Chapter 21: Examination Before Jastine

  The portal opened and showed a deep black dimension inside. What got to my eyes was a circular ritual mark was input on the floor. There was light with no interjection, the yellow brownish light shining down the circular ritual mark from the point of nothing in the air. The circular shining area was bigger than the circular ritual mark. From my point of view while standing far from the dazzling phenomenon, the scenery was like the shape of a cone.

  “Is there anyone who will be summoned from this?” I asked myself if that omen could happen. However, I think it would likely happen because of the obvious bizarreness of it.

  Stepping inside, each step of mine kept creating an echoing sound, it told me about the wideness of this place. The top must be extremely high or endlessly expanded to have the sounds echoed. The darkness wasn’t able to unveil how large the room was. The portal brought me to another dimension, which resembled the overall decoration of this place that is pure dark. So…what would be going on here?

  Boom!

  The portal’s door closed shut, and it looked totally jammed. Just like in movies, this warned that this is where I would go and venture. Stop thinking further, I approached closer to the ritual mark. Steps after steps brought me closer to the mark, the louder the echoing sounds rang.

  Just as before I stepped through the corridor of the circular mark. A flattened stone once again rose up in the middle of the circular mark, the flattened stone displayed:

  -Each steps bring you closer to the truth

  -The more you stack the stranger you become

  -If life was that way

  -Then it could no longer be equal

  -Before that comes

  -The obstacles you must face

  -The knowledges you must obtain

  -Broaden your thinking

  -Keep meditating

  -Keep strengthening

  -Keep being secured

  -Keep being yourself

  -The more control you got

  -The more power you gain

  -Initially, beat the worth

  A poem was carved on the stone with remarkable sentences, the word choices are basically simple but meaning something far more meaningful. Personally, I didn’t know what extent did it emphasize but I just got the general assumption for myself was that each sequence is your improvement via journeys or being a vagabond.

  At the end of line, the stone told me to beat the worth. What did it mean? Fighting my worth or it mean something else?

  Then, a recite was spoken from the void.

  ?: “Via your instinctive appearance, the fate you had to venture, the difficulties you had to face. All of them came from the purpose to balance or might be content but not be able to sharpen your potential. You don’t have the right to stay silent nor run away, all you need to do is to adapt and take actions. That’s all about yourself.”

  The speech wasn’t like a recite, it was more like an instruction from the guider whom spoke from the void. It was saying philosophy stuff related, it told me to not run away, it told me to adapt. More ferociously, It stated that I need to fight.

  “Why did I have to always end up in a bloody battle?”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  The nostalgic thought from earlier against Jastine appeared suddenly. What was it? What did my mind try to convey? The hell? I was losing it.

  Humans evolved through millennials, what should take in account was that natural selection and competitions were what got us, descendants living in modern time. Through competitions, humans fight for survival or demise. The harsh truth about it was the emotions and the contemplates taking it, and it carved into becoming human nature. Through the processes and interactions, there are different types of people born with different instincts and characteristics. It can be easily recognized through everyday interactions.

  However, those are common patterns. The intelligent ones may not be considered just the outside but the inside is what matters. Therefore, fighting against intelligent people is what really brings us to a more glorious promotion in our soul. Did it mean that I’m going to fight a strong opponent summoned from the circular ritual?

  !.

  The book was vibrating inside my tearing pocket. I took it out and it was flashing my eyes due to its glowing strength. I threw the book to the ground, pages were flipping with a flutter. The pages were glowing in yellow, then, the white dusty flakes suddenly flowed into the air along with the direction of the glowing.

  “What is going to happen?” I murmured to myself of the image in front of me.

  With a glittering hope of something surprising about to happen, however, the next scenery brought disappointment. It didn’t bring up anything.

  A horrendous sound struck down the circular ritual mark behind me, the flowing of blue energy was being devoured into the ritual like it was sucking the energy with violent force.

  !. !.

  The sound of steps were transferred into my eardrums, someone must be going out from it, just as expected.

  With a glorified and Korea-like look, the teenage girl was wearing an honorable hanbok with white as the up sleeve while the lower was painted with red, A white fabric was wrapped around her waist. She has pale white skin, and a cheeky face. Her eyebrows were furrowed down a little, her mouth shimmered upward happily. Her face showed a pear shape, balance and elegance, emphasizing the uttermost of her beauty. She has dark black hair; what was special was her eyes’ color, a deep black color carved inside her iris.

  ???: “Hi.”

  The girl spoke casually with her expressions straightened, girls like her must be confident. She welcomed…um no, she spoke with a welcoming tone to me as I was like her guest.

  The pillar of energy stopped already behind her, her figure was about the same height as me. While her body was really attractive and mesmerizing, I shifted to another important thing. The stuff I was going to do was to fight this beautiful girl? However, she looked like she didn’t have any powers to duel.

  ???: “Ah, ah, you don’t have to ask yourself questions like that.”

  “Huh? You know what I’m thinking?”

  ???: “No, I just look at your face and your eyes, that tells me everything.”

  “Tch. I think you’re lying.”

  Just like the figure inside me, she can read my mind briefly. She was just faking it.

  ???: “Girls can read a guy’s feelings by just feeling it”

  “Feeling it?”

  ???: “Yeah. But mostly, it comes from the sixth sense, our own privilege of being a girl.”

  “So vague but whatsoever.”

  ???: “I think you don’t need to force yourself into thinking too much. It’s not going to be good later on.”

  “But thinking is what I question everything around me and keep me aware.”

  ???: “It’s ok, it’s just what I experienced was just like you.”

  “What did you experience?”

  ???: “Thinking isn’t a safe thing to do in a crowded place, I’ve tried to think in public but mostly terribly disrupted.”

  “Huh? Then it was just you, you’re just easily distracted.”

  ???: “Was it? I didn’t think so. I think people were having a crush on me because they knew what I was thinking.”

  “Huh?”

  What the girl was saying was just no cohesion, more like she was being delusional. It's a fact that she’s gorgeous but thinking everybody likes her by disrupting her thoughts was just delusional. She said everybody knew what she was thinking, I thought it was all just coincidence, it’s just that she was easily distracted.

  ???: “You are brought here by accident, aren’t you?”

  “...Yeah?”

  ???: “Hm”

  The girl grinned just for a second, her eyes squinted along with it for a second too. Then she switched back to her formal and normal behaviours.

  ???: “Ya, there’s no accident, you are brought here by him.”

  “Him? Who is he?”

  ???: “I don’t have a right to tell you who he is. You just need to know that you’re in his domain and brought here by certain qualities.”

  “You mean that slumbering is your master’s domain?”

  ???: “That’s correct.”

  The awkward sound was plastered out of my mouth, “Ak”. I didn’t know why I said that but whatever.

  ???: “Now, you’ll need to face the examination. The conditions that you cannot use your magic and your authority. If the opponent exclaims the loss, then you win.”

  The flattened stone that showed the poem was now transforming into something. It gradually formed into a body, and finally, it formed into a guy. The guy has a knight helmet, he wears a full iron armor covering from top to bottom. He held a great sword and branched it to the ground. A medieval knight appeared in front of me.

  His body is slanted but his sword is bigger than his whole body. He held that greatsword nonchalantly like holding a toy.

  ???: “He represents wrath. He was kept in this domain because of his outburst and his unforgivable sins of putting his wrathness onto innocent people. If you lose this match, he will replace you and take all your abilities, if you win, you’ll gain his powers. However, you have a discretion to leave or fight, it depends on you.”

  Looking at him, he kinda must have tremendous strength inside. That face was keeping silent as he had already known the rules.

  He then raised his greatsword and placed the sharpest point toward me. A great swordsmanship aura emitted from his medieval figure.

  Medieval knight: “Fight…me.” Utterly spoken, but could be classified into dangerous categories due to my assumption and my judgement, gotten from animation shows.

  If I’ll have his strength, I’ll certainly have a higher chance of beating Jastine. Whatever it takes, I’ll risk it all.

  “I accept your challenge.”

  A handful of dust formed around my left palm and right palm. Two katanas were in shape, ready to slash. Then my atomic manipulation ability no longer could be felt.

  I took the first act, I was dashing to him and combining two swords for the plus shape attack. The medieval knight immediately reacted, he gave an upper slash, creating an on-going slash on its settled way.

  On the contrary, the girl stepped aside in darkness, and she was giving a concerned face.