Chương 299: 299：The Pyroblast Wands

Boom! This epoch-making strategic blueprint sent a shockwave through the hearts of everyone present. Unbidden, the scene Soren had just painted vividly materialized in their minds: Within the dead of night and suffocating fog, there would be no shouting, no blind, chaotic charging. Instead, small, highly coordinated fireteams—relying purely on a precise understanding of their maps and the silent passing of written orders—would systematically reap the lives of the orcs... What a terrifying army that would be!

That was tactical execution with an absolute, overwhelming advantage!

"My Lord, your vision is boundless! Those of us with such narrow horizons are truly ashamed!" Talon's face flushed a deep crimson. He was the first to drop to one knee, his voice radiating profound awe and utter submission. The other commanders immediately followed suit, placing their fists over their hearts in a crisp salute, completely won over by Soren's transcendent foresight.

"But My Lord, establishing a school requires an astronomical amount of funding, not to mention teachers actually capable of instructing these theories." Though Fina Hawthorne, the Chief of Finance, was thoroughly excited, her professional instincts forced her to voice the harsh, practical hurdles.

"Funding? That is the one thing we do not lack." Soren waved a hand with supreme confidence. Greywater Village sat atop the geothermal black steel furnace. Its cellars were bursting with [Swamp Tubers], dehydrated fine sorghum, and wyvern meat. Furthermore, he was still sitting on a massive stockpile of pure gold and silver coins seized from his previous victories. Their material wealth was more than enough to easily sustain the operation of two schools.

"As for the teaching staff..." Soren's gaze swept through the crowd, finally landing on the frail young man clutching the ancient parchment tome to his chest. It was Horace—the scholar blessed with the [Eye of Truth], the man possessing a terrifyingly profound understanding of magical theory.

"Horace. And Meyer," Soren called out directly.

"Among the refugees from the Silvermoon Kingdom we previously took in, there are many bankrupt middle-class citizens. Among them are quite a few former schoolteachers and disgraced noble clerks."

"And in the batch of three hundred and sixty-two recruits we absorbed yesterday, there are at least a dozen intellectuals like Horace." Soren walked right up to Horace and clapped a heavy hand on the young man's thin shoulder, entrusting him with a monumental task.

"Horace, I hereby appoint you as the Headmaster of both of Greywater Village's schools!"

"Take the theories, the arithmetic, and the understanding of the world locked inside your head, and impart them to the soldiers and children of Greywater Village! From this day forward, intellectuals like you are Greywater Village's most priceless treasure!" Overwhelmed by this sudden, immense recognition, Horace looked up, a mix of pure shock and nervous apprehension on his face.

His hands—hands that had once caused him endless self-loathing because they couldn't cast a single spell—were now trembling uncontrollably with excitement. In this cruel, rotting world that worshipped nothing but brute force, a peerless commander had finally seen the true worth of a scholar. He had even entrusted them with the absolute cornerstone of the army's future survival: education.

"I... I, Horace, swear it!" The young scholar hugged his ancient tome so tightly his knuckles turned white. Tears streamed down his face as he roared in a hoarse, deeply resolute voice:"As long as there is breath in my lungs, even if I have to exhaust every last ounce of my life force, I will forge the most brilliant, tactically minded warriors on the continent for you, My Lord!" The meeting concluded with resounding success.

Harboring a profound shock and a completely transformed worldview, the commanders strode out of the hall, immediately throwing themselves into the grueling preparations for war and the rapid establishment of the schools. The heavy wooden doors slammed shut, once again blocking out the biting cold winds and drifting snow of the Misty Swamp. Only three people remained inside the command post: Soren, his personal bodyguard Lyra, and Chief Mage Victor. Ding!

[System Notification: The establishment of the Host's Foundation School and Military Academy has officially commenced.] [System Reward Materialization Initiated...] Suddenly, an unnatural phenomenon swept through the command post. Just inches above the heavy oak desk cluttered with military scrolls, the very air began to distort, rippling with visible spatial waves.

A second later, accompanied by a deep, resonant hum of energy, five slender staves radiating a searing, dark red glow—along with a bulging leather pouch—crashed heavily onto the desk.

"Who's there?!" Lyra reacted with blinding agility. Instantly shifting into a defensive stance, she smoothly slipped three throwing knives between her fingers, her taut body stepping directly in front of Soren to shield him.

"A wide-area spatial teleportation?! No... there wasn't a single fluctuation of magical elements! Just what kind of absolute, law-defying power is this?!" Victor lost his composure entirely. The quill slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor as he stared at the objects that had materialized out of thin air, his face a mask of shock and primal dread.

"Stand down, Lyra," Soren commanded calmly, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat to signal she could drop her guard. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. He strode over to the oak desk, his gaze locked intently onto the manifested system rewards. Five [Pyroblast Wands]. Soren picked one up. The very first sensation that registered in his mind was the sheer, satisfying weight of the weapon. It was incredibly solid!

Driven by the deeply ingrained professional instincts of an elite special forces operative from Earth, whenever Soren evaluated a new piece of weaponry, his absolute top priorities were always combat practicality and battlefield reliability. The staves wielded by the native spellcasters of this world were often obsessed with ostentatious aesthetics. Their shafts were meticulously carved with intricate, fragile elven vines, and their tips were adorned with gaudy, oversized gemstones.

But the [Pyroblast Wand] in his hand was entirely different. Its entire body featured a matte, non-reflective texture that looked like a blend of dark walnut and black-gold steel. It possessed absolutely zero flashy ornamentation. In fact, its overall design could only be described as brutal, thick, and strictly utilitarian. The shaft was covered in dense, micro-textured grips to prevent slipping.

It was ruggedly durable and drop-resistant—Soren was certain he could use it like a mace to cave in an orc's skull, and the wand wouldn't even splinter. It was flawlessly optimized for the muddy, freezing, and utterly hellish conditions of the front lines. Soren pulled open the simple leather pouch. Inside was a cache of quail-egg-sized, crystal-clear Fire-attribute magic crystals, each one swirling with a volatile, dark red luminescence. Soren tossed one of the wands over to the Silver-tier Mage.

"Mage Victor," he instructed seriously, "I want you to evaluate this weapon through the critical lens of a spellcaster." Victor scrambled to catch the wand. The moment his fingers closed around the grip, his expression warped into one of absolute, unadulterated shock. He couldn't help but run both hands feverishly over the subtle, internalized magic circuits carved into the shaft, his voice trembling.

"T-this... this is a miniaturized physical manifestation of a [Pyroblast]! But how is this possible?!" Victor snapped his head up, desperately trying to explain the world-shattering implications to Soren.

"My Lord, on this continent, a [Pyroblast] is a bona fide Mid-to-High-tier destructive spell!"

"For a legitimate Royal Battle Mage to cast a single Pyroblast on the battlefield, they must painstakingly draw a hexagram magic array on the ground using highly expensive mithril powder in advance!"

"Then, while under the desperate, life-or-death cover of heavy infantry, they must spend at least two full minutes chanting obscure, tongue-twisting Ancient Elvish incantations!" Victor jabbed a finger at the internalized focusing rune at the tip of the wand, his chest heaving.

"If they mispronounce even a single syllable, or if their mental focus slips for a fraction of a second, it triggers a catastrophic mana backlash! The mage themselves will be blown to kingdom come, not even leaving behind a speck of bone ash!"

"But this wand... My Lord, whoever forged this was a mad genius! They actually managed to carve a complete, fully functioning, miniaturized magic array engine directly into the internal structure of the shaft!"

"And what exactly does that mean?" Soren gave a curt nod. He needed raw, practical military data.

"It means it has completely obliterated the threshold required to cast [Pyroblast]!" Victor gulped heavily, his eyes practically glued to the wand.

"It requires absolutely no chanting! It requires no massive pool of mental energy! As long as the user possesses even a minuscule, pathetic drop of magical affinity... all they have to do is slot a magic crystal into the chamber, inject a tiny spark of mana to ignite the trigger... and within one or two breaths, it achieves an instant-cast!" An instant-cast with just a sliver of magical affinity?! Hearing this, Soren's heart violently skipped a beat, quickly followed by a massive, surging wave of pure ecstasy.

Extreme explosive damage! Zero operational threshold! Plug-and-play readiness! Supreme tactical mobility!

"Move! To the testing range!" Soren, unable to contain the surging adrenaline, snatched the bag of magic crystals off the desk and kicked the heavy wooden door wide open. Behind Greywater Village, situated right on the edge of the high-heat sulfuric mud flats, lay a stretch of solid bedrock. This area had been cleared out and repurposed as the engineering corps' trebuchet calibration range.

Amidst the wildly swirling snowstorm, Soren, Victor, and the hastily summoned Half-Elf Commander, Ilya, stood atop a high earthen ridge.

"Ilya. You possess [Natural Mana Affinity] and [Eagle Eye Perception]. You'll conduct the test fire." Soren handed one of the [Pyroblast Wands] and a crimson magic crystal over to the Half-Elf Commander. He pointed toward a target roughly one hundred and fifty meters straight ahead: a solid block of raw cast iron weighing well over three hundred pounds.

"Slot the crystal into the chamber. Aim directly at the target. Inject your mana," Soren commanded sternly. Ilya took a deep breath. Her emerald eyes instantly locked onto the massive iron block in the distance. Her slender fingers tightly gripped the micro-textured shaft of the wand. Drawing upon just a minuscule fraction of the ambient wind mana she normally used to correct her arrow trajectories, she injected the energy straight into the weapon.