Chapter 120: Chapter 120

Faced with Chris’s almost frenzied counterattack, his opponent, Adrian, another quasi-Knight from the Territory Guard, smiled even wider.

He was about to execute a sliding step to the left and thrust at the base of Chris’s left arm, when he suddenly heard the voice of the host and referee, Foss, beside his ear: “Don’t hesitate, strike his bracer!”

But Adrian did hesitate. His opponent was charging toward him with his right hand braced against his left arm’s bracer. Deliberately striking the bracer didn’t belong to any combat strategy he knew.

Just as he wavered, his hands involuntarily raised the sword, bringing it down squarely onto the bracer that Chris was thrusting forward. A glint of alarm flashed through Adrian’s eyes, and then he heard Foss’s voice once more:

“Adrian, victory!”

Arriving alongside this pronouncement were scattered cheers from around the arena. Adrian wasn’t surprised by this. After all, the spectators were all quasi-Knights, and apprentices, strictly speaking, fell into the quasi-Knight category as well.

Aside from his own friends, who else would cheer for him!

“Hm?”

Just as Adrian was stepping down from the arena as per custom, preparing for the next match, he suddenly noticed that the way people were looking at him was a bit off. No, they weren’t looking at him, but at someone behind him!

In a flash, a possibility occurred to Adrian, one that made his breathing involuntarily quicken. Could it be…

He immediately turned around to check. Sure enough, Chris, who should have been walking off the arena alongside him, was standing with his eyes shut, fists clenched, arms trembling, and his face flushed crimson.

If he were an apprentice, he might have assumed that Chris had taken the brunt of Adrian’s final slash and was seething with resentment over being ruled the loser by Foss.

But in the eyes of the Formal Knights, and quite a few quasi-Knights teetering on the edge of advancement, this was the precursor to advancement.

Chris had just comprehended the secret of Whole-Body Force and was adjusting his body’s state to condense a Life Seed. Only then did Adrian abruptly realize why Foss had insisted he strike the opponent’s bracer.

He had foreseen this very situation and used Adrian’s hand to help Chris achieve it!

In an instant, the joy of Adrian’s victory was thoroughly diluted. Bitterness spread from his heart to his lips, turning his smile somewhat wretched.

Even though victory could bring him numerous rewards, such as Ignition Potions, Inheritance Rituals, and Bloodline Secret Arts, all of them combined were less tangible than an advancement!

Besides, he had only won a single match. To earn enough rewards, he needed to win enough bouts.

“Damn it! Why couldn’t it be me!” Adrian roared incessantly in his heart.

Still, he struggled to compose himself, forcing out what he deemed an appropriate smile, preparing to offer his congratulations once Chris finished the advancement process.

At the same time, he silently offered his blessings.

After all, they were neighbors and comrades who saw each other constantly. Moreover, he and Chris were old acquaintances. It was just that starting today, two former brothers-in-arms would walk two completely divergent paths.

…

Meanwhile, outside the arena.

Ron also learned of the situation in the arena from the hushed discussions around him. The quasi-Knight named “Chris” was attempting to condense a Life Seed. Once completed, he would have successfully advanced.

At this moment, Ron couldn’t help but hold his breath. This could be considered his first time witnessing a quasi-Knight’s advancement to Knight in person, and under the watchful eyes of the public, alongside hundreds if not thousands of spectators.

“I hope he succeeds!” Ron silently blessed him.

On the other side, Chris, who was in the midst of attempting to condense a Life Seed, had fallen into dire straits.

The territory offered no instruction on condensing a Life Seed. In truth, condensing a Life Seed posed not the slightest difficulty, at least for those who could advance on their own.

Generally, those individuals, upon mastering the Sword Stance state, would naturally know how to condense a Life Seed. They didn’t even need to do it deliberately; the Life Seed would simply condense on its own.

But for someone like Chris, who was forcing an advancement through a momentary flash of insight, his body’s state was fundamentally unsuited for condensing a Life Seed. Forcing the issue at a time like this gave rise to the very crisis he was currently facing:

Life Energy was difficult to converge!

The so-called “Life Seed” was actually the process of converging Life Energy, much like nurturing a seed. In reality, no such seed existed, and even Life Energy wasn’t genuinely real.

But to a quasi-Knight in the midst of advancing, Life Energy was a tangible energy that could be distinctly perceived.

The advancement process was the process of converging Life Energy. Even the Sword Stance training that preceded advancement, the mastery of Whole-Body Force, was itself a gradual convergence of Life Energy.

Its essence lay in mastering one’s own changes at the Transcendent level.

Once accomplished, one could leverage the two-sided relationship between Life Energy and the body, between Life Energy and Transcendent changes, to grant the body slow, passive enhancement purely through the growth of Life Energy.

In other words, even if a Formal Knight abandoned training from that point on, his condition wouldn’t deteriorate too drastically. His body might even continue to improve until it reached the limit of his Transcendent Level, which was equally the limit of his Breathing Technique’s tier.

Chris undoubtedly yearned for such a state, and he was now confronting a conundrum regarding the convergence of Life Energy that most Knights had never encountered, a conundrum that was simultaneously a crisis.

“I must succeed!”

Chris screamed in his heart. He had staked his entire fighting spirit on this. If he didn’t succeed this time, there would never be another chance again.

This was his all-or-nothing final gamble!

…

As Chris severed his retreat and made his final effort, the spectators around the arena also noticed his abnormality. Word of mouth dictated that advancing to Knight wasn’t complicated and could be completed in a short while.

Yet now, Chris had been straining on the arena for several minutes. But since Foss hadn’t spoken, and the Lord hadn’t spoken either, everyone else could only wait patiently while simultaneously offering Chris their blessings.

This was especially true for the quasi-Knights.

After all, today it might be Chris, but tomorrow it could be any one of them.

“Hm? Perhaps he’ll pull it off!”

Within the crowd, Ron keenly observed that the Pollution Secret Patterns entangled around Chris had begun to fluctuate in a manner distinctly different from before. At the same time, free-roaming Pollution Secret Patterns from outside were converging toward him, shifting into an entangled state.

All signs indicated that Chris was transforming into a Formal Knight. Though the process was somewhat rocky, barring any unforeseen accidents, it appeared he had succeeded.

Sure enough, after another few minutes, the state of the Pollution Secret Patterns entangled around Chris had become virtually indistinguishable from that of the other Formal Knights. Only then did Foss walk to the center of the arena, beside Chris, and announce to the crowd:

“Let us congratulate Chris on his successful advancement. The territory has gained another new Knight!”

Sis Territory produced at most one or two new Knights per year, and sometimes drew a blank entirely. The Formal Knights currently in service had all been accumulated over long years. Foss naturally placed great importance on this, even if the new Knight possessed no exceptional talent.

It wasn’t just Foss. Even the Lord of Sis and Waynes each offered their congratulations in turn.