Chapter 68: Chapter 68

Qiumu Forest.

After escorting Burns and the others to finish harvesting the Purified Meat, Morris’s squad continued their advance southward. He had only received two orders: intercept the Aberrant Beasts, and search for the cultists.

Until the squad received new orders, he could only follow the predetermined mission route and continue advancing toward the location where the wizard ruins had been previously discovered.

The territory had already verified that the Aberrant Beasts originated from the wizard ruins. Although the reason for the beasts’ emergence remained unclear for the time being, the location was certain; this was the result of multiple repeated investigations by the Territory Guard.

Yet now, the Aberrant Beasts had suddenly appeared in winter, something that had never happened in the past, coupled with the news of the cultists relayed by the personnel at the front.

A rather logical deduction then emerged:

It was highly likely that the cultists had appeared at the wizard ruins and triggered some sort of incident, causing the Aberrant Beasts to emerge even in winter.

“Regardless, we still need to go over to the ruins and take a look first.”

Morris chatted with his teammates off and on while clearing the path at the front, but most of his mind was focused on reviewing the process of achieving the Senior Knight rank.

If the key to becoming a Formal Knight was integrating whole-body force to grasp the Sword Stance, then the key to achieving the Senior rank lay in integrating one’s distracting thoughts and truly mastering one’s own will.

Those with outstanding talent could accomplish this during their daily training. But for the vast majority of ordinary people with average talent, just like himself, they could only choose to condense their will through the aid of the Sword Stance in intense, distraction-free battles.

At that point, if one’s accumulation was sufficient, they would naturally grasp their own will, just as a Formal Knight grasps the Sword Stance. If the accumulation was insufficient, they could only keep trying.

Just like Formal Knights, Senior Knights could also be trained.

Looking back now and re-examining the various training methods of the Territory Guard, Morris understood that the territory had long since revealed the steps to becoming a Senior Knight to everyone.

It was just that he hadn’t pushed every aspect of his training to the absolute limit in the past. If he had, he would have become a Senior Knight long ago.

At the same time, Morris somewhat understood why the territory didn’t directly announce the significance of these training methods, nor the crucial details of achieving the Senior rank.

Previously, he had simply assumed the Lord was holding back. But now that he had achieved the Senior rank himself, he finally realized that, often, knowing more would instead become a burden.

If he had known this information in advance, he felt he more than likely wouldn’t have been able to truly master his own will.

Integrating thoughts and condensing the will wasn’t about forcefully suppressing other thoughts to leave only one behind. The key still lay in integration, making all thoughts serve one’s true will.

Under these circumstances, the more one knew, and the more information one possessed that was related to the will, the harder it was to integrate.

Of course, for geniuses, restricting information would instead hinder their speed of progression.

However, Morris was no genius. Even though he might already be considered a genius in the eyes of others, he knew himself that he had simply trained more diligently than everyone else.

…

Even though he was devoting more of his mind to reviewing himself, the Transcendent Perception of a Senior Knight was by no means so inconvenient a tool.

Even if Morris didn’t deliberately probe his surroundings, all the information within an approximate twenty-step radius was actively drilling into his consciousness.

At this moment, even if Morris kept his eyes closed, his understanding of the surrounding environment would far surpass that of anyone below the Senior Knight rank.

There was so much miscellaneous information, including but not limited to the sounds of branches rubbing against each other, the scent of decaying matter on the ground, the air disturbances generated by the wind blowing through the branches, and so on.

Furthermore, there was the true Transcendent Perception that manifested out of thin air, obtained only after achieving the Senior rank, existing independently of all standard sensory information.

All this information converged, almost reconstructing a small world with a radius of about twenty steps in Morris’s mind. Every change in the outside world would appear within this cognitively reconstructed small world without delay and without omission.

Furthermore, any part that he was currently focusing on or deemed potentially abnormal would be highlighted.

After merely exploring it for a moment, Morris once again marveled at the power of a Senior Knight. With such sensory capabilities, how could one possibly be caught off guard by a sneak attack from anyone below the Senior rank?

Reaching this step on the Knight’s Path, whether the physical body itself was powerful or not was no longer the key.

Since Transcendent Weapons existed, there must certainly be Transcendent Equipment as well. It went without saying that the defensive capabilities provided by such equipment would definitely far surpass those of a Knight’s physical body.

In Morris’s imagination, a Senior Knight was already the pinnacle of individual transcendence, with body and will unified into one. So, what kind of scene would a Grand Knight bring?

Morris was already exceedingly satisfied to have become a Senior Knight. Even though he didn’t harbor extravagant hopes of becoming a Grand Knight, he still couldn’t help but imagine it.

“Perhaps if I became a Grand Knight, all the crises the territory is currently facing would be easily resolved!”

…

Just as Morris was clearing the path while indulging in his fantasies, a sudden impulse struck his heart. He noticed that four or five blurry figures had unexpectedly appeared at the edge of the small world reconstructed within his consciousness.

The landscape of this small world was reconstructed by his consciousness from external information captured by the senses possessed by all ordinary people, combined with the extrasensory information acquired directly through the Transcendent Perception exclusive to Senior Knights.

Yet at this moment, within Morris’s perception, the small world had fractured into multiple layers due to the conflicting sensory information.

Originally, on the path they had taken earlier, all manner of sensory and extrasensory information had merged together perfectly. Back then, the small world had looked no different from the outside world.

But now, the sensory information had formed a separate layer. In the area swept by his peripheral vision, that is, the zone captured by his sight, there were absolutely no human figures; it was just the same familiar sight of tangled Qiumu branches they had seen all along.

On the auditory level, a perceptual void had emerged in that area, as if any sound that entered the zone could no longer reverberate out.

The tactile aspect was also strange. Even though Morris was upwind relative to that area at this moment, under normal circumstances, the air currents flowing through that zone would still affect the position he was currently in.

Ordinary people would find it difficult to distinguish this kind of influence, but a Senior Knight could!

The density of the Qiumu branches in that area was noticeably higher than elsewhere. It was so dense that it even made Morris suspect a wall had materialized out of thin air.

As for smell, although he hadn’t picked up any peculiar odors, that area possessed a noticeably stronger scent of decaying matter compared to other places, as if the decaying plants had been disturbed by something.

Even without true Transcendent Perception, Morris could still deduce that there was an anomaly in that area purely through the sensory information common to all ordinary people.

However, it was simply very difficult for ordinary people to extract the specific details they needed from such an overwhelming tangle of information. Perhaps a few individuals with innately acute senses could achieve it, much like Garrick in his own squad.

But those people could never hold all the information in the palm of their hands the way a Senior Knight could.

Aside from the various senses that ordinary people possessed, Morris now also had true Transcendent Perception. Under the scrutiny of this Transcendent Perception, he could even see four or five blurry human figures.

And this further solidified his judgment:

There was an anomaly there!

Furthermore, extrapolating from those figures, those silhouettes were in all likelihood the very targets of their current operation: those very cultists!