[If the divine virtue is used to nourish Host’s life force, it is estimated to increase lifespan by 380 years.
[If the divine virtue is used on a mortal creature, one point of divine virtue will provide them with a random divine trait within the corresponding domain. If more than five points of divine virtue are used on a single creature, said creature would ascend into a holy beast.
[……
[……]
Greem looked at the list of options that the Chip provided. He could feel his heart pound. Divine virtue was truly excellent material. It could bring about tremendous improvement to his powers.
However, Greem couldn’t help but get slightly upset at the thought that all this divine virtue could only be used to improve his Agility. Of the four main attributes of Strength, Physique, Agility, and Spirit, Agility was the most useless to him.
He was a damned glass-cannon backline mage. He was a one-man artillery that didn’t need phantasmic movements or ridiculous speed. All he needed was explosions, explosions, and even more explosions.
That was why Greem’s Agility was still at 18 points, even now. Even if he pushed that attribute to twenty-four points with the divine virtue, it seemed like perhaps, probably…it was most likely not going to have any practical benefit to him in combat as he was right now.
Of course, while Agility wasn’t important to Greem, it was exceedingly crucial for Mary. Of course, Mary had now reached peak Fourth Grade. She was standing at the threshold of transcendence, and her Agility had already reached the 49-point limit. It couldn’t be raised further even if she wanted to.
That was why this stuff was still useless for Mary at the moment.
As for using divine virtue to improve his lifespan? There couldn’t be a more wasteful thought!
Greem’s lifespan now numbered 12,000 years. He had barely spent one-twentieth of his life at the moment. Extending it for another 300 years under such circumstances was pointless.
Use the divine virtue to create a holy beast?
If Greem was a powerful god with plenty of divine virtue to spare, creating one or two divine pets to accompany him might be a decent idea. However, Greem was an adept, and the only chance he had to obtain divine virtue was on the battlefield.
As such, he did not have the qualification nor the power to be so wasteful and extravagant!
By process of elimination, the best way to use the divine virtue was to nourish his starbeast bloodline or to forge powerful magical equipment. At the moment, the only two powerful artifacts in Greem’s hands had been stolen from other people. He did not have an actual relic of his own.
That was somewhat unacceptable for a proud adept like himself.
However, Greem didn’t specialize in creating magical equipment. He would have to take his time to explore the idea if he wanted to create a tailored high-grade artifact for himself.
Now that he had made up his mind, Greem hesitated no longer. He reached his hand into the ball of divine virtue and silently absorbed it.
Absorbing divine virtue wasn’t such a simple matter. First, you had to exterminate the soul consciousness that the god had left within it. Otherwise, recklessly absorbing a god’s divine virtue would only turn you into a host for the soul consciousness.
If the god were to activate their powers, Greem would become their soul puppet.
Of course, Greem would never make such a mistake!
He used his principle fire to exterminate all traces of Horr’s soul consciousness.
The level of principle fire was equal to things like divine power and the soul of a god. As such, using his principle fire was enough to wipe out any undesired elements from the divine virtue.
“Damned adept! I have committed your soul aura to memory now…you will become my prey one day! I—”
As the Undying Flames burned, wisps of black smoke rose from the divine virtue and formed into Horr’s ugly face.
He roared, he shouted, and he cursed, but there was no stopping Greem from steadily exterminating this wisp of Horr’s soul consciousness.
Hehehe! A Sixth Grade mid-ranked god with a twenty-four-point divine authority level. He had lost three divine authority fragments with the loss of this clone. His divine authority level had fallen to twenty-one points.
Twenty-one points wasn’t exactly a lot, but it wasn’t a little either. It allowed him to remain as a mid-ranked god. However, if anything more were to happen and he lost one or two more fragments of divine authority, then his grade would be at risk.
Should his total divine authority level fall below twenty points, he would no longer be able to remain as a mid-ranked god. Even his god kingdom would suffer as a result and shrink by half. Even if he could retrieve the lost divine authority fragments after the fact and become a Sixth Grade once again, the collapsed half of his god kingdom would require a large amount of divine power to recover.
Such a thing would be an absolute disaster for any god!
Whether he should send down another clone became a new question for Horr, the God of the Hunt.
It was one of the difficulties faced by the gods that was not as often spoken about.
Summoning a clone would allow them to create a replacement that could travel anywhere; it was incredibly convenient. However, if something were to happen to the clone and the divine authority fragments could not escape back to them, they would lose actual power.
The power of the gods rested in the amount of divine authority they controlled.
According to the World of Gods’ principles, the amount of time, effort, and diligence required to forge divine authority fragments through the faith power of their believers was horrifying.
Under ordinary circumstances, a god with a hundred thousand followers would require a thousand years to have a chance of extracting a single divine authority fragment from within the faith system. Moreover, this was the best possible scenario when there weren’t other gods fighting for the same divinity.
Should there be other gods involved in their divinity domains, then the conversion rate of divine authority fragments would be decided by the amount of control they had over specific divinity domains. The more gods involved in this competitive process, the slower the rate at which divine power could be converted into divine authority.
That was why the World of Gods was no utopia of peace, even when the adepts weren’t invading!
Almost every pantheon and god would have some degree of overlap in their divinity domains. As long as it didn’t involve their main divinities, there would be room for compromise. Should there be a conflict in two gods’ main divinities, then there would be no mercy to be spoken of.
Whoever had the harder fist would live and go on to inherit everything that once belonged to the defeated!
The other god would be exterminated and have their soul destroyed. Their god kingdom would fall into ruin, and their surviving believers would either be taken in by the other god or die along with their old god.
For instance, there couldn’t be two gods of death in the same planar world. Should two gods possess the identical divinity of death, then they would fight to the bitter end, even without encouragement from the planar consciousness.
Due to the gods’ constant infighting, the adept faction could slip in between the cracks and find an opportunity to profit from the gods.
Divine authority and divine virtue. These were the most valuable treasures that the adepts could get their hands on!
Divine virtue could improve their powers or be used to create high-grade equipment in combination with divine authority. Meanwhile, divine authority was a faith principle converter. They could convert the faith power of believers into pure divine power.
However, Greem was an adept, not a god; he could not make direct use of this power. Still, this didn’t mean that Greem couldn’t use the divine authority fragments to improve his own might.
After all, he did have a treasure in his possession that could make use of divine authority fragments.<
br />
The Orb of the Fire God!
The Orb of the Fire God was a piece of Fifth Grade divine equipment forged with fire divine authority by a Fire God in the first place. Using the divine authority fragment obtained from the Fire God’s clone to improve the quality of the orb was not a bad idea.
Should the power of the Orb of the Fire God improve, so would Greem’s own powers. He would be able to draw on even more fire energy.
As for these two fragments obtained from the God of the Hunt? They were probably best used as sacrifices.
If they were sacrificed to the Fire Elementium Plane, it would increase the level of Greem’s currently mastered fire principles. That was obviously more direct and essential than the improvement of equipment.
Of course, sacrificing the fragments to the World of Adepts’ planar consciousness was a decent idea too. Unfortunately, the World of Adepts couldn’t provide him with the fire principles he needed; the Fire Elementium Plane was a better choice.
The more he thought about it, the more impatient Greem became.
He couldn’t be bothered with recovering in his room anymore. He hastily rushed to Boulder Fortress’ teleportation array and returned to the Fire Elementium Plane. This time, he even used the origin connection between souls to give an order to the light clone he had left in the World of Adepts.
Chapter 1484 - Change in Mentality
Fire Elementium Plane, the Molten Altar.
A radiant portal slowly opened in the center of the valley. Greem returned to this place once more.
Compared to before, the shore of the lava lake was much more lively than before.
Apart from molten giants, emberweb spiders, and magical machines, there were also many more fire creatures of various forms. There were low-grade fire elementals, fire spirits, flamespirits, mid-grade and high-grade fire giants, lava giants, magma hounds, and magma beasts.
The entire area around Molten Altar almost seemed to have become a museum of fire creatures. You could practically see half of all native beings that could be found in the Fire Elementium Plane here.
Greem slightly frowned as he looked at Lasbes, who was hurrying over toward him. He said in a solemn voice, “What’s the issue here? Why are there so many lower lifeforms?”
Lasbes hastily crouched when she heard Greem’s question. She replied with her strange, hoarse mental voice, “My lord, this is all hard labor that I’ve enslaved from the surrounding lands to hasten the progress.” Having said that, she lowered her volume intentionally and said in a trembling voice, “My lord, as you know, there is something evil about this Molten Altar. Low-grade creatures will mysteriously disappear after remaining here for too long. So, if we don’t capture more people, we won’t have enough to keep going.”
“Disappear?” Greem paused for a moment, but he instantly remembered what he saw the first time he came into contact with the Molten Altar. He readily believed what Lasbes said.
“Immediately send for people to build an altar for me. I want to sacrifice something!”
“An altar? Please enlighten me, my lord. What order and scale of a fire altar do you require?”
“The highest order…who I need to communicate with this time is the planar consciousness of the Fire Elementium Plane itself!”
Tssss!
Lasbes drew in a breath of cold air.
It was important to note that for Fire Lords like herself, the individuals to whom they directed sacrifices were often the Fire Kings nearby. Without a sacrifice of sufficient magnitude, the planar consciousness would never reply to your request.
Even this veteran Fire King couldn’t help but get excited at having accepted such an important mission.
“Contacting the planar consciousness…a fire altar of that scale and order can’t be laid out that easily. Perhaps only the Fire Kings would have world altars of such high grade,” An awkward expression appeared on Lasbes’ furry spider face.
“You mean to say that we can’t build an altar like that ourselves?”
“It’s not that we can’t, but that it will take a long time. We will also have to go everywhere to search for the required resources. I estimate that it will take us at least ten years, minimum, to construct the altar.”
It was Greem’s turn to be surprised now.
Only now, he truly understood the completely different perception of time and value in two different worlds.
The most powerful Fire Lords in the Fire Elementium Plane never knew the value of stockpiling resources ahead of time. They sat in their homes and slowly improved their powers. Consequently, their desire for outsider resources was much tamer.
They did not have much of a desire for resources, materials, or territory. The point being that they would rather not move if they could. Instead, they could simply spend their days in their lair, slowly accumulating power with the passage of time.
That was how most fire creatures lived their lives, a way of life etched into their very souls.
Without any pressure for survival, there was no impulse or desire for evolution.
Trying their best to scour for resources and knowledge while stockpiling all magical materials that could be needed in the future was the way of life and habit of all adepts in the World of Adepts.
There would never be an awkward situation like this, where a Fourth Grade adept was unable to build a world altar.
Ten years…dammit! Ten years was too long. Who knew if these divine authority fragments would end up becoming a problem if they remained in his hands? It was best to convert them into actual power as soon as possible.
Should he go over to Groms’ and borrow his world altar?
Still, bringing such a valuable sacrifice to the private territory of a Fire King…Greem didn’t believe that Groms would turn on him over such meager pickings, but it would still be risky.
Lasbes couldn’t help but point at the distant lava lake with one of her legs when she saw the frustration on Greem’s face. She had an odd expression on her face. “My lord, isn’t that over there a world altar? Why do we have to build one ourselves?”
Greem was stunned for an instant. He turned around and looked dumbfoundedly at the old and ruined altar standing in front of the lake.
For some reason, when his gaze landed upon the altar, it was almost as if a string in his heart had been plucked. He felt tremors throughout his body, and an overwhelming emotion seemed to overcome him.
“Lasbes, contact Sock and tell him to have all fire creatures and magical machines evacuate from the Molten Altar…now!”
Lasbes bowed upon hearing Greem’s inviolable tone. She then said, “Understood. I will do so immediately!”
This place was the private territory under Greem’s rule, after all. There would be no disapproval or voices of doubt with a single order from him. In less than ten minutes, the bustling worksite had become completely silent. There was not a single moving figure around Molten Altar.
Greem’s tremendous Spirit slowly roamed around Molten Altar, slowly but firmly sweeping every inch of land and space in the area. He scanned the skies and then the ground and even the bottom of the lava lake.
It wasn’t until he had confirmed that there were no abnormalities that he opened a Flamegate in the air. A short moment later, Greem’s light clone he’d left in the World of Adepts walked out from within.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to deal with this divine authority fragment?” The light clone asked curiously.
“I’ve decided!” Greem and the clone only looked at each other to synchronize their minds. Greem instantly grasped everything that the clone had experienced in the past few decades.
Horton Magic Academy had grown even larger than before.
Adept Ainley of the Adept’s Association had successfully advanced to Fifth Grade and had gone into space.
Adept Nicolas of the Central Lands had gone missing in action during battles against the Underground World. His fate remained unknown.
Bug
Adept Billis had advanced to Fourth Grade and became a core fighting force of the Crimson Clan.
Many individuals within the clan had also advanced to Third Grade; the middle management was growing steadily in size.
The latest life-extension ceremony held by clan veteran Snorlax had failed. He was on the brink of death now.
The Goblin Plane had submitted a proposal for the creation of the Magic-Energy Titan and was currently requesting resources from the clan.
Meanwhile, in the Northern Lands, Icelady, Berserk Witch, and Lucia–all three of Alice’s aides–had advanced to Third Grade.
……
……
Greem took the fire divine authority fragment that the light clone handed to him and passed the clone a few divine virtue strands. Greem then instructed, “Give these to Mary! With this divine virtue, she will benefit greatly from either improving her Agility or strengthening the powers of her vampire bloodline. Also, tell her that she can meet with me once the adept tower here is complete!”
The light clone chuckled and put the divine virtue into his body. He then turned and returned to the World of Adepts through the Flamegate.
Greem couldn’t help but sigh once the light clone left.
It had only been a few decades since he left the World of Adepts, but it felt like an entire century to him. Even if they related to his own disciples and the people he cared about, all the changes happening there sounded like stories about strangers. There was an indescribable feeling of alienation and distance.
His pursuit of power had caused him to make a great leap forwards. Unknowingly, he had started to cast his companions behind. His past memories remained. Everything that had happened could be conjured up in his mind as fresh as when they had just happened. However, the emotions and humanity attached to these memories were slowly being washed away as he evolved and changed.
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