Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 317 - 115 Coach! I want to learn swordsmanship!

"If nothing unexpected happens, everyone will be spending Christmas in the throes of war this year."

"The war reports from the front lines are becoming more urgent by the day. Rather than saying we are resisting aggression, it’s more like we’ve given up direct resistance and are only trying to delay the enemy’s advance northward."

"Count Innsbruck seems to have made up his mind; he wants to use this city as a base for a drawn-out siege."

"The streets are barricaded, and the rooftops have been reinforced against fire and impact. Even after confirming that the epidemic had completely subsided, the walls of the former quarantine zones were torn down and rebuilt—higher and stronger—essentially forming a city within the city."

"Those who were originally outside the city, including the wealthy merchants, the nobles, and members of the Earl Family, have all moved into the quarantine zone for residence."

"This part of the city, once spoken of with dread, has now become the safest place envied by all citizens, an irony that cannot be ignored."

"In addition to the inner-city transformation, Alfred has also leveled the buildings outside the city and has started fervently digging trenches, setting up what looks like a meat grinder."

"This form of warfare is quite different from what you’ve seen before," Aske explained as he led the girls through the trenches, "If previously, dealing with mutants and extraordinary creatures was a style of cold-weapon combat from the Middle Ages, what we’re facing now is akin to a hot-weapon mode from World War I and II."

"I know you don’t understand what the Middle Ages were, or what World War I and II were, but don’t worry, I’ll explain in detail."

"Firstly, there’s no need to wear armor anymore. Aside from military-grade protective gear like power armor, conventional iron and steel armor that can withstand beasts and extraordinary creatures is extremely vulnerable to bullets. It’s better to take it off to reduce the load."

"Secondly, hot-weapon mode combat is a typical strong spear weak shield scenario. Cold weapon combat focuses on attack, defense, and evasion, whereas hot weapon discards defense—it’s either attack or evasion."

"That means either fire suppression or guerrilla warfare. In most cases, guerrilla tactics are more crucial."

"Eleanor and Sigrdrifa, you have the bulletproof advantage of power armor. Solomon and Peggy, our own physical power is sufficient to withstand direct bullet impacts. We four are quite adaptable to hot-weapon warfare."

"The rest of you, lacking the ability to withstand bullets, must master mature guerrilla tactics, which means how to avoid enemy fire."

"We have mind blind zones," Medea and Nora said after exchanging a glance.

"There are many shadows in the zigzagging trenches, I can hide in them," Mia replied.

"I’m a sniper." Miel’s answer was the simplest. Snipers maintain the greatest distance, staying out of the range of the opponent’s automatic rifles.

"Aske frowned at Thira, "Do you have any skills that can save your life?"

"I..." Thira paused, all my skills seem to be control-focused.

Air pressure? No, even the "Storm" ability’s limit, the compressed air wall could not stop bullet fire.

Gravity? Even less likely; gravity can’t stop bullets, targeting the shooters would be more feasible.

Light I, likewise, currently only blinds one’s eyes and could at best be used as a flashbang.

"I’ll start by using Light I to blind enemies," Thira proposed a tactic, "then use the gravity field to immobilize them, and finally kill them with air pressure bullets."

Aske: ......

Thira: ......

"How about you just stay on Fire Island this time," Aske said.

"No way!" Thira snapped, offended by the lack of confidence in her.

"Think about it, I really lack skills for protecting myself," Thira said, "How about this, why don’t I learn swordsmanship from you? Learn extraordinary swordsmanship for self-defense?"

"Yes," Aske didn’t care much.

"I have no problem with it either." Since Aske had agreed, Peggy certainly wasn’t going to be petty—more importantly, once Thira learned the Undead Illusion Sword from her, it would mean she owed Peggy a favor; how could she then compete with her for the position of squad leader?

Thus, the plan was set. Taking advantage of the enemy’s yet-to-arrive status, everyone began to use the extensive trenches to adapt to the battlefield and practice their abilities, while Thira started learning the Illusion Sword from Peggy alone.

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"No, no," Peggy shook her head and said, "You have absolutely no talent in this respect."

Thira stood silently, holding a longsword.

There were many versions of the Illusion Sword, such as Alexander’s original Illusion Sword, Hannibal’s Undead Illusion Sword, and Peggy’s unnamed version of the Illusion Sword. Essentially, they all involved leveraging one’s Extraordinary Abilities to meditate on oneself and pulling the meditated Mind Body into reality, thereby materializing it to inflict damage.

Meditation, positioning, materialization—three steps in total.

Meditation is the simplest, akin to daydreaming, which everyone can do. The difficult parts are the positioning and the materialization: Alexander used calculations for positioning and activated his Arcane Power for materialization, which only individuals with exceptional talents could achieve; Hannibal used the Super Self of the dead for positioning and Spirit Body Abilities for materialization, the modified version reduced the intensity of swordsmanship but significantly lowered the learning threshold.

Peggy’s Stealing Ability inherently included the idealistic concepts of "stealing what is not there" and "once stolen, it becomes mine," which effectively meant she was perfectly skiving off, fulfilling the requirements for both "positioning" and "materialization." Otherwise, even with a Thought Seed, one could not learn this Extraordinary Swordsmanship so quickly. freeweɓnøvel~com

Isn’t it just like Eleanor, who also possesses the Will Sequence, and has made no progress despite her long period of study?

Thira, intelligent and strong in computational abilities, naturally followed the path of Alexander’s original Illusion Sword. Positioning was not a problem, but for some unknown reason, she always failed at the materialization step.

"This isn’t right!" Peggy was also puzzled, "Alexander has Arcane Power, and you have Arcane Power too, why can he do it and you can’t?"

"Could it be the difference in the types of Arcane attributes?" Thira speculated, "He has Flames and Gravity, I have Air Pressure and Gravity."

"I don’t think so," Peggy said, "It’s likely a problem with the Mind Body. I’ll ask Medea and Nora about it."

When it came to the Mind Body, it was necessary to consult the experts in that field, the Mind Mages.

After Peggy explained the principles, the two Mind Mages thought briefly and then immediately found the answer.

"The real principle that allows the Illusion Sword to function is ’belief,’ which is the power of the Mind," Nora said. "The Mind Body is inherently false, but because the user believes it is real, it attains physical form. When the Mind Body strikes a target, it makes the target believe they are injured, thus the target sustains injuries."

"But Thira," Medea spoke slowly, "due to religious beliefs and cultural customs, you hold certain prejudices towards Mind Power, your subconscious refuses to acknowledge that Mind Power can materialize the Mind Body, so you are always unable to complete the materialization of the Mind Body. The reason you cannot learn this swordsmanship is that you are resisting learning it."

Thira said nothing.

Indeed, as Medea mentioned, she was born in the Purple Chamber of Constantinople, received more than a decade of Royal Family education, and was completely a Solomon in body and soul.

Solomon people admired physical-type, Arcane-type, and Bloodline-type sequences, symbolizing power, and disliked Dead Spirit-type, Mind-type, and other manipulative sequences. Solomon Orthodox regarded the Transcendents of these sequences as evil heretics.

Additionally, with the Seljuk Empire that annihilated Eastern Luo, whose main Transcendents were the Saracens who mastered the Mind Sequence, Thira’s aversion to Mind Power was somewhat inevitable.

In day-to-day interactions with Nora and Medea, since they were comrades in arms, there was no evident friction on the surface; however, once it was her turn to use Mind Power, the reluctance submerged in her subconscious would emerge.

"I offer you two solutions," Medea continued as Thira remained silent, "The first method is hypnosis."

"By using hypnosis to seal the subconscious resistance you have towards Mind Power... but I guess you won’t agree."

Thira indeed wouldn’t agree; how could she easily hand over her mind to someone else for meddling... even if it were Medea.

"Then the second method," Medea smiled slightly, "try learning something else."

"Why not try the Star Nine Forms?"

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