Chapter 6 — | The King’s Gaze.
Chapter 6—The King’s Gaze.
They took the road again. After hours of traveling on horseback across the golden plains. They saw from afar the silhouette of the great capital in sight, which finally rose before them.
It was truly gigantic, colossal ramparts that seemed to touch the sky.
They drew closer, and they immediately noticed something bizarre.
The entrance of the capital was divided into two distinct lines. On one side, there was an endless line, packed with merchants, drivers, and tired adventurers.
The city guards searched them in an indecent manner, brutally insulting them and lacking respect for them; they treated them like less than nothing.
The waiting line was endless.
Likewise on the other side, there was a path paved of gold, empty and clean, reserved for noble families only.
Kaelen and Lyra advanced calmly towards the golden track with their horses.
Seeing their simple clothes and their travel horses, a guard with an arrogant face immediately stood across their path, hand on his sword.
"Halt there! You country bumpkins!" Shouted the guard in golden armor. "You have nothing to do here. This path is reserved for the Elites of the Elites of the kingdom and for the personal guests of his Majesty. Go queue over there with the other commoners if you would rather not end up in the dungeon."
Lyra furrowed her brows, preparing to answer him, but Kaelen remained in a silent calm. Without saying a word, he plunged into his bag and pulled out the official invitation letter stamped with the royal seal of the crown as well as his S-rank hunter card.
He held everything under the nose of the guard.
Placing his eyes on the seal of the king and the mention of "Rank S" which shined on the card, the guard’s face decomposed instantly.
He became all white like a sheet, and his hands began to tremble with terror. He stammered, and bowed very low, almost to the ground.
" I beg you to excuse me, my lords! I did not know.... Pass! I beg of you!"
Kaelen packed his things with a light smile, while Lyra displayed a triumphant look. They passed the gate under the completely shocked and admiring looks of all the crowd of commoners who were waiting in the other line.
The message was clear: Kaelen’s power was already beginning to break the barriers of this fantastic world.
They finally entered the enclosure of the Academy of High Mages and Swordsmen.
The place was breathtaking, resembling a huge magical Colosseum where hundreds of candidates coming from everywhere in the four cardinal points of the world were already gathered.
The sons of dukes and nobles, dressed in huge invaluable sparkling armor and capes made of silk, grouped on one side looking down at the others. The commoners, as for them, remained squeezed against each other, terrified.
While they were walking in the courtyard, Kaelen and Lyra noticed that looks turned towards them. It was Alistair de Valois, the arrogant noble of the road, surrounded by his guards as well as Takumi-kun, the man of the tavern with his group. They were all there in the same row.
Alistair de Valois wanted again to humiliate Kaelen in front of everyone to show his superiority as a noble and advanced towards them with a petty smile. Discreetly, he began to murmur a minor magical incantation to launch an invisible shockwave at the level of Kaelen’s feet, hoping to make him fall to the ground and ridicule him in front of everyone.
But Kaelen, thanks to his divine reflexes and to the vigilance of his mind, felt immediately the fluctuations of the mana.
His eyes shined with an intense blue glow. Without making the slightest gesture, he activated a fraction of his power of gravitation, targeting directly Alistair’s shoulders.
"Boom."
Instead of Kaelen falling, it was Alistair who took his place, who felt immediately a pressure of an absolute heavy ton slam down on him.
The weight was so obvious that the young noble immediately pushed a muffled groan and was forced to place his knees to the ground, breaking a stone slab under the invisible pressure. His sweat started to flow; his body trembled, incapable of rising again.
Around them, the others understood nothing; they murmured, completely perplexed.
Nobody understood why Alistair de Valois had knelt all of a sudden in front of a simple country adventurer.
Kaelen looked down on him with a smiling face, then passed next to him as if he were only a simple object without value.
"I told you we would see each other at the Academy." Said Kaelen softly while continuing to walk.
Lyra smiled, a wild laugh, while Alistair, freed from the gravitational pressure, rose again, his face red with shame and rage, vowing to take revenge in the arena during the real fights. They were already installed.
While the tension rose in the courtyard, the large doors of the main building opened by themselves.
Several professors of the Academy, dressed in long red and imposing mage robes, mounted on a large platform that began to float. In the center, the General Director of the Academy took the floor with a voice truly amplified by magic, which echoed through all the Colosseum to announce the beginning of the annual selection and the strict rules of the first trial.
It was during this precise moment that the system sent a message on Kaelen’s screen.
"Gling!"
The system:
System alert: Automatic analysis of the environment in progress ....
[Total number of participants in the exam: 820]
[ Classification of powers detected in the area: Bronze Rank/basic adventurers: 600 individuals.
*Silver Rank/Nobles and trained warriors: 200 individuals.
* S-Rank / hidden Elites: 20 individuals.]
[Attention: 02 profiles possess a potentiality of strong mana, a divine/unknown energy. Critical danger detected. The profile of the host has been hidden for royal security. ]... "
Kaelen read the message carefully at least twice and understood that he was perhaps not the only player in this world. 20 people of rank S who would have believed it; they were present among the candidates, and worse still, two of them possessed a divine energy just like him, perhaps even more.
The Academy was truly not an ordinary place like he thought; it was a nest of monsters in power.
Kaelen discreetly raised his eyes towards the interface of the system and began to sweep the crowd with his gaze.
It was in the middle of the masses of students that he looked, and his gaze crossed suddenly that of a hooded young man at the very back of the courtyard, as well as that of another young man with eyes of a blood-red color who stared at him with a demonic smile. The two seemed to feel his gaze, as if they knew too that he hid something strange.
Kaelen frowned, confident of his performances.
During all this time, Lyra was admiring the newcomers.
"Are you sure you are okay, Kaelen?" Asked Lyra.
"Yes everything is fine, Lyra. Do not worry. Kaelen"
He clenched his fists; one could see in him a rush of adrenaline running through all his body.
He understood immediately at the instant that he would have to reach the top 10 required by his main quest and hope to see the earth again one day. That he would have to fight seriously this time because the game had become much more dangerous at the instant he received the message from the system.
All the players were centered in the middle of the field, grand trumpets were sounding at the same time, and a grand royal procession entered the combat arena.
There were five horses escorting the king, all stallions of an immaculate white color, dressed in gold armor. In the center the procession advanced; on its back stood the king. The man exuded incredible presence, dressed in a heavy golden cape and wearing a glittering crown.
As soon as he entered the arena, a total silence and a heavy atmosphere fell on the field alone.
It was not gravitational magic like Kaelen’s, but a royally pure thing, a legendary aura that forced admiration. The chattering stopped dead.
"Gling."
The system sent a message to Kaelen one more time:
[« Profile detected: Sovereign of the kingdom.
Level: unknown
Evaluation: Incalculable strength. »Kaelen narrowed his eyes. The system itself could not evaluate the level of the king. This world hid decidedly beings of a redoubtable power.
Around them, all the nobles, including Alistair de Valois, bowed very low, their faces filled with pride and arrogance, persuaded that the king came to admire the elite.
The commoners, as for them, trembled with fear and lowered their heads. Only Kaelen remained straight, fixing the sovereign without blinking.
The royal procession stopped beneath the imperial tribune.
And the king cast a glance on the hundreds of candidates grouped in the center of the field.
He had a freezing and truly piercing gaze, which swept the entire crowd before stopping a fraction of a second on a precise point.
His eyes planted themselves directly....