from Marshal Ned, the man who started "cram schools," but it seemed to be somewhat different.

Although the "Army Officers' Academy" was there to train junior officers, this was clearly not enough to satisfy the educational fervor of The Federated Provinces of the Republic's Army, so they set up the "Army Officer Preparatory School" to train cadets for the Army Officers' Academy;

Then, the "Army Junior School" was established to nurture cadets for the Army Officer Preparatory School.

Winters entered the Army Junior School, Sea Blue branch school at the age of nine, and from there on embarked on a career path without choices.

But do you think that was the end of it? Of course not. While other member countries of the Alliance only established junior schools, inside the territory of the Republic, the fanatical education enthusiasts went on to set up Army Enlightenment Schools to cultivate students for the Army Junior Schools.

If this endless nesting trend continues, one day we will surely see the advent of Army Kindergartens, Army Early Education Classes, and Army Prenatal Education Classes across the lands of the Federated Provinces of the Republic.

This strange concept of training officers seemingly right from the womb led to a situation: although in theory, the Army Officers' Academy's enrolment requirements never included "must be a graduate of the Army Preparatory School", and although the Army Officers' Academy held unconditional entrance exams every year to recruit students from the Alliance, there were hardly any non-preparatory school graduates who could pass the tests; a single interview would block most external candidates.

The interviewers believed themselves absolutely unbiased, declaring that the "external candidates were far too lacking" and "lacked the slightest military bearing." However, they never considered that external candidates were not military to begin with, so how could they possibly compare with cadets who had come all the way up from the Junior Schools in terms of military bearing?

In any case, no matter the process, the end result was that the majority of cadets in the military academy were internal promotions, while external entrants were incredibly rare.

People did not yet know whether this phenomenon was good or bad, nor did they know what impact it would have on the future of the Republic and even the entire Gulf Alliance. What would happen in the future? Who could guess? Let's return to the subject of Bard.

There are always some people in this world that can win your trust the very first time you meet them; Bard was one of those people.

His appearance was not threatening, with broad shoulders, large hands, a wide mouth and broad nose, and his slight strabismus made him appear naive.

He spoke slowly and his voice was slightly hoarse, his thick lips always tinged with a hint of a smile. He was good-natured, and only when he was hungry would his temper worsen.

Upon entrance, the school provided each student with a set of summer and winter uniforms. Wealthy students would have tailors make several sets for change. Bard had only one set, but he washed it diligently every day.

Among the young people keen on dressing up, he wore his uniform that had been washed to the point of fading but was clean and neat without a trace of embarrassment on his face. So, when you saw him for the first time, you'd know he was a reliable person.

A wise man from the East once said, "Those who find contentment in moderation do not know that the sustenance of body and mouth is inferior to others." Winters did not know whether Bard had truly reached the state of equanimity described by the Eastern sage or was just trying hard to appear composed and self-assured.

But Winters did not want to guess or investigate because whether it was the former or the latter, it meant that Bard was a person with great self-respect, and Winters respected those with self-respect.