Way of the Knights

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"Oh, you returned early. Are you here to submit the mission?"

Raven entered the Director's office and found his assistant inside, he asked him this upon seeing him. Raven nodded and took out the letter signed by Royal Army Head Officer along with the confirmation seal and handed it to him.

"Thanks, I'll go ahead and pass this to the director, just sit somewhere, this shouldn't take long."

The assistant then entered a separate room in the office to meet the director, as for Raven he sat down on the couch there and waited for the results.After sometime, the assistant came out and passed on a box to him.

"Congratulations on successfully clearing the mission. Based on the reports, you mission turned out to be more difficult than initially expected, the Royal Army provided you with additional compensation so the institute cannot be a miser about it as well. The mission was upgraded from a lower B-rank to upper B-rank mission. Your rewards are properly adjusted in accordance to that."

"The box contains a badge that contains 500 Merit Points, 3 hourly passes to any Cultivation Environment, a B-grade Item raffle ticket and a 1000 gold cards. Make sure to always check your badge for announcements whenever there's a class. You may go now."

"Thank you." Raven smiled and left the building.

After he left, the assistant went back to the room where the director is and said:

"He left Sir."

"What do you think of him?" Victor asked, he had his back towards the assistant while his hands are clasped behind his back.

The assistant was silent for a while, it was obvious that he was thinking carefully about Victor's question.

"He is a variable Sir." The assistant spoke after a while of thinking.

Victor raised his brow and looked over to his assistant with a surprised expression.

"That's quite rich, specially coming from you." Victor said with an amused tone.

"The basis that I had comes from the fact that Senior Lee thinks highly of him. As for whether my judgement is correct or not, time would only tell."

"Time huh…" Victor said turning his gaze away from his assistant and back to what's in front of him. There is a crystal ball shining with blue light which illuminated his face ss well. There is a faint smile hanging from his lips as he watches over the crystal ball. "We wait then…"

***

Raven had no idea what transpired after he left, and he probably doesn't care. What's important to him right now is to go back to his cave and continue training inside the Crown Space.

He hadn't grasp the chance to do so yesterday since when he got back he immediately fell asleep, and submitting the reports of the mission was the first thing that he did after he woke up.

Now he's eager to return and experience the fierceness of that place once again. Though it might be painful, it's not something that will kill him, due to that he always feels that his body is being pushed to it's outmost limit and his potential is always being squeezed out from his body. Once he got back, he made sure to double check if the formation is still active, after confirming that he wasted no time and went inside the crown space.

After his vision adjusted, he saw the majestic sight of the palace once more and the faint suppressive air around him. He smiled and walked over to bask in this supression.

During his first step, he immediately noticed a difference. He figured out that he's actually having an easier time this time around. He arrived at the 12th step, which was his previous record and found out that he could still take a few more steps. He walked and eventually arrived at the 20th step before pausing since it was his limit. He figured that maybe it was due to his breakthrough that he managed to arrive at this step. He closed his eyes and used his energies to resist the pressure on his body. Energy pulsed from one node to another by coursing through his channels. Each circulation was labored, it placed not only his body to strain but also his Energy Nodes and Channels.

"Oh I missed this feeling." Raven said through gritted teeth. He might've sounded sarcastic but he truly meant this.

Not even half an hour on his training, Raven was forced to retreat a couple of steps back in order to rest and meditate. He sat down on the 15th step and circulated the [Prime Emperor Scripture]. He was drunk on the feeling or recovery and how energy flowed back to his body while simultaneously purifying it. At first it was a slow recovery by eventually, the pace kicked up by a few notches since his body adjusted to the current supression on his surroundings.

These results would be permanent since this pressure would be remembered by his body and any type of pressure that he encounters which is lower than this won't do anything to him anymore.

It took him fifteen minutes to completely recover his lost energy, then he stood up and went back to the 20th step to resist the pressure. Hours then passed and eventually, Raven's training time inside the crown space was over and he was thrown out. Upon going back to reality, he felt relaxed but also tired, he went to the pond nearby and mixed three vials of B-grade Body Restoration Fluid.

After letting it steep for a while, he took all of his clothes off and jumped onto the pond, he took a deep breath and let himself sink to the bottom of the pond. Every inch of his body greedily sucked in the medicinal efficacy in the pond and cured the exhaustion of his muscles, energy nodes and channels.

After feeling better, he surfaced and stretched for a bit, he then wore a new set of clothes and went back to his cave.

As he was making himself some simple meal, he felt something from his surroundings. The main control of the array buzzed which signified that someone's nearby. He frowned, took out the main control and sank his perception to see who and how many people are there.

"What's he doing here?" He said as he saw someone familiar to him looking a little bit distressed.

He used the main control and deactivated the concealment of his territory. He then waited for that person to eventually find his way to his cave. As expected, it didn't take the visitor that long to find the entrance and arrive at the his cave dwelling.

"E-excuse me! Is anybody here!"

"Enter." Raven plainly said as he sat waiting for his visitor. He then heard footsteps coming closer and eventually his visitor found him.

"S-senior Brother!" His visitor then found him and immediately greeted.

"What brings you here Jacob?" He asked as he saw the distressed expression of Jacob.Hearing his direct question, Jacob grimaced. He sighed and sat down to tell him the reason why he's here.

"It's a disaster Senior Brother." Jacob said, "The Pill Saint Pavilion is no more."

"You say what now?" Raven was dumbfounded upon his words, he asked once again just to make sure he heard things right.

"The Pill Saint Pavilion is on the verge of disbanding Senior Brother." Jacob said while tears threaten to fall from his eyes.

Raven was speechless, he could feel that Jacob was absolutely heart broken about this and just suppressing it. He sighed and thought: 'This might because of the butterfly effect.'

"Tell me what happened." Raven said calmly, Jacob nodded and told him the events that transpired while he was away.

As Jacob and Richard busied themselves preparing for the two week agreement to release the Healing Salve to the crowd, it was also this time that Richard called the Chief Director of the main branch to let him know about this event. As expected, the Chief Director was ecstatic and even said that due to Richards contributions, he will make him the next successor to the position which greatly elated the old man.

The Chief Director then said that it is wise to do the reveal on the main branch first in order to attract more buyers, to which Richard fully agreed upon. Still, it was still agreed that this project was remain a secret until the day of the release.

The Chief Director said to at least do at least 3000 batches, which is a great number specially for only two people who will work on it, but not nearly enough to satisfy the market. The only compensation is that once it's out, the workload on them would be lessened. The two barely managed to do 1000 batches during Raven's departure when the Chief Director swoop in, took all of the batches of Healing Salves as well as the recipe for it and set off.

It wasn't until they were at the door when the Chief Director officially made Richard the new Chief Director of the Pill Saint Pavilion's Main Branch while he himself said that he will be joining the Zelor Family and sharing them future profits of the Healing Salves.