Chapter 52: Chapter 52

Currently, in the Sis Territory, the Lord is bedridden. His eldest son, Waynes, controlled the Territory Guard and was responsible for the territory’s defense, while his second son, Foss, handled the territory’s internal affairs.

If the Lord were in good health, the Ignition Potions would fall under internal affairs, but right now, they belonged to the eldest son Waynes’s purview.

Let alone sixty vials, even six hundred vials were something Waynes could produce if he gritted his teeth.

Of the two rewards he offered, the Inheritance Ceremony for the Ice Breathing Technique was actually the more precious. Countless Knights in the territory wanted to improve their Breathing Technique through an Inheritance Ceremony, yet suffered from insufficient merit.

Yet now, these apprentices only needed to kill a Wastelander elder with barely any strength left to grant everyone an opportunity for an Inheritance Ceremony.

If the territory didn’t already have a tradition of giving preferential treatment to apprentices, Waynes would have been worried that these Knights would harbor resentment!

…

Just as everyone was watching, Waynes suddenly sighed for some reason. “Sigh… It seems it’s still too early to let them enter the Domain of Chaos. They probably won’t be able to claim this reward!”

As soon as these words fell, two apprentices suddenly collapsed to the ground in succession, while the other apprentices all had bloodshot eyes, seemingly on the verge of reaching their limits as well.

The six instructors looked at each other, momentarily speechless, their smug smiles instantly freezing on their faces. They themselves were quite familiar with the Domain of Chaos, but had overlooked the fact that these apprentices still lacked sufficient accumulation of Order.

“Are we really going to miss this opportunity?”

Morris watched the crowd of apprentices in the black qi canopy ahead, subconsciously clenching his fists. His scattered gaze finally focused on Ron, and he silently blessed him in his heart:

“I hope you can show something different!”

The power of Order didn’t have an absolute causal relationship with a Knight’s own strength. The power of Order was solely tied to the practice of Order.

From this perspective, no matter how high an apprentice’s talent was, at most it could accelerate the rate of improvement in the apprentice’s own strength, but it couldn’t shorten the relatively fixed time needed for Order accumulation.

Everything in Ron’s past experiences left a traceable trail. Similar to the other apprentices, no matter how high his talent, it was highly unlikely that his Order accumulation would surpass that of the other apprentices.

The Domain of Chaos, for existences like Formal Knights who had already accumulated sufficient power of Order, was more of a test of individual and collective strength. As long as the power of Order reached a certain threshold, any further increase didn’t produce a very noticeable effect.

But for apprentices with insufficient Order accumulation, this instead became their greatest shortcoming. Without enough Order accumulation, they couldn’t even stay in the Domain of Chaos, so how could there be any subsequent test of strength?

But for the person he favored, Morris always hoped for a little miracle to occur.

…

On the other side, inside the black qi canopy.

A few sudden, urgent whistle blasts made Ron’s heart tighten. Just now, two squads had reported their situations to the other squads.

Each of those two squads had a member suddenly go missing. Because perception was diminished within the black qi canopy, and squad formations didn’t necessarily include the figures of other members within their visual range.

When those two vanished, only their squad members had noticed.

“Stay vigilant, it’s probably those Wastelanders playing tricks! We must hurry up and find them! Kill them!”

Ron loudly reassures his companions beside him, while simultaneously attempting to re-examine this area from the perspective of the Pollution Secret Patterns. However, those Pollution Secret Patterns constantly swam through the spatial realm, giving him an inexplicable sense of vertigo.

“Dimi, have you determined the general direction of the target?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I’ve roughly narrowed it down to four directions. I just eliminated one, so there are three remaining.”

“Understood. Then which direction do you think is most likely? Trust your intuition!”

“I think this direction is the most likely!”

Dimi casually pointed in a direction. Ron didn’t hesitate and immediately blew his whistle to notify the other squads to align with them. If they weren’t inside the black qi canopy, splitting into three groups might have been the best choice, but here, no one was willing to separate from the large formation.

“Dimi, which way is next? Justin, do you guys still have javelins?”

Just as Ron was about to relay the signal as Dimi instructed, Dimi, a living, breathing person, vanished into thin air right before his eyes!

Ron couldn’t completely watch over the other members of the Blood and Fire Squad. He could only confirm their status and positions through their verbal responses to roll calls.

But when it came to Dimi, their living navigator, Ron’s gaze had practically never left him. Yet even with him staring constantly, Dimi still vanished abruptly.

For a moment, Ron’s eyes turned bloodshot. He didn’t even dare to sync this news to the other squads. What kind of joke was this? They had wasted so much time cooperating with Dimi to find their way and navigate, only for Dimi to disappear after all that effort!

But staying silent would certainly be irresponsible.

After a moment of hesitation, Ron decided to summon the other squads to close in on him.

“Whistle, whistle whistle, whistle!”

As the bone whistle sounds carried out, Ron felt not only a sense of disappointment in his heart, but even began to let his thoughts run wild. But in the next moment, he became alert once more, just like on the road to the sentry post earlier.

He thought about things on Earth, thought about his current Light Orb true form. This top secret once again saved him.

His highly concentrated spirit allowed him to discover another characteristic of this area: it would disrupt one’s thoughts and numb one’s emotions.

If a person brimming with fighting spirit came here, their fighting spirit would subside. If a person overwhelmed by grief came here, their grief would also be smoothed over.

But behind this tranquility lurked tremendous peril.

Think about it: the asymmetry of the universe (parity non-conservation) gave rise to countless galaxies and matter. If the universe became completely tranquil (thermal equilibrium), then all matter would disintegrate, and the entire universe would plunge into eternal heat death.

A person’s emotions and thoughts shaped their personality, their sense of self. If all emotions subsided and all thoughts became as still as an ancient well, would the self still exist?

Reaching this layer of understanding, Ron couldn’t help but worry for the two companions who had disappeared earlier. Counting Dimi, three people had now vanished.

Without even seeing the enemy’s face, they had already lost three members. Ron felt a faint sense of foreboding in his heart.

Right now, the strongest conviction supporting him to continue was actually this: the Sis Territory surely wouldn’t disregard the lives of these apprentices who hadn’t even finished their training!

Cultivating an apprentice consumed a considerable price, not to mention that this group of people also had the potential to become Formal Knights, which carried an entirely different significance.

On one side was the price already paid; on the other was the future expectation. If Ron were the Lord of Sis, he absolutely wouldn’t let apprentices bear risks clearly exceeding what they could handle.

But entrusting one’s life to another person’s rationality was inherently irrational.

He still needed to find a way out himself!

Whether that meant finding the enemy and killing them, or abandoning the mission and returning outside the black qi canopy.

…

“Ron, any new discoveries? Why the sudden assembly?”

Those who had just arrived hadn’t yet realized the reason, but as they drew closer, someone soon screamed: “Di… Dimi, Dimi is gone!”