The World Online

Chapter 23: Crossbowmen

Taking advantage of the time, Ouyang Shuo took out his three new pieces of equipment and took a look at their stats.

Name: Basic Composite Bow (black iron grade)

Length: 1.4 meters

Range: 200 meters

Evaluation: A composite bow. It uses tough black birch for the inner layer and larch pine for the outer, two layers of wood bound using deer or cattle tendons. Fine fish glue is used to firmly stick them together, and the bowstring is made from deer skin.

\----

Name: Fine Iron Sword (silver grade)

Hardness: 15

Toughness: 20

Evaluation: Extremely fine steel, repeatedly forged for a sharp blade with good toughness

\-----

Name: Exquisite Iron Spear (gold)

Hardness: 30

Toughness: 45

Evaluation: Spear forged from high quality iron barbed wood, the spearhead has been forged repeatedly with exquisite workmanship.

Ouyang Shuo nodded in satisfaction, this was a real change of equipment from a rookie to a pro. He hung the iron sword at his waist, the bow and spear he would keep in his room. He wasn't a full time warrior, so he only needed those two weapons when combat was imminent, or when practicing.

In the front of the square, 22 horses were lined up in a row. The most striking of them were the leftmost pair, a black and white set, looking quite exceptional.

Ouyang Shuo took an immediate fancy to the black horse. It had a beautiful black mane, vigorous posture, and was exceptionally handsome.

Name: Exquisite War Horse (gold)

Weight: 60 kg

Speed: 40 km/day

Consumption: 3 grain /day

Evaluation: This is a high quality horse from the northern grasslands, easily able to endure a battlefield.

Ouyang Shuo said admiringly, "Really a good horse, I will call you Black Tornado!"

The horse seemed to be able to understand human nature, and as if it understood his words, nodded its head. This made Ouyang Shuo desire it even more, and he brought it away to his yard. Just yesterday he had received the building blueprints for the stables, and now he was prepared to build a small stable just for Black Tornado in the yard of his manor.

In less than ten minutes, Er Wazi had led General Shi back with a full group of thirty men. As he walked into the yard, the roaring voice of General Shi proclaimed, "Hah, my lord, I hear that you are ready to reward the weapons and armor to your men?!"

"That's right. This time, for destroying the raider camp, we definitely should reward the militia team for meritorious services!" Ouyang Shuo answered, pointing to the heap of weapons and armor in the courtyard. "Have your men bring the equipment to the barracks, as well as all the remaining horses. Also, we need to call a general assembly of the troops to reward them for their great deeds!"

"Haha, this is a good idea!" General Shi called out, promptly ordering the militia with him to gather up the weapons and armor. In addition, a dozen were ordered to lead away the horses.

Everyone walked back to the barracks. Ouyang Shuo waited until all the troops were assembled on the training field before beginning the merit awards. "Lin Yi, come forward!"

"Here!" the young officer answered, looking very excited.

"During the battle of the raider camp, officer Lin Yi beheaded the enemy leader, performing great merits!" Ouyang Shuo paused for emphasis. "As thanks for your efforts, you are awarded an exquisite horse, a basic composite bow, and an ordinary iron scale armor as a reward!"

"Thank you for the rewards, my lord!"

With Ouyang Shuo giving a horse, bow, and metal armor to Linyi, the rest of the militia all looked at him enviously. Lin Yi already had a fine iron spear and excellent knife; coupled with these new awards, he was basically now fully equipped as an officer!

"San Gouzi, come forward!"

"Sir!"

"During the battle of the raider camp, Sergeant San Gouzi effectively lured the enemy into an ambush and was brave in combat during the following battles! With our thanks, you are rewarded an ordinary horse, an ordinary wooden bow, an ordinary set of studded leather armor, and a fine iron spear!"

"Thank you for the reward, my lord!"

"Zhang Daniu, come forward!"

"Sir!"

"During the battle of the bandit camp, Sergeant Daniu fought bravely and with great power! With our thanks, you are awarded an ordinary horse, an ordinary composite bow, an ordinary set of studded leather armor, and an exquisite axe!"

There was a bit of a contrast here, as Daniu's reward was slightly better than San Gouzi's. But San Gouzi was an agile soldier, and spears were more suitable for him. Da Niu was more of a strength soldier, more suited for using an axe.

"Zhao Sihu, Li Mingliang, come forward!"

"Sir!"

"During the bandit camp fight, Zhao Sihu and Li Mingliang proved themselves to be brave and effective fighters! You are each awarded a set of ordinary armor!"

"Thanks to the lord for his reward!" the two men called out eagerly.

These two men had been in the second group to join the militia. After this battle, they had come up from behind, heading up the fourth and fifth squad as sergeants. General Shi had been comfortable with them moving up into command positions, and had already recommended them to Ouyang Shuo before they became sergeants.

In order to assuage the mood of the old militia, Ouyang Shuo had decided to temporarily shelve the promotion of the two as sergeants until he saw how well they did against the bandits.

Sure enough, the two did not let him down. In the battle of the raider camp, their performances were quite prominent. Ouyang Shuo was thus very supportive of their promotions to sergeant status.

After handing out the main rewards for combat merits, Ouyang Shuo didn't reward the ordinary soldiers. He left the duty of handing out rewards to these men to General Shi, to keep up his prestige. General Shi had no problems taking over this duty.

Ouyang Shuo cleared his throat and proclaimed, "The following people, come up to General Shi to receive your rewards when your name is called, everyone give General Shi a round of applause!"

The soldiers applauded immediately and warmly. General Shi began to call out names from the platform, giving awards to soldiers one by one based on their performances.

Taking advantage of this gap, Ouyang Shuo removed the Basic Soldier Token from his storage bag, and assessed its properties.

[Crossbowmen Token] (Basic): 100 fully trained militia may be directly transformed into crossbow cavalry.

This was really powerful. Ouyang Shuo was clearer than anyone on the value of this Soldier Token. First of all, this was an upgrade that did not require the Intermediate Barracks; it directly transformed militia into soldiers, saving a lot of upgrade costs. Transforming a militiaman into a soldier was a full gold coin, ten times the cost of turning farmers into militia.

Secondly, the militia were turned into 1st rank soldiers. There were only three kinds of soldiers: infantry, cavalry, and navy. In other words, the first choice of a soldier type was from the large categories. After that, they would be categorised further and in more detail as to which section they would serve in the military, depending on the skills that were taught to them and the equipments they were given.

For example, infantry, if their commander was a master of the sword, then you could give them swords and shields, and slowly train them to become sword-shield infantry soldiers.

This token used directly affected what subdivision you moved your soldiers into. The token in Ouyang Shuo's hands could directly transformed them into cavalry soldiers who could also use crossbows!

Waiting until General Shi was done with the awards, Ouyang Shuo stepped up again on the high platform, looking around at the assembled soldiers. "When we destroyed the raider camp, you all did not let me down, and you did not disappoint the villagers in Shanhai. The page of history has turned. I do not want you to immersed in past glories. We are soldiers, and fighting is our duty. Today, we exterminated a raider camp. Tomorrow, there will be more powerful enemies, waiting in front of us.

"As a warrior, all we can do is train hard, harder, and even harder! So that in every battle, we can go forth with courage and kill the enemy without fear! Now, there is a new opportunity before you." Ouyang Shuo raised the token symbol up before the soldiers. "This is a Crossbow Cavalry Token for soldiers, the most valuable spoils of our battle! I will be using this to change your jobs, and hopefully everyone will take advantage of this rare chance to train hard, for soon there will be a bigger challenge awaiting us! Are you ready?!"

"Then everyone, go into the class change chamber of the Barracks, line up, and we will begin the process!" Ouyang Shuo got down from the raised platform, stepping to the door of the class change chamber. He laid his hands upon the door, and the symbol token in his hands lit up.

"System Notification: Detecting the Crossbow Cavalry Soldier Symbol, use now?"

"Yes!"

There was a flash of white light and hum as the Soldier Symbol vanished from his hands.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player Qiyue Wuyi for successful use of the Crossbow Cavalry Soldier Symbol! The transformation room has been updated to increase its power to include Crossbow Cavalry Soldiers as an option, until 100 transformations have been completed!

"Should the transformations be started immediately?"

"Yes!"

"System Notification: Please select the number of transformations!"

"47 people!" Ouyang Shuo had arranged for the seriously wounded militia to retire, so there were only 47 people to transform. Once he rose to Third Village, he could do a one-time makeup to round out the numbers.

"System Notification: The number of transformations has been selected, use of the transforming chamber has begun. Transformations remaining: 53 people."

In addition to Lin Yi, the rest of the militia teams began to go in one by one into the transforming room. When the first one came out, Ouyang Shuo naturally had to look at his stats.

Name: Zhang Daniu

Identity: Cavalry Crossbow Soldier Sergeant.

Occupation: Crossbow Cavalry

Level: rank 1

Combat Power: 20 points (Attack/defense comprehensive index, crossbow cavalry gain +5 points)

Consumption: 5 units of food/day

Skills: Basic Archery and Basic Riding.

Equipment: Ordinary Horse, Basic Composite Bow, Ordinary Crossbow, Basic Iron Sword, Basic Javelin, Basic Armor, Basic Wooden Shield.

Evaluation: Able to ride to increase their movement, and equipped with a crossbow and bow to supplement their arms. Well equipped, able to scout, raid, and use archery.

Normally, the combat power of a max level militiaman was 11. When transformed into 1st order soldiers, this was directly increased to 15. With the excellent weapons and skills of the crossbow cavalry, they directly earned an additional 5 points of combat power.

This was a great enhancement to their fighting ability, a large part of it because of their black iron equipment level. Such a band of 1st grade crossbow cavalry was comparable in power to the highest level player, Blood Romance of Blood Evil mercenary group.

Even with seizing so much equipment from the raiders, most of it wasn't of the same level as the gear of the crossbow cavalry. This showed just how precious the Symbol Token was!