Way of the Knights

---

As Raven sat at the bottom of the sea, he deactivated his defences. He allowed the waters to simply engulf his whole body and make him relax. There was a serene expression in his face like the rest of his group.

While the others was still reeling to the fact that they were able to breathe underwater, they could also feel their entire body relax. It was an inexplicable feeling. The best description that they could give is that, they felt like they were back to their mother\'s womb once more. The waters felt like a gentle embrace, filled with warmth, love and sweetness.

Eventually, they all fell into a deep sense of emptiness. It was like they forgot everything that they had so far, their identities, their family, their ambitions, and even their memories were pushed all the way back to the depths of their brain.

One after another, their positions changed from cross-legged to a fetal position. Their bodies were surrounded by gentle ripples that didn\'t alert any people. As the state of emptiness washed them, an explosive change were happening in their bodies.

Technically, a person could only retain Essence Energies on their bodies when they step to Muscle Training Realm since unlike the skin, the muscles are more capable of storing those without any difficulties or the dispersion. But Raven and his crew are just the definitions of \'little monsters\'.

Believe it or not, the girls actually caught up with the boys in terms of cultivation, which made all of them firmly standing at Peak rank Skin Toughening Realm. This was made possible since the girls mainly focused on Energy Path which was faster compared to the boys who were focusing on their bodies.

Added the fact that the cultivation scriptures that Raven gave them were top notch, it basically allowed them to do the impossible for someone at their stage. Which was to store up Essence Energy in their skins without worrying about it dispersing. This gave them an absolute edge towards someone on the same stage.

As the crew remained on a fetal position, the remaining energies on their bodies are going wild. It turns out that the water/tear had the ability to cleanse and raise the purity of their energies.

While it might not seem very impressive, the benefits of raising the purity of their energies are immense. A purer energy means an upgrade towards the lethality of their \'Battle Arts\' which will show effects if they start to train with one but that\'s not the only thing. Since the quality of their energies were raised, their bodies will no longer settle for anything less than that, which means that whenever they absorb Essence Energies in the future, their bodies will automatically convert it into a similar purity as the one\'s they have on their bodies. Lastly, the purer their energies were the larger the capacity they have and better control they have on it.

Unfortunately, the crew weren\'t aware of these changes on their bodies yet since they weren\'t even aware of anything for that matter. It was then that Raven was jolted awake from his state.

He opened his eyes to see a vast expanse of cosmic wonder. He was startled and shook his head to see if he was hallucinating things. Upon re-opening his eyes, he still remained floating in an empty space and which made him frown.

\'What\'s going on here?\' He thought, he asked himself if he was dreaming and checked. He wasn\'t, which didn\'t really make his situation any better.

The scenario in front of him abruptly changed. The cosmic space where he was, twisted and exploded into myriad motes of light. He watched as the spectacle before him shifted and the motes of light formed an picturesque scene of a vast field of grass and endless blue skies. As the scene shifted in Raven\'s eyes, he also saw someone standing not to far away from him.

The man was tall, he stood about 7 foot and 6 inches according to his measurements. He was clad in a golden armor that excludes a majestic aura around him. He had brown hair and eyes, a cleanly shaved beard, sword like brows, healthy wheat colored skin, and stood straight like a spear while he placed both of his hands on his sword that was planted on the ground.

Raven faintly had an idea who was standing in front of him, but he had to make sure so he walked towards him. As he get close however, the man radiated a fearsome aura that greatly shocked Raven. He instantly knew that this man was testing him so he decided to give him a little surprise.

He summoned an aura of his own. A great and ominous aura radiated off from his body, this pressure was so monstrous that it made the aura of this person look like a joke.

The man was shocked, so much so that he had to take a look closely at the child in front of him. His shock was understandable though. Raven knew that only his soul was transported into this place, and as a reincarnated person, how could a mere remnant soul dare to compete with him? Not to mention a mere remnant soul even if the complete version of his soul was here, there is no way that it could compare to Raven\'s soul.

Raven smiled and proceed to walk towards the man without any fear. Once they were standing face to face, he saluted and said: "Greetings King Harold of the Old Era, or whatever\'s left of you."

The king was shocked again before stopping and sighing in defeat. "This is certainly surprising. I didn\'t know that youth nowadays could be this terrifying."

"Not really." Raven chuckled, "I\'m just a little bit special that\'s all."

The king raised his brows and sighed, at least this kid didn\'t give him a bad impression. "Would you mind telling me how many eras had passed young friend?"

"About 7 or 8 eras passed since your death Your Majesty. It is honestly surprising to me that your remnant soul managed to last this long."

"Well I mostly spent it on slumber. Waiting until the right moment that I find someone that could potentially fulfill a wish of mine."

"And I\'m assuming that I am this person that you are talking about?"

"Honestly, I\'m not sure anymore." Raven raised his brow as he heard him speak like this. "I transported you here since I could feel your potential. But it seems that I managed to caught a bigger fish than what I was expecting. Judging by the prowess of your soul alone, you could definitely erase me depending on your whim."

"Oh please, you\'re overestimating me Your Majesty, even though I have a powerful soul, I don\'t dare to use it wantonly, my small body won\'t be able to take it." He revealed a helpless smile as he explained.

"What is your name young friend?"

"Vendrick Valorheart, Raven\'s fine Your Majesty."

"Oh please stop with this etiquette, you have qualifications to address me by my name casually." The old king smiled and sat down, he gestured Raven to do the same and he did so.

"Alright Harold. Mind explaining me why you left a fragment of your soul here in the Mermaid\'s Tear? Oh, I should call it the Grand Serenity Pond since everyone refer to it as such nowadays."

"Is it now?" Harold was intrigued, he then pondered carefully and said: "Not a bad name if I do say so myself. Cadel might be the one who changed the name."

"I think so too." Raven nodded. "The records only said that you entrusted him to guard this place. Your right hand man took it to the next step and even ordered his clan to safeguard it as generations pass."

The old king sighed and said: "He didn\'t have to do that. I just want him to build a shelter for this place and look after it from time to time." Because of his regular slumber, he didn\'t really spent much energy observing what was it like outside. He just kept vague knowledge about the tear\'s location and performed basic scans of the people who visited the pond.

"It became a tourist spot actually. People liked it since it was close to nature and the pond helps them relieve their stress."

"I\'m not surprised. Nesha produced this tear when I proposed to her, she felt greatly relieved because she thought I wasn\'t planning on marrying her." The old king chuckled in reminiscing.

Raven let out a gasp of surprise and said: "Well what a breaking news this is! It seems that Queen Neshandra is actually a mermaid! Not just any mermaid either, a Mermaid Princess at that! Oh boy, you are one lucky man Harold. I wonder how the Sea King reacted by this news."

"Oh he didn\'t like it. Not one bit! Hahaha! But what can he do? Nesha threatened to curse the sea and it\'s inhabitants if he didn\'t let her do as she pleases." The old king laughed at loud as he was reminded on how domineering her dear queen was.

"Anyways I believe we got sidetracked...."