Chapter 37
After advancing to Second-tier, every Awakened needed time to adjust to the new rank and bring their surging strength under control.
For some, that period ran long.
For others, short.
Then came the second phase: rapid growth.
A High Cleric's meditation methods could be dramatically improved, and physical training became part of daily progression.
Back in Megalith City, Elise had poured most of her energy into adapting to and mastering her Second-tier strength.
Which was exactly why she'd looked forward to Crimsonwood.
She was ready to begin her rapid-growth phase—and she still meant to reach Senior High Cleric within two months.
That night, Elise sat at the desk in the room Crimsonwood Church had assigned her, reading.
[Meditation Skill Experience +2.]
[Meditation Skill Experience +1.]
Her [Meditation] experience kept ticking upward.
A while later, she closed her eyes.
A sphere of [Holy Light] slowly took shape in midair.
[Holy Light Skill Experience +581.]
Then she settled where she sat and slipped into meditation.
This time, the mana she sensed was no longer limited to the light and life attributes.
In her spiritual perception, alongside white light-attribute mana and green life-attribute mana, two other clearly distinguishable forms surfaced in the spiritual plane.
Gray Fate mana.
And gray-brown Discipline mana.
Refining four different types of mana into her own made the process far more complex and demanding.
But—
[Meditation Skill Experience +61.]
The prompt showed her [Meditation] gain breaking 60 points in a single session.
At Cleric rank, I had to screen out interference from non-primary mana attributes, because a First-tier Awakened's spirit energy wasn't strong enough to handle them.
After becoming a High Cleric, an Awakened needs to start understanding all mana attributes, laying the foundation for Third-tier.
Once I can sense many kinds of mana, meditating is like drawing water from every river at once.
The world beyond the window lay quiet.
Elise opened her eyes, satisfaction gleaming in them.
She was a young prodigy of the Church of Light. Not only could she obtain any number of meditation methods for free, she could read the notes left behind by senior Awakened.
Such was the advantage of a powerful organization at her back.
Those resources, combined with the system's power to turn knowledge into permanent mastery, meant her [Meditation] gains would only grow more efficient.
If each session eventually granted more than 100 experience, that made 300 points a day.
By the start of next month, [Meditation] could hit Level 4.
And the more efficient her meditation, the faster her spirit energy would climb.
The threshold for Senior High Cleric was 50 points of second-tier Spirit. Reaching it would become far easier.
Meditation methods and Breathing Techniques.
The former drives spirit growth. The latter builds constitution.
The stronger my constitution, the more spirit energy my body can carry—and the faster that spirit energy can grow.
Back when I was a Cleric, an ordinary person's constitution was enough to support High Cleric-level spirit energy.
But...
If I want to advance quickly, money and resources are going to burn just as quickly.
Working through it all, Elise condensed a cluster of spirit energy for Tymis, then shook her head and went to bed.
The next morning—
Chirp, chirp.
Mew.
Crimsonwood had far more birds than Megalith City.
When Tymis woke Elise, the birds outside the window lent a helping hand.
Only after Elise fed it a cluster of spirit energy did Tymis start mewing happily and looping circles around the room.
Once she'd washed up, Elise opened her door to find a sister a few years her senior waiting outside.
"Good morning, honored High Cleric Elise. I am Lorna. The Church has assigned me as your assistant."
The woman was Sister Lorna, twenty-six years old.
She had no transcendent talent and handled internal support work for the Church.
Crimsonwood was still just a camp, so Crimsonwood Parish ran on rougher management than any proper parish.
Take Elise.
Her main duty in Crimsonwood Parish was assisting Lady Gwenaeris with potion preparation.
Alongside that, she was to preside over the Church's prayer rites from time to time.
And if she somehow still had spare hours, the Church wouldn't mind commissioning her to purify hellspawn.
In a normal parish, Elise would have attended a Church meeting first, or at the very least called on the Bishop.
Crimsonwood Parish was different.
Here, they started by assigning her a sister as an assistant.
Then—
"Sister Lorna, I'm glad to be working with you."
"Thank you, honored High Cleric. I've brought your breakfast."
"Thank you."
"Honored High Cleric Elise, after breakfast, you'll need to go to the Church and preside over the first prayer rite."
On her first day in Crimsonwood Parish, Elise didn't even know where the Bishop or the Archbishop lived—yet her duties had already begun.
Rest?
There was no time for rest.
Crimsonwood Parish had been raised from nothing and still had everything left to build. Every Awakened in the Church was wound tight, with no slack for idling.
Elise froze for a beat, then made her peace with reality.
She invited Lorna in, sat down to breakfast, and started asking about Crimsonwood.
Lorna answered everything she could—and studied this genius High Cleric carefully as they talked.
Deep down, though, Lorna felt enormous sympathy for her.
The reason was simple.
Archbishop Norias had made his move.
Ordinarily, even if Elise had to lead a prayer rite on her very first day, it could have been scheduled for noon, or the afternoon.
But her?
Archbishop Norias had assigned Elise the first morning rite.
This was no normal parish.
Crimsonwood Parish was still a sprawling temporary camp, and its proportion of Awakened was frighteningly high.
Of the nearly two thousand people gathered here, more than seven hundred were Awakened.
Of those seven hundred, over five hundred spent most of every day hunting monsters.
They lived in a state of constant combat tension, and they badly needed the Church of Light's [Holy Light] to soothe their spirits.
Nor was that all.
Beyond the seven hundred-odd Awakened, the remaining thousand or so were exiled criminals.
These ordinary people had come to the frontier camp to atone, and their mental strain ran just as deep.
Whether to ease that strain or simply to perform for the Church, the convicts came to pray at least once a day.
If the Cleric or High Cleric presiding over a rite failed to project enough strength to calm the faithful, their reputation suffered for it.
That was why Lorna pitied Elise.
The first morning rite was the hardest of all to lead.
At that hour, the Church drew in the Awakened under the heaviest mental strain, along with the convicts who only meant to fool the Church and had no intention of reforming.
Elise was a newly advanced High Cleric.
Could she really carry that rite?
Lorna didn't think so.
She wanted very badly to tell her colleagues one thing.
Archbishop Norias was being far too hard on High Cleric Elise.