Chapter 27
It was nothing strange for an Archbishop to weigh in on a Second-tier transcendent material.
Elise didn't find it strange, and neither did the other clergy in the hall.
Because the [Pure Mana Crystal] represented more than a piece of Second-tier transcendent equipment. It represented eligibility.
Whoever secured the crystal and covered the remaining cost of the staff's forging and materials would gain a transcendent weapon capable of merging with the [Pure Mana Crystal] and growing stronger over time.
And once that happened, whenever the Church issued commissions involving the purification of hellspawn, it would naturally favor the Awakened who carried that staff.
In other words, the completed staff blank represented the Church's future direction of investment.
Whoever received the staff received the Church's full backing.
Elise had no intention of giving that up.
More to the point, she had personally fought in the battle to purify the clawbill devil.
Why should she hand her reward to someone else?
"Honored Archbishop Norias," Elise said after a moment's thought, "I intend to apply for a place in the new-city campaign. I will fight on the front line. I am the one who needs it most."
The change in Archbishop Norias's face was immediate.
He looked like a stubborn old man whose authority had just been challenged by a junior. Pressure gathered behind his eyes.
"I will not allow you to go to the new city," Norias said flatly. "You are an uncut gem. The front line is no place for you right now."
"The front line is exactly where I can be cut and polished," Elise shot back before she could stop herself.
The instant the words left her mouth, she knew it was bad.
Sure enough, Archbishop Norias's expression darkened further.
His eyes narrowed, and his hand closed around the armrest of his chair.
"I will recommend you to the Kingdom of Hesse's Academy of Light."
The atmosphere in the hall shifted at once.
The thirty-plus Awakened present—every one of them at least Second-tier—finally understood the heart of the conflict between the Archbishop and Elise.
Archbishop Norias was playing the strict patriarch, insisting Elise walk the path her elders had laid out.
Elise was the brilliant junior with ideas of her own.
Conflicts like this were common within the Church of Light, though they usually cropped up among the knights of the Hall of Discipline.
Archbishop Norias came from the Hall of Radiance, so by all rights...
Well. Perhaps he was simply that stubborn.
Either way, few in the room liked Elise's odds.
This was an Archbishop.
A single word from him could decide the future of any Cleric or High Cleric.
Elise understood that perfectly well.
In that moment, she felt only one thing.
Smothered.
The best path for her was to study and fight at the same time.
The Church of Light was building a new city, and that was a tremendous opportunity.
If she joined the project, she could absorb transcendent knowledge from elves, dwarves, and perhaps other races besides—all while gaining real combat experience under the protection of a Fourth-tier Archbishop.
The best of both worlds.
Then there was the [Pure Mana Crystal].
She hadn't even seen it in person, but from her reading and her teachers' accounts, she knew exactly how much it mattered.
In the early centuries of the Convergence of Planes, if she started with a staff forged around a [Pure Mana Crystal], then with enough effort, that staff might one day climb all the way to legendary grade.
By then she would be a legendary Awakened wielding a legendary staff.
Her combat power would be unshakable.
And now?
One sentence of "this is for your own good," and the Archbishop wanted to pack her off to the Academy to be a well-behaved little student?
No.
Elise refused.
She answered Archbishop Norias's arrangement with silence.
Watching from beside Norias, Almus and Doran nearly burst out laughing inwardly.
But the moment the corners of their mouths began to lift, Archbishop Norias punished them both with a discreet spell.
Norias, feeling rather helpless himself, kept his stern face and pressed on with the scolding.
"I am responsible for the new-city campaign, and you are only a Cleric. Your next task is to improve your strength."
"I will apply to join the campaign after I advance to High Cleric," Elise said.
"I will reject your application," Norias said, sparing her not a shred of courtesy. "Even if you come to the new city, you will remain inside the walls to train and study. I will assign you no combat missions."
Elise was speechless.
She knew Archbishop Norias meant well.
But this old-school I know what's best for you approach was a disastrous fit for a transmigrator with a system.
What Elise needed was a flexible training path—not a transcendent road Norias had paved and fenced for her.
She knew she couldn't defy an Archbishop.
Worst of all, with things at this point, there was zero chance Norias would cast a Fate spell to help her advance.
Choking down her frustration, she looked up at the elderly Archbishop and asked, unwilling to let it go, "Will you approve my request for Fate spell assistance?"
"The God of Light watches over you. You have already received more than enough of our god's favor. You do not need the God of Fate's gift."
Elise was thoroughly convinced now. Archbishop Norias was an old hardhead.
Worse—the kind of old hardhead who wouldn't hear a single word of disagreement.
And he happened to be the strongest Awakened currently in the Megalith parish. Everyone answered to him.
Elise had nothing left to say.
She only felt a fire catch inside her.
And as it happened, that fire was the last thing she'd needed to push for High Cleric.
Being "suppressed" had set resentment churning in her chest, and her spirit energy turned intensely active.
In that state, she finally sensed the second layer of the spiritual plane—the one that corresponded to High Cleric.
In that case...
I'll break through right in front of you.
Elise's fighting spirit blazed.
More than thirty Awakened of the Church of Light filled the hall.
For a genius Cleric of the Church of Light, if she chose to break through here and now, the surrounding mana environment could not possibly be better.
The moment she fell silent and began mobilizing her spirit energy—
Light above!
Archbishop Norias cried out in his heart.
The god is watching her, Almus and Doran thought in the same instant, trading a glance.
The smiles tugging at their mouths could no longer be hidden.
Nolan and Helena, who had been fretting over Elise the entire time, were nearly beside themselves.
Elise had become a Prime Cleric only seventeen days ago.
Who on earth attempted the jump from Prime Cleric to High Cleric after seventeen days?
Had she lost her mind?
But a transmigrator with a system didn't answer to common sense.
Elise already held a large arsenal of system skill modifiers. With all of them active, the strength of her spirit energy was no weaker than an ordinary Prime Cleric sitting at 100 Spirit.
She was also contracted to Tymis.
The little creature was beloved by the God of Space and the God of Wisdom, and it could lend its contractor no small amount of aid.
On top of that, her spirit energy was fluctuating violently—exactly as required.
The violent surge of her spirit energy crossed the threshold of perception, and Elise finally saw the new layer of the spiritual plane.
Following the Light Meditation Technique and her teachers' instruction, she began carving spirit-energy patterns into the second layer of the spiritual plane, fighting to brand her own spirit into that deeper realm.
Every sound in the hall vanished.
Everyone was stunned that Elise dared attempt a breakthrough at this moment—but no one would dream of disturbing her progression.
Far from interfering, Archbishop Norias raised a hand.
Light-attribute mana, an ocean by the measure of Second-tier Awakened, flooded the hall.
The mana didn't churn or shake. It calmly pressed every other attribute out of the space.
In an instant, Elise's breakthrough environment became perfect.
She cultivated light-attribute magic.
Now the air around her held nothing but light-attribute energy—shaped personally by a Fourth-tier Archbishop of Light.
Anyone else would have been green with envy.
Mew.
With one decisive mew, it threw itself into the breakthrough on the spiritual level.
A cool clarity washed through Elise's mind.
Her taut mental state loosened all at once.
She had started with nearly a forty percent chance of success.
Now—provoked into peak intensity, assisted by a Fourth-tier Archbishop, standing inside the Church of Light, on the very eve of the Day of Light—nearly every favorable condition had aligned.
Naturally, the breakthrough unfolded with astonishing ease.
A long while later, something like a door shattered open inside her mind.
Elise "saw" an entirely new world.
And she understood with perfect clarity.
From today onward, she was a Second-tier High Cleric.
Every Awakened of the Church in the hall stared, wide-eyed.
An eighteen-year-old High Cleric.
A super prodigy who had gone from illiterate commoner to High Cleric in under half a year.