Chapter 63: Preparations for War

  "Block! Left! Block! Right! Down! Block again! Mind your step! Don't back away! Use your footwork! Alright, come on!"

  As Kevin's thick voice prompted, he held a wooden mallet in his hand and launched an attack on Xia Ya one by one. Xia Ya also had a wooden axe in her hand, but the handle was lengthened to about one meter long.

  Xia Ya summoned her spirit, fending off Kevin's attacks one by one. Kevin's attack speed wasn't particularly fast, and both of them had been conserving their strength. This trial had already lasted for several hours, Xia Ya's black hair was drenched in sweat, sticking to her forehead in strands. Kevin was also panting heavily, his bald head covered in oily sweat.

  The two men went back and forth, one attacking and the other defending. The wooden weapons in their hands clashed more than a dozen times. Finally, Kevin suddenly took a big step forward, his body slightly bent down, and with a loud crash, he struck Xia Ya's thigh with his hammer. Immediately afterwards, he swung upwards, sending Xia Ya's wooden axe flying!

  "Halt!" Kevin exhaled, gesturing to Xia Ya to pick up the axe. The bald man looked at Xia Ya, his face flushed from intense exercise, and panted for a while before smiling wryly: "Good job, this time you blocked 27 of my moves, I only landed three hits on you."

  A whistle and a shout immediately came from the side. More than ten soldiers had gathered around, among whom the most loudly whistling was that cunning Kato, who clapped his hands and laughed: "Good job Xia Ya! Well done!" Then Kato stretched out his hand to his companions with a smile: "Give me money! Quick, no cheating!"

  A group of close guards laughed and scolded as they took out more or less copper plates and silver coins.

  "Kevin, didn't you eat breakfast?! You're so soft! Made me lose money again!"

  "Xia Ya, you son of a bitch! I'm going to hold you accountable for the money I lost! Haha! Next time we get our military pay, you're buying everyone drinks!"

  The trial has been going on for three days.

  Last time during the reconnaissance mission, Xia Ya showed great combat power, which made Kevin quite admire him. The two of them lived in the same tent and practiced martial arts together when they had free time. Kevin then discovered a major flaw in Xia Ya: this guy relied solely on his brute strength and superhuman physical quality to bully people during fights, but when it came to actual martial skills, he was simply... all over the place!

  Of course, this messy situation is not because Xia Ya's martial skills are bad - on the contrary, his attacking methods are very fierce, especially a set of "Chopping Axe Method" that is displayed, even Kevin's above-average strength can't withstand it. The moves are simply unpredictable and mysterious, clearly being a big chopping and killing axe technique, but Xia Ya uses it in a ghostly and magical way! Even with Kevin having already reached the middle first-class warrior level, he still can't block Xia Ya's few axe strikes.

  Xia Ya may be foolish, but he understood that the old man's "Breaking Kill Thousand Army" was an extremely powerful axe technique.

  But compared to Xia Ya's attacking moves, his defensive ability is simply rotten to the extreme!

  It's not his fault, because the old man never seriously taught him martial arts when he was alive - that set of broken killing thousands of troops was integrated into daily chopping firewood and stabbing coal and other miscellaneous objects to teach him. As for defensive martial arts, Xia Ya had never practiced them at all!

  In the past, when facing an enemy, he relied on his strong physical fitness and the swift reaction he had developed from fighting with wild beasts in the mountains to respond - but this was limited to his instinctive reaction, without systematic learning of defensive moves.

  Only knowing how to attack and not defend, one cannot survive for long on the battlefield——Kevin still doesn't know that Shia has a super strong physique strengthened by dragon blood. But even with a physiology strengthened by dragon blood, it's not omnipotent; at least when facing an intermediate-level opponent who can fight with aura, they can break through Shia's physical defense!

  So, the shortcoming of defensive skills became Xia Ya's biggest weakness. When facing ordinary opponents, he could still cope with it, but when facing strong enemies, he would fall into a predicament. At least Xia Ya was very clear in his heart that last time he encountered those Dark Night Woodmen, if not for the old man's magical crystal fragment suddenly bursting out, he would have become a pile of dry bones on the Wildfire Prairie by now.

  Kevin enthusiastically began teaching Xia Ya some basic combat skills, especially focusing on training Xia Ya's defensive moves. The two practiced against each other without using aura and real strength, purely practicing their techniques.

  At the beginning, if Xia Ya didn't use that strange power, he would have been disarmed by Kevin in two or three moves, and his vital parts would have been hit quickly. On the first day, Xia Ya was taught a lesson, beaten by Kevin until he was covered in bandages - this made the other Imperial Guards who were watching from the side burst out laughing during their sparring match - because from start to finish, it was simply Xia Ya being abused one-sidedly.

  That night, Tuo didn't sleep almost all night, thinking repeatedly about the offensive moves Kevin had shown that day, and the defensive skills he had explained to himself. Until dawn, after Kevin woke up, he saw his comrade sitting on the bed with red eyes staring blankly.

  The next day's trial, Xia Ya made significant progress, he withstood Kevin's attack for more than ten moves before being hit by a fatal blow - this situation immediately attracted the attention of other training guards, everyone rushed to ask to be the referee, and the rest of the people started betting on how long Xia Ya could withstand Kevin's offense.

  Although he was ridiculed by everyone, Xia Ya was very clear that these ridicule were kind and full of the kind of teasing between comrades-in-arms, and this was also a good sign: at least it meant that he had begun to be accepted by this group.

  After that reconnaissance mission, Kevin did not hide the fact that Xia Ya had saved his life before. This straightforward bald man also expressed his recognition of Xia Ya. With the help of Kevin, who has a lot of prestige in the Imperial Guard, Xia Ya was quickly accepted by the Imperial Guards and he is also very generous. Such a personality is still very popular in the military environment.

  The second day of the trial, Xia Ya in the last round of the trial, not only blocked Kevin's full attack, but also hit Kevin once during the counterattack, although it was not fatal, but for everyone, this is already a stunning progress - everyone realized that this kid really has a set!

  The third day of the trial attracted even more people, and later on, some of the more skilled martial artists in the Imperial Guard voluntarily came to take turns sparring with Kevin to give Xia Ya a hard time - or as Kato would put it, to go up there for free and thoroughly thrash this rookie.

  "You're too tense, you pay too much attention to your footsteps and forget about the movements of your hands. You need to make these things second nature, if you think about it deliberately before acting, you'll inevitably be a bit slower." Kevin spoke very seriously, sharing his own experience.

  "Alright, Kevin, you must not have knocked down Xia Ya's weapon within the specified number of times and got angry, hahaha!" A tall and sturdy man beside him burst out laughing.

  "Shalba, shut up!" Kevin jeered with a smile: "If you've got the guts, go compete with Xia Ya yourself!"

  "Me? I'd never do that! I don't have a hobby of arm-wrestling with buffaloes." The sturdy man rubbed his chin - this guy was called Sharba, also a member of the Imperial Guard's strength team. Before Shaya arrived, he was recognized as the number one strongman in the Imperial Guard, but last night he had a fair arm-wrestling match with Shaya and was almost broken to pieces by him, thus admitting defeat.

  Compared with its strength, this human being seems no match for that monster.

  In three days, Xia Ya and most of his guards had become familiar with each other. Kevin's efforts were naturally included in this process.

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  Although he couldn't use brute force, Xia Ya was still exhausted to the point of being half-dead after each day's training, with sweat soaking through his clothes and looking like he had just been pulled out of water.

  Watching the toad return to the tent, Duoduo's heart muttered: I hope he was beaten up. Thinking so in his heart, he quickly put on a respectful smile and greeted him: "Master Xia Ya, you're back..."

  Xia Ya directly threw the wooden axe to Kevin, although it was wooden, but the huge axe almost knocked down Duoduo, he barely hugged the axe and followed Xia Ya with a stagger.

  "Go fetch water, I want to take a bath... and has the horse been fed? Tonight it's my turn for patrol... don't forget to wipe down my armor." Xia Ya threw himself onto the bed, exhausted to the point where he felt like his entire body was about to fall apart.

  Duoduo ran out with a low brow and downcast eyes, but his face immediately turned resentful. He grabbed a brush from the corner of the wall and ran to fetch a heavy suit of light cavalry armor, carefully brushing off the dust on it before meticulously applying lubricating oil to the joints of the armor. The poor magician was covered in oil and dust, with a dirty face and a heart full of curses for his unfair fate.

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  There will be a third update at 12 o'clock tonight!! In order to rush into next week's weekly chart, welcome everyone to prepare their votes and come to support! There are also exquisite gifts being sent out.

  In addition, these two chapters are slightly laid out and are necessary transitions. The wonderful content will unfold soon.

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