Chapter 21
Two weeks have gone by since Sebastiene became my butler. He was very adept at working with papers and was a very good sparing partners for us sisters. He was not only strong when it comes to ability but he was also physically strong and he was a good teacher. He is also very intelligent and would sometimes aid my father and mother with paperwork. I wanted him to help Athy who overlooks the entire internal affairs but they always end up fighting and him getting beaten by my little sister.
He does get along well with Uriel who overlooks the external affairs of our house, even teaching her all the things he knows about the entire continent. He became her teacher for demographics and even trade. He knows all kinds of information found in every kingdom's territory, be it cuisine, materials, characteristics, leaders, black markets, precious minerals and national treasures. Uriel learned a lot from him which is helpful for her duties.
During the last week, we have already hired plenty of retired knights and mercenaries as maids, gardeners, stable boys for the new horses we bought, coachmen and helpers. Athy have also returned all her summoned spirits leaving only the ones who guards us inside our shadows.We have also hired knights, who had to fight against Sebastiene before getting accepted. Our employees who can fight outnumbers our non-combat employees which is what I wanted because it will be hard if there is another attack and our employees cannot protect themselves. Sebastiene was more than willing to test out the knight applicants seeing as he always have this annoying smirk on his face during examination.
With all these knights that we have hired, Sebastiene was also the one who trains them at the moment since we haven't picked any commanders yet. Athy wanted to summon a spirit knight to become their trainer but I really did not want her to keep on overusing her ability so I declined her. Sebastiene and I decided to let all the knights who wants to have the commander position take some tests to decide who would become the commanders amongst them.
Today is the day of the test, about twenty people came to take the exam to become a commander of the Knights of Noktis.
The first test was knowledge.
This test does not measure how smart they are with literature but how good they are with battle tactics. The exam was to show the fastest way to conquer a kingdom that was on the map. All details of that kingdom was also written down. They can write down or draw their ideas any way they want.
The second test was combat ability
This would measure how good they are at fighting more than one enemy alone and how adept they are at controlling their abilities. This is a good way to test how strong each of them is.
The applicants will be given healing potions every end of a test to recover their strength.
We held the combat assessment in the knights training ground outside of the castle. I arrived in the training grounds together with Sebastiene who will be the host of the test. Father and mother arrived shortly after with Astrid walking behind them. Uriel came with her maids and Athy came being princess carried by a gigantic knight, Goliath Anderson, which she hired as her personal knight. We all sat under the shade of a huge tree where chairs were prepared for us. We will be the judges for the tests.
"Ehem." Sebastiene stood in the middle of the training ground wearing a swallow tailed butler's uniform with the Moon brooch pinned on the left side of his coat.
"Everyone, please settle down." He started. "The combat test will now begin. You were given numbers earlier, you will come in the middle when your number is called. You will be facing different non-living enemies. As you will be fighting, House Castellan has set up a barrier around the stage so you may use all the power you have."
The ground started to shake as the part where Sebastiene stood started to rise from the ground creating a circular stage in the middle of the training ground.
"Now, shall we begin?" Sebastiene smiled at the people below who were amazed by the creation of the stage.
"Number one please come up on stage." Sebastiene called.
The first fighter to come up on stage was a well-built man, about 6 foot tall with black hair and grey eyes. He was holding a Hsu Quandao, powerful military weapon weighing over 50 kilos with a steel blade and a wooden staff. It was a weapon not many people wield as it was too heavy.
"Please stay on you position as we call on you enimies." Sebatiene instructed.
Five spirit warriors came on stage, four were wearing knight armors and the last one was Skirr, who would not stay put as he wanted to fight, I noticed that all of them were wearing the moon brooch. The appearance of summoned spirits brought forth different reactions from the on looking knights. Yet, the knight on the stage did not even gave any reactions to what he was seeing. There were only a handful of knights that did not react to the appearance of the summoned spirits.
"As I have said, you will not be fighting living humans." Sebastiene smiled slyly. "The ones you will be fighting are the summoned spirits, their races will be picked randomly for the fights to be fair. You may use all your abilities to either destroy them or make them surrender. The spirits will not kill you but they will fight you with all their strength and they will not stop their attacks unless you lose consciousness or surrender. The barrier will protect everyone outside the stage so feel free to use everything you have. Do you have any questions?"
"I won't get sued if I destroyed them right?" The first candidate asked pointing at the spirits. His grey eyes shone with excitement at the thought of fighting and even destroying summoned spirits.
"You will not." Sebastiene replied.
"Then let us start this test." The examinee smirked.