Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 41 - 41 32 Weapon Master Bloodline

41: Chapter 32: Weapon Master Bloodline 41: Chapter 32: Weapon Master Bloodline Following the underground passage, Aske arrived at the red team’s training ground.

Pushing the door open, he saw gladiators scattered in the corners, each training by themselves.

Some practiced slashing with swords, some thrust with long spears, others defended with shields against their companion’s attacks, and some pummeled sandbags, displaying their solid, bronze-colored large muscles.

Aske took a piece of ring iron plate armor from the rack nearby and put it on, then switched to iron boots and an iron helmet, and took a two-handed greatsword from the weapon stand.

The entire room’s gladiators then turned their gaze towards him.

“Hey, chick!” a muscular brute came over.

He was a strong man of about one eighty-five meters tall, bare-chested, showing off developed pectorals and a six-pack, “This isn’t where you belong!

Scram back to your mom and go suck milk!”

“I’m a newly enrolled fighter for the red team,” Aske stated blandly.

“Enroll for what?

Our red team’s gladiators are already full!

Sadric, Sadric!” the muscular man immediately started yelling.

“What’s the fuss!” After about half a minute, the middle-aged man they’d seen before at the counter came running over, “Saiotis!

Your red gladiators are already full, and you have to participate in the duel in half an hour.

Why aren’t you taking your men to train and warm up?”

“My brother took leave, how can the red team participate in the duel!” Saiotis retorted angrily, “And what’s the deal with this new chick?”

“There’s no such thing as taking leave in our Duel Arena; it’s written clearly in the employment contract,” the receptionist Sadric said coldly with his arms crossed, “If he’s not here today, he can come back when there’s a vacancy in the team next time!

Or he could participate in a solo duel.”

“He’s my own brother!” Saiotis glared furiously, showing an expression so enraged it was as if he would tear someone to pieces, “How dare you, how dare you kick him out of my team!”

“Even if he was your grandfather, it wouldn’t matter!

If your brother takes leave for a year, does that mean your red team won’t participate in the duels for a year?” Sadric said with a sneer, his gaze turning towards Aske, “Also, if I find out you’ve beaten up or killed this new teammate of yours, you know what your fate will be.

Every inch of this place is covered by surveillance cameras.”

He closed the door and left.

Saiotis, looking at an indifferent Aske, had his facial muscles contort in rage to the point of almost convulsing.

After a dozen seconds, his anger morphed into a cruel and resentful hate, and the look he gave Aske turned as if he was staring at a dead man.

“Back to training!” he turned around and coldly said to the others.

In this place full of cameras, Saiotis ultimately dared not commit violence on the spot.

So, the other gladiators dispersed and returned to their places.

They did not dare to provoke Saiotis, who was already fiery with anger, and they had no interest in Aske, the newcomer who seemed doomed.

For a moment, the room was once again filled with the clashing of swords and the muffled sounds of blows landing on flesh.

Aske swung his two-handed greatsword, getting a feel for how to use this weapon while calculating in his mind.

The “Weapon Master’s” next magic potion was “Sharp Weapons I,” which would familiarize him with the use of all sharp weapons and gain a thorough understanding of any sharp weapon’s data attributes.

If he remembered correctly, the “Single-day Champion” of this duel arena could select a “Sharp Weapons I” magic potion as a reward.

For example, if Aske now took “Sharp Weapons I,” even if he had never before used a two-handed greatsword, the moment he picked up this weapon, he would know its length was around 170 centimeters, its weight about 4 kilograms, where its center of gravity lay, how to grip it, and how to swing or thrust at the enemy.

Of course, automatically becoming familiar with the method of use does not mean mastery.

Just like being able to use Photoshop doesn’t make you a good graphic designer.

Using the “Sharp Weapons I” extraordinary ability would be enough to become a swordsman, but becoming a “highly skilled” swordsman was a fanciful dream.

The experience of fighting to the death, of truly killing someone on the battlefield, was impossible to acquire without having done so.

That’s why the duel arena’s “Sharp Weapons I,” “Blunt Weapon I,” “Throwing I,” “Block I,” “Evasion I,” and other magic potion recipes became almost no one’s choice, relegated to trash.

They couldn’t enhance a Transcendent’s own physique significantly like the Foundation Sequence or Bloodline Sequence, nor could they bestow peculiar or powerful destructive abilities like the Spirit Body Sequence or Arcane Sequence.

The only function was to help you grasp basic combat experience in a certain domain—and just “grasp,” not “master.” Moreover, it took up a slot for your Extraordinary Traits, which could clash with magic potions from other sequences, preventing you from switching to another Bloodline Path…

Thus, in the early stages of the game, any newbie who mistakenly took a Duel Sequence potion and went to the forums to ask which bloodline it corresponded to would get a barrage of responses from other players:

“Congratulations, your account is ruined.”

“Achievement: You have discovered the game designer’s malice.”

“Honey, come watch the account deletion.”

Later, it turned into ridicule and cursing towards the game design team, especially the Iron and Fire balance team.

As everyone knows, “Iron and Fire” has always been trying to shift from a multiplayer RPG online game to a professionally balanced esports game, so such public outcry quickly reached the ears of the game’s management.

Consequently, in subsequent versions, the Duel Sequence began to be continuously strengthened, such as weapon data visualization, yet players remained unimpressed each time.

In the sixth expansion, the “Weapon Master” bloodline was added, which the players jokingly called “Acrobatics Master.” At one point, it even caused the design team’s lead to go back and forth with players on the official forum.

Then, the 7th expansion pack introduced a game element called “Ethereal Blade Art” and added a new Extraordinary Swordsmanship called “Star Nine Forms” from the Far East Dragon Country.

Consequently, the Weapon Master Bloodline and Duel Sequence Magic Potions suddenly soared in popularity, and the game’s popularity started to inflate rapidly.

In the words of the players’ forum, before you learn “Star Nine Forms,” you’re playing Weapon Master like the Dark Souls series; after you’ve mastered “Star Nine Forms,” your Weapon Master turns into the Assassin’s Creed series.

Within the first two months of the new version, even 30% of new accounts chose the Weapon Master Bloodline, resulting in the balance team hastily nerfing “Star Nine Forms,” mainly by significantly increasing the difficulty of learning the swordsmanship…

In the end, the Weapon Master became a class Bloodline that was easy to play but hard to master, and whether one could learn “Star Nine Forms” became the dividing line between professional players and top gamers.

As for mastering “Star Nine Forms”…

aside from himself, Aske truly didn’t remember any other professional player who could master the Star Nine Forms, because this Extraordinary Swordsmanship required a great deal of practice, experience, and intuition.

He continued to swing his Two-Handed Greatsword a few more times, then found a cushion and sat down to meditate with his eyes closed.

Saiotis practiced with a Great Sword while angrily wielding a Shield against his sparring partner, and from the corner of his eye observed Aske, revealing an undisguised cold sneer.

This rookie was also equipped with a Great Sword.

To be exact, it was a classic Great Sword forged in Milan City, characterized by its weight, thickness, and length.

The trick to using it was just one word: recklessness.

However, what followed wasn’t solo gladiator combat but team gladiator combat.

In single combat, you could overpower your opponent with your weapon, but in team combat, often what mattered was survival.

Wielding such an ostentatious Great Sword was tantamount to telling your opponent “quickly kill me, or I’ll kill you with my Great Sword,” and those in team battles were always the first to be targeted for a group attack.

He, Saiotis, dared to use a Great Sword because he had a whole team to cover and coordinate with him.

What did this newcomer have?

Once they entered the Duel Arena, he would directly command his team to isolate him.

Would the opposing Blue team come and clash with his team, or go after this isolated rookie first?

There was no need to even think about it.

…

“Holy crap, that’s a lot!” In Aske’s ancestral home, Killian, seeing a line of Extraordinary Traits arranged on the desktop, couldn’t help but blurt out in his hometown slang.

He really wanted to ask if they had ransacked the Dream Heaven branch, but he managed to hold back and didn’t ask.

Nora just chuckled nearby, without giving much of an explanation.

So this was the benefit of having a recruitment system!

Killian reflected on this, realizing that if the Life School were still using an apprenticeship system, then the apprentices would always have to be by their master’s side, doing work for them in exchange for Magic Potion Recipes and materials, and would never have time to go out adventuring.

An adventure yielding over twenty Extraordinary Traits at once would have been utterly impossible.

If the apprenticeship system was fishing, then the recruitment system was casting a net; in the time it took to catch one fish, many nets could be cast.

Maybe this time, only little fish were caught, but the next net might come back full.

After briefly discussing the price with Nora, Killian promptly agreed to buy all level 1 and level 4 Extraordinary Traits at the price of 100 and 1200 pounds each, including also copying Level I recipes of Dreams, Shadows, and Minds for 120 pounds each.

For a religious order, there could never be too many low-level formulas of other Sequences.

With this, The Azure Longsword Mercenary Corps’ fund instantly recorded a total of 7760 pounds.

“We’re rich!” As Killian left, the girls looked at the number on the mobile phone screen, and their minds echoed a single thought.

“I’ve thought of something, ladies,” Nora suddenly said solemnly.

“Peggy?

I heard that the house next door that burned down was previously your home, right?”

“Yes,” Peggy responded softly, a flicker of sadness in her eyes.

Since there were no “living” direct relatives to inherit the property, the house and land where she had lived since childhood were confiscated by the Constantinople municipality for public use and put up for auction.

“I plan to buy that plot of land,” Nora said, “and then convert it into a warehouse.”

“Warehouse, you mean…” Medea quickly grasped her meaning.

“Yes,” Nora replied, “Next, we will purchase a large amount of building materials, ostensibly storing them in the warehouse next door.

Then, every night, we will secretly transport the building materials from the warehouse to Fire Island in the Half-plane.”

Fire Island was what the girls called the island in the book “Absurd Dreams,” where a sealed Half-plane Fragment was located.

All morning while Aske was gone, they had strolled around in the Half-plane for a few hours.

Looking down from the mountaintop, one could see the entire southern coastline of the island was rather smooth, while the north coast had three irregular protuberances, like the shape of flames, hence the name Fire Island.

“Then, are we going to build our own houses?” Eleanor said excitedly, “This idea is fantastic, Nora!

But we don’t have civil engineers or construction workers; the houses can’t just spring up from a pile of building materials, can they?”

“Have you forgotten my major?” Nora smiled proudly, “As a Military Nun, I had courses in civil engineering in my undergraduate program.

As for construction workers, of course, everyone pitches in!

After all, we are all Transcendents, so we should at least have that much Physical Power.”