Chapter 13
The time it took to advance from Senior Cleric to Prime Cleric varied from person to person.
But Helena searched her memory and found no precedent for twenty-three days.
And she had once been a prodigy among the Awakened, educated at the Oakhaven Academy of Light.
"Elise, your talent..." Helena was speechless for a moment. "I've only seen cases like this in history books."
"Teacher, I just have enough resources," Elise said softly.
After Sylvia's death, some of her old restlessness had faded.
She knew the system had been the single greatest factor in her advancement from Senior Cleric to Prime Cleric. The second was the staggering quantity of progression resources she had burned through.
For any other Senior Cleric, drinking three rare-grade Spirit Potions a day meant spending ninety gold coins daily.
A month in Aurelia ran thirty-five days.
That came to 3,150 gold coins a month.
Never mind First-tier Awakened—even Second-tier Awakened would feel the strain of an expense like that.
But Elise and Helena had developed a potion that treated blood-warp sickness, and Helena had recently begun working with the Church, which meant substantial rewards flowing in from that partnership.
From that project alone, Elise now averaged two hundred gold coins a day.
Seven thousand gold coins a month.
Money was not her problem.
With three Spirit Potions poured into her every single day, advancing to Prime Cleric in twenty-three days had become reality.
Helena didn't buy that explanation. She shook her head, waved Elise into a seat, and reminded her, "Elise, everyone's talent has a ceiling. The faster you advance, the higher that ceiling must be."
Helena went on to explain more about the path of the Awakened.
Elise listened carefully, quietly revising her understanding of the transcendent realm.
Progression in this world worked much like athletic selection back on Earth.
Some people barely trained and still cruised to world championships.
Most ordinary people were limited by their bodies from birth. They could train twenty-four hours a day and never catch a true genius.
Aurelia had its own version of the same theory.
The more talented a person was, the higher their ceiling for spiritual energy.
A higher ceiling meant faster growth.
But spiritual energy was only the foundation.
A talent for spellcasting mattered every bit as much.
By the time Helena finished, the look she gave Elise had turned openly proud.
For one simple reason.
She believed Elise's spellcasting talent outstripped even her progression talent.
When Helena gave her time to digest it all, Elise immediately opened her system interface.
___
[Status]
[Name: Elise]
[Spirit: 77.1]
[Mana: 169.9]
[Constitution: 11.1]
___
Advancing to Prime Cleric had raised her Spirit and Mana by a little under ten points each. Her Constitution had ticked up by 0.1.
But what mattered most was reassessing her combat power.
Elise pushed down her grief and looked at Helena in earnest.
Helena set down her cup, rose from the stone table, and walked toward the open stretch of the courtyard.
Elise followed.
"Elise, you're a Prime Cleric now. We'll need more room for spell testing."
Helena stopped on the grass, a dozen yards clear of both the stone table and the wall.
Elise nodded. "I'm curious whether my spells have improved."
"I'm curious how much they've improved," Helena said with a faint smile.
Then she cast [Lightshield] on herself.
A [Lightshield] raised by a High Cleric looked far thicker and more magnificent than any First-tier spell. Colors flowed and shimmered across the barrier of light.
"Go ahead," Helena said seriously. "Cast at me."
Elise drew a deep breath, nodded, and closed her eyes.
She activated every skill modifier she could bring to bear.
An arrow of light materialized in the air.
A heartbeat later, it streaked toward Helena.
The arrow struck the shield of light and shattered without a sound, leaving only drifting motes of radiance as proof it had ever existed.
[Holy Light Arrow skill experience +393.]
The system prompt appeared.
Elise immediately started running the numbers.
Back when she was a Senior Cleric, one point of spiritual energy could drive 2.9 points of mana. With a spell skill at LV4, she could barely push that ratio past 3.
But now [Meditation] had reached LV3 and gained a new modifier.
[Light Theology] had also hit LV4, letting Elise borrow Divine Power while still only First tier.
So even though [Holy Light Arrow] remained LV3, Elise realized the spell's strength had become frankly absurd.
Start with the ratio of spiritual energy to mana.
For an ordinary, freshly advanced Prime Cleric, the ratio was 2.8.
For Elise, it hovered around 3.3.
As for how much ambient magic each point of mana could move—[Holy Light Arrow] was still LV3, so in theory that part should have stayed the same.
But with [Meditation] at LV3, the ratio of mana to ambient magic had improved to roughly 1 to 3.2.
Elise had just spent 21 points of spiritual energy, her current ceiling for instant casting.
That put the spell's strength at 291, in theory.
Wrong.
It had cleared 320.
Because she had borrowed Divine Power.
The [Divine Power Perception] effect from LV4 [Light Theology] currently boosted her Light God spells by roughly ten percent.
"Elise..."
Helena was stunned.
It wasn't that she couldn't block the spell.
The problem was that Elise's [Holy Light Arrow] had been all but instant-cast.
She had merely closed her eyes.
The next moment, the spell fired.
And its strength had already surpassed the Prime First-tier standard.
For an ordinary First-tier spell, 10 strength was the benchmark.
For a Senior First-tier spell, 100 was the baseline.
For a Prime First-tier spell, 200 was considered respectable.
Elise?
Nearly instant-cast.
Over 300 spell strength.
Helena could hardly believe it.
Harder still to believe was that Elise's [Holy Light Arrow] carried the aura of Divine Power.
Which meant it wasn't merely strong.
Its very quality had risen a full grade.
"Teacher, I sensed the power of God," Elise said, hiding nothing.
The skill modifier belonged to her, and [Light Theology] was a skill whose modifier she could trigger at will.
That made [Divine Power Perception] effectively a permanent blessing.
Naturally, it counted as part of her talent.
"Light God above..."
Helena's feelings were almost too tangled to name.
Twenty-three days from Senior Cleric to Prime Cleric.
Instant-casting Prime First-tier spells fresh off her advancement.
And now she could borrow Divine Power—something normally reserved for High Clerics.
For a moment, Helena half wondered whether Elise had already become a High Cleric.
And that still wasn't the whole of it.
Elise's [Holy Light Arrow] was only LV3.
Her [Holy Light] and [Lightshield] were both LV4.
Elise steadied herself. "I want to test my other spells."
"As you wish," Helena said, her expression turning grave.
Elise closed her eyes again and instant-cast another spell.
A cluster of light wreathed in the aura of Divine Power appeared at once.
It drifted down between Elise and Helena, then burst like a popped bubble, light-attribute magic rippling out through the surrounding spiritual environment.
[Holy Light skill experience +441.]
"That spell has surpassed the First tier," Helena said, eyes widening.
LV4 [Holy Light] carried a new modifier. One point of spiritual energy could now drive 3.4 points of mana, and the ratio of mana to ambient magic had reached 1 to 3.3.
Elise had again spent 21 points of spiritual energy.
The spell's true strength was 337.
An ordinary Second-tier spell required Second-tier mana and Second-tier magic, and its strength had to be measured by Second-tier standards.
But Elise's [Holy Light] had reached LV4 and gained [Spell-Structure Perception].
Combined with LV3 [Meditation] and LV4 [Light Theology], the very nature of her mana and magic had already exceeded the First tier.
Set beside a true Second-tier spell, this [Holy Light] still fell clearly short.
But set beside First-tier spells, it was beyond the standard entirely.
"Elise," Helena said solemnly, "show me the strongest spell you can cast."
"I need to rest first," Elise replied with a helpless smile.
Advancing to Prime Cleric had indeed multiplied her strength.
But her spiritual energy couldn't keep up.
With 77.1 Spirit, she could safely mobilize about 54 points without harming herself.
And each instant-cast spell now burned up to 21 points.
After two instant casts, she had only about 12 points of safely usable spiritual energy left.
Nowhere near enough to unleash her strongest spell.
Helena could only rein in her impatience and wait for Elise to recover.
After lunch, Elise stood in the courtyard of Helena's residence once more, nerves humming.
LV4 [Lightshield] was without question her strongest spell, but she had yet to test its performance.
Could it earn her the right to fight an ordinary Second-tier Awakened as part of a team?
If it could—then once she raised all her spell skills to LV4, perhaps she would no longer be confined to Megalith City.
Holding on to that hope, Elise cast the new [Lightshield] into the open courtyard.
She spent every point of spiritual energy she had.
The mana she drove exceeded 183 points. Her own reserves fell short, forcing her to burn Mana Crystals to cover the difference.
Those 183 points of mana pulled in a full 623 points of ambient magic to construct the spell, pushing its raw strength past 800.
With Divine Power layered on top, the spell's strength approached 900.
For a Prime Cleric, that number was outrageous—but not incomprehensible. A normal Prime Cleric casting at full power could also reach several hundred spell strength.
The real problem was that Elise's spiritual energy, mana, and ambient magic had all undergone a qualitative change.
With Divine Power woven in, her [Lightshield] was no longer a simple First-tier spell.
Its nature had climbed past the First tier and drawn near the Second.
And First-tier spells and Second-tier spells belonged to two different worlds.
Helena threw spell after spell against Elise's [Lightshield], trying to punch through it.
By the time she finished, her expression had grown deeply complicated.
At last, she delivered her verdict.
"Elise, your strength now falls somewhere between a Prime Cleric and a Standard High Cleric."