Way of the Knights

Chapter 430 - Aptitude Exams 1.4

---

"Seal All Force!"

"Seal All Living Beings!"

"Seal All Elements!"

"Seal All Earth!"

"Seal All Skies!"

Three months passed within the hall of the second exam. Raven stood at its center with five golden seals flashing on his fingertips. 

As the seals flashed and the world seemingly turned still. Constant droning sounds emanated out of Raven's body due to the mysterious power of the seals on his fingers yet instead of feeling satisfaction, doubt filled Raven's face. 

He didn't notice this at first when he mastered the first three seals but as he learned and practiced the fourth and fifth seal, great doubt appeared on his heart. 

'There's no mistaking this. This Ancient Art is strong and all but I can't help but to feel that I'm missing something here…' Raven thought inwardly. 

'Sealing…exercising one's will onto something, forcefully determining its activity. This concept is cool and all but in reality, all this seals do is to restrict a certain element's movement. It's nothing too special at all.'

'If we're talking about restricting something, then I absolutely have no need for this art. My Spacetime Laws could do much more than this art. Not only could I restrict, I could decide where they will appear, when they will appear and much more compared to this seals…'

Instead of calling it sealing, it's more accurate to say that this technique just restricts something. The seals could restrict the movement of Force, Living Beings, Elements, Earth, Skies, Life, Death, and Laws. And should one attain mastery of every single seal, then they could fuse it together and form them into the Allheaven Seal which could restrict everything and anything. 

At least that's what the bamboo slip contained…

"This isn't seals at all, this is more like restrictions. Well, I guess they could pass as restriction seals. But this technique is too rigid." Raven grumbled as he pursed his lips in disappointment. 

What he didn't expect was…

"Junior, are you doubting the work of our kin?" 

The ancient voice's sudden remark stunned Raven into speechlessness. It was completely out of his expectations that the owner of that voice was actually observing him all this time. Raven managed to get out of his stupor, he couldn't help but ask…

"Are this hall's Treasure Spirit?"

"Answer my question." The voice demanded using a cold voice. 

Raven was silent, many thought's flashed on his mind for a few seconds. 

'Unless…' A barely visible glint appeared on Raven's eyes as he slowly drew into a conclusion. He took a deep breath and said:

"I wouldn't say that I'm doubting it. It's more like I was wishing that he named it as something else. I think the name Allheaven Sealing Scripture is highly inappropriate for this technique." Raven's voice was neither overbearing nor servile. He replied in a steadfast manner and with an honest tone. 

The hall trembled fiercely. A malicious and chilling aura suddenly descended and filled every single corner of the hall. Raven's hairs stood on their ends, yet he wasn't frightened by this at all. This reaction from him was more of an involuntary response from his body due to it being surprised by the sudden changes on his surroundings. 

The honest expression on his face remained, he could a heavy weight pressing him down but honestly, Raven wasn't impressed. But he didn't dare to show any kind of changes on his current expression. 

"Explain." The voice sounded once again, though its tone was colder and sounded apathetic this time around. Still Raven wasn't impressed at all, instead he calmly explained his reasons. 

"From what I can understand, Seals share the same origins as Inscriptions. While I'm not aware which came first, I am pretty convinced by this line of thinking."

"Inscriptions are created through various means, and with how things progressed since the ancient times, the Path of Inscriptions has come a long way from its infancy. There's so much more about Inscriptions that I'm afraid that one lifetime isn't enough to reveal all of its mysteries."

"A simple arrangement of Inscriptions could form Arrays. From sets of Arrays, a Formation will be born. Whether be it Arrays or Formations, none of these two are limited to just restricting someone's movement. Certain Arrays or Formations could be used offensively or defensively. It could hide, isolate, separate, transport and so much more."

"With this in mind, and with how I supported the idea that Seals and Inscriptions share the same origins, I refuse to believe that Seal could do worse compared to Inscriptions. If simple inscriptions could achieve so many things, then it would make sense for Seals to be able to do the same."

"Therefore I said those words earlier." The glint on Raven's eyes shone even more at this point, "I think it would be more apt to call this technique as Allheaven Restriction Scripture instead of Allheaven Sealing Scripture."

Raven went silent after this. The hall also became silent and the voice didn't say anything just yet. The oppressive and chilly aura remained yet Raven wasn't worried at all. 

After a while of silence, the oppressive aura disappeared all of a sudden. A brilliant light flashed emanated from the pillars of the hall and Raven heard the voice saying:

"Congratulations. You passed the Test of Knowledge." The ancient voice still sounded apathetic but there is a faint praise on its tone. 

Raven let out a sigh of relief, inwardly wanting to pat his back to congratulate himself for winning the bet. 

His eyes then narrowed as he noticed that the brilliant light being emitted by the pillars were intensifying at an alarming degree, causing him to be momentarily blinded. Once his vision adjusted from all of that, he was surprised to see a globe of violet-golden light suspended before him. 

Before he could react, the globe fused with him which somewhat alarmed Raven, that's until he heard the voice say:

"That ball of light is your reward for passing. However, you could only retrieve the reward once the recruitment is over or once you arrived at the sect. Work hard Young Champion, I'll be sending you now to last part of the Aptitude Exams."

Raven was stunned but he didn't question it. He gently nodded his head and felt his surroundings warping around him. He lost consciousness but he will be fine, once he wakes up, he'll arrive at the last part of the first exams.

***

Inside a spacious and luxurious room, five people could be seen seated in front of table.

These people looked like ordinary folks. They were like a group of friends resting inside a room while talking about random things under the sun or just reminiscing about the glorious days of their youth but in truth, each person here has an earth-shaking identities that would cause the hearts of many to tremble. But right now, aside from casually taking about random topics, each of them were watching the table.

This table was somehow strange. It was smaller compared to the regular once but it has a special functions. The surface of the table actually serves as some sort of monitoring array. 

Various scenes are being played at the surface of the table. A total of fifty squares could be seen on its surface, each compartment were displaying real-time scene about what's happening within the exams of each participants. 

At the center of the table, a slightly bigger screen could be seen. It was displaying the moments before a certain handsome young man with an aqua-marine hair, passed his second trials. 

"The kid's impressive." A middle-aged man remarked along with a nod. There is a scholarly aura surrounding him but his face didn't share the same sentiments as his remarks but that's due to other reasons.

"You old coot! What did I say? I told you the second test was too easy." A man with a bald head and white beard berated at the guy beside him. 

"Shut up! Easy? How can it be easy? If it's truly easy then majority of the participants should've passed! How can you say that it's easy when the kid was the first one who passed up until now?" The other guy retorted, he snorted and continued: "He passed caused he's frickin' smart or something. But not as smart as me."

"Hmph! Whatever you say! But don't you dare snatch him away from me! I'll be taking him as my disciple." 

"You…you! Shameless! Very shameless! You've gone senile! You shamelessness is truly astoundin'! With how thick your skin is, I could certainly have Heppy make it into a frickin' armor or somethin'! Disciple my ass! Wait until he passes first!"

The other old man was about to retort when the two of them felt a chill down their spines. They instinctively turned their heads, only to see the scholarly middle-aged man staring at them with eyes narrowed. 

The two old guys visibly shivered, both of them started trembling from head to toe and started explaining.

"Y-young Lord, uhm, w-we weren't - uh, we totally, didn't mean to…"

"S-spare us, Young Lord. Don't - please don't…" 

The old men were utterly terrified, even the other two people around the room didn't dare to interfere and acted as if they didn't see anything.

"Behave." The middle-aged man uttered. The two old men secretly sighed in relief as they saw their Young Lord averting his gaze away from them. 

Unbeknownst to anyone, the Young Lord was staring at Raven with eyes sparkling.. His thoughts were unknown.