Chapter 1: Knight Examination (I)
The town of Odin contained 3000 households, was located at the southern border of the Temple Alliance and counted itself as one of the biggest villages under the city of Hao Yue.
The morning sun was rising, its bright and warm touch carefully nurturing the earth, as if calling for everyone to wake up. At this ti, at the center of Odin, in a relatively big two-story building of more than a thousand square ters, an examination was going on.
“Tell , why do you want to beco knights?” A vigorous, powerful voice, a hint of tallic, rang.
“To defend humanity, to defend the kind hearted, to defend the Temple Alliance, to defend our families.” The voices answering the question sounded young and were coordinated. Clearly, it was not the first ti they had answer to this question.
This two story building was the Knight Temple Hall of the town of Odin, abbreviated as Odin Hall, the place where potential children are selected to undergo training to beco knights.
Today, a little more than 30 children were attending the selection test to beco the most basic squire. Only after they beca a squire could they proceed to study and practice there.
The master of the vigorous sound is a tall, burly middle aged strongly built man. He was called Balza and was the chief knight teacher of Odin Hall. Reportedly, when he was in his pri, he was very, very close to becoming a Genuine Knight.
“Tell , what are the standards of a knight?” Balza severely glared at the bunch of kids ranging from 8 to 10 years old.
Once more, the answer was coordinated, “Modesty, honesty, compassion, courage, fairness, sacrifice, honor, perseverance, love, and justice”.
Balza nodded, satisfied, “Good, all of you here have already practiced for one year, today we will hold the examination. Squires are classified from the first to tenth level, corresponding to a spiritual energy between ten and a hundred. Your task of today will be to attain at least a spiritual energy of above ten and thus becoming a first level squire. All those who successfully pass this exam will be able to remain here and practice for three more years and then participate in a final assessnt to beco an official knight. Only after you beco, like , an official knight, can you be considered as a genuine mber of the Temple. Now let’s begin, Jiang Hu!”
“Yes.” A youth with a quite big stature walked forward, taking out the wooden sword strapped to his back.
All these youths had the sa equipnt: a wooden sword with a length of a ter, a width of a third of a ter and a thickness of two thirds of a ter. The examination for becoming squire was simple: in front of Balza was sothing that seed like a big wooden block connected to a stone grove. Within that stone groove was a stone bead. Hitting the block of wood would make the stone bead vibrate and judging from the height in which the stone bead rebounded, the spiritual energy was determined. This could be considered an outdated thod to evaluate the spiritual energy but it was very precise when evaluating spiritual energies below 100.
Spiritual energy, in Sheng Mou Da Lu[1] was the main factor used in evaluating everyone’s ‘rank’ in their occupation, whether they are knights, magician, or any other profession, the level of the spiritual energy being used as the main factor for assessing their strength. The 10th level was generally the average spiritual energy level for normal adult males.
“Aahh——” Jiang Hu shouted loudly and with both hands grasping the wooden sword, he swung it fiercely onto the block of stone.
“*Bang*” The stone bean moved up and down.
Balza nodded, satisfied, and took from his hand the na register as he said, “Jiang Hu, spiritual energy 13th level, you pass. Next one...”
This examination was quickly carried on and in an instant, half of the people had already finished, the ones who succeeded being about half of them.
“Long Hao Chen.” As he calls this na, Balza unconsciously lowered his head. Before him is a thin young body’s figure.
This young boy looked a little malnourished compared to the others: he was quite thin but had a handso face.
With naturally supple eyebrows, big eyes, long eyelashes, a straight nose, a white skin and thick lips, even though he was only 8 or 9 years old, he was beautiful enough to make won jealous of him, especially because of his black hair in combination with his pair of dark blue eyes. If he were to crossdress, he would beco a national-level beauty.
Long Hao Cheng went up in front of Balza but did not take out his wooden sword like the others. Instead, he placed his right hand on his chest and bowed, saluting Balza.
“Teacher.”
Balza’s originally serious look softened slightly. He nodded, saying:
“Start.” Tôp 𝒏𝒐v𝒆l updates on n/(o)/v/𝒆lb/in(.)com
“Yes.”
Drawing out his sword, Long Hao Cheng took a deep breath and suddenly swung it with full force and hit the block of stone.
With a puff sound, the stone bean bounced; but it obviously did not reach ten graduations.
Balza imdiately frowns, “Spiritual energy level of nine, you don’t pass.”
From the speed of the slash from Long Hao Chen’s sword that he saw, he could see that Long Hao Cheng had really used all his power and gone all out, but, he could still not pass the examination to beco squire.
Long Hao Chen’s pretty face beca flushed and looking at Balza, he said pleadingly, “Instructor, I, I...”
Balza slightly sighed and said, “Go down.”
Long Hao Chen eagerly repeated, “Instructor, give another chance. I will definitely pass.”
Balza scowled, saying, “But, that would be unfair to the others who didn’t pass.”
Long Hao Chen suddenly beca silent but the determination in his eyes persisted. Balza noticed the expression in his eyes and at the sa mont, he could not help but stare blankly at Long Hao Cheng. What is that? Perseverance? The Perseverance described in the Ten Standards of a Knight? The Ten Standards of a Knight are the ten essences of the knights. Even so Genuine Knights are unable to display so of these ten essences, but this kid before my eyes...
While Balza was lost in his thoughts, Long Hao Chen turned to face the other examinees and using a very sincere tone towards the ones who trained alongside with him for the past year, declared, “I beg of you, give another chance.” As he pleaded, he unexpectedly kneels down.
Balza was flabbergasted. The youths were also flabbergasted. To these kids that were eight to nine years old, it was fundantally impossible to understand why Long Hao Chen was so persistent.
Balza’s eyes widened, if it was another kid, he would have believed that the kid was greedy or cowardly, but it couldn’t be the case for Long Hao. Because, even though Long Hao may seem thin and weak, during this past year’s training, amongst all of the kids, he was the most assiduous one. Not only did he perfectly accomplish the mandatory training everyday, he also ca an hour earlier and left an hour later.
Balza was tied as a 10th ranked Standard Knight but he had already been an instructor for ten years and Long Hao Chen was the most diligent student he had ever seen. This boy never needed to be supervised and not only trained hard every day, but also was good to everyone and helped his fellow trainees whenever they asked him for help.
This is also why when arriving at Long Hao Chen’s turn, Balza’s look beca gentle. But the fact that Long Hao Chen didn’t pass the exam took him aback. If such a diligent child didn’t pass the examination, the only explanation would be that he didn’t have any talent.
1. (TL Note: Sheng Mou Da Lu : The na of the mainland (recurrent thing to call sothing Da Lu the na of the place where the story takes place in Chinese novels), it literally ans Magical Continent.
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