The Light of a Knight

"Ah!" A young man with a blood-stained bandage wrapped around his head suddenly awoke with a start, panic written all over his face. Without a moment's hesitation, he rolled to the side in an attempt to get away. Thud! The boy landed heavily on a wooden floor with a loud crash, headfirst, no less. "Ahhh—" This time, his scream was not out of fear but from a sharp, intense pain, like that of a pig being slaughtered. His head was already injured, and now with this additional blow, the pain surged through him in waves, each one more piercing than the last, to the point where tears and snot threatened to spill out. "Damn it, damn it, what... what the hell is going on?" Clutching his head with both hands, he lay there for a while, waiting for the pain to subside. Finally, the throbbing eased enough for him to start looking around. The floor was old, made of wooden planks. The bed was covered with a coarse, rough blanket. The walls were built of stone bricks. The window frames were entirely made of wood. A worn-out desk stood nearby. A few parchment books were stacked on it. And next to them, an antique-looking oil lamp flickered dimly. "Where... where am I?" This couldn’t be a hospital—there wasn’t a single piece of medical equipment in sight. So where was he? The last thing he remembered was being in a car accident. How had he ended up here? As these thoughts raced through his mind, he suddenly became aware of new memories flooding his brain. No, not just new memories, but memories that didn’t belong to him at all. "My name is Carson Martin, fifteen years old, a student at Neo Knight Academy... injured in a duel..." "And in just half a month, I'll be expelled from school. No wonder I got provoked into accepting the challenge..." These memories poured into him like a tide, overwhelming him. They detailed the life of a young man named Carson Martin, including all his experiences, though the farther back in time the memories went, the hazier they became. But they felt disturbingly real, as if he himself had lived through them. A sinking feeling gripped his heart. He hurriedly inspected his current body, and what he saw left him utterly speechless. "These... these aren’t my hands!" The body he inhabited was dressed in simple, slightly worn clothes made of coarse linen. His chest was covered by an open-front shirt, and his feet were clad in short stockings. But what really caught his attention were his hands—slightly smaller than an adult’s, rough and calloused. Most importantly, the skin was pale, not the yellow tone he was used to. These weren’t his hands at all. "Did I... did I time-travel?" The thought hit him like a lightning bolt. As someone who lived in the age of information overload, he knew exactly what time-travel was. But what baffled him was that, usually, people who time-traveled were the ones having a tough time in life, right? He was on the brink of living a "luxurious" life as a Nobel Prize winner. How had he, of all people, gotten caught up in this time-travel business? He hadn’t even had the chance to enjoy his well-deserved success! "These buildings look like they have a medieval European style... Am I in medieval Europe?" As a scholar, he managed to stay calm even in such a bizarre situation. Accepting that the time-travel was real, he began to sift through the memories in his head, trying to gather as much useful information about this world as he could. Suddenly, his face turned ghostly pale. According to the memories, a century ago, this world had been ravaged by a massive plague that wiped out more than two-thirds of the population. "Is this... the Black Death? Could my luck really be that bad? Did I land right in the middle of the Black Death pandemic?" The Black Death was a horrific plague that had devastated Europe, also known as the Great Plague or the Great Mortality. It was highly contagious, wiping out entire towns and reducing Europe's average life expectancy from forty to twenty years. The mere thought of it sent shivers down his spine. The worst part was that, given the medical conditions of the time, there was no cure for this plague, much like how there’s no cure for AIDS today. But the plague was far more deadly. With AIDS, one might live for years, but with the Black Death, you wouldn’t last a week. It was as if Death himself had marked you. Reborn into an era like this was far from good news. Any day, he could catch the plague and die. "The plague... was it spread by witches? Looks like medieval Europe, with its ignorance, blamed such disasters on innocent scapegoats. No, wait... This doesn’t match the Black Death!" He shook his head, his face growing even paler, draining of any color. The memories he had inherited revealed that this plague was fundamentally different from the Black Death. It was far more terrifying, a true "apocalypse." Anyone infected by this plague would die, but their bodies would turn into monsters with immense strength. These monsters had an insatiable hunger for flesh, and even more frightening was the fact that those they killed would also turn into these same creatures. "Is this... like a zombie apocalypse from a movie? Am I really in medieval Europe?" He immediately began to question his earlier assumption. Clearly, medieval Europe wouldn’t have had a "zombie apocalypse." So where exactly was he? Was he even on Earth? Desperate to find more answers, he delved deeper into the memories of this body, and suddenly, an eerie scene played out in his mind. In a grand hall, eight men clad in iron armor and steel boots, with swords at their waists, stood solemnly around the perimeter. At the center, a man in shining leather armor, with an air of nobility, stood by a concave podium. In the podium was a transparent sphere, slightly larger than an adult's fist. It wasn’t glass, nor was it any kind of jade he had ever seen. Lined up before the podium was a group of well-dressed boys, clearly from wealthy families. The line stretched so far that it extended out of the hall, its end nowhere in sight. A blonde-haired boy, with a nervous look on his face, stepped forward and, under the gaze of everyone present, reached out to grasp the transparent sphere. He held onto it tightly, as if trying to hold onto his fate itself. One second passed, then two, and just as the third second ticked by, something happened. The once-clear sphere began to glow red, as if it were heating up like molten iron, eventually turning completely crimson and emitting a strange, glowing light. "A knight’s potential! Boy, what is your name?" The man beside the podium gave the boy an unexpected glance and then spoke in a slightly softer tone. A moment later, a wave of astonished gasps filled the hall. The boy could feel the intense stares from the other boys in line and the surrounding crowd. His chest heaved with excitement, his emotions clearly visible on his face, and his body trembled uncontrollably. "Sir, my name is Carson Martin." This must have been the moment when Carson Martin was tested for knightly potential. It was likely the most memorable scene in his life, which was why it stood out so clearly in his memories. But the scene ended there, with no continuation. Due to the incomplete nature of the memories, he didn’t know what happened next. But even from this brief glimpse, he could deduce a lot. Clearly, this world harbored some unknown mysteries. At the very least, the transparent sphere that turned red upon contact was something he had never encountered in his previous world. Moreover, from the commotion it caused and Carson Martin’s thrilled reaction upon being identified as having knightly potential, it was clear that this potential was extremely rare and valuable in this world. "Knightly potential?" As he pondered this, three lines of text suddenly appeared in his vision. **Name: Carson Martin** **Knightly Talent: Minor** **Swordsmanship Talent: Beginner**