Jefferson knew that the technique recorded in the booklet he was holding might just be a pile of useless paper, but he didn't care. After all, wasn't he himself almost as good as useless?
Even though he had chosen this technique, he dared not take it out openly. His squad was all women, and Jefferson couldn't imagine the consequences if they found out he was practicing such a thing. He brought a blank notebook with him to copy down the necessary techniques. Carefully, he took a few sheets of blank paper from the middle.
The technique wasn't long and was easy to copy, though the illustrations were a bit tricky. Jefferson didn't dare make any mistakes and meticulously traced them. After copying it down, he folded the pages into a palm-sized piece and tucked it into the inside pocket of his shirt.
However, returning with a blank notebook would surely arouse suspicion. Jefferson thought for a moment and then started searching through the techniques again. This time, he was looking for something slightly better than the common techniques but still easy to practice.
Jefferson had a good memory and remembered seeing such a technique earlier. Following his memory, he quickly found it.
This technique was very suitable for heavy shield defenders. He had taken a closer look at it earlier because of this and remembered it. Heavy shield defenders were usually steady and honest, and the writer of this technique seemed to be straightforward as well, listing all its shortcomings at the beginning. The main drawback was that it was "slow"—slow to cultivate and slow in action after mastery, making the practitioner clumsy and sluggish.
The writer seemed to have been troubled by these flaws and wanted to eliminate them. In the end, he apparently succeeded because the technique concluded with two Fighting breath applications. One was called Deflection Close Combat, a defensive technique that deflected enemy attacks to create openings for counterattacks.
The other technique was a footwork method called "Sliding Steps." The essence of Sliding Steps was to keep the feet low to the ground, sliding close to the surface as if skating on ice. These two skills were easy to understand, but replicating them was not so simple. For instance, with Deflection Close Combat, knights fought with lightning speed, so deflecting an opponent's attack required capturing the exact moment of the strike, which wasn't easy.
Sliding Steps had its challenges too. It was easy on flat ground, but knight battles could happen on any terrain, including mountains and swamps.
By the time Jefferson returned from the capital, Sava, it was already late at night. He had dozed off a bit in the carriage but still noticed that Miss Michelle had tampered with his notebook. As expected, the mischievous woman was very interested in the techniques he had copied. Jefferson unconsciously touched the inner pocket of his shirt, smiling slightly. He was glad his secret had not been discovered.
Michelle also smiled, a hint of relief in her expression. Despite enjoying teasing Jefferson, she didn't want him to encounter real trouble. The technique he copied was calm and steady, unlikely to cause any problems, which reassured her.
Back in Brookfield, Jefferson's knightly career officially began. Every morning, he had to report to the camp early. Miss Eileen, his master, would then make him run along Garden Street in an eighty-kilogram weighted suit. The street was four kilometers long. Initially, he only needed to run back and forth once, but after a week, it increased to two times, and now it was five laps.
The most painful part for Jefferson was that, no matter how many laps he had to run, he had to complete them within an hour. He had only exceeded the time limit once and dared not do it again.
For Jefferson, the weighted run was just a warm-up. Next came the blocking training, where he used two lead shields, each weighing eighty kilograms. He had to block Miss Eileen's baton strikes. If he showed any gaps, the baton would strike him like lightning, causing pain that lasted for a long time but without causing serious injury.
After 7 AM, Jefferson had a bit of respite as he attended classes. However, before classes, Miss Christine, the military officer, would inject him with a muscle growth agent, the K65 that almost killed him.
Throughout the morning, Jefferson had to endure the painful and itchy sensation of muscle tearing and reformation while listening to lectures, a torture worse than Eileen's baton. He had to endure it silently, without making a sound.
After school, Jefferson had to return to the camp. While others in the camp had leisure time, he was the busiest, as he was both a laborer and in training. He mostly did heavy lifting tasks, such as moving battle armor, each weighing over a ton even without the armor plating. He had to move these heavy objects by hand, without any tools.
Despite the hard work, Jefferson preferred these labor tasks because training under his master was not only hard but also painful. Every day, he gritted his teeth to get through it.
When he got home, Jefferson only wanted to lie down on his bed. The intense training left him with no appetite, and the meager rations were never enough to fill him. As a knight, he had a large appetite.
His mother would always drag him to the dinner table and force him to eat dinner, though she understood his exhaustion from the labor at the knight camp and always allowed him to rest early. Sometimes, out of concern, she thought about finding Jefferson another job with the help of his school teachers, but she never acted on it because since Jefferson started going to the knight camp, he had stopped fighting with others.
She knew why he fought before and regretted flaunting their little wealth, which had caused trouble. Feeling guilty, Jefferson's mother didn't interfere much in his affairs and didn't know that once he lay in bed, he would constantly masturbate.
This was all because of the strange technique. After weeks of practice, his Fighting breath barely improved, remaining at the initial seed level, while his pent-up energy grew.
Every time he completed a cycle of Fighting breath as per the technique's guidance, he felt parched, and his erection would rise and stay hard for hours. Before practicing this troublesome technique, he could finish masturbating in half an hour, but now, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't climax.
After half an hour of masturbation, Jefferson looked at his penis, which stood erect like a club. It had become thicker, longer, and harder. It used to be about as thick as two fingers together, a hand's length, and as hard as a rubber stick. Now, it was as thick as a child's arm, nearly a foot long, and as hard as a steel-reinforced rubber stick.
At that moment, Jefferson wished he could use this "club" to ravish the female knights in the camp, including his master, Miss Eileen, but he didn't have the courage.
Realizing it was unlikely to target the female knights, Jefferson suddenly sat up. He had been pondering finding a woman for days, knowing a place where he could pay for their company.
Previously, he wouldn't have dared think of Because he is still young and lack of money. He stood up, opened a drawer, and took out some banknotes hidden in the back.
This was his monthly salary, more than what his parents earned, proving that being a knight was a promising career. Though he considered using the money to help at home, he couldn't think of a plausible explanation for its source beyond "stealing" or "robbing," which would only cause trouble.
Unable to find a solution, Jefferson temporarily hid the money, which now had a purpose. He took a few bills, stuffed them into his pocket, and left after informing his mother.