"Senior." Yue Shen stepped forward and gave the man a proper Knight's Salute.
The old man nodded slightly. Only after accepting the scroll Wei Ping handed him and checking that everything was in order did he reach out to feel Yue Shen's wrist.
"Hm?" A flash of disbelief crossed the one-armed old man's face, and he checked again.
"A fourteen-year-old on the verge of becoming an Earth Knight? Where did this monster come from?" the old man said incredulously. "I thought the boy before him had already surprised me enough."
Wei Ping smiled and replied, "Senior, I'll explain everything in a moment. For now, let him enter the sacred mountain to choose his mount companion."
After all, Ye Hua and Gui Ying had yet to leave. Both were intensely curious about what sort of extraordinary genius this boy was to have the Holy Knight Commander personally order that he come here to choose a mount companion.
But after hearing Wei Ping's words, the two tactfully took their leave.
"Heaven truly favors our Knight Temple." With a sigh of emotion, the old man handed Yue Shen a black token.
"Like the boy before you, anyone who becomes a Grand Knight before the age of twenty can come with me to the teleportation array in the sacred mountain to receive a random magical beast from another plane as a mount, even if they fail to find a suitable mount companion within thirty days."
"But I believe neither of you will need that privilege," the old man said with a smile. "With your talents, I doubt even the Starshine Unicorns would turn you away."
"Thank you, Senior." Yue Shen clenched his right fist, tapped his left chest, and respectfully gave the old man a Knight's Salute.
Then he turned to bid Wei Ping farewell before stepping into the strange golden curtain of light and disappearing.
"Tell me, where did this monster come from?" the old man asked curiously.
"Lord Xingyu trained him personally. But Lord Xingyu is away from the temple at present, so I'm serving as his instructor for the time being," Wei Ping explained. "As for anything else, I don't know much myself, because the Holy Knight Commander ordered that information about him be kept confidential.
"Of course, there's no harm in telling you, Senior. It's just that what I know is extremely limited."
"Then do you know how much innate inner spiritual power he has?" The old man nodded in understanding. "Of course, if that's a temple secret, you needn't tell me."
Wei Ping shook his head slightly and replied, "Senior, you're a hero of our Knight Temple. What harm could there be in telling you? Yue Shen awakened with an innate inner spiritual power value of eighty-nine. He's a key candidate our Knight Temple is training to become the next Divine Seal Knight."
"Then it won't be long before our Knight Temple has five Divine Seal Knights. Our position at the head of the alliance will be firmly secured," the old man said with a chuckle. "You didn't know, did you? That first boy has already become a Fourth-Order Grand Knight at just fourteen. I imagine his talent isn't much below Yue Shen's."
Joy spread across Yue Shen's face the moment he entered the curtain of light. The concentration of light element in the air here was even higher than outside. Even without meditating, the amount of internal spiritual power he gained each day would be considerable.
Before long, he passed through the thick curtain of light and arrived inside the Knight Sacred Mountain.
Just then, a herd of blue-winged pegasi flew overhead.
Seeing them, Yue Shen took the black token the old man had given him from his pocket. It glimmered with a faint white light.
The white glow meant that the strongest individual in this herd of blue-winged pegasi was an eighth-tier magical beast. As long as the token did not flash gold, they bore him no hostility.
Yue Shen put the token away and began surveying his surroundings.
Dense vegetation grew everywhere within the Knight Sacred Mountain,
making it rather difficult for Yue Shen to move around. With no other choice, he took the two Spirit-Demon-grade knight's light swords from his Storage Ring to clear a path through the forest. Yue Shen strapped one of them, named Holy Fire, to his back, just in case.
Although the sword's attached skill, Holy Fire Sweeps the Plains, might have been better suited to clearing a path, Yue Shen feared he might accidentally set the mountain ablaze.
This world might not have the saying, "Set a mountain on fire and spend your life behind bars," but Yue Shen dared not risk it. Besides, what if it provoked the magical beasts on the mountain into attacking him en masse?
Of course, Yue Shen did not wander aimlessly like a headless fly. Instead, he headed toward what appeared to be the tallest tree nearby.
Only when he reached its base did Yue Shen strap Blazing Sun, which he had been using to clear the way, onto his back. Then he channeled spiritual power into his hands, clung to the bark, and began climbing.
His first task was to find a high vantage point from which he could determine the direction of the sacred mountain's core region.
Before long, the nimble Yue Shen reached the top of the giant tree.
From his vantage point, the Knight Sacred Mountain was a paradise on earth, formed from countless overlapping peaks and blanketed in greenery.
"The scenery here really is beautiful," Yue Shen said with feeling. "When I'm old, I'll come here to retire."
"But right now, this is a bit of a problem." Yue Shen scratched his head. Reaching the Starshine Unicorns' habitat from here would take at least several days.
"I'd better get moving. If I start looking now, I might still find the paths Haochen and the others cleared."
Yue Shen wasted no time. Once he chose a direction, he set off at once.
Unfortunately, Yue Shen found neither the path Long Haochen had cleared nor Gui Wu's.
Perhaps the curtain of light leading into the Knight Sacred Mountain covered too broad an area, and the three of them had chosen different directions. Yue Shen found no signs of human passage.
Since there was no way to take a shortcut, Yue Shen could only clear his own path.
The Knight Sacred Mountain covered an enormous area, leaving Yue Shen no choice but to quicken his pace each day.
Five days passed in the blink of an eye.
Because it was difficult to judge directions in the forest, Yue Shen had to climb to the treetops every day to get his bearings and avoid heading the wrong way.
"Why does it feel like I'm going in circles?"
Standing atop a tree, Yue Shen surveyed the scenery before him with a grave expression. It looked little different from what he had seen several days earlier.
Now he was no longer particularly worried about whether he could win a Starshine Unicorn's approval. He was beginning to worry about whether he would even glimpse a hair of one within these thirty days.
Moreover, the farther he ventured, the harder the terrain became to navigate.
Sometimes he encountered impassable swamps or sheer rock faces he could not climb, forcing him to take detours. While going around them, he also had to make sure he did not stray off course.
"Isn't this a little too hard?" Yue Shen could not help muttering before preparing to climb down and continue on his way.
"Grrr~"
Yue Shen rubbed his stomach. "I only ate a little while ago. How am I hungry already?"
"Grrr~"
Before you continue