Chapter 34: Radiant Light Shield (IV)
Long Hao Chen tried to transfer some of his spiritual energy into the shield and at that moment, the sun pattern in the center of the Radiant Shield shone brightly, making the entire exterior of the shield emit a thin gold radiance, but this light aura didn’t consume much of Long Hao Chen’s spiritual energy.
“Big Sister, thank you so much.” said Long Hao Chen from the bottom of his heart.
Li Xin smiled: “What are you thanking me for? You are the one who won this. Okay, I’ll have to tell you about what you will study in our Hall.”
After staying for an hour in Long Hao Chen’s room, she finally left. After her introduction, Long Hao Chen’s knowledge about Hao Yue Hall improved drastically.
Bright morning.
After Long Hao Chen took a simple bath, he ate the breakfast that was brought to him; only Knights 1 were treated with such a preferential treatment, on the other hand, Standard Knights had to go to the dining room. After having his breakfast, he went to the Knight Main Hall on this early morning.
The Knight Main Hall consisted of two floors, it was not too big at all. The first floor was used for the Guardian Knights’ lectures and the second was for the Retribution Knights.
When Long Hao Chen came, the classroom where lessons were supposed to be given to Guardian Knights was absolutely empty. He put down his heavy sword and his Radiant Shield in a corner of the room and calmly waited.
Other knights began to arrive one after another to the classroom, and in a little while the room became completely full. Long Hao Chen counted; there were about 80 knights around him, but there were a lot more Guardian Knights than Retribution Knights.
Long Hao Chen was sitting in the corner, but he still paid attention, just like the others who focused their attention on him. These numerous knights all wore imposing attire and couldn’t help but look at him with a strange eye. It was because he was much younger than them.
“Take a look, who’s this little guy? Wow, that can’t be a Radiant Shield? His family must be quite rich!“
“But one shouldn’t be able to come to our Knight Main Hall just because he has money, can it be that he’s the relative of an instructor?”
“It’s hard to say. I heard yesterday from my little brother who was on duty that our Hell Rose brought a good-looking guy. Probably this little fellow here. Only, how can the Hall Master permit him to take class together with us?”
A large young knight came in front of Long Hao Chen and gently asked: “Little brother, aren’t you at the wrong place? This is the Knight Main Hall, the classroom of the Standard Knights is on the other side.” From these knights’ point of view, Long Hao Chen could be considered a great genius if he was already a Standard Knight at this age.
Long Hao Chen got up hurriedly and politely turned towards his side, performing a knight salute: “Hello, I came to the Knight Main Hall’s class. My name is Long Hao Chen.”
As the knight looked like she still had something to say, a hoarse voice could be heard: “Class will now begin.”
The knights were quite frightened, and as if they feared this hoarse voiced master, they hurried to turn away and get back to their seats.
Long Hao Chen’s gaze turned to the direction of the speaker; there stood a tall and thin middle-aged man with a circular shield on his back. This middle aged man also looked at him.
“Do you have a problem?” The middle aged man calmly asked.
Long Hao Chen quickly shook his head.
The middle aged man continued in a serious and powerful voice: “Then why are you standing there?”
Long Hao Chen was startled by this unexpectedly loud voice and hurried to sit down.
The whole classroom was completely silent; each of the knight looked respectfully at the middle-aged man. The gazes directed toward him seemed to be completely filled with fear.
“Little newcomer, I am Ye Hua, the main Instructor of Hao Yue Hall. I don’t care how much of a genius you are, but as soon as you have arrived here, you have become an ordinary knight. If you cannot reach my expectations, I will chase you back to the Standard Knights’ place. Understood?”
“Yes.” Long Hao Chen stood up once more and performed another authentic knight salute in the direction of the head Instructor.
An ordinary knight? These few words created an uproar among the knights in the room. This youth, who was not even 15 yet, was a Knight? Wasn’t this a mistake?
“Everyone, stand up!” Ye Hua suddenly shouted.
As a reaction to this sharp voice, all the knights rapidly got up.
Ye Hua coldly looked at them, “Do you have so few prospects? What did I teach you? What is the most important thing to become a Guardian Knight?”
“To stay cool-headed in whichever circumstances.” The crowd of knights loudly agreed.
“And what have you accomplished up till now?” Ye Hua’s gaze intimidated these knights.
This time, no one answered.
Ye Hua said: “Put on your heavy equipment and run 50 laps around the training field. Otherwise, you won’t remember this lesson. Right now, hurry up.”
“Yes.” No one dared refute. The Guardian Knights started trotting one by one out of the classroom.
Long Hao Chen was also quite intimidated. He did not expect this Head Instructor to be so hot-blooded.
“Why on Earth are you standing still? Aren’t you a part of their group? Go together with them.” Ye Hua pointed angrily at Long Hao Chen as he shouted.
“Yes.”
The equipment warehouse was in the basement of the Knight Hall. After Long Hao Chen received a set, he couldn’t help but feel like crying. Since he was too young, his body was far from having grown enough. The heavy armor that was intended to protect one’s whole body was heavier than 50 kilograms (100 Jin) and could not be worn because his body was too small. He could only use it to cover his body, wrapping it from above, and he still had to use both his hands to carry the armor from both sides if he did not want it to fall down.
A metallic ringing sound resounded from afar. The training field was circular and 666 meters (200 Zhang) long. In addition to the requirement of having to wear heavy equipment, even for these 200th external spiritual energy level knights, this was not an easy feat.
Ye Hua who stood in the middle of the training ground, looked at him running, “Don’t fall behind. The ones who drop out will have to run fifty more laps. Long Hao Chen, come this way.” He obviously knew his name from Nalan Shu.
“Yes, Instructor.” Long Hao Chen dragged the heavy armor as he ran in front of Ye Hua.
Ye Hua said lightly: “You are a newcomer, so you still don’t know the rule here: I am going to give you a chance and as long as your attacks can push me back, you won’t have to run together with them.”
Hearing these words, the knights who were running in circle clearly hastened their pace, no one dared to look towards Ye Hua. A lot of looks, however, were filled with pity.
“Yes.” Long Hao Chen quickly stripped off the heavy armor on his body; he had his shield on his left hand and his sword on his right hand. He had a first-class practical combat experience, had experimented enough pressuring situations, and could utilize his internal spiritual energy. The key point was that he did not fear losing. At worst, he would just have to run laps.
Ye Hua picked up his shield and, without paying attention to the impressive Radiant Shield that Long Hao Chen was using, he coldly said: “You can attack first.”
“Yes, please give me pointers, Instructor.” The left-handed shield and right-handed sword didn’t seem to suit Long Hao Chen too much. After all, it was the first time he was using a shield and that gave him an awkward sensation. Still, from his point of view, having a shield was better than being empty handed. Long Hao Chen had decided before coming to Hao Yue Hall that he would not rashly fight using dual swords against people. Only when he would be practicing by himself would he use the abilities of Retribution Knights.
Long Xing Yu gave his son a very important practical pointer when training him: he had to be careful never to let the opponent realize his weaknesses.
He rushed with a neat charge; Long Hao Chen’s pace raised and, just like a little leopard, he rushed towards Ye Hua. His speed wasn’t the best, but his steps were quite steady. His pupils locked onto Ye Hua’s body and, using his first class observation skills, he analyzed the Instructor.
Last evening, if we put aside the fact that Lin Jia Lu went easy on him, the most important assets that enabled Long Hao Chen to achieve victory were his excellent judgement and calculation capabilities that were both built with his excellent mental strength.
1. Genuine Knights are often simply called “Knight” by the author (though Knight probably also includes knights above the GK level)
