Interrogation

Rob could only see darkness as he woke up in an unfamiliar room. "Where am I?" He muttered.

Suddenly it hit him. He bumped into someone earlier that day, a teen with golden hair. (Just realized I never really described his appearance) He remembered that golden hair clearly because it was the last thing he saw before a sword came rushing at his face!

After remembering that he was knocked out, he realized he had an intense headache. He didn't know this but his injury was many times worse than before; it had recovered rapidly, probably from his advanced healing as a knight.

'Why am I so unlucky?' He thought to himself.

"Oh, you're finally awake?"

"What? Who are you?" Rob asked.

Ray turned on the light in his cellar, revealing himself to Rob. "Remember me now?"

Rob didn't respond to his question. He could only grit his teeth and ask, "What do you want?"

"You just need to answer a few questions, it will be that easy." Ray said. He paused, remembering what Rob did to him then said, "Don't worry about that little incident earlier, I accept your apology in advance."

"Fine, I'll answer your questions."

"That's a good attitude. It would be a shame if I had to remove some of your fingers to make you speak." Ray said in a threatening tone.

Internally, Rob was scared, very scared. He didn't want to die here! Ray didn't need to remove a single finger to make him speak his entire life story. Of course, he kept up his tough appearance; that was simply his nature.

Seeing that Rob didn't say anything, Ray started asking questions. "First of all, why are there so many knights in this backwater town?"

"What's a knight?" Rob asked with a clear look of confusion.

"You don't know what a knight is? Interesting." Ray thought for a moment before saying, "You should know you are much stronger than an ordinary human, right?"

'So he knows… Of course he knows, why else would he kidnap me?' Rob thought miserably.

"The mayor gave me potions and told me to follow the directions on a scroll. That's how I gained this strength. He called in many people, maybe 40 people to give these to. I was supposed to tell nobody but…"

Ray laughed and said, "Good! Very good. So there is a scheme going on? Keep answering and I will let you go, I'm in a good mood now."

A glimmer of hope lit up in Rob's head, and he added on, "We were given these one month ago and we are supposed to go to his residence in a week. The mayor said he wants to check up on our progress."

Ray pulled out a potion he kept in his pocket and asked, "Is this familiar to you?"

Rob immediately recognized the potion, as that was the potion he had been consuming all along! "How did you get that?" He asked with a surprised look.

"I happened to find it while coming here." Ray said. He wasn't lying, the potion he pulled out was the potion he found in the carriage he snuck into Harliington with.

'That solves the potion mystery.' Ray thought. 'It must be some sort of potion that helps with training as a knight, although I definitely won't drink it until I fully confirm its effects'.

"One last thing. When you entered the mayor's house, what was it like?" Ray asked.

Rob had a thoughtful expression as he tried to remember. "It looked like a normal house. We were invited over and he gathered us in a large circular living room. There was an upstairs and a basement, but we weren't allowed to go there."

"Okay, thanks for your cooperation." Ray said.

Rob had a hopeful look on his face. "Does that mean I get to go?"

Ray's answer was a light ray to the face. Even with his knight's constitution, the flesh that touched the light ray quickly disintegrated into ashes leaving a hole through his brain.

His body fell to the floor with a 'thump', smoke still coming out from his head.

He had no use left for Ray, he was only a liability. 'I should retrieve that technique that Rob learnt, it might show me something'.

He already knew where it was located since all techniques had to be inscribed on a paper with magic power, so it gave off a small but noticeable aura that Ray could detect.

He left the cellar and came to Rob's room once again. He opened a drawer next to his bed, which revealed a thin scroll named, "Elementary Potion Infusion."

It was a fairly simple technique, but after understanding it he quickly realized it was useless for him. It didn't even teach how to absorb natural energy from the air; its only use was to quickly absorb a specific type of potion. And the potion is a low quality mix of all types of energy. Almost all body training techniques focus on a single element for a good reason. While it is easier to get stronger through the lower ranks if you use all elements, it will be extremely hard to get an official magus level body.

'Why are they farming knights, and ignoring the terrible foundation?' He still didn't understand. After thinking about it for some time, he decided to take action now. Some people might say he's impatient, and there is still time left. But Ray had a feeling that if he didn't go soon, it would get a lot more difficult in the future.

Even regular humans had a so-called '6th sense'. In reality it was your background processing that you're not consciously aware of. Since Ray is a level 2 apprentice, his soul is much stronger than his brain, which also means his 6th sense is also much stronger. Now that he was in a decision between waiting, or attacking right now, he would have to rely on his 6th sense.

With being a mage your control over your '6th sense' is also stronger, which is why Ray can rely on it more than a regular human. Powerful mages with stronger souls can probably have superhuman levels of cognition without any outside interference.

With the decision to sneak in with the rest of the knights in mind, Ray started his preparations.