Although his hair was silver, the skin on his face was tight and his complexion ruddy, making it impossible to imagine he was a centenarian just by looking at his face. It was only those light blue eyes that revealed a kind of tiless lancholy.
Dressed in a star-patterned blue robe that was exquisitely crafted yet not ostentatious, he exuded a steady deanor and a vigorous spirit.
Marquis Hulan imdiately guessed the visitor’s identity: Ovijou, the high priest of the Starfire Sect, second only to the unseen pope in terms of power and status.
It was said that the wizard worshipped by the royal family died at the hands of this high priest!
This was a formidable figure even stronger than a wizard!
Marquis Hulan stood up.
In the presence of such a powerful person, even he dared not rely on his marquis status and treat him lightly.
"A pleasure to et you, Marquis Hulan."
"I apologize for being in seclusion and unable to personally welco you before."
Unexpectedly, Ovijou spoke with a gentle deanor and tone, showing no trace of a powerful figure’s arrogance.
Marquis Hulan forced a smile and said, "The High Priest is too kind."
Pausing, he couldn’t help but ask, "What did the High Priest an by what you just said?"
Ovijou smiled slightly, "I once exchanged blows with a wizard from a small forest hut. The wizard was only after a certain holy artifact from our church and wasn’t intentionally opposing us. In this war, the other wizards of the small forest hut will not intervene."
"I see." Marquis Hulan breathed a sigh of relief, "And Sunan..."
"Rest assured, Marquis Hulan, I will personally deal with Sunan."
"Sunan is the backbone of Flashing Territory. Once he is eliminated, Flashing Territory will pose no threat."
Hearing Ovijou’s assurance, Marquis Hulan’s expression relaxed, and his smile beca more genuine.
"Then I’ll be counting on High Priest Ovijou!"
"I await your good news!"
...
In the quiet room.
Sunan focused intently on the book in his hand.
This was the holy artifact he obtained from Jensen, later learning from other Starfire Sect believers that this book was called the Book of Stars.
The other golden beetle was called the Gold Beetle, also a holy artifact of the Starfire Sect.
While continuously attacking the nobles of Hulan Province and destroying branches of the Starfire Sect’s church in recent days, Sunan also found ti to study these two holy artifacts.
The results were not in vain; he made so very interesting discoveries.
Generally speaking, holy artifacts contain divine grace.
The Book of Stars and the Gold Beetle were no exception.
Sunan extracted two strands of divine grace from them.
He opened his palm, and above it, two thread-like golden rays hovered, intertwining beautifully like a delicate dance, with fine light spots scattering around them, creating a breathtaking scene.
One strand was noticeably thicker, extracted from the Book of Stars.
[Divine Grace, 1 (2) standard units, pure energy containing faith imprints, possesses spiritual contamination properties, and absorbing it will alter thoughts and perceptions, gradually leading to fervent belief in the source of divine energy.]
Divine grace is essentially divine energy, purified by the divine spirits.
Its purity is comparable to soul energy.
However, this divine energy also shares a similar drawback to soul energy, which is the inclusion of faith imprints from the divine spirits.
Once recklessly absorbed into the body, the soul will inevitably suffer from faith erosion, eventually turning into a believer or even a fanatic of the divine spirits.
Moreover, this contamination is more severe than the pollution caused by absorbing souls.
Absorbing different souls only causes conflicts in consciousness, thoughts, mories, and emotions, leading to ntal confusion, loss of reason, and other side effects, but the core self-will remains dominant, retaining most of one’s self-awareness.
However, faith erosion is different, as the faith imprints in divine grace forcibly distort the absorber’s will and cognition.
Even if your mories remain the sa, seemingly a normal person, your consciousness, thoughts, and emotions would have undergone significant changes, turning you into a puppet devoid of self-will and prioritizing the divine spirit as supre.
For wizards (apprentices) who pursue self and truth, this is absolutely intolerable.
Between becoming a madman and turning into a puppet, wizards (apprentices) would rather choose the forr.
However, to Sunan’s surprise, the two strands of divine grace he extracted from the Book of Stars and the Gold Beetle, although containing faith imprints, gave him a very chanical feeling.
It seed like they had lost their controller, only operating by following established procedures.
Similar to those golems found in wizard inheritances.
"If the divine spirit behind this divine grace had already perished, then the divine grace and the faith imprints within would have completely dissipated."
"Since the divine grace and faith imprints still exist, it suggests that the divine spirit behind it still exists, or hasn’t completely perished."
"Sealed? Dormant?"
Sunan shook his head.
As far as he knew, the Starfire Sect had only erged in the last fifty years.
Prior to this, the so-called Star God was barely known.
Such an extrely weak, almost nonexistent belief couldn’t sustain most divine spirits for over a thousand years, except for a few exceptionally powerful ones.
Even in a sealed or dormant state, it wouldn’t work.
Sunan was montarily baffled.
What exactly was this so-called Star God behind the Starfire Sect?
After pondering for a mont, Sunan shook his head and stopped dwelling on the issue, turning his thoughts to another matter.
Although divine grace has many downsides, the root cause is the faith imprints.
In other words, as long as the faith imprints are removed, divine grace becos truly unpolluted pure energy.
It can be completely absorbed to enhance spiritual power.
This differs from soul pollution because a soul’s consciousness, mory, thoughts, and emotions are inseparable parts of the soul, and unless the entire soul is destroyed, they cannot be removed.
But faith imprints can be removed.
It is precisely because of this characteristic of divine grace that so many wizards are eager to capture divine spirits to extract their divine energy, purify it, and use it to enhance spiritual power.
Ordinary wizard apprentices naturally cannot remove faith imprints, including Sunan himself.
But he has the magic cube!
The magic cube, while synthesizing similar items and enhancing them, also weakens and eventually eliminates their side effects.
The Sub-dragon Blood and Divine Blood Amber were both examples of this.
From this perspective, the magic cube should also be able to eliminate the side effects of divine grace?
"If even the faith erosion of Divine Blood Amber can be removed, there’s no reason divine grace can’t be."
Sunan opened the magic cube and placed the two strands of divine grace inside.
In an instant, new items and information appeared on the synthesis interface.
[Divine Energy, 3 standard units, pure energy containing faint faith imprints, with mild spiritual contamination, absorbing it will alter thoughts and perceptions, gradually leading to fervent belief in the source of divine energy.]
"It really works!"
Sunan’s eyes lit up.
Compared to the divine grace before synthesis, the description of divine energy after synthesis had a prefix of "faint" before the faith imprints and "mild" before spiritual contamination.
This indicates that the side effects of divine grace can indeed be weakened through synthesis!
This way, as long as he acquires more holy artifacts and extracts more divine grace, he can synthesize completely unpolluted divine energy and use it to enhance his spiritual power after absorption!
Sunan’s face showed a smile of joy.
Now he had another way to enhance his spiritual power!
It seems he’s really going to go head-to-head with the Starfire Sect!
Choosing not to synthesize, Sunan closed the magic cube, returned the divine grace to the space ring, and then took out the Divine Blood Amber.
During this period, he destroyed many branches of the Starfire Sect’s church and acquired more than ten Divine Blood Ambers, all of which he imdiately synthesized into that advanced Divine Blood Amber, further enhancing his ditation efficiency.
Just two days ago, he had successfully constructed the thirteenth star ring.
His spiritual power also increased to 38.13.
"Just five more star rings to go!"
The 14th-level Star Ring ditation thod required an astonishing 1.5 million proficiency points for an upgrade.
"I currently gain about 4,300 proficiency points in ditation each day. It will take roughly twelve months to construct the fourteenth star ring."
"However, if I can use divine energy to enhance my spiritual power, it should shorten the ti significantly."
User Comments
0 comments from readers