The blows that were exchanged shook the earth and the trees and mountains crumbled. Yet to no avail, one was not able to defeat the other. The battle between the armies raged on, over time due to the significant advantage that the Vales men had they enemy forces started to slowly lose ground.
Until one fateful blow decided the victor. The king of Argenthrall was slain. The victory could be seen before the battle even ended. James's axe dripped with rose colored blood, a body that was divided into two could be seen laying before him.
James's victory crushed the morale of the remaining soldiers, and they were quickly dealt with. The man in black and Asher had momentarily stopped their battle and the man in black looked over the battlefield. With every second his face contorted more and more.
Out of all the demon assassins there were only a handful remaining and seeing that they were at the losing end the man decided to retreat. "I will remember this day Knight of the Vale, our battle has yet to finish but it will have to wait for another time." He said calmly and then shouted "Retreat!!"
The battle was thus concluded, and the war was won in victory. As the men cleaned up the battlefield Asher reported their victory to Ethan in a letter.
A few moments later Asher then convened a council. "I have sent a letter to the King, and he will decide in further actions, for now James you will go and conquer the city and preside over it until further notice. Magnus you will go back to Florathell and oversee it until otherwise decided. Rowan you shall return with me to the kingdom" He stated.
And as such the men went to perform their duties.
Meanwhile in a magnificent castle overlooking a beautiful city in the middle of a wave of gold a young man could be seen in a room that would look like to be a study busy sipping on some tea.
Ethan had delegated his orders, and everything was taken care of. He had sent Leo the economic council head, Gavin builders council head and butler William to Florathell. He had ordered them to take care of every possible need according to the Verdant Vale standards which meant building cobblestone roads to every city or town and that toilets and baths were built to increase the city's hygiene.
Every important and not so important task had already been instructed for and Ethan now only awaited the results of the battle of Argenthrall. Which he had not waited too long for as a screech from a crow could be heard the very next moment.
Ethan looked toward the sound and saw the pitch-black bird with its long beak carrying a letter tied to its legs. He slowly opened the letter and after reading the contents he had a brilliant smile plastered on his face.
It went as smoothly as he could have hoped for, and as usual there were casualties but much less than he initially expected and almost all the casualties were from the trainees and only two knights have fallen in battle.
The same rituals and traditions would be held regarding the Heroes of War. And speaking of the war heroes he thought "It seems it's time to expand the academy, with the addition of two new towns the time it would take to travel between the cities for the academy would be too great." But he in the end also decided to divide it into specialist academies.
He then decided on what to name the academies. The Imperial Vale academy in Vale city would have everything any other academies would have, Blackthorn Defense academy, Valenor Naval academy, Mistwood Archer academy, Argenthrall Dawn academy, Florathell General academy as they would only have a specialty when a new order is established and finally another general academy in Mist Haven but in secret they would have a division for Ravens Shadow recruits in the town.
Ethan had decided it would be like that and he knew a few problems could arise establishing academies according to the knight's orders and so on. But in the long run he wanted them to come to the Imperial Vale academy where they would be greeted with everything that they would need, and it would be of better quality.
Ethan had also decided that the academies would divide themselves into two categories, those that want to travel on the path of becoming a knight and those that would want to go into other professions. He would not reject them from doing both, the general division is for them to study everything they could from history to various different subjects like languages and trade and so on. He wanted his people to be educated and well educated at that.
He started writing his letter to William regarding his newfound inspiration for the academies and when he was done, and the letter was sent, he started to browse the system mall for all kinds of knowledge as the system had everything, he found a vast number of books and battle techniques and breathing techniques. He bought everything he deemed alright and decent.
He then divided his new products into what would go were and if someone would walk into the study they would have most probably died from a heart attack as one would see a large amount of techniques ranging from inferior to low rank techniques with every grade and one could even see a few mid ranked techniques, but Ethan left those for his generals as they were the only ones able to cultivate them.
And so, the day passed by and when dusk descended Ethan could be seen standing away from 7 piles of items and admiring the piled items. He then put them into his inventory and once Wiliam and the rest returned he would give them the techniques and items. Ethan had also decided that in the future trouble may arise with the academies and as such only Knight Captain level soldiers would become deans and Knight Lieutenants would become instructors, and so, Ethan's academy plan was ready and finished and only needed to be executed.