Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 367 - Two Hundred and Forty-Nine: Promotion (Part One)

Chapter 367: Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Nine: Promotion (Part One)

"Your Excellency! Why must you be so forbearing!"

The questioning voice behind him made the old man somewhat irritable. The Temple Guards in front of him had pushed open the great doors of the Temple. He entered the hall with his head lowered and then turned to look at the young mentor standing there: "Where is Maiseer?"

"I have made him reflect on his actions, Your Excellency. Why didn’t you let us mentors enter the fray? How could the Church of the War God’s prestige be trampled upon like this?"

"You want me to send you in, just to have your heads chopped off by that child?" The old man looked at the young man before him: "Conrad, the Church of the War God gave you weapons not for you to throw your lives away meaninglessly. Maiseer killed a man; we were in the wrong there. But we must still cover for our own, because we are mentors, protectors of the apprentices. My only mistake today was not anticipating that he would step into the arena."

"Your Excellency... why are you so fearful of him?"

"A giant half-blood who has more than 30 points of strength without any Blessing Spell. Which one of you could defeat him?" The old man retorted as he looked at the young man.

The young mentor fell silent for a moment, then looked at his superior with an incredulous expression: "Your Excellency, how could he possibly have more than 30 strength!"

"The Bishop of Carterburg reported this piece of intelligence a month before the contest began. It was precisely for this reason that we tried to prevent this child from joining the competition as an apprentice because as long as he was there, there would be only one winner... My only error was that I failed to consider that this child would actually come to the competition as a spectator. He should have been either accompanying his princess girlfriend or someone else, not standing before me!" The old man said all this in one go and then coughed twice: "You are too distant to feel the pressure I felt when facing him. Although much younger than me, there was no concealment of murderous intent in his eyes. My old friend wasn’t wrong; he should have been one of ours at the Church of the War God. But the Goddess of Harvest was just too lucky. In the past few days, he even reached an agreement with many guilds and organizations, including our Church."

"Your Excellency, what should we do now?" The young man looked at the old man and asked.

"The problem with Maiseer is that he trusts too much in his own strength. This is not a good sign. Conrad, take good care of him, and don’t let him lose himself to power. I don’t want there to come a day when you have to behead your own apprentice... and I," the old man said with a bitter smile, shaking his head, "I will resign from this post and leave the Church. The Church of the War God is no place for cowards."

"Your Excellency! Please don’t do this!" The young mentor’s face showed pain.

"That child named Malin, he came into the arena with the intent to kill. I don’t blame him because the Church of the War God protected its own. Normally, against a low-combat-power church like the Church of the Harvest Goddess, we would have been sure of victory. Even if compensations were to be made later, we should have protected our children first. But this time we made a mistake. He is the favorite of Nameless. Even the fearsome Blood God is related to him, and the accomplishments of his journey for all to see. Not to mention your children who feed on Magic Potions, even those low-tier native Professionals might not be his match."

"But he is just an apprentice—" "No, the moment he entered the arena, he was already at Sequence Nine."

The old man interrupted the young mentor’s words, sighing: "Very strange... without any improvement in strength, I just... feel somewhat fearful to look into his eyes. Perhaps it’s a sublimation of his inner abilities, or a strengthening in the realm of spirit or intellect. Moreover, I’ve heard he has mastered quite a few fifth-ring Spell Formations."

The words of the old man left the young mentor dumbfounded. He looked at the old man before him in disbelief and exclaimed: "Fifth-ring Spell Formations! I didn’t see any mage emblem on his chest."

"You forgot, he is an apprentice of the Harvest Goddess. Even if he mastered ninth-ring Spell Formations, as long as he doesn’t register at the Mage Tower, he will forever not be a formal mage... Remember, if such a child were in the Mage Tower, he would already be a bona fide professional mage, needing only to master a sixth-ring Spell Formation to become a mid-tier mage. And I hear he’s only fourteen... What do you think, Conrad, how many protective forces must be around a child like that? You should know, with his lineage, this child of the Silver Folk will be someone the entire era will have to look up to, whether it’s the Church of the Harvest Goddess or the Lord of Justice. They won’t let him die easily, even I don’t want him dead."

"Why?!" The young mentor’s eyes widened in response to his mentor’s statement.

"If he had died in the challenge just now, surely Cruelty would send us a ton of gold medals because he would have gained the most powerful Chosen Champion in history, one who knows the coordinates of our world, a Chosen Champion who holds a deep-seated hatred for our world and our Church of the War God. He would definitely lead Cruelty’s legions to invade our world, and when that time comes, our lives will be trivial, and the entire world will pay a heavy price for our folly... Conrad, remember, the Church of the War God’s face is ultimately not worth all the innocents in this world. We do not need to fight with such a child to the point where one side bleeds out the last of its blood. The lives of mortals are already challenging enough, don’t add to their sorrowful existence."

"But Your Excellency, if you resign and leave the Church, what will everyone think?"

The young man’s words made the old man pause, then he smiled and shook his head: "It doesn’t matter. I am so old now, I no longer care about my own reputation. As long as you all are safe, that’s what matters. Go tell His Grace the Archbishop, please accept my resignation request. It’s the last thing I can do for the Church."

After speaking, the old man began to undo his Bishop’s robe, but the next second, light came from behind him, and he turned around to see the Pastoral Staff quietly standing before him.

・Pick it up, Mendelsson.

A voice rang in the old man’s mind.

The old man took a moment to look around, realizing that everyone seemed frozen in place.

"Pick it up, my Shepherd, your performance has pleased me. War requires all kinds of power, and your wisdom and temperament make you worthy of this authority. Since you do not wish to be my Bishop, then take this and herd those lost sheep for me. Go forth, Mendelson, and I will inform all Shepherds that you will surveil this world on my behalf."

As the speech ended, the old man found that the world had once again begun to flow. His apprentice cried out in surprise while the guards were already kneeling before the pastoral staff.

The old man, silent, finally undid the buttons of his bishop’s robe. He took it off carefully and placed it on the counter, then put on the coat that the receptionist had brought to him before he reached for the pastoral staff.

In the midst of power’s ascent, the old man lifted his head in devout prayer.

May the Lord have mercy.

.........

Malin learned of his ascension on the way back to the Church, but his first feeling was completely devoid of any—it wasn’t said that to ascend, one needed to realize the shackles of the next sequence and then consume a magic potion to break through the locks of advancement?

It was the mentor Aemet Selkirk who explained it to Malin—firstly, ascension in a Transcendent profession did require a magic potion, but there were some Transcendents who, having amassed a great deal of experience in the next sequence, could sometimes break free from the constraints of magic potions and ascend directly.

Such an ascension was blessed. The Transcendents would be spared from the perils ordinarily faced during ascension, a shortcut dreamt of by countless Transcendents.

"Your Transcendent sequence is nine, Author. To be honest, you must be the fifth person in history to ascend without reliance on a magic potion. Congratulations, Malin," Mentor Aemet Selkirk finished, even patting Malin on the head. "Advancing to Author will grant you the blessing of a nimble mind. Both your intelligence and spirit will improve. According to the numerical chart, this is an increase of two to four points in intelligence. Do you feel much clearer in your thoughts?"

Upon hearing his mentor say this, Malin only had to think back to recall the color of the pajamas Matilda, the little fox, wore... even though he had worked late for two nights and had only glanced back once.

"Indeed." Thinking of this, Malin nodded.

"You see, this is the advantage of a longer sequence. As for the short sequence of Detective, that’s nothing more than a tool for cowardly, rich men to boast about. They will never admit at which step of the ladder they are," Mentor Aemet Selkirk observed Malin and said, "It really makes one curious how many more stories you have in that head of yours."

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Malin smiled sheepishly. "Considering the magic carpet in the possession of the Investigations Department, could we just forget about that?"

The truth was, that thing was now what Malin feared the most. Its existence made him truly understand the phrase, the more you know, the more horrifying it becomes, as well as the true meaning of ignorance is bliss.

God only knows how these cursed wonders came into being.

"On that note, Mentor Quasar, I’ve noticed that many Transcendent sequences are public, while some are not. Why is that?" Driven by curiosity, Malin posed a question.

"That’s an excellent question." Mentor Aemet Selkirk began to enlighten Malin.

Through his explanation, Malin learned that in the history of Transcendents, the original sequences were so dangerous that many who reached a new step published their own sequences and steps so they could journey farther. Potionology was thus born. Later, during the major advancement of Potionology, to prevent mortals who could not become Transcendents from consuming magic potions (which was usually akin to committing suicide due to the terribly high mutation rates), the various churches, Elf Council, Mage Towers, and large organizations jointly established the Transcendent Covenant. All Transcendent Apprentices would be freely selected and nurtured by the Church, the Mage Towers, and various guilds. Therefore, newly developed sequences usually circulated only among Transcendent organizations, whereas many ancient sequences were very transparent. Even if mortals knew about these potions, they could not easily concoct them without an extensive background in Potionology—even with knowledge of the formulae and access to the appropriate ingredients.

Even if by some fluke, all the ingredients and the formula were available, and the potion was successfully concocted, but without sufficient talent, the result of consuming the magic potion was gruesome transformation, like the merchant Malin had seen at the Goddess of Harvest festival.

The odds of successfully completing all steps and emerging victorious were one in a million; any such individual would have the extraordinary fate of a Child of the Plane.

Of course, short sequences were an exception.

After all, some less marketable magic potion ingredients can also be sold through such sequences.