Way of the Knights

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"You what!?"

The rest had bewildered expressions as soon as they heard her.

"It's nothing much really." Luna waved her hand, "Master Leona was a previous sweetheart of Grandpa Lee. She accepted me through his recommendation."

"Don't sell yourself short." Raven replied while smiling, "With her reputation, I doubt that she would make an exception regardless of backing. She must've seen something in you which prompted her decision."

"He's right, Sis! I'm so happy for you!" Anne exclaimed while hugging her. The rest also said the sentiments for this rare encounter.

Their reactions are very understandable. They're talking about the Ruby Knights Squad after all.The founders of these group of fearless fairies had been claimed as subjects of worship for both men and women alike. In front of this ladies, whatever men could do, they could do better. While it's true that some of them have an inherent hate towards men, in the end they were still warriors who fought under the same banner, and what they do is obviously for the greater good.

Leona Cezil, the current Captain of the Ruby Knight Squad, is one of the most powerful knights to date. She was once worked as the current King's personal adviser and also accompanied him through his explorations beyond the walls.

According to what Raven remembered about her, she is somewhere between a Golden Knight or even at Hero stage, which was fairly astounding considering the terrible state of the kingdom. He also heard that during one of their exhibitions outside the walls, she managed to destroy a Middle Sized Lair all on her own.

Raven doesn't know how much of this was an exaggeration but even so, that is very impressive. A small scaled Lair could house at least 100-300 beasts while a medium sized Lair holds at least 500-1000. If the rumors where a hundred percent real, then that means that she slew at least 500-1000 beast all alone. That is a staggering amount of beasts, almost akin to a small sized horde already.

The only reason why Raven couldn't be so sure about those rumors is because Leona never really confirmed much less discuss anything about that event at all. It was said that after they came back, Leona resigned from her position and replaced the previous Captain of the Ruby Knights Squad. With all these being said and done, Leona's reputation soared like a rising phoenix. Her notoriety is also one of the main reasons why the Black Curtain Guild never dared to recklessly attack, her deterrence was a great sobering feeling to them.

It is unknown how many female knights sought after her teachings, but due to her eccentricity, she never accepted anyone no matter how long they kneeled in front of her office, not how much wealth they gave. In the end, she will only accept people based on her judgement and so far it has to fail her yet.With these informations in mind, it was clear why everyone was in a jubilant mood after hearing the news. And even though Raven couldn't make heads or tails about the rumors, he knew one thing for sure.And that is Leona absolutely loathes the Black Curtain Guild. Luna was in safe hands...

"So…" Mark whispered, "It seems that we have a strong foundation for our future, we just need to make sure that we remain careful all the way. Once time comes, we'll be unstoppable."

The rest solemnly nodded, it was somewhat unbelievable that they managed to have such a good headstart. This is a great boon towards their goals in the future. Raven was also gratified to see that even though he wasn't there to support them, they still managed themselves beautifully and independently. He could tell that their growth is in the right direction. Raven and his friends talked for some more, catching up with the things they missed out. Once their done, they went their separate ways.

As for Raven, he immediately went towards the Pill Saint Pavilion under a disguise. Due to the recent events, he had been rather careful when going in here. He wasn't wary that someone will managed to uncover his sabotage, he was rather confident about how he handled that matter. What he was careful for was exposing the future plans of the Pill Saint Pavilion. He wanted to hide as much information as he could so that no potential complications will arise. He absolutely doesn't want another case of Alfred.

To that extent, he secretly laid out a powerful enchantment all of the organization. This enchantment works like a subtle hypnotism that will make majority of it's visitors lose interest about visiting. Laying this enchantment here also helped Richard and Jacob a lot since with no worries of anyone disturbing, they could focus whole-heartedly on concoction alone.

Speaking of concoction, this is the second day that he gave the Sacred Leaf Holy Scripture to both of them, and as expected of the holy bible for alchemist, it brought an earth shattering changes to the two's point of view about alchemy.

The scripture was simple yet endlessly profound, it contained comprehensible instructions yet every single one has clever applications. Once they started whole-heartedly studying, they became so immersed that they even forget about hunger and time. They were even forced to set some sort of a reminder for them when it's time to eat and sleep.

They both understood that two days of worth of studying isn't nearly enough to understand even a percent of this holy scripture, yet that timeframe morphed their alchemical prowess into a whole new level.

Raven silently arrived at the Pill Concoction Room where both Richard and Jacob were. The two didn't even noticed his arrival and was completely immersed on their tasks. He took a careful glance of the neatly arranged stacks crates containing bottles of pills. All of them are neatly arranged by their category and was carefully inspected before placing them here.

By his estimations, he reckon that there's at least a hundred to a hundred and fifty pill bottles and potions so far, and considering the fact that there's only two of them who knew how to concoct these medicines, this is an absolutely staggering production rate! Not to mention that fact that these two hardly failed during the concoction makes this even more amazing.

But to Raven's eyes, this amount is not nearly enough to satisfy the market. Each of this pills would be considered as miracle medicines already, and if they knew how affordable these pills were, there's going to be a huge uproar. He could even tell that some influential figures wouldn't even hesitate to order staggering amounts of pills from them, a couple hundreds would be too little in fact. Of course, he wouldn't blame it to them. After all, almost every alchemist who used to work here had already left. Nevertheless, this problem should easily be solved after the start of the operation.

Seeing them so busy, Raven decided to leave them alone and occupy an empty pill concoction room for himself. Since he's here, he might as well help out. However, Raven isn't going to concoct any of the pills they were making. He planned on making a different one.

Taking out the necessary ingredients out of his spatial ring, he placed them in a table in front of him. Normally, this should be the time when he's supposed to heat up the furnace but he skipped that, instead he focused on doing the prep work for each ingredients. Once he was done, he closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them, there is a strange glint on his pupils.His arms abruptly lit up with blue ethereal flames. A strange wind made his clothes flutter and made his hair dance. Out of nowhere, the ingredients floated in front of him, seemingly picked up by a strange force.

They formed a circular formation in front of him and remained suspended in the air. He moved both of his arms towards his chest, palms facing each other with a small gap in between. The flames in his arms moved between the gap, one by one the floating ingredients flew towards the flames, akin to a moth seduced by fire. The flames flickered, adjusting its heat and its intensity depending on how delicate the ingredients was. The essences of each ingredient was sucked out and refined with absolute perfection and grace, not even iota was wasted.

When the concoction was nearing its end, all of the essences was concentrated between Raven's palms. If one observed closely, it was obvious that each essences were being merged into a single entity. Each time an essence was combined, it will shine with a resplendent light. With more and more essences being fused and refined, the light intensified so much that someone will think that Raven had the sun between his palms.

Beads of sweat emerged fell from his face but this wasn't enough to break his concentration. After waiting for the proper sign, Raven suddenly closed the gap between his palms and clasped them together.. The light was snuffed out but when Raven opened his hands, a golden pill emerged.