Chapter 271 | Paladin Class: Awakening the Strongest Demon System

Jiang Lin stood in place, lowering his head slightly. He did not show any tension, nor did he put on any forced display of composure.

“Are you Drake?”

The Bishop spoke, his voice raspy but clear.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“I heard about your situation.” The Bishop rested his fingers on the armrest, tapping his knuckles lightly twice. “On your third day after joining, you killed twelve of your colleagues, sacrificed them all, and then came back to tell the deacon that you encountered a Green Valley Kingdom patrol.”

Jiang Lin raised his head, meeting the Bishop's gaze for a brief moment before lowering it again.

“Yes, my Lord.”

The Bishop stared at Jiang Lin, not immediately pressing further.

Jiang Lin's expression remained unchanged, but he shifted slightly, as if hesitating whether to explain himself.

“My Lord, I know this sounds like...”

“Like something you made up.”

The Bishop's voice was not loud, but it carried a rhythmic quality that made it impossible for anyone to easily interrupt.

Jiang Lin opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“If my Lord wishes for an explanation, I am sure you will allow me to speak.”

The Bishop did not speak, simply looking at Jiang Lin.

Jiang Lin stood there, neither defending himself nor rushing to explain, merely keeping his hands at his sides in silence.

The Bishop stood up and walked over to Jiang Lin.

He did not release any pressure, but simply took a step closer, his dark gold eyes scanning Jiang Lin's face as if observing some minute detail.

Then he spoke, his voice slightly lower than before:

“Sacrificing colleagues on your third day after joining is not unheard of in the history of the secret cult. Yet you stand here before me to explain yourself so calmly. Are you not afraid of death?”

Jiang Lin fell silent for a moment.

“I am.”

“Then how did you dare to return?”

“Because I don't want to hide outside for the rest of my life.”

Jiang Lin raised his head.

“I can no longer survive in Saintas. The Twilight Kingdom is my only foothold. If I ran, I would spend the rest of my life living like a rat in the wilderness. I don't want to live that kind of life.”

“But you returned.”

“Returning at least gives me a chance to survive. If I ran, I would have nothing left.” Jiang Lin paused. “Besides, I am betting that my Lord has use for someone like me.”

After listening to him, the Bishop stepped back to his chair and sat down.

He leaned back against the chair, a faint glint flashing through his dark gold eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, as if attempting a smile that never fully formed.

“You are indeed not one to stay quiet,” the Bishop said. “You have the guts to act, the brains to clean up after yourself, and the audacity to come back and gamble.”

He paused for a moment:

“You may stay. I will have someone arrange a place for you, and it won't just be in a small place like Anvil Town. But let me remind you: the secret cult does not feed useless people.”

Jiang Lin bowed his head slightly.

“Thank you, my Lord.”

The Bishop waved his hand.

Jiang Lin turned and walked out of the room, heading back along the corridor he had come from.

He did not speed up or slow down, maintaining the exact same pace as when he arrived, until he had completely stepped out of the church's side door.

Only when the sunlight fell upon his face did Jiang Lin slowly exhale the breath he had been holding.

He knew that the most dangerous hurdle had been passed.

Just now, he had been on the verge of launching a sudden attack to fight to the death.

But if he had done that, the identity and persona he had painstakingly crafted would have been ruined.

As he stepped out of the Shadow City cathedral, the afternoon sunlight spilled diagonally through the gaps in the clouds, casting long shadows of the gray stone buildings lining both sides of the street.

Jiang Lin walked back along the path he had taken, his steps steady.

He did not look back, nor did he slow his pace, maintaining the calm composure expected of someone who had just had an audience with the Bishop.

...

Returning to his temporary lodging, he sat on the edge of the bed and went over today's events in his mind once more.

The Bishop's parting words, “You may stay,” had not been spoken with much gravity, but he could sense that the other man's interest in him went far beyond that.

Those dark gold eyes had lingered on him much longer than they had on the deacon of Anvil Town, and the scrutiny within them was far more intense.

Furthermore, the Bishop had specifically mentioned that he would not just be kept in a small place like Anvil Town, which indicated that his assignment would be a tier higher than that of ordinary newcomers.

Jiang Lin leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

He still could not access the true core information within the secret cult.

At present, only a few things were certain:

The Bishop's assessment of him was at least “usable.”

He would remain in Shadow City instead of being sent back to the border.

Next, someone else would come into contact with him, and there would likely be deeper testing.

Early the next morning, just as Jiang Lin finished a full cycle of his breathing technique in his room, he heard footsteps outside the door.

The pace was steady, neither fast nor slow, and it came to a halt right outside his door.

He got up to open the door.

Standing at the doorway was a slender young man wearing a dark gray short robe, with a narrow-bladed shortsword hanging from his waist.

His face was ordinary, but his gaze was steady, and he stood under the porch like a post driven into the ground.

“Drake?” the man spoke in a neutral tone. “The Bishop ordered me to inform you that starting today, you are assigned to the preparatory Holy Son candidate group. Follow me.”

Jiang Lin stood in place, not immediately following. A look of perfectly measured confusion appeared on his face.

“A Preparatory Holy Son Candidate? Me?”

“Yes.” The slender young man stepped aside, gesturing for him to follow. “It was the Bishop's decision after meeting you yesterday. Let's go, I'll take you to report.”

Jiang Lin asked no further questions and stepped forward to follow.

Leaving the church's side courtyard, they walked along a northward street for about the time it took to burn an incense stick before stopping in front of a courtyard built of dark gray stone.

The courtyard was not large, and there was no emblem above the main gate, only a line of twisted but legible writing painted in dark lacquer:

“Candidate Hall.”

The slender young man pushed open the courtyard gate and stepped aside to clear the way.

“Go on in. Someone inside will arrange things for you...”

Jiang Lin took a step and walked inside.

The layout inside the courtyard was more spacious than it appeared from the outside. In the center was an open space paved with blue-gray stone slabs, surrounded by a ring of two-story stone buildings.

In the corner of the open ground stood a low stone platform, upon which rested a flame-less copper lamp, its base carved with the twisted runes of the secret cult.

About a dozen people were standing in the open area, some chatting in low voices, some organizing their gear, and others leaning against the wall alone.

None of them looked very old, ranging from their early twenties to around thirty. Their attire varied, but most of them carried weapons.

As Jiang Lin walked into the courtyard, a few of them glanced up at him, their eyes scanning him once before turning away. The others did not even raise their heads.

A middle-aged man in a dark blue short robe walked out of the corridor, holding a roll of parchment, his gaze landing on Jiang Lin.

“Drake?”

“That's me...”

“The Bishop's order has been passed down.” The middle-aged man unfurled the parchment, scanned it, and then rolled it back up. “You are the fourteenth. You'll stay in the empty room on the east side of the second floor first. Starting tomorrow, you will attend the regular classes with the others. Someone will explain the rules to you. If there's anything you don't understand, ask. Don't wander around.”

Jiang Lin nodded, took the key handed over by the middle-aged man, and headed up to the second floor via the staircase on the left at the end of the corridor.

The room was small, containing a narrow bed, a desk, a chair, and a wardrobe, with an unlit oil lamp sitting on the windowsill.

The window faced south, offering a full view of the open ground below.

He closed the door, stood by the window to glance at the dozen or so young people standing below, and then turned to sit at the desk, placing the key on its surface.

Life in the Candidate Hall was more structured than in Anvil Town, yet also more complex.

Every morning, the candidates gathered in the open area, where a gray-robed instructor who looked to be in his early thirties explained the doctrines of the secret cult and the basic knowledge of the Four Pillar Gods.

The lessons covered a vast amount of information, ranging from the seven plague forms of the Lord of Plague, to the three status tiers of the Lord of Fear, and the rune proportions corresponding to different offerings in sacrificial rituals.

Sitting in the back row, Jiang Lin took notes in his booklet with a charcoal pencil just like everyone else.

He deliberately made his writing appear slightly slow, occasionally drawing a couple of lines under certain words as if he needed extra time to digest them.

The afternoons were dedicated to practical combat training and sparring.

The candidates were split into pairs to face off against each other in the underground training grounds.

In the first few days of sparring, Jiang Lin deliberately controlled his strength, only displaying the normal level of a 3rd-Rank Early Stage practitioner.

He lost two matches and won three. The victories were by no means easy, only secured when his opponents exposed glaring openings that he quickly capitalized on.

By the fifth day, he caught someone's attention.

After a sparring session ended, the gray-robed instructor stood at the edge of the training grounds with a clipboard, his gaze scanning back and forth among the candidates before finally resting on Jiang Lin.

“Drake, stay behind for a moment.”

Jiang Lin stopped in his tracks, waiting until the others had left the training grounds before walking over to the instructor.

“Is there something, Sir?”

“I watched your previous sparring matches,” the instructor said, setting down the clipboard. “Your force-exertion technique is a bit different from ordinary 3rd-Ranks. You keep your center of gravity lower when striking, and the intervals between your transitions are shorter. Have you formally studied close-quarters combat before?”

“I didn't have any formal master...”

Jiang Lin said.

“When I was wandering around Saintas, I learned from an old mercenary for a while. It wasn't complete, just some fragmented forms I managed to memorize.”

“An old mercenary?”

“He's dead. He took an escort mission north of Clearwater City and ran into some magical beasts on the road. He didn't make it...”

The instructor nodded and did not press further, but he wrote a line of text on his clipboard. Jiang Lin's Space Perception captured the contents of that writing:

“Rich experience in low-level combat. Potential worth observing.”

On his eighth day of stay, Jiang Lin met the first person to actively approach him.

It was a young man who looked slightly older than him, of medium build, with short hair, wearing a faded gray coat. His expression was neither particularly warm nor cold.

His name was Hawke, Number Seven, and he had already been in the Candidate Hall for two months.

That evening, while the candidates were resting in the courtyard, Hawke walked over to Jiang Lin, squatted down on the stone steps beside him, and spoke in a casual, conversational tone:

“Your name is Drake?”

“Yes.”

“I heard that on your first day after joining, you sacrificed all twelve people in your group.”

Jiang Lin glanced at him and did not deny it.

Hawke nodded as if confirming something, then lowered his voice:

“Then you should have come here sooner. The rules here are a bit different; they value 'results' much more than on the outside. You haven't been here long, so you probably haven't figured things out yet.”

“Figured out what?”

“The method of promotion here,” Hawke said. “The people in the Candidate Hall are divided into two types. One type is chosen by the higher-ups and sent directly; they start high and advance quickly. The other type fights their way up, like you.”

He paused, his voice dropping even lower:

“But no matter which type you are, if you want to leave the Candidate Hall, you have to secure enough 'credits.'

“The Bishop's side will issue tasks from time to time. Complete one task, and you earn one credit.

“Once you accumulate seven, you can apply for promotion to an official Holy Son Candidate.

“Once promoted, you won't have to live here anymore. You'll get private lodgings and more resources.”

Jiang Lin looked at his profile and remained silent for a moment.

“How many credits have you accumulated?”

Hawke did not answer. He simply brushed the dust off his knees and stood up.

“You'll know once you take your first task.”

With that, he turned and walked toward the dormitory building, his steps not large but quick.

Sitting on the stone steps, Jiang Lin gazed at the courtyard walls fading into the dusk, running the rule of the seven 'credits' through his mind.

He was in no hurry to ask about the specific details of the tasks.

There were only a dozen or so people in the Candidate Hall, and over the past few days, he had already memorized the faces and auras of most of them.

Number Twelve was a taciturn middle-aged man who practiced his swordsmanship alone in the open ground for the duration of an incense stick every morning.

His movements were very steady, and the angle and force of his strikes were highly uniform, but his aura occasionally fluctuated slightly, suggesting an old injury.

Number Five was a young woman who rarely spoke to anyone. She would lean in the shadows of the corridor, occasionally pulling out a palm-sized booklet to flip through before closing it again.

There were also a few who seemed closer, often huddling together after dinner to converse in low tones.

Jiang Lin did not deliberately approach them, only catching fragmented words whenever he occasionally passed by.

On the tenth day, the gray-robed instructor had everyone stay behind after the regular class.

“There is a mission the day after tomorrow.” The instructor stood in the center of the open ground, unfurling the parchment roll in his hand. “There is an abandoned mine to the north, currently under the church's name. Recently, outsiders have been active around the periphery of the mine, likely members of other factions. Your mission is to head to the periphery of the mine, confirm the identities, numbers, and intentions of those outsiders, and if the opportunity arises, eliminate them.”

His gaze swept over the crowd.

“This mission doesn't require too many people—five slots. If you want to go, report your name to me tomorrow morning.”

After the crowd dispersed, Jiang Lin did not leave immediately. He waited until most people had left the open ground before approaching the instructor and saying: