20 Cultivation! (1/2)

Darius and Lara stood in the wide, empty space. They were unsure of what to do next. The arena took up the entire ground floor of the academy. It had to be that large to be able to handle the much larger formations that were used for the noble exams or other complex exercises. The cave, forest and orange sphere were gone and all that remained was the vast empty white room.

At that moment Lady Katya appeared in front of both of them. ”Congratulations on passing the first test. As I have already mentioned for many of you this was the only test required but for some of you, this was simply the first of four dynamic events.”

Darius cringed at the thought of doing this three more times, dreading the prospect that this was only going to get harder.

”If you were unable to kill a spirit, you will now be taken back to your respective rooms.” the woman paused for a moment, then continued, ”And because to the victor go the spoils, you will now be taken to the knighting room, your prize awaits.”

As soon as she finished speaking Darius felt a fleeting sensation. It happened so quickly he wasn't sure he had felt anything at all. It was like every molecule in his body had felt fuzzy, like static. While Darius thought over what he had just felt he realized something. He was now in another room all together. They had done had teleported him to another room!

The look of child like wonder appeared again on his face as he looked around at the room he was now standing in. The roof was at least twenty meters high and a dim light streamed in through large, stained glass windows with several images Darius couldn't quite comprehend. He was at the back of the room, his hammer gripped firmly in his right hand.

The knighting room was long and narrow. With large and intricately detailed statues on either side. Each statue was exactly the same as the one opposing it on the other side of the room.

Lara appeared immediately beside Darius, promptly followed by six other nobles, all appearing one after the other. Although teleportation was the fastest way to travel, it required massive amounts of energy thus was not used in most cities and even then could only be used as short range without causing any major side effects. This was also the reason why people could only be teleported one at a time. The effects of ninety-nine percent of all attempted mass teleportations were, in a word, disturbing.

An elderly man walked in front of them, an odd grin on his face.

”Come forward and receive the right of cultivation.” His voice was loud and crisp. Darius was hesitant, but proceeded toward the altar where the man stood. As he walked the statues began moving. Each was a smith, with a hammer in their hands. The first smith status raised his hammer high as Darius passed it. In sync with the identical statue stationed across from it. It had an anvil stationed just in front of it, with a large blade place on top of it. While it counterpart on the other side of the room had a shield resting on its anvil.

Both smiths struck down, the sound they made was unmistakable to Darius' ears. As he walked forward he knew these statues were smithing. The anvils moved forward a place, the smiths in front of it did the same. Darius noticed something, the statues had appeared ancient looking, chipped and cracked all over. But now as they struck the anvil it was as if they were being restored. He continued on as each pair of statues did the same thing one after the other.