Instead of wasting time wondering about what he should do, he asked his soldiers to begin their daily training regime. After all, they needed to become stronger since they lost more than forty allies, and they had to make up for it.

"Let's spar, Captain," Cohnal said. "I am getting old, but I think that I also have room for improvement. If I were to fail to watch your back again, I don't think I would be able to call myself a lieutenant of the Bloody Knights."

"All right then," Zaos said.

Although that was supposed to be just a spar, Cohnal began to attack Zaos like he really meant it. His strike was as heavy as the time they fought in the arena. He wasn't joking when he said that he wanted to improve.

Blocking all the attacks seemed like a bad idea, but Zaos decided to do that without moving in order to put some pressure on his muscles. After the fight the other day, he once again was reminded that he needed stronger muscles. Maybe Zaos should enhance his muscles instead of just the exterior parts of this body, but doing that wasn't something that he managed to do until now.

The sound of the two swords colliding echoed through the area, and after a short while, pretty much everyone stopped their training to watch the spar. In the end, only a few saw Zaos fighting the other day, they only saw what he left behind, and it wasn't a sight someone wanted to see twice. Fighting like that seemed like something a crazy man would do, but Zaos seemed pretty calm while sparring.

Once Zaos got a good feeling about Cohnal's horizontal attacks, Zaos decided to use his legs. It was something quite dangerous to do, but he decided to experiment with magic a little bit since it could be a dangerous experiment against an opponent like Cohnal.

Zaos enhanced his legs with earth magic, and then he used the strength of his left to jump backward when Cohnal started the motion of his swing. Thanks to that, Zaos dodged the sword strike by a hair's length, and then he stepped forward again by landing on his right foot and then using the strength of that leg. Before even Cohnal could finish his swing, Zaos approached and pointed his sword toward his leg.

"… What was that, Captain?" Cohnal said while a drop of cold sweat fell from his face.

"Just something I thought right now," Zaos said and then put away his sword. "It is a pity this kind of action won't help us in the next battle."

While that was true, it was a pretty useful trick to use against powerful warriors such as Cohnal. Still, it was hard to imagine someone pulling that off effectively. Using only one leg to retreat and then advance was just too insane…

"Yeah, but in duels…" Cohnal said.

"I don't really care about duels," Zaos said. "Anyway, let's spar again… and you guys return to your training."

Zaos wished that he could scold more of his soldiers, but fortunately, they quickly obeyed him. Putting all the pain aside, Zaos could tell that the muscles in his arms were getting stronger after blocking all those blows. In the end, Zaos spent the entire morning practicing, but then he decided to try again in coming up with a battle plan that could work in most situations. Unfortunately, that was close to impossible since he knew so little about the enemies, and his numbers weren't enough.

Any ordinary plan wouldn't work, so Zaos decided to search around the area and look for someplace where they would have the advantage. However, he could only hill, but those weren't tall enough to build a decent fortress with the few things that could be found in the area. While Zaos didn't find any proper place, he found some poisonous plants.

"Not like this will help as well… poison takes time to take effect," Zaos said and then recalled that he had Poison Resistance. "Should I…"

In the end, even though Zaos was wondering the previous night why he should obtain more power. He ended up eating a poisonous plant. Naturally, it wasn't deadly, and the taste was kind of sweet, so it went down pretty easily.

Your Poison Resistance has reached level 10

"I must be going nuts…" Zaos said and sighed in relief since the effects of the poison only made him sweat for a few minutes.

While Zaos was searching for more poisonous plants, he understood one thing. It was impossible to live a soldier's life without taking any risks. All those who became soldiers had considered that they might not live long lives, but they still accepted that because they didn't have many options when it came to things they could do in life. Some soldiers only become soldiers because they are too clumsy to produce anything or not very bright to learn some things.

Zaos wanted to prevent losing as many soldiers as possible since he didn't want to apologize to too many families. Still, in the end, he couldn't just wait that things would work that well like they did in the first battle.

"I guess this is one of the things a military leader has to get used to… we have to get used to sending soldiers to their deaths or to situations where their chances of surviving are very low," Zaos said after a long sigh. "We chose to become the first line of defense of this kingdom, after all."

Your Poison Resistance has reached level 11

Your Poison Resistance has reached level 12

Your Poison Resistance has reached level 13

After saying that, Zaos ate the poisonous plants he had found. A little later that day, he had to deal with an upset stomach, but at least things weren't so bad since he had a new battle plan. Winning the battle by themselves wasn't possible, but at least he came up with another way to make the enemies lose their hearts for the battle.