Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence.

Chapter 186: The Power of the Chosen Knight and the Griffin Armor
Su Li's advancement and breakthrough is certainly a huge improvement, but compared with Hildreth, it seems insignificant.

When he was promoted to the champion level, Hildur gained new bloodline abilities and divine arts.

They are [Blazing Blood·Golden Light Shield: When fully activating the light attribute blood in the body, it can form a powerful shield for itself like an arcane shield to resist a large amount of damage from the enemy on the battlefield].

[Divine Spell: Holy Arrow of Guidance: Violet, the Sun Goddess, allows her followers to use the power of bows and arrows to defeat their opponents and gain an advantage. After using this spell, Violet's followers can launch a psychic arrow imbued with Violet's divine power, capable of accurately striking their targets and even penetrating magical defenses. Subsequent damage inflicted by the Sun Goddess' followers to this target will inflict a small amount of the Sun Goddess's holy damage.]

Her Blazing Blood ability did more than simply provide a protective shield; it would significantly increase as Hildreth's strength grew. Upon reaching the Chosen level, the bloodline energy she could call upon became even more surging. This golden shield, like a golden bell, protected her from all angles, making her defense incredibly formidable. While her bloodline ability was active, she could practically ignore most attacks.

And when she reached the God-chosen level, the improvement she received was even greater!
All God Chosen will gain the same bloodline ability [Burning Blood·Divine Power Descends] after breaking through.

There are two ways for the God-chosen Knight to activate this powerful ability and transform into a powerful divine general. The first is to force blood to burst. At the beginning of the battle, through prayer, let the grace of God enter the body, make the blood more vigorous, and then directly activate this ability at the beginning of the battle.

The advantage of activating the Divine Grace Blood Burst ability is that it prolongs the Divine General state, increasing combat power. The disadvantage is that after forcibly initiating the Blood Burst, other bloodline abilities are essentially inaccessible. Even after disabling the Divine General state, continuing to use bloodline abilities carries a high probability of exploding and death. This is unless one reaches the Legendary level. At that stage, Legendary Knights can freely activate the Divine Might state at any time and in any place. It's even rumored that Legendary Knights can achieve the power of the Divine General state even in their normal state.

Of course, as a chosen knight, there is also a second way to activate the state of a god general, which is to fight bloody battles, kill a large number of enemies, and then put yourself in a state of high blood flow and blood all over the body.

In this situation, the Chosen Knight can activate [Blazing Blood: Divine Might] unimpeded. However, the downside of this activation method is that it's relatively short-lived. If the Blazing Blood circulates too long in the Divine General state, the excited blood will gradually cool, and the Divine General state will be lifted after a few minutes. The upside is that by continuing to fight, the Divine General state can be smoothly activated a second, third, or even fourth or fifth time.

One thing worth mentioning is that the Chosen Knight cannot use other Burning Blood abilities while in God General state, as using other Burning Blood abilities will prematurely terminate God General state. Only when you reach the Legendary level can you freely use various abilities while in God General state.

Regardless, the Chosen Knight's Divine General state is their most powerful manifestation. While a Chosen Knight under normal circumstances might be somewhat difficult to defeat when surrounded by several Champion Knights, once they activate [Blazing Blood: Divine Might], the battle becomes overwhelming. If a Champion Knight can't dodge in time, a Chosen Knight can easily annihilate them with a single strike.

The only problem Su Li faces now is that there is no powerful weapon worthy of the strength of the God-chosen level of Hirud.

Once she activates the divine general state, the rune sword in her hand is too small, and she needs to rely on physical combat like a dragon.

Only weapons of at least rare grade would have the ability to change size at will, like Skaven Bloodfury's chain axe, which could change with its body shape.

However, not every rare weapon has this ability. It depends on the runes inside it and the materials used in its crafting.

Before Hildurde possessed rare weapons, she transformed into a divine general, whose greatest function was to cooperate with her divine arts to unlock the fear of the enemy.

The divine spell she obtained at the Chosen level was [Fearful Wrath: Violet's wrath can be directed towards her own face, causing any enemy who successfully attacks her in close combat to be overcome by fear].

A knight in the God General state cannot use the [Burning Blood] ability, but can use the [Divine Spell] ability unimpeded.

After Hirud reaches the Chosen Knight stage, she has three [Blood] abilities and three [Divine Magic] abilities.

In terms of skill changes, she may not be weaker than a high elf magician.

A five-ring mage may not necessarily gain the upper hand in a battle against a chosen knight.

As long as the green dragon grows to youth, it will naturally possess the strength of a five-ring wizard and the melee ability of a chosen knight.

The dragons in this world master dragon language magic and are the strongest masters of the secrets of the arcane.

It is not easy to defeat a green dragon.

Therefore, even though Hilde has grown into a chosen knight of God, the Lord of Hessen still dares not be careless, and military construction is also urgent.

The arrival of the dwarves greatly alleviated the previous plight of insufficient equipment in the Hessen Territory.

At least a thousand sophisticated weapons to meet the needs of the entire free militia.

However, the Free Militia still lacks armor.

The dwarves only brought 130 sets of armor, 50 of which were Star Iron Armor purchased by their caravan for trade, and 80 were fine-grade Dwarven armor sold on the market. Su Li exchanged all of these Star Iron Armor for beer, cattle, and venison.

Beer is especially desired by the dwarves, even more urgently than food.

If the dwarves don't have enough food, they can mix some gravel into the black bread, as long as it can fill their stomachs.

Dwarves are less craving for good food than their distant halfling cousins, and as long as they can fill their stomachs, they don't care much about what they eat.

But it wouldn’t work without beer!

After a day of hard work, the dwarves sweated profusely in the underground mines and brought back a large amount of ore. Their bodies were extremely burdened, so they hoped that a pound of beer would relieve their fatigue.

Dwarves dislike brandy, believing it to be too delicate and not strong enough. Legend has it that Dwarven beer is strong enough to fuel the engines of Dwarven equipment.

And now is the time when the Grey Mountains province is in urgent need of beer. The ancient relic of the dwarves, the golden hair comb, has been found, and the dwarves of the Redbeard clan have defeated another army of God-chosen demons.

In the Grey Mountain Province, everyone from the Dwarf King to the Mountain Lords were filled with enthusiasm and were planning to hold a feast to celebrate.

But for well-known reasons, very few dwarves or organizations can store more than two barrels of dwarven beer, so the caravan came to the Hessen Territory this time to purchase a large batch of human beer.

Although these beers are as light as water compared to the dwarves' beer, if there are enough of them, they can still make the dwarves slightly tipsy.

Almost all of the first batch of beer brewed by Hesse was exchanged by the dwarves.

The caravan was urging the brewery to speed up its work, as it had over two million kilograms of grain. Later, when they ran out of barrels to store beer, the dwarves even went to the oak forest to help, cutting down oak trees to make barrels.

The price of this beer is very low, or perhaps the purchasing power of the empire's currency has always been strong. 1 to 3 copper coins can buy a large glass of fragrant beer.

The price of a barrel of beer is only 1 to 3 silver coins. The price sold to the dwarves cannot be the retail price. In fact, they purchase in bulk, and a barrel costs only 90 copper coins.

A set of star armor can be exchanged for more than 15000 barrels of beer.

The exchange ratio of extraordinary to ordinary is so exaggerated.

However, Su Li didn't feel that he was at a disadvantage, because beer is mostly water! 200 million kilograms of millet can brew more than 1300 million liters of beer.

Su Li and the dwarf like this trading model.

But according to Doglin, this kind of transaction may not last long.

Because the Redbeard clan is ambitious for expansion, they believe that the dwarves will usher in a period of peace, tranquility, and prosperity in the coming period. They will also have a good harvest on their farms, which will be used to brew a lot of dwarven beer.

The open fields and cultivated lands of a dwarf fortress lie in the jurisdictional territory between the border and the fortress, often constructed into vast and spectacular terraces on the hills.

If the weather is good and the war subsides in the next few years, the harvests from these ground farms will be very good, which will increase the food supply in the underground agricultural hall of the fortress.

Of course, the dwarves didn't just own these farmlands on the surface; some dwarven farms were also scattered beyond the borders, in hidden valleys, but never too far from the fortress. Most of these farms were only accessible through secret passages known to the dwarves. And indeed, few people could stumble upon these dwarven farms.

If there is no war this year or next year, these dwarven fortresses will produce a large amount of food for the dwarves to brew their own beer.

For the dwarves, their favorite is their own brewed beer. Dwarven beer is more than just a drink, an art form. In fact, it is an essential part of the dwarven diet.

Dwarven beer, rich in nutrients, is enough to sustain a dwarf for weeks on its own. Every dwarven settlement, large or small, has at least one brewmaster, usually the elder of a brewing clan. It's said that the brewmaster's personal skill and vision—more so than any other dwarf—are crucial to the development of the local dwarven community. During the Goblin Wars, beer often kept the dwarves alive, and even the dwarven livestock survived thanks to it.

This incident was actually an encouragement to Su Li. The Gray Mountains had ushered in a peaceful and tranquil day, and next it would be his turn at the foot of the Black Forest!

While the dwarves were ambitiously farming, the Hessian Lords were also seizing the time to cultivate the fields and carry out autumn planting, in order to sow the seeds in the ground before the Green Dragon War came.

After all, once war comes, humans will not be able to farm on a large scale.

While dwarves preferred their own brewed beer, the grains needed for brewing were the same. The Hesse Territory was intended to be a granary on the border, solely responsible for selling the grain. Whether others bought it for consumption or brewing was none of Hesse Territory's business.

However, it is not easy to continue to fight for farmland, as the free people's attention is attracted by the upcoming war.

They were trying every possible way to find weapons, equipment, and conduct military training. The monastery of the Church of the Goddess of the Fiery Sun was crowded with people every day.

It's not just because Ron is training believers with the Hessian Knights, but also because a batch of weapons and equipment are distributed here every day, even including sophisticated plate armor!
That was plate armor, forged by dwarves who had arrived in the territory. Over four hundred dwarves toiled day and night, polishing it to perfection. The armor was thick and solid, its surface polished to a brilliant radiance. In the Empire, this kind of plate armor wasn't considered taboo, and mercenaries, adventurers, and colonists were permitted to own it privately.

After all, this world is very unstable. Once you leave the main roads of the plains, you will encounter terrible beastmen, greenskins and cultists among the gravel in the wild and in the hills and forests.

The colonists also needed powerful weapons to expand outward, so it was necessary to provide them with plate armor and halberds.

Of course, the most fundamental reason is that the imperial army has more advanced armor, and the rune vibranium armor has a crushing effect on ordinary people and even ordinary knights.

This resulted in ordinary people in the empire being equipped with relatively luxurious equipment. Some farmers and farm owners owned plate armor, while ordinary people wore mail and leather armor.

The wealth of the Hessen Territory also attracted a large number of mercenaries and brotherhoods, such as the Lighthouse Brotherhood, who came here because of the Hessen Territory's development order.

These people are more pursuing wealth and are willing to take risks for greater gains.

Only the slaves in the Hesse Territory still serve as the main force in farming, and the Minister of Agriculture Fandral and the Chief Pastor Edmund are in charge of the production of the territory.

They recruited more slaves and halflings to develop the area, and the scale of farming below Bjorn Bay even increased.

With the full efforts of the ogre workers, water conservancy facilities covered every acre of newly reclaimed farmland.

Edmund has lost a lot of weight during this period. He was poisoned by the vitality potion he drank!
In order to speed up the growth of plants and animals in the territory, he was drained of his vitality and magic power time and time again, and had to rely on drinking medicine to replenish it.

However, the medicinal properties of medicines in this world are much stronger than those on Earth, and the pharmacology that "all medicines are poisonous" is particularly obvious here.

After a few days of tossing and turning, the old druid was in a weak state, with bruises at the corners of his eyes.

But such a huge price brings unparalleled benefits.

Su Li's most beloved mount, Deathclaw, finally took shape. It was now incredibly large, with a height of over four meters and a wingspan that stretched to nearly 4 meters. Standing before the ogre, it towered over most of them.

This body size obviously exceeds that of most griffins. The height of an ordinary griffin is only between 2.5 meters and 3 meters, which is twice as tall as a warhorse.

If calculated based on the height of a pony, the Death Claw is as tall as three ponies, making it a true super-heavy cavalry.

The serf rode on a pony and stood in front of the Death Claw, looking like a monkey riding a dog.

The sheer size of the Death Claws alone was enough to create an unparalleled sense of oppression, making it impossible for the serfs to resist.

However, this is only the wild state of the Death Claw, not including the armor built for it by the family.

Following the dwarves' visit, Boros and Dogrim worked together to create a suit of gilded cavalry armor for Deathclaw based on its current size.

This set of armor is not only thick and heavy, but also exquisitely crafted, representing the highest level of forging skills in the territory.

The main body of the armor is crafted from fine steel, gilded with gold, gleaming in the sunlight, embodying the nobility, majesty, and elegance of the griffin. The breastplate and back armor are designed as flexible plates to ensure the griffin is not restricted during flight. Each plate is meticulously polished to a sharp edge, protecting the griffin from harm while also serving as a weapon of attack when necessary.

At the same time, the armor is decorated with the golden emblem of the Bauhinia family, which is a symbol of family honor and identity, showing the close connection and loyalty between the Griffin and the Bauhinia family.

The griffin's head is protected by an elaborate visor, and the front of the helmet is adorned with a griffin's sharp beak, adding to its intimidating presence without obstructing its sharp vision. Armor plates extend from both sides of the helmet to protect the neck, extending all the way to the base of the wings, ensuring that the griffin's neck and wings are not harmed during high-speed flight or combat.

The most eye-catching feature is the sharp metal horns on the griffin's head, which were specially designed by Boros and Dogrim. They not only enhance the griffin's attack power, but also make it more deadly and powerful when charging. These horns, combined with the griffin's natural characteristics, make every dive in the air full of devastating power.

As the saying goes, clothes make the man, and saddles make the horse.

Death Claw and the entire Demi-Griffin Knights were equipped with this sophisticated gilded armor, which greatly enhanced their majesty and grandeur.

These days, Su Li couldn't let go of the Death Claw. He even reduced the time for his favorite practice a little bit, and rode the Death Claw in the sky every day.

Humans can never resist the temptation to soar into the sky.

At this moment, Su Li even felt a little regretful that he had not practiced well in the past. His current strength was totally unworthy of such a powerful griffin.

If he had champion-level strength, he could also charge into battle on a griffin!

However, other people cannot understand his troubles.

In half a year, his training progress soared from a beginner knight to an entry-level elite knight.

This speed can no longer be described as lightning fast, it is against the will of heaven!
You know, Su Li’s original guardian knight Schwartz took half a year to be promoted from a beginner knight to a mid-level apprentice knight.

Even after following Su Li for half a year, with all kinds of opportunities, all kinds of monster meat, and a huge amount of divine grace falling on him, he was only promoted from a low-level elite knight to a high-level elite knight.

A large part of the reason why Su Li was able to cultivate so quickly was actually due to Hildurd and the dwarf's golden comb.

As a knight chosen by God, Hildurd helped him to regulate his breathing rhythm every day, and taught him the breathing method mouth to mouth. He was practicing with full concentration on the qualifications of being chosen by God.

This made Su Li even reluctant to return the dwarf's golden hair comb. If he was given some more time to practice, maybe he could also be promoted to the champion level.

In the past few days, in addition to soaring in the sky on the Death Claw, Su Li's most important job is to supervise the farming below Bjorn Bay.

Although the threat of the green dragon is imminent, the farming business in the territory cannot be abandoned.

The food in the castle can supply 400 knights for one or two years, but it can only supply 4000 people for one or two months!

Su Li remembered very clearly that the food stored in his castle only accounted for about a quarter of all the food.

So theoretically, if he could stop the invasion of the green dragon and Heisen Town was not destroyed, then the food supply in Heisen Territory would be just enough to last until the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

In this case, if autumn planting is completely delayed and no harvest is achieved, there will be no way to continue the harvest next year.

As the lord, Su Li had to personally sit at the foot of Bjorn Bay to stabilize the slaves' hearts and allow them to continue farming steadily.

The effect was remarkable. The slaves, initially apprehensive upon hearing of the Green Dragon's followers, had calmed down after seeing the Lord soaring over Bjorn Bay on his griffin and the powerful Chosen Knights, fully armed and swords drawn, standing on the embankment, gazing down below. The slaves' panic had eased, and their spirits had calmed down.

Seeing how calm and composed the lord was, they all thought that the territory was fully confident of dealing with the green dragon.

I heard that the marshal of the territory had already led his troops into the forest, and perhaps victory was just around the corner. After all, since they entered the territory, they had heard of a glorious victory every month.

It seemed that as long as the Lord was around, victory was inevitable. Under the Lord's command, the territory would achieve one great victory after another.

This made Su Li understand why the top rulers of the empire always liked the policy of keeping the people ignorant.

These slaves don't need to know too much, it is enough for them to believe that shouting for the gods' protection can solve the problem.

As Su Li was standing on the embankment, looking down, Minister of Agriculture Fandral approached him and said excitedly, "My Lord, the scale of farming in the territory has reached its peak today. As you predicted, today is indeed the peak of the tide of the Goddess of Dawn's divine power. The wheat, vanilla, and herbs planted today will all yield a good harvest."

He sighed, "It's a shame. The Green Dragon Legion is about to arrive. After we finish sowing, the fertile fields won't be well cared for. Weeds will grow in the fields, the farmland will be abandoned, and the wheat seedlings will be affected."

Su Li comforted him, "It's not a big deal. Didn't you say that after the Autumnal Equinox, the grass and trees will wither? Perhaps the weeds in the fields won't be as lush as they are in the summer."

It takes nearly half a year for crops planted in autumn to grow because after the autumnal equinox, the grass and trees are withered. Not only do the weeds grow slowly, but the crops also grow slowly.

Fandral nodded and said, "Indeed. I hope our war with the Green Dragon can end soon. If it ends in two or three months, we can make timely repairs and the impact on the autumn crops will be relatively limited."

Su Li had no way of judging the prospects of the war, so he could only change the subject and said, "My Minister of Agriculture, please tell me something pleasant. Don't you have any good news?"

"Yes." Fandral's spirits brightened as he spoke of this. "The vanilla is growing well, and the results are promising."

(End of this chapter)