Chapter 5

The atmosphere in the bearded tavern was still noisy and lively.

However, the atmosphere in the corner where Saru and the others instantly tensed.

“Knight… knight?” The old mercenary opened his mouth wide and looked at Colin in surprise.

He knew that Colin was not your average joe, but he never would have thought he was a knight.

One had to know that the knights in this world were fundamentally different from the warriors you would find on the streets.

Any well-developed commoner who could afford to eat meat would be able to learn the method of activating combat aura in the Warrior Union and become a warrior apprentice as long as they could fork out a few silver coins.

However, knights were different.

To become a knight apprentice, one must first have a certain level of talent. Moreover, one must accept the baptism ceremony presided over by the priests of the Church of Light.

It was completely different from the baptism on Earth, which was only symbolic and could be performed by sprinkling water. In this world, the baptism ceremony was performed by the priests of the Church of Light to communicate with the Lord of Light, and the baptists were engraved with the holy brand.

This process permanently drains a lot of a priest’s energy. Therefore, every priest could only perform a limited number of baptisms in their lifetime.

Therefore, the baptismal quota was extremely valuable. The nobles already had a monopoly on the number of baptismal slots, so it was nearly impossible for commoners to have access to them.

It was easy to imagine how rare the number of knights was.

For example, Baron Angele only had three loyal knights under his command. Including the baron and his son, Colin, there were only five knights in the Baron’s territory.

Colin was not even a Rank 1 knight yet. He was only a knight apprentice.

The class holders in this world were divided into nine tiers according to their strength. Tier 1 was the weakest and tier 9 was the strongest.

Of course, there was still an apprentice level below tier 1, which is considered to be the level for rookies who had yet to advance to the next tier.

The difference in combat strength between knights and warriors of the same tier was not too big. Knights did have a slight advantage, but they might not necessarily be able to win against warriors in a head-on confrontation, after all, they still had to consider factors such as martial skills, willpower, weapons, and equipment.

The real reason why nobles flocked to the knight class was because of its potential.

The peak of the warrior class was tier 6.

That’s right. Throughout the entire continent, there had never been a tier 7 warrior, whether it was humans, trolls, orcs, elves…

According to the first pope of the Church of Light, His Holiness Peter Messier —

“When mortals enter the holy region, they need the blessings of the gods.”

Tier 7 and above was the holy region, so level seven knights were also known as holy knights.

Therefore, according to this saying, warriors who had not been baptized could not receive the blessings of the gods, so they were not fated to be level seven.

At present, there were only five professions that could break through to the sixth tier.

And without exception, all were professions that believed in a god.

They were human knights who served the Lord of Light, trolls who served the God of War, elf rangers who served the Goddess of Fate, naga royal guards who served the God of Storm, and beastmen who served the God of Destruction.

Even spell casters who claimed that they didn’t believe in gods and only believed in arcane truth couldn’t break through to the sixth rank.

However, they could cast forbidden spells with the power of the seventh rank or above.

However, casting such a forbidden spell required the caster to pay a terrible price, and it wasn’t a conventional attack.

Of course, the holy region wasn’t easy for knights to enter.

Once a holy knight was born in a family, the entire family would become extremely illustrious.

And all families that had given birth to a Holy Knight would receive the honor of having the word “Holy” before their family name.

For example, the owner of the Northern Territory of the Glorious Empire, the Hilde family, was the descendant of the founding holy knights of the empire. Hence, they were respectfully known as the Saint Hilde family.

In the entire history of the radiant empire, there had only been seven holy knight families.

One could see how difficult it was to be a part of the saint realm.

As for the eighth rank, it was known as the legendary realm.

The founding emperor of the Glorious Empire, Gunnar Lorenzo, was a holy knight in the legendary realm. He was also the only one recorded in history.

In the thousand years after him, there had never been another holy knight in the legendary realm.

Not to mention a tier nine.

Tier nine was also known as the demigod realm. It was said that only the dragons that once dominated this world could reach it. After they went extinct, no other race was able to give birth to a demigod powerhouse.

As for above tier nine, that was the realm of gods…

In short, the righteous and rare job of a knight would more fittingly put them in a place like the Bearded Tavern.

Usually, no knight would choose to follow a mercenary group to another city. After all, they had their own retinue, servants, and even an army.

Therefore, Colin’s appearance was particularly strange.

Just as the atmosphere in the corner became increasingly serious, a furry little head suddenly popped out from Colin’s coat.

“Meow,” as if dissatisfied with his good sleep being disturbed, the little cat growled at the bearded man.

Colin smiled and stuffed a certain guy who was rather angry in the morning back into his clothes. Then, he asked the bearded man, “How did you know I’m a knight?”

Colin felt that he was more than discrete enough.

He did not have any armor on him. His sword was just a standard one-handed sword that he casually held in his hand. His clothes were also “borrowed” from the uniform of a guard who had a similar figure to him.

Moreover, according to the memories of his predecessor, although warriors and knights would have different battle performances, there would not be obvious differences outside combat.

Moreover, an apprentice knight like Colin who had not entered the advanced stage would be no different from a warrior apprentice. Mainly since he could not activate the Holy Light to assist him in battle.

Could it be that there was really a way to distinguish the two classes at a glance?

Colin felt that this might be the blind spot of his predecessor’s knowledge.

Unexpectedly, Saru smiled slyly. “I guessed it.”

I’ve been fooled!

Colin immediately reacted. He had been fooled by this seemingly reckless and unassuming big beard.

Colin’s subconscious reaction allowed the other party to confirm his identity as a knight.

The main reason was that Saru’s appearance was too confusing.

That was why Colin didn’t have much vigilance, and in the end, the other party tricked him into revealing his real job.

The Firefox mercenary group.

Hehe, no wonder it was called this name.

They looked like a violent bear but were more akin to that of a cunning fox.

“I’ve been in the mercenary world for more than forty years, and I’ve seen countless people with these eyes. Hehe, kid, you may be wearing plain clothes, but you don’t look one bit like a commoner. As expected, you’d be exposed just like that!”

Colin took a deep breath and kept reminding himself that he had to be very careful when dealing with an experienced veteran like Saru.

However, on the surface, Colin appeared calm and composed, without any nervousness about his identity being exposed.

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He first took out ten copper coins and threw them to the old mercenary in front of Saru, indicating that he could leave first.

Then, he pulled the chair beside Saru and sat down naturally. “I admit that the little lie was inappropriate, and I apologize to you. But, you won’t refuse a knight to go with you, right?”

“Your name?” Saru stopped smiling and stared into Colin’s eyes.

Colin looked directly into Saru’s eyes and replied in the most sincere tone,

“Kahn, Kahn Surdo.”