When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#240 - May the Holy Father bless you all and make you invincible like the Holy Lord!

The grayish-yellow clouds were even gloomier than the day before, yet a sliver of pale sunlight peeked through at noon.

In Lake Nanze, where a thin mist had risen, Autumn Twilight Island resembled a leaf floating on the water.

Overlooking from the west side of Autumn Twilight Island, the military camp square looked like a giant chessboard, with densely packed recruits neatly arranged in square formations.

At the edge of the training field, a line of new recruits, panting white vapor, arranged in a 5x10 horizontal formation, finally arrived, filling the last square on the chessboard.

The dense square formations were well-ordered, and between the grid-like array gaps, military law officers and veteran captains holding devoutly infused rods walked back and forth, checking their posture.

The assessment had just ended, and they still had to stand firm despite their fatigue.

Even though the weather was so cold, fine beads of sweat still covered the foreheads of these soldiers, shimmering with a faint light.

At the edge of the square, the third batch of new recruits, who had only recently entered the camp, stood blankly by the fence, gazing at the neat formation.

In the distance, the high platform mountains stood tall, and the air was filled with the smells of dirt, sweat, and metal.

Amidst the urgent whistle sounds, the originally somewhat noisy square suddenly ceased all sound.

"Attention!" the veteran captains shouted.

The warhorse's hooves stepped on the ground, making rhythmic 'da-da' sounds, and Horn rode on horseback, followed by Jeanne, Jeshka, Hakuto, and a group of military officers and generals.

Sitting on horseback, his gaze swept over the soldiers one by one.

Every soldier who was swept by Horn's gaze involuntarily straightened his chest and tensed his muscles.

When they first entered the camp, most of them were skinny as a rail; even a tiger would find them too bony to bother with.

Now they were still lean, but there was some flesh on their torsos and cheeks.

During this period, the new recruits' meals consisted of almost unlimited root vegetables, as well as rice porridge, eggs, and salted fish as refined grains.

These carbohydrates and proteins were transformed into endurance, lung capacity, and arm strength during posture training, running, and holding long spears.

However, Horn's requirements for these three physical fitness assessment items were not high; first, there were three days of adaptation, seven days of training, and then slowly increasing the intensity.

After all, the migrants were too weak, and the weather was so cold that two or three people died of sudden death from running and illness from colds during training.

Therefore, in queue training, they would practice for a while and then rest for a while; they might have to rest for five to ten minutes after practicing for an hour.

The physique of the migrants could not be compared with that of modern people, and external conditions dictated that it was difficult for them to carry out housekeeping at the level of "tofu blocks."

Horn would be thankful if they could fold their quilts and not throw their clothes around randomly.

"Have all the assessments been completed?"

"Yesterday, all day, plus this morning, all of them have been completed, a total of six items: standing posture, discipline, marching, holding a large spear, 50-meter sprint, and a five-kilometer run."

"What is the average level?" Horn smiled and waved to the soldiers, while asking Jeshka behind him.

"Among the first batch of 2,000 new recruits, 1,030 passed.

Among the 955 who failed, 12 were rated as the lowest grade, and I suggest they withdraw; they are not suitable for being soldiers.

56 were rated as lower-middle, and I suggest they stay back and retrain with the second batch of new recruits.

There were also 674 who were rated as lower-upper; they can join the formed legions and slowly train later.

In addition, 213 people contracted diseases due to divine favor, which slowed down their progress or prevented them from attending, and 15 people died for various reasons."

Only half of these two thousand people truly reached the passing level, but considering that many of them were beggars twenty days ago, it was not bad.

"Have the outstanding soldiers from each team been selected?"

Horn said that he would give a bonus of 90 dinars to the top 10% of the soldiers, so he naturally had to fulfill it.

However, considering that there were 2,000 people in the First Battalion, they were all selected from within each team, with 5 people selected from each of the 40 teams, for a total of 200 people.

"They have all been selected, and the list has been compiled." Hakuto handed the list to Horn.

Horn glanced down at it and returned it: "Extract the 5 people from each team who have a clean background, upright character, and the highest discipline scores, and hand them over to Das."

"Yes, Your Eminence."

"Should their physical fitness level have reached the minimum requirements for breathing techniques?"

"Those outstanding new recruits must have reached it, but the rest..." Hesitation appeared on Jeshka's face.

Hakuto bluntly added, "It's hard to say."

Horn couldn't help but click his tongue.

He was able to practice breathing techniques right away because he seamlessly connected with magical beast meat.

But these people didn't have that good fortune; after training for twenty days, they hadn't even reached the minimum requirements, let alone breathing techniques.

Walking from the first square formation to the last square formation, Horn inspected all 40 square formations before returning to the center of the square.

Scanning the soldiers in the entire square, Horn felt somewhat disorganized in his heart.

When he set out from Gulag, he only had about 300 soldiers, but now, there were 2,000 new recruits here alone.

At that time, he lamented that it was simply a collection of beggar gangs and gang fight villagers.

But now, it finally looked a bit like an early modern army.

In fact, Horn had considered turning them into that army in history.

After analyzing the situation, Horn found that he could not give them the conditions of that army, either materially or spiritually.

After repeated iterations of retreating to second best, Horn's final target was a musket-and-pike infantry legion from the Thirty Years' War era.

The duties of the accompanying priest were actually those of a quartermaster and psychologist, and they also shouldered part of the work of conveying Horn's will downward.

Advanced is only relative; such an army is enough to defeat the imperial army, whose organization is still stuck in the late Middle Ages.

"Warriors of the Savior Warband, today is December 29th, and all the assessments have ended today."

In the silent square, only Horn's voice resounded through the clouds.

"Look to your left, those are the new recruits watching the ceremony, and in the farther places are your relatives and friends."

"You can eat your fill and train every day because the believers are gnawing on the worst rice porridge and vegetable soup in exchange."

"And in the farther and farther places, other believers who are also children of the Holy Father are suffering cruel abuse."

"From today until January 2nd, I will give you three days off, not only to let you reunite with your families but also to let you go back and see, to think."

"What have our believers done for you? What have you done for our believers?"

"On January 3rd, when you return to the military camp, our officers will take you to the corresponding legions."

"At that time, you will be granted the Holy Orders of combat monks and learn how to truly grasp a spear and how to kill enemies."

"Our enemies, those demons entrenched in castles and churches, you have all seen them, and we all know how powerful they are."

"But we are unwilling to give in; we want to overthrow them from under the false idols and thrones; that is why we are gathered here."

"May the Holy Father bless you all, and may you be as invincible as the Holy Lord!"