Way of the Knights

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Hearing Elyion's giddy and excited tone, Raven sighed in pity.

'He's hopeless, he's way to0 fixated on being a human. These thoughts would sooner or later become poisonous to him. This place is weird too. I don't know why but I'm hating this place more and more. What's wrong in here?'

"Forget it." Raven groaned irritatingly, he scratched his head and faced Elyion. "Where do we exchange for Jadestones?"

"Follow me." Elyion said and walked ahead.

Raven followed him and noticed that they were walking towards the closest trading house. They came in a rather bad time since there was a long line of people exchanging for raw materials just like them, the trading house was rather busy at this time so both of them needed to wait for a while before it was finally their turn.

The attendant was a sweet old lady who became incredibly happy when she saw the sheer amount of raw materials the brought.

"Young Masters, thank you for choosing our humble abode to exchange your raw materials. This will really help us out a lot." She bowed towards then after taking account on how many raw materials they brought out.

Elyion and this old lady exchanged flatteries and whatnot for quite some time until Raven couldn't hold it in and coughed to stopped their exchanged.

"I am very sorry. It seems that I went over the line." The old lady bowed again and looked at her notebook before saying. "Young masters brought it a total of 110 wooden logs, 50 jugs of water, and 15 skinless beast carcasses. The exact total would be 966 jadestones, but we decided to round it off to a total of 1000 jadestones. Please receive this."

The old lady then handed a storage pouch filled with jadestones over to Raven. Due to it's magical properties, opening or scrying the contents of storage pouches didn't require any energies so Raven was able to scan it's contents and roughly counted. There was 1000 jadestones in pouch just like she said, it was only at this moment that Raven felt relieved.

"Let's go." Raven turned to Elyion and walked out of the trading house.

Elyion bid goodbye to the old lady and rushed over towards Raven's side, waiting for his next instructions.

"Let's find an Inn to spend the night. I'm tired." Raven said and just like a good guide, Elyion lead him a nice and fairly secluded inn where they could rest.

They rented two separate rooms and went on their respective ones. Exhaustion finally caught up with Elyion as he immediately feel asleep as soon as his back touched the bed.

Meanwhile, Raven wasn't really that tired. He sat on top of his bed and inspected the room for a bit.

Call it being paranoid or what but Raven didn't want anyone witnessing whatever he does to the jadestones. He made sure to drape the curtains of the window to prevent some spying eyes. He also searched every corner of the room to check if there are any holes where people could peek at, he saw nothing and was greatly relieved.

Finally, he made sure to lock the door properly and filled the gaps underneath with some rugs that he found on his room. Once all of this was done, he then went back to the bed and took out all of the jadestones from the storage pouch.

Stone which glowed with green light formed a mountain on top of the bed. Raven crossed his legs and closed his eyes while stretching his arms in front of him. With a little urging, he felt strings upon strings of Vital Energy invading his palms and circulating his body.

A shiver ran down his spine, he felt the pure and abundant energy rushing over and nourishing his entire body. Warmth spread out from his chest all the out to his limbs, he could feel his muscle tightening and being strengthened as time goes one.

Without his knowledge, totemic markings appeared on his back.

Each of these totemic markings correspond to the Great Elemental Gates o Body Path. One of then was already flaring with a brilliant light while rest were still somewhat dull. This is Great Wood Elemental Gate that he had successfully opened thanks to the ent's kindness before.

One of the dull totemic markings was turning more and more visible while he continue to absorb the vital energies from the jadestones.

As time goes on, the totemic marking glowed with an intense light and eventually Raven felt that his blood was churning wildly and his heartbeat was hastening.

*Crack!!* *Crack!!*

Loud shattering noises drowned his ears. Raven's flashed open and they glittered with an intense light. One of the totemic markings on Raven's back floated in front of him while the rest receded back to his body.

The totemic marking left floated down on his core and settled down there. As soon as the Mark was branded, Raven felt a very refreshing feeling rush in every single cell on of his body.

For a second there, a deep and awe inspiring aura covered his body. His hair was being lifted by an invisible wind and was growing at a visible pace, tendrils of black substance was being expelled out of his body.

Raven's skin tone was lightening, his muscles were coiling even more tightly on his skeleton and his bone density was raising.

Topping this sensations was the vast and grand feeling that he received just now. For a brief moment, he felt the ancientness and the immensity of earth leaving some profound insights and inspirations on his body.

Raven opened his eyes and found out that a couple of hours passed already. He clenched his fists and glanced at his body. There was a smile of satisfaction on his face. His strength had risen once more. Confidence then came rushing towards him, it only left when he realized that he actually needed to take a bath right now since his body expelled some more impurities out of his body.

As his bare feet touched the ground, Raven froze on the spot. Images rushed over his mind, creating some sort of an image that he wasn't truly expecting.

He processed these information for a bit before eventually being able to figure out what they were.

"Well I'll be..." Raven uttered with a glee and a little helplessness, "I actually learned Tremorsense."

Tremorsense, a highly sought after technique for those who walk the Body Path. It is a type of sensory technique that takes advantage of vibrations of the ground to locate or sense one's surrounding without having the need to actually look at it.

The difference between Tremorsense and Energy Vision or Spiritual Sense, is that it penetrates on a deeper level. The vibrations acts as his sight, sending him feedback to whatever it touches. Since it's vibrations, it could penetrate in a deeper level without the target noticing it.

If Raven trained his tremorsense in a fearsome level, knowing every single detail in this city in just one sweep would be very possible.

To top this all of, tremorsense doesn't require him to spend his Vital Energy at all. As long as he could create vibrations or tremors, he could use it.

Having learned Tremorsense granted him yet another safety precaution, specially in this place where his energy and spiritual energy were locked down, having some tool to sense danger ahead of time is undoubtedly non-negotiable.

Raven then smiled brilliantly as he walked towards the bathroom and cleaned himself up. After he finished, he lied on his bed and rested. He and Elyion will have a long day tomorrow and he really wanted to clear this challenge as early as he could.

A few miles away from where the two were resting, a group of black hooded people gathered inside a very secluded room. All of them were radiating some incredibly dangerous auras that even Raven has to be worried about.

There were a total of seven people, all of them sat on a circular chair and held their goblets. One suddenly raised his and the rest followed suit. As they drank the contents of their cup, some wiped the red stain on their lips and flashed a hair raising smirk.

"It's the Red Moon Month again, people. The time has come for us, to once more sing praises to or god and prove to him our undying faith." One hooded figure spoke first, his voice was deep and gritty, couple with his fanatical words, one could easily tell that he's not a good person.

"Leader's words are true. Our God yearns for our love, just as much as we yearn for his. Not a single day passed that I didn't dream of a time when he finally descends and take us in his arms." The lady who spoke was fiercely shuddering in her seat as she tried to contain her passion. "Oh! How I wish to feel his embrace and give him all of me!"

"We all feel the same, Lady.." Another man spoke but compared to the rest, he appeared more sane. "So? How many sacrifice are we looking at?"