From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 670 Ivy's New Schedule
The criteria for measuring the combat effectiveness of a military unit usually require a comprehensive consideration of multiple factors.

Personnel quality, weaponry, morale and discipline, organization and training, and the tactical skills of commanders are all factors that can determine the outcome of a battle.

Doing the best within one's capabilities is what Ivy, the full-fledged military advisor, needs to consider.

However, there are also distinctions of closeness and distance among the Crusader legions under his command.

The Knights of Dawnblade and the Knights of Divine Claw were clearly more favored by him than the other soldiers from Montevi.

As for the other volunteers from around the world, Ivy simply organized them as much as possible before discussing combat effectiveness.

In addition to assigning Joran Weyhen to equip the members of the two knightly orders with weapons and gear, Ivy also planned to expand the size of these two knightly orders to a certain extent.

Simply put, it means incorporating more auxiliary soldiers known as attendants.

The battle against demons is not a large-scale battle between humans, and much of the past experience is no longer applicable.

The strategy of having the front line hold the line while the back line deals damage is hardly a healthy tactic when facing demons that can fly and possess various special abilities.

Once the battle begins, the command system will experience varying degrees of stagnation.

The reason is very simple: if a quick victory cannot be achieved, the battle line can easily turn into a chaotic battle due to the high mobility of the demons, making it difficult for the commander's orders to reach the soldiers on the front lines.

Demons, on the other hand, have no such concerns. The cannon fodder in the abyss is endless, and the commanders of demons never hesitate because of losses.

Moreover, compared to the demon legions that rely on fear to maintain discipline, the chaotic battles that completely test individual soldier skills are more likely to demonstrate their advantages.

Therefore, the demons never had any tactics to speak of. After leading their troops to the designated battlefield, the demon commander could only issue two orders.

One is: Charge!

The other one is: Retreat!

However, according to Ivy's observation, very few demon commanders would issue a retreat order.

Once the battlefield situation begins to turn unfavorable and defeat is inevitable, the demon commanders who can assess the situation are usually the first to retreat. As for the demons who have not yet received orders, they are used as expendable resources to buy time for their own escape.

However, the demon soldiers who were used as cannon fodder were not fools. Once they discovered that their commander had fled, the entire demon army would quickly collapse, and their will to resist was much lower than that of the human army.

However, because they could fly and teleport, the demons left behind fewer corpses than humans when they retreated.

The opposite is true of another type of demon commander who will not issue a retreat order. Demons who take battle and slaughter as their life will use fear and tyranny to keep every soldier under their command on the battlefield, and will never stop until the last man is killed.

However, due to their belligerence, this type of demon commander often charges ahead, and once beheaded, his demon legion will repeat the same action.

Until the capture of Favored City, the only demon commander Ivy had ever encountered who would issue a retreat order was Nugennis. When he sent gargoyles to besiege the Claw Knights and the Hell Knights, he would astutely assess the disparity in strength between the two sides and order his troops to withdraw from the battlefield.

However, Nugenis is an artificial, half-soul-eating demon, and may still retain a portion of human power consciousness within him. He might be aware that his position is closely related to the soldiers under his command.

After summarizing the experience, it is not difficult to find the common characteristics of the demon legions: they are extremely resilient when the battle lines are deadlocked and can often win through chaotic battles, but they will also quickly begin to collapse once the battle situation is unfavorable.

In this situation, Ivy believed that the Crusaders should avoid engaging in tactical stalemates with the demons. Instead, they should skillfully maneuver the enemy's legions, create local battlefield advantages, quickly break through the enemy's flanks, accumulate advantages to achieve victory, and trigger the collapse of the demon army.

However, war is not a turn-based game where you take turns attacking. The situation is constantly changing, and Ivy cannot completely control the course of the battlefield to develop in the direction she wants.

Therefore, in their pre-battle preparations, the Crusaders must also be prepared to engage in protracted combat.

Ivy's response was to reorganize the troop structure.

In terms of individual combat strength, the Crusaders, filled with new recruits, could not possibly be a match for the demons. And the holy war volunteers from all over the world, although they were all adventurers with special skills, found it difficult to coordinate with each other on the battlefield.

Therefore, Ivy decided to change their training methods, no longer requiring a Crusader recruit to be proficient in both defense and offense.

Each recruit is only equipped with one type of weapon. Defending is handled by fully armored shield warriors, while attacking is handled by lightly armed soldiers wielding spears.

Since there was only one main piece of equipment, the recruits' training time was obviously shortened. However, Ivy also required them to form small battle formations in the chaos of battle, so the overall training time did not change much.

This idea is borrowed from 16th-century Earth military writings, but the formations mentioned therein are more complex, and there is a series of other equipment used to restrict movement and expand advantages. The standard formation requires more people.

However, the Crusaders face more ferocious enemies who are also more likely to disrupt their formations, so Ivy simplified it into a battle formation that only considers both offense and defense.

Other aspects of the battle, such as support and harassment, are handled by more specialized units.

It is generally believed that for newly reorganized recruits to possess combat effectiveness, they must undergo the test of actual combat. Soldiers who can survive in battle possess the qualities required by the legion.

New recruits are extremely prone to collapse due to various unexpected situations, so it is necessary to incorporate veterans into these recruits as the backbone to play a leading role.

Within the Crusader, the first units to be reorganized were two battle-hardened knightly orders. New recruits, or rather, squires, who wielded shields and spears, would fight alongside the more experienced Hell Knights and Dawnblade Knights.

Ivy anticipates that after one or two battles, these squires will be able to be incorporated into larger legions as the core.

At that time, the knights of the Divine Claw Knights and the Dawnblade Knights will have a new place to go.

The way to avoid getting bogged down in a chaotic battle with demons is to maneuver the enemy and create an advantage. And in order to maneuver the enemy, Crusader forces must have a mobility advantage.

Most demons can teleport and fly. If it weren't for the fact that half of their army consisted of equally mediocre mortal cultists, they would probably be raiding the Crusader's strongholds every now and then.

In order to give both knightly orders the same mobility advantage, Ivy prepared two solutions.

One of them is the proven war magic – [Legion Teleportation]. This magic, created and improved by Ivy, can directly teleport an entire legion. Even though the other spellcasters in the Crusader do not have Ivy's legendary strength, they can compensate with their numerical advantage.

In order to equip the two knightly orders with war mages, Ivy decided to open a special short-term training course in the city of Favor to train spellcasters who wished to serve in the Holy War.

The teachers responsible for instructing the students need to be brought in from Streihaven.

Stryhaven has a large number of graduates, and apart from those who roam Akavievo and other multiverses, the vast majority of them have to find a job after graduation.

Staying at the school as a teacher is one of their best options, while the second best is to become a Dragon Guard in Streihaven, fighting to protect the academy and magic.

Ivy's target is these senior graduates who have strong learning abilities and want to stay at the university.

The Holy War is a matter for Grellion; it's unrealistic to expect spellcasters from another world to join without compensation.

Therefore, from the beginning, Ivy planned to pay them to come to the City of Favor to teach the Holy Army's prospective war mages.

Since Ivy's [Legion Teleportation] technique draws heavily on the magical theories of Hengjian Academy, he believes that, given their existing foundation, these Hengjian students should be able to master this war magic quickly.

However, the initial batch of war mages still had to be taught by Ivy herself.

Besides graduates of Stryhaven, other lower-year spellcasters also have a significant advantage in Grallion. They can easily recruit a group of assistants simply by offering subsidies and academic credits.

However, the Crusaders are, after all, waging war against demons, and involving these students who are still in the ivory tower would obviously bring a series of problems.

In order not to damage his image in the eyes of the school, Ivy decided to explain the dangers and difficulties that the students might encounter in Grellion in a completely open manner, and on the premise of voluntariness, not to assign these students to front-line combat missions.

What he needs are students from the Mi Hua lineage who can use magic to replenish the Holy Crusade's logistics warehouses.

The students of Silver Radiance are able to boost morale and soothe hearts with their songs and speeches.

Students of quantitative theory who can quickly build portals for use by various Crusader strongholds.

A student of the Mi Hua bloodline who is capable of making achievements in necromancy and assisting the lich Zechariah in summoning undead creatures.

Students of Hengjian Order are capable of creating magic scrolls to provide magical support to front-line combat troops.

From this perspective, it seems that only the advanced and showcasing students of the Cui Li Art Academy lack opportunities to demonstrate their talents.

But that's alright, the magic learned in art schools is indeed difficult to use without going to the front lines.

But this doesn't mean that Ivy has no expectations for the Academy.

It's well known that art schools are always a very mysterious place. Perhaps a future military genius is currently worrying about passing the next final exam and avoiding expulsion.

Furthermore, if these students from the Cleric could create and donate some jihadist artwork to raise funds for the Crusades, that might not be a bad way out.

Besides training and recruiting legionary mages for the Knights, another way for Ivy to increase the mobility of the two Knights was to equip them with mounts.

Ordinary mounts are naturally no match for demons that can fly or teleport.

But what if these knights' mounts could also fly, or possess extraordinary magical powers?
Coincidentally, Ivy had already spearheaded the construction of Pegasus Ranch at Hogwarts when she was a first-year student.

Although it was originally intended to be an experimental base integrating production, education, and research, and also to satisfy his personal hobby of breeding Pegasus, several years have passed, and Ivy hasn't had much time to look back at the Hogwarts Pegasus Farm. Perhaps the number of Pegasus there has grown to an unimaginable size by now?
With Hagrid, a half-giant who loves magical creatures, as his caretaker, Ivy could almost imagine how quickly the different species of Pegasus would reproduce if food and space were plentiful.

Forming a Pegasus Knights Order should be more than enough, right?
In addition, there is a possibility that the other magical creatures Ivy tamed in the Room of Requirement might also be used in battle.

For example, there's the exaggeratedly large Rune-Veined Serpent, the thousand-year-old snake monster that sleeps in late every day, and those fire dragons kept under the White Pagoda!

Maybe he can even train some fire dragon knights.

Furthermore, Ivy controlled all the channels for purchasing Pegasus and introducing spellcasters for the Crusaders. If he didn't make a small fortune from this, it would be a disservice to his status as a Golden Dragon. Why would he need to spend his own money?
Perhaps this is the good thing about researchers in official institutions: they can just keep researching without having to figure out how to get funding themselves.

As long as a plausible report is written, government officials who know nothing about it are forced to obediently transfer money.

Of course, Ivy wouldn't assume that all official researchers are so fortunate. If their research field doesn't overlap with the areas valued by the authorities, they'll probably be left with nothing.

At this point, Ivy set a schedule for recruiting wizards at Strathaven University and for purchasing Pegasus and other magical creatures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Moreover, while visiting Hogwarts, one can also visit their sorcerer. Speaking of which, the souls of the Worleys have been dormant in his hands for a long time, so let's take this opportunity to resurrect them.

By now, most of the Hogwarts students are in their seventh year, and it's time for them to graduate.

While some students in vocational schools have just graduated, others have already become divine beings, even controlling vast territories and leading a holy war against the demons of the abyss.

Thinking about it this way, the gap between wizards is indeed greater than the gap between wizards and Muggles.

Ivy's apprenticeship assessment at the White Tower might have been passed by everyone. Having one or two writing apprentices, who would then serve as experimental assistants with no human rights, would be quite a wonderful thing.

Ivy still remembers when he left Hogwarts, the entire wizarding world was in an uproar because of his magic that resurrected the dead. He wondered if the legends he left behind in the wizarding world had faded after all these years.

Are there still any wizarding families who would pay money to resurrect their loved ones?

But perhaps the most enlightening thing about returning to Hogwarts is seeing what changes this butterfly has brought to the wizarding world.

(End of this chapter)