Chapter 38: Chapter 38

To be eliminated just because something went wrong during the march; although Ron had prepared himself, he clearly still underestimated the importance of this training.

He didn’t ask the instructor why those two had been eliminated. Elimination was already a fact, and questioning it would be tantamount to doubting. The only thing he could do was to prevent himself from being eliminated as well.

But where exactly did the danger come from?

Ron’s first suspect was the source of the Pollution Secret Patterns his true form had received when he first transmigrated. Perhaps this was the truth of the world.

But right now, it wasn’t convenient for him to detach his consciousness to inspect the surface of his Light Orb. If the instructor mistook him for being like those previous two, he wouldn’t be able to clear his name even if he had a valid reason.

“Justin, how do you feel?”

“I don’t feel anything. What was wrong with those two?”

“I don’t know either. Karel, Dimi, Pat, what about you guys? How do you feel?”

“We don’t feel anything either.”

“Good that you don’t.”

Ron replied, feeling somewhat relieved in his heart. Although elimination only applied to the individual, the teammates of those two had clearly been implicated as well. At the very least, this training session would be affected for them.

Moreover, because teammates had been eliminated, they would need to reorganize and build new synergy. There were still two months of training ahead, and whether they could complete it smoothly was an unknown.

Hmm?

Just as Ron heightened his vigilance and carefully perceived his surroundings, he suddenly felt his heart sink, as if something was pressing down on him. It was very heavy, yet unavoidable.

This sensation was so peculiar, something he had never experienced before.

“Oh no, have I been hit?”

Ron felt a wave of panic in his heart, but his rationality remained. He knew full well that as long as he didn’t display any abnormalities, he wouldn’t be deemed a failure. So, while forcing himself to appear calm, he kept a close eye on the condition of his other companions.

Justin was still chatting with Karel in broken sentences, while Dimi and Pat remained silent, but their eyes were still active, clearly observing their surroundings.

“Why me?”

It would be pure self-deception to say Ron didn’t have the slightest complaint in his heart, but at his core, he was an adult, and an adult who had been battered by society at that.

In this kind of situation, complaining was utterly meaningless; actively seeking a solution was the top priority.

While frantically brainstorming countermeasures, Ron strove to maintain the marching formation within the Blood and Fire Squad. From time to time, he also observed Morris’s expression, lest the man suddenly haul him out and toss him by the roadside.

Gradually, Ron felt the pressure growing heavier and heavier, just like being unable to breathe in a dream. He struggled desperately on a spiritual level, yearning to gasp even a single mouthful of fresh air.

Just as he was on the verge of losing consciousness, a new order suddenly came from ahead:

“Squads, turn south!”

This command was like a timely rain, falling upon Ron’s heart and giving his suffocating, parched spirit a good dousing of relief. However, it didn’t change his current predicament.

The pressure on his spiritual level still persisted. In fact, because he was in the middle of the procession, he needed to continue westward for a stretch before heading south, which meant the pressure he experienced continued to mount.

“Why is it like this? Is everywhere outside the territory a dead zone?”

This was obviously not the correct answer. Beyond the Sis Territory lay the Kingdom of Helios, and beyond the Kingdom of Helios lay other nations. How could the outside world possibly be entirely composed of dead zones!

Ron was now walking almost purely on physical instinct. It had become extremely difficult for him to concentrate on a single thought. His focus would either inexplicably scatter or abruptly sever, pivoting to entirely unrelated matters.

“Ron, how are you feeling?”

Ron’s abnormality was ultimately noticed by the companions who had trained alongside him for a month. Justin cast a concerned gaze his way first, followed by Karel, Dimi, and Pat.

Even in places Ron couldn’t perceive, Instructor Morris’s gaze carried a hint of worry when looking at him.

“I’m fine. Did I mess up the formation?”

“No, no, I just noticed your face looks a bit pale, so I asked casually.”

“That’s good then.”

After saying this, Ron’s thoughts shifted back to wondering what the mysterious patterns on the snow on both sides of the road actually were, and why they looked so much like the Pollution Secret Patterns on the surface of his Light Orb!

Hmm?

The thought of his Light Orb sent a sudden jolt through Ron, and his consciousness became unprecedentedly focused. This was his greatest secret and the most heavily guarded place in his heart.

In this single instant, he figured out many things.

For instance, the spiritual pressure he was currently sensing was, in all likelihood, the exact same thing as being paralyzed by the Aberrant Beast’s horn in the training ground.

That time, when Chief Instructor Arnold opened the box containing the Aberrant Beast’s horn, every single apprentice on the grounds had been stunned into immobility. Ron had even had his consciousness forced out of his body.

And now, the spiritual pressure he was sensing was highly likely far inferior to that of the Aberrant Beast’s horn back then!

Otherwise, his consciousness would probably be forced out of his body once again.

Or rather, could he actually avoid this pressure right now by detaching his consciousness from his body?

However, Ron didn’t attempt this. Leaving aside whether the instructor would discover it, it would at the very least count as cheating.

And he didn’t want to cheat.

He wanted to rely on his own spiritual willpower to forcefully resist this pressure, then smoothly complete this training, just like the other apprentices of the Sis Territory who had completed it in the past.

If others could do it, why couldn’t he!

With this thought, Ron even felt as though the external pressure had lessened a bit. No, the external pressure hadn’t decreased, but his capacity to endure it had grown stronger.

At this moment, he recalled what Jason had told him before: the closer one was to becoming a Transcendent, the more susceptible they were to the deterrent aura of Aberrant Beasts, whereas ordinary people were completely unaffected.

In truth, it wasn’t that ordinary people were unaffected, but rather that they simply couldn’t perceive it at all.

Ron had summarized the universal law of internal combined force, and had even used Secret Pattern programs to experience the states of a Formal Knight’s walking, sitting, and lying down time and time again.

One could say that he was closer to transcendence than Justin and the others.

Precisely because of this, he could more clearly perceive the external pressure.

Additionally, regarding his capacity to bear this pressure: although Ron was an adult on the inside, when it came to sheer willpower, he might not necessarily match the teenagers who had grown up in this environment.

After all, modern society offered superior conditions, and ordinary people rarely had any genuine opportunity to temper their willpower. Modern people honed their rationality far more.

Both belonged to the spiritual domain, but the distinction was clear. The former was frequently tied to emotion, faith, and conviction, while the latter was typically synonymous with reason, critical thinking, and logic.

Therefore, Justin and the others felt practically nothing under this kind of pressure.

As for Formal Knights, Ron speculated that as true Transcendents, they would likely feel an even stronger pressure, but because their willpower was firmer, they were able to persevere.

From the fact that some apprentices couldn’t hold on, one could infer that this phenomenon likely occurred among Knights as well.

Thus, the path of transcendence was in truth a thorny road fraught with trials and challenges, where only the brave had the right, and the possibility, to walk to the very end!