On the tournament field, the black horse mane fluttered in the wind.
Iron hooves trod on the soft grass, kicking up large stretches of soil.
The Knight, wearing a barrel helmet with only a slit for observing, clad in chain armor with a black cloak, rode on a black Nisian warhorse from Gaul, charging at a scarecrow serving as a target.
The heavy white beech riding lance was tucked under his arm, forming a standard right-angle triangle with his arm and body.
This posture provides a stable fulcrum for the lance, a lance-charging tactic that almost all knights in the world today must master.
The lance in his hand was solidly constructed, tapering at the front and thicker at the back, extremely cumbersome, widely used in knight tournaments, but due to its brittle nature, it was very easy to break.
First charge.
The lance accurately hit, the metallic tip piercing the scarecrow's chest, and the powerful impact lifted the whole scarecrow into the air.
The Knight held the scarecrow, swung it through the air, and shook it off.
He then discarded the heavy lance, urged his horse forward, and, passing by a weapon rack, deftly drew two javelins.
As he turned the horse's head to charge again, the Knight held the weapon backward, raised it above his head, and thrust it down, accurately stabbing into the neck of a scarecrow.
This is often the weak point of the enemy's armor.
The warhorse galloped across the wide tournament field, and the Knight deftly drew the other javelin, channeling force throughout his body and hurling it fiercely.
But unfortunately, this time it missed.
The javelin stuck in the muddy ground beside the scarecrow.
Losa removed the heavy barrel helmet from his head, revealing a young, imposing face.
He casually placed the helmet on the round table in the tournament field, taking large gulps from a clay pot filled with clean water, suppressing the heat brought by the intense exercise just now.
He looked at the attribute panel in front of him, wiping the sweat dripping from his temple, feeling a bit gratified.
After a week of rehabilitation training, he successfully increased both his power and physical strength by a point each.
He has fully adapted to the original owner of this body, merging with the combat skills honed through years of knight training.
Whether it is the commonly used light and heavy lances, javelins, shields, half-sword, or the relatively rare one-handed hammer, flail, and hand axe, he can use them proficiently.
As a full-time combat Knight, he is already fully qualified, though, unfortunately, he hasn't been knighted yet.
Losa is a Transmigrator.
In his previous life, he was the owner of a game company and, while working overtime with employees to develop a game at night, unfortunately died suddenly and transmigrated to this era.
He replaced the second son of a Germanic noble—Losa von Habsburg, who had fallen from his warhorse during training and hit a rock, leaving him unconscious.
After awakening, he initially thought he had been transported to the Middle Ages, historically recorded and known as the Dark Ages.
But after fully merging with the original owner's memory, he realized that this is by no means the Middle Ages he knew from his previous life.
For example, Henry von Hohenstaufen, Emperor of the Germania Empire in the North, last winter, hired a Witch as a Royal Advisor and summoned over ten thousand peasant slaves, gathering them in Augsburg, Swabia, to build a tower exclusively for witches, inviting witches from all over to reside.
This is not the most outrageous—King of Albion, the famous Richard the Lionheart, actually married a Witch as his wife and appointed her as the Minister of Finance of the entire Kingdom.
In the previous life, in the Middle Ages where Church authority was paramount, this would have been absolutely impossible.
In this world, the relationship between Witches and the Church does not seem as tense as in the previous life—at least on the surface.
Name: Losa von Habsburg
Duke: None
Profession: Noble
Faction: Great Germania Empire, Algo County (Lower Burgundy, not Burgundy Duchy).
Retainers: None
Power: 9 (average attribute for a normal adult male is 5)
Agility: 7
Physical Strength: 8
Endurance: 8
Spiritual Power: 10
Talent: Two Lives as a Human (having merged two souls, you naturally have double the spiritual power of ordinary people, with a permanent +5 increase to the spiritual power limit).
Skills: None
The system is called the "Yesterday's Giant Ship Tower Defense System," derived from the game he was developing before he transmigrated, tirelessly working for days, eager to complete and release a knockoff tower defense game.
The game content wasn't new, to put it plainly, it involved summoning various hero characters through card draws to defend and strengthen one's territory against waves of enemy attacks.
But the problem was, this game started with having a territory!
As for Losa now, not to mention a territory, he doesn't even have an empty noble title to activate the system.
So to this day, he hasn't been able to draw any card.
After training ended, Losa returned to the room in the castle.
With the help of the maid, he took off his cloak and chain armor, changed into a light linen shirt, and went straight to the tower of the castle.
This castle is called "Eagle Castle," phonetically translated as "Habsburg," which is also the source of their family name.
In Gaul and Germania, prefixes like "de" and "von" precede surnames, meaning "from," representing a noble origin with a fief.
"Eagle Castle" is a sturdy mountain castle with a treacherous terrain, if the food reserves are sufficient, it would be difficult for even a thousand troops to break through.
Losa caressed the protrusion on the battlement, feeling the cool mountain breeze with some sentimentality.
In his past life, even a working-class person could live in air-conditioned rooms with warmth in winter and coolness in summer, enjoy soft mattresses, and have around-the-clock running water.
But in this era, even the nobility lives far from comfortably.
Especially the martial-loving Germanic nobles, accustomed to living in castles rather than rural manors, have a particularly harsh living environment.
Damp, dark.
Rats, fleas.
A commonplace.
After all, in this era, the castle's military significance far outweighs its residential significance, and sturdiness is always prioritized over comfort.
Below the tower, heavy footsteps were heard.
A soldier, helmeted in spine helmet and clad in a cloak, said softly, "Master Losa, the lord invites you over, it's time for lunch."
"Mm, I got it."
Losa nodded and followed him directly to the main hall of the castle.
These soldiers of Eagle Castle are full-time soldiers, different from the farmer soldiers who farm the land in peacetime and are only conscripted during wartime; they are professional soldiers, and the whole Eagle Castle has only over a hundred of them.
In wartime, they will form the core of the army along with the knights under the Count, equivalent to the Eastern General's "personal soldiers."
Walking into the main hall of the castle, the most striking was at the end of the stone arched dome, where a tapestry-covered gray wall hung three shield emblems.
The left side is a yellow background with three black lion shield emblems, the middle is a yellow background with a black single-headed eagle shield emblem, and the right side is a yellow background with a red rampant lion shield emblem.
The former represents the Hohenstaufen Family, to which Losa's father, Count Werner, swears loyalty to the Great Germania Empire's Emperor, Henry VI; the middle represents the Great Germania Empire; the rightmost belongs to the Habsburg family to which Losa belongs.
On the long strip table under the shield emblems, maidservants have already laid out the dishes.
Losa's father, Count Werner, had already seated with his elder brother, Otto, and as for his mother, Lady Elise, she had passed away a year ago.
Seeing Losa, Count Werner nodded slightly, signaling with his eyes for him to take a seat.
This was a man of few words.
His cheekbones were high, eye sockets deeply sunken, with brown long hair and beard, a deep scar on his cheek, and from his appearance, he was far from handsome.
But his sons, whether the eldest Otto or the second son Losa, were all dignified in appearance.
Seeing him sit down, Count Werner raised his hand in front of him, drawing a cross from top to bottom, left to right.
"Thank Heavenly Father for granting us food, and may You also grant those who are poor and distressed with nourishment, in the name of the Father, Amen."
After reciting the prayer, Count Werner signaled the two to start.
The dishes today were considered abundant, with the main course being goat stew with carrots and potatoes, side dishes included roasted quail, fruit pie, and a basket of white bread made from refined wheat flour.
The tableware was silver, with intricate patterns on it, reportedly one of the spoils Count Werner brought back from participating in the Crusades in his youth...otherwise, with the barren land of Algo, wanting to gather a set of silver tableware for daily use, apart from the reserved for banquets, would have been an impossible task.
ps: 1. The worldview of this book is fictional, some characters, families, and countries have prototypes, but don't scrutinize, for example, Count Werner is a character from the early eleventh century, and obviously, there were no barrel helmets at this time, nor was the Holy Roman Empire emperor from the Hohenstaufen Family, but the Salian Family.
What needs to be emphasized is: this book is in the fantasy genre, not the history channel!
ps: 2: As we all know, the Middle Ages had three Burgundies, and the Habsburg is located in Lower Burgundy, not the Burgundy of Gaul, but located in today's Switzerland.
ps: 3: In the vast majority of this book, characters' "Christian names" are omitted.