Chapter 52
Honorius's assessment of Elise hadn't been an insult. If anything, it was painfully accurate.
In the recorded history of the Church of Light, plenty of Awakened had shown more talent than Elise.
There had been those who became High Clerics in a single month, reached the Third tier in three, and stepped into the Fourth tier within a year.
Elise had "only" become a High Cleric in three months. With centuries of records to compare against, the Church could estimate the level of her talent with reasonable accuracy.
Under normal circumstances, a High Cleric who reached her rank in three months would need about a year to become a Senior High Cleric, another year to reach Prime High Cleric, and then rely on talent, resources, and luck to challenge the Third tier.
But Elise was different.
She had a system.
Experience gained through system skills meant permanent progress. Once the system recognized a path, the gains never faded. Hard work produced results—every time.
Which meant Elise had almost no bottlenecks.
Her skill modifiers were stranger still. Their effects scaled with her current rank. The same modifier that had strengthened a skill when she was a Cleric kept strengthening it now that she was a High Cleric. The bonus might weaken slightly, but it still scaled by proportion.
And skills could level up. Modifiers could grow.
Naturally, Elise's growth would never follow the historical pattern.
At Honorius's question, she smiled, nodded, and drew several potion vials from her spatial bracelet.
"Light above," Honorius said with a laugh. "Any martial Awakened who saw your elixir lineup would be green with envy."
Elise was a spellcaster, yet she had produced seven different Breathing Technique elixirs.
If a physical-class transcendent saw that, they'd be sick with jealousy.
But Elise wasn't merely a Second-tier spellcasting Awakened. She was also a gifted alchemist, and a single expedition had earned her enough coin and materials to experiment freely.
His teasing done, Honorius grew serious.
"Which Breathing Technique did you choose?"
"The Gaius Breathing Technique," Elise said.
Among spellcasting Awakened, Breathing Techniques usually borrowed from many schools, but their core almost always came from a small handful of proven classics.
Gaius, the third pope of the Church of Light, had been the man who drove the abolition of slavery. In the year 191 of the Light Calendar, he had created a Breathing Technique of extraordinary versatility. A thousand years later, it remained in wide use and had never fallen behind the times.
Over the past several days, Elise had studied multiple Breathing Techniques and tested how life force resonated with her body.
Now all she lacked was a suitable elixir to complete her personal practice Technique.
She believed all seven had a chance.
Honorius was Third-tier. He had more than enough strength to guard and guide her through the attempt.
At her answer, he smiled and gestured for her to begin.
Elise sat cross-legged in the rest area of the alchemy workshop.
She took out the first vial and glanced at Honorius. He nodded solemnly.
Only then did Elise close her eyes, sink into a meditative state, and drink a small measure of the potion.
She used her spirit energy to sense and guide the life force within her body, along with the spirituality contained in the elixir. As the two merged, the energy began to stimulate her flesh.
This was the stage where she had to follow the Gaius Breathing Technique and test her own interpretation of it.
If the Breathing Technique and the elixir matched, this would become the pattern for all her future training.
Unfortunately, the first potion's compatibility was poor.
"Your body is already accustomed to light-aspected and life-aspected magic," Honorius said after a single glance. "Those two types no longer stimulate you strongly enough."
Gwenaeris had pointed out the same thing before. Elise understood the principle well enough.
Magical tolerance, essentially.
That concept was familiar territory.
With the second and third potions, Elise stopped after a small taste, sensing the same problem.
Honorius didn't look worried.
After Elise drank a cleansing draught to flush the elixir residue from her body, he even began to suspect that seven options might not be enough.
For spellcasting classes, creating a Breathing Technique meant experimenting on one's own body, over and over. Success was built on failure. Elise had only tried three. Some unlucky High Clerics had suffered through a hundred failed attempts before finding a workable match.
But when Elise drank the fourth elixir, Honorius immediately sensed something different.
Elise felt it too.
A smooth, natural flow.
As if this was exactly how it was meant to be.
This potion had been brewed primarily from the Second-tier water-aspected magical plant found in the bear cave and [Isnaya's Fern], with supplementary materials of several different attributes blended in.
Somehow, fate had bound all of its medicinal properties into one.
And what Elise wanted from her Breathing Technique was breadth. Something vast, complete, and all-embracing.
With water-aspected magic as the base, she had threaded traces of other attributes into the potion during refinement. The "water" within the elixir carried and cradled every other effect perfectly.
Then her blood became the pathway. With the Breathing Technique as her guide, the potion's properties spread through her entire body.
A faint warmth bloomed inside her.
At the same moment, system messages appeared.
[Congratulations. You have acquired the Skill: Breathing Technique. Current level: LV1.]
[Breathing Technique Skill EXP +4.]
[Congratulations. Your Breathing Technique has advanced to LV2.]
[Breathing Technique Skill EXP +3.]
...
The notifications kept coming.
Elise had no time to read them. She kept drinking the potion while using her spirit energy to steer the elixir's spirituality and the life force within her.
Beside her, Honorius stood ready to intervene the moment anything went wrong.
Instead, Elise's progress kept accelerating.
Stranger still, her stability rose along with it.
That made no sense.
Even after a spellcasting Awakened took that first successful step, weren't they supposed to keep experimenting, slowly refining their Breathing Technique over time?
Only once a personal Breathing Technique was complete did a caster settle into routine—taking elixirs occasionally and using spirit energy to guide that power through a kind of internal "exercise."
But Elise?
The first compatible potion had confirmed her theory. Then she'd begun improving the Technique on the spot, and somehow every success fed into a greater success.
Had the Light Himself granted her a divine shortcut?
[Breathing Technique Skill EXP +11.]
[Meditation Skill EXP +9.]
...
Her new [Breathing Technique] skill kept gaining experience. Even [Meditation] benefited from the feedback.
And slowly—
[Congratulations. Your Breathing Technique has advanced to LV3.]
By the time her spirit energy was nearly spent, [Breathing Technique] had climbed from LV2 to LV3.
Elise finally opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was Honorius standing beside her, his expression grave.
"Elise, how do you feel?" He hadn't expected her to push straight through until noon on her very first session. He was afraid she'd overdone it.
Elise checked the state of her body.
She felt better than she ever had.
It was as if some of the shackles the spiritual plane had clamped onto her had loosened.
She smiled first.
"I feel wonderful."
Then she opened her status panel.
---
[Status]
[Name: Elise]
[Spirit: 13.29] (Second-tier)
[Mana: 51.58] (Second-tier)
[Constitution: 1.88] (Second-tier)
Skills:
[Meditation] (LV3: 6,113/10,000)
[Breathing Technique] (LV3: 7/10,000)
---
Her spirit had increased by 0.13.
Her constitution had risen by a full 0.02.
And that was from a single training session.
Elise could train like this three times a day.
Her three core attributes were about to grow far faster than before. More importantly, this was only the beginning.
Once she grew more familiar with this training Technique, her spirit and constitution would enter a period of explosive growth.
Senior High Cleric was no longer far away.
With that thought, Elise hurried to check the modifier effect on her new [Breathing Technique] skill.