Preliminary Assessment

Unlike other Knight Order whose headquarters are located in a grand courtyard on the Third Floor of the Holy City, the headquarters of the "Whisper Knight Order" is different.

Due to the special nature of their position, the Knight Order built their own headquarters on the site of an old museum.

None of the Knight Order wore any knightly armor, resembling clerical workers in the Thirteen Knights, who spent their days immersed in textual and cultural artifacts.

Moreover, its headquarters is located on the second floor of the Holy City, adjacent to ordinary residential buildings.

The carriage wheels rolled over the uneven, gravelly ground.

Han Dong sat opposite the mysterious leader of the Whisper Knight Order in the carriage.

Hugo flipped through the list of students to be assessed and finally found Han Dong's picture on the last list.

"Nicholas... a student born in Slums, majoring in mysticism, and he got an S-rank rating in the Perception Test, not bad!"

Han Dong could only give an awkward smile.

To be honest, being alone with this mysterious and unpredictable leader made me feel quite uncomfortable.

What do you know about archaeology?

"To be honest... I don't know much about it."

"Our archaeology here is a bit different from the conventional kind. It mainly focuses on finding the 'origin of the alien demons' from ancient artifacts. If you are interested, you can try to learn about it."

With the Great Expedition approaching, the workload has doubled, and our Knight Order is somewhat short-handed.

As long as your personal abilities aren't particularly poor, you can apply directly to me... At that time, you just need to perform casually at the Knight Tournament; Even Though your overall score is among the bottom few, it won't matter."

"Yes, Commander Hugo."

Zzzz...

Just as Han Dong nodded and looked over again, he discovered that Commander Hugo had fallen asleep.

A short while later.

The carriage stopped at the end of a rarely visited street.

Facing a dark gray residential building with a total height of five stories, the sect's location was blurred and no street information could be identified.

"This is also..."

It was completely different from the rather magnificent headquarters building of the Knight Order that Han Dong remembered.

Of course... such more civilian-style buildings are, to some extent, more conducive to hiding secrets.

Commander Hugo stood at the front door, rummaged in his pocket for a while, and then turned around with an embarrassed look on his face.

"Oh dear! I forgot my keys too... Everyone, please wait a moment."

No matter whether they rang the doorbell or pounded on the door, no one came to Door Opening for the regimental commander.

Left with no other choice, Commander Hugo had to go around to one side of the building, use the uneven brick walls as a foothold, climb up to the second floor with difficulty, and then climb into the building through an unlocked window.

Five minutes later, Commander Hugo, covered in dust, opened the front door.

"Haha... The Knight Order are working overtime and haven't slept for days, so it's normal that they don't hear knocking."

"Just follow me to the artifacts room, and don't disturb the work of my Knight Order."

"Um."

The interior of the building is entirely an office work area.

Through some corridor windows with the curtains not drawn, one could clearly see the Knight Order writing furiously, with a large number of scrolls piled on the ground... However, the knights were in a strange state, all of them writing with their eyes closed.

As for the written characters, Han Dong couldn't understand them at all.

A short while later.

Led by Commander Hugo, they arrived at a room made of earthen yellow stone that contained a large number of cultural relics and old scrolls.

"Dear graduates, the preliminary competition rules here are very simple: you will be ranked according to your registration scores."

Based on the scores from highest to lowest, each person selects one artifact or scroll from the list and completes the "artifact appraisal" in the shortest possible time.

Your final results in the preliminary rounds will account for 30% of the Knight Selection, so I hope you perform well.

Let's begin. First, students who scored S on the test will choose an artifact.

You must maintain order, refrain from loud noises and whispering... You must complete the identification of the cultural relics on your own.

Once it's done, just throw your authentication report in front of me.

I really can't hold on any longer, I'm going to take a nap.

This Commander Hugo, completely disregarded the 'details'.

After explaining the rules of the preliminary rounds in detail, ignoring the dust on the floor of the artifact room, he found a large pebble to use as a pillow, lay down, and fell asleep.

He even showed a happy smile, as if sleeping was a luxury for this leader.

Even Though how low the captain's performance was, the knights present took the qualifiers very seriously.

No one broke the rules; everyone started the preliminary rounds in order.

When Han Dong was the first to step forward to make a selection, he glanced around at the artifacts and then decided, "I'm not sure yet, so to avoid wasting time... everyone else, please choose first."

Han Dong voluntarily relinquished his Right of Choice.

This behavior seemed to have caught the attention of Commander Hugo. The seemingly sleeping captain had one eye slightly open... and a hazy, iridescent luster could be faintly seen shimmering in Commander Hugo's eyes.

Even at the very end of the assessment, when all the graduates had completed their evaluation reports, Han Dong still hadn't made a choice.

There is competition among the graduates, and Han Dong's decision not to accept the preliminary round assessment according to the rules is actually a good thing for them.

After everyone submitted their reports and left.

Han Dong stayed behind alone and wrote a special appraisal report.

Commander Hugo was sleeping on the ground, slightly Opening Eye. Before he could even speak, a voice came from all around the artifact room:

Have you had a similar experience before?

Han Dong nodded, "Hmm... The Destiny Event before the seed broke happened to be part of this incredibly realistic dream. At the time, I slowly deduced that it was 'in a dream' based on various detailed observations and strange settings."

"Your identification report is very interesting."

The unrecognizable handwriting on the doorplate and by the clerical staff led me to speculate that this was a dream world... But what if the writing they used was something you couldn't even read?

"Not knowing and being unable to know are two different concepts, and I can distinguish between them."

In addition, I also possess the ability of 'eye technique'.

However, when using the eye technique, I was unable to detect your presence... This indirectly suggests that when Commander Hugo Oldest One arrived, he had already used a higher level of eye technique on all of us.

Based on my own unique past experiences, I've concluded that this is the 'dream testing ground' you, the leader, have created.

"As expected of the key figure in the [Great Betrayer Incident]... For over thirty years, no graduate has been able to achieve a perfect score in the preliminary assessment of my [Whisper Knight Order."

Congratulations.

I hope you perform even better during the 'draft phase'.

The dream has ended.

In the blink of an eye, all eighteen students who had been tested by Commander Hugo woke up in the lawn assembly area of the Knight Academy.

They looked at each other in bewilderment.

Only Han Dong smiled and muttered to himself:

"Just who exactly is this Commander Hugo?"