The Dream of the Century - The War of Faith Chapter 31: The Snow of Death
"I think we have learned about the test of strength. This is the first time for the test of wisdom. Do you have any explanation?" Karin asked.
"Can you please introduce the format of the Wisdom Trial?" Amon said and began to look around.
The two men organized the scattered books and put them back into their corresponding positions on the bookshelf. In the process, they answered the content of the Wisdom Trial—actually, they answered five questions. If they got the answer wrong, they had to answer it again a day later.
.
"Um, do you know the content of the trials above? Also, do we two challengers have to choose the same trial?" Carlin asked some details.
"We don't know the situation in other layers." After speaking in unison, one of them said: "You can only choose one trial at a time. If you want to conduct a strength trial after failing the wisdom trial, the interval is also one day."
"Then can we know what type of problem it is?" Amon asked.
"Well, we don't know either."
"In other words, it's not you who come up with the questions." Carlin found it strange.
"After all, we are just guardians, not questioners. What we want to ask is the book."
"What do you mean? It's not like we can't afford this day. At worst, we'll have to deal with the rest." Karin began to seek Amon's opinion.
"Ha, it's quite interesting." Amon said with a smile: "Now that you put it like that, I'm a little curious about what questions they will raise."
"Are the books also randomly selected? Or are some of them volunteering to be examiners?" Carlin began to wonder.
"That's it, the book will choose you." Very wow. "That's how the taboo knowledge from the past appears."
"Okay, let's choose the wisdom challenge." Karin nodded.
"Then please take a step forward and enter here." They said in unison again.
"How many years have you been guarding the books here?" Karin took a step forward and walked into the tower.
Amon dismissed the great sword and took a step forward. "So, who wants to be in charge of us?" He glanced at the books around him and asked.
Countless books fell from the bookshelf on their own, then opened and turned pages on their own before hitting the ground, or they were suspended or flying.
After a while, one of the books flew to the snake-shaped guardian who was relatively close to Carlin. It caught the book, and the book had already turned to one of the pages and stayed there.
"After each question is answered, can we get a standard answer?" Suddenly remembering something, Carlin quickly asked.
The guardian shook his head, and Carlin noticed that the title of the book was The Impact of the Existence of Magic Explosion on Alchemical Gunpowder. "Ask a question, analyze it from the perspectives of individuals, society, and national structure - why has the manufacturing of gunpowder not been
Promotion was even considered taboo.”
"In addition, this country can be any real country in any time period."
[It seems to be a question about my choice of weapons and equipment, but this is the question.] Carlin started to think, and it probably took him a quarter of an hour before he said: "I've thought about it."
"For ordinary people, using gunpowder means that you or those around you need to have a foundation in alchemy, but it is difficult for alchemy itself to be completely separated from magic. Before the convenience, power and controllability of gunpowder did not exceed that of magic,
Except for personal hobbies like mine, most people would choose to learn magic instead of being a boring alchemy apprentice for a few years. Therefore, gunpowder lacks users as a way to spread it."
The guardian nodded and waited for Karin to continue.
"For society, magic is easier to detect. Sometimes an anti-magic force field is enough to protect a city, and not everyone can master this power. But gunpowder weapons and explosives only require some parts, not
It requires any extraordinary ability to launch life-threatening attacks. It is also better concealed than swords and has a longer range. In addition, gunpowder has limited uses for daily production, such as blasting mountains and mining, and most societies will list gunpowder as a restricted weapon.
goods and even contraband.”
"The country is the unit most likely to develop high-performance gunpowder, but after solving problems such as technology, civilians with a little training and equipped with a gunpowder weapon can replace archers who have been trained for many years, and can even threaten advanced spellcasters.
Once gunpowder technology leaks out, the upper class may even face rebels armed with a large number of artillery to attack the city. These are unsettling factors that affect the stability of the country, so it is very possible to legislate to ban the spread of gunpowder.”
The book closed automatically in the guardian's hands, as if the answer was correct.
"Where I live, gunpowder is considered a new product. But I think that anything with similar properties to gunpowder may face such problems in its spread." Carlin finished.
Then another book eagerly flew into the hands of another guardian and opened a few pages. Amon saw that the title of the book was - The necessity of spells that constitute melee weapons.
Amon touched his chin and felt that these books were really relevant.
"Question: Why are swords sharp on both sides? Why are spears and knives the main weapons on the battlefield? Why can't crossbows replace bows?"
"I see, this is a really suitable question for me." Amon smiled and said slowly: "First of all, it is the question of why the sword needs to be sharpened on both sides. In fact, this question can be answered very simply - in order to be more effective
to kill the enemy."
I don’t know since when, some people will subconsciously think that the sword is actually a weapon that uses direct thrust as the main means of killing. In fact, although thrusting is indeed a very important part of swordsmanship, in fact it cannot
It can be called the main one." Amon said, recalling the sword from another dimension, holding it in his hand and gesticulating to demonstrate. "Actually, if you have actually conducted relevant training, you will find that,
Although stabbing can effectively control the area of confrontation further away from your body, at the same time, it also means that it is easier to block and dodge. And when the enemy cuts into the tip of your sword,
Once within range, if you want to counterattack at this time, you still have to return to the slashing technique in the end."
"Furthermore, double blades mean that you have more attack directions. When your attack is blocked, you can immediately use the counter blade to attack again from another direction. Even if you are blocked again, you can still attack again.
Cut in other directions again. The existence of double blades will make your attacks more flexible and changeable, and the frequency of attacks will also be greatly increased." As Amon said, he showed off various counter-blade skills to really defeat the opponent.
Experience the convenience of double-edged swords.
"Then why are knives and spears the main weapons on the battlefield? The first thing you need to know is that when fighting collectively on the battlefield, in most cases there is no room for you to wield the sword - if it is true
If an ordinary soldier does this, the first person he will hurt will definitely be his own people. However, single-edged chopping knives and straight-thrusting spears can maintain military formations well and at the same time, they can quickly and effectively attack opponents.
Cause damage. This is one, and the other is - they are really cheap." Amon shrugged, he was too familiar with this thing. "Whether it is the manufacturing cost or the training cost, swords are far more expensive than knives.
, Spears are more expensive, but the actual combat effectiveness is not much better, so over time, the mainstream weapons on the battlefield quickly became spears and knives."
"Finally, why the crossbow cannot replace the bow - it is very simple, because although both are used for long-range attacks, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. Although it seems that the training cost of the crossbow is lower, in fact
The manufacturing process of crossbows is more complicated than that of bows. And because of its need to be loaded, the shooting speed will be greatly slowed down if you are not a good player. And although the shooting power of crossbows is stronger, the range of the bows
And it is far stronger than crossbows. These advantages lead to different application scenarios of bows and crossbows, so there is no way one can replace the other. With all these factors, I don’t know if you are satisfied with my answer?"
After Amon finished answering, an unnamed book with a green cover flew to Karin's side. The first page was opened and it was all blank except for one question. What is the essence of life?
"Metabolism, reproduction, differentiation, selectivity and additivity? No life should be able to avoid these." Carlin emptied his mind of ideas and squeezed out some of his alchemical understanding of the word.
"Well... First, it absorbs substances from the outside world and feeds back its own substances to the outside world. Second, it reproduces offspring and maintains the number. Third, it responds to the outside world and adapts differently to different environments."
The book closed and flew back.
Then came a weirder book, with a torn cover and tattered pages. The book flew in front of Amon, and it was full of weird words. "Oh, he looks like an old gentleman." Amon said.
Meng said while carefully identifying the content above.
Some of these strange texts were soon twisted into lingua franca, and the question was what the nature of the shadow was.
"Shadow...Actually, although the expressions are different, the essence of shadow is actually no different from magic. They are both energy that can be controlled." This is what Amon has been thinking about for a long time.
The conclusion that was reached.
The book paused for a while, closed it and flew away. Finally, one book flew to the two guardians and showed one page respectively. The two guardians said in unison: "It can be seen that your main source of power is external objects.
If one day these external objects can no longer provide power for some reason and you are doomed to destruction, will you continue to move forward on this path for the approaching tomorrow? Please answer how?
Why?"
"If you can't move on, then what's the point of life?" Amon said with a chuckle. "No matter whether that thing will continue to provide me with strength, the end of destruction will be unstoppable towards me. If I am afraid
It, from the beginning, I will not embark on an adventurous journey; if it stagnates, of course it cannot be said to be alive. I promised others to live well - so, I will never stop, even if
The power is gone and destruction is imminent.”
"In addition, I made one mistake. What I got from there was energy, and it is the one that really transforms it into power that I can use." Amon said, tapping himself lightly.
head of.
Carlin was not to be outdone. "Losing external help will not affect my progress. My journey is to witness and learn more unknown things. External objects are unknown and also a means of progress. If I lose them
I can't move forward, which only means that I'm not strong enough. If they really leave me, then I will strengthen myself, solve the obstacles on the road, and then find them one by one."