I Don’t Want To Court Death!

Yang Yang remained in the Arcane Mountain Range for two years. He completely spent that time slowly cultivating his magical power to tenth-step Virtual Aspect while stockpiling on faithful energy. 

 

During this time period, the God’s Hand Tribe had completely transformed. They were still mortals, but much stronger and more intelligent that the other tribes. They spread the teachings of the Life God and Yang Yang’s sphere of influence. Each tribe established a temple for the Life God so faith could be easily gathered. 

 

Mount God’s Hand had the largest temple, and this was where Yang Yang had chosen to reside during these two years. On this particular day, he planned to break through to Manifest Aspect. 

 

Yang Yang took in a deep breath and allowed the faithful energy to course like a river inside the temple. His virtual magic-aspect hovered behind him and radiated lights of righteousness and order. Compared to two years ago, it was more physical in appearance and more powerful. 

 

Time ticked and tocked. Eventually, Yang Yang absorbed all the faith. “Breakthrough, Perfect Manifestation.” 

 

When breaking through to Manifest Aspect, a magic-aspect would form a corresponding number of stars to that of their magus’ grimoire rank. All manifested magic-aspect were ranked by their stars, but a nine-stars magic-aspect was referred to as a Perfect Manifestation. 

 

The greater the manifestation, the better the break through to Wisdom King. With a Perfect Manifestation, a person would be essentially unrivaled in the Manifest Aspect level unless against other Perfect Manifestations. Moreover, a Perfect Manifestation was essential to godly ascension, just like faithful energy. 

 

Yang Yang used to own a Rank 8 grimoire and only upgraded his grimoire when he obtained the Divine Essence of Life. Unfortunately, he did not obtain it when he was younger so he missed the opportunity to earn a Perfect Manifestation, making his godly ascension even more difficult. 

 

However, times were now different; a new life, another chance. 

 

The angelic magic-aspect took a mighty breath in and took in the faithful energy. It exploded into motes of lights and burst out of the temple. The sky was lit in golden radiance and the earth glowed with green brilliance. 

 

“Golden Sky and Jade Earth! This is an auspicious phenomenon!” 

 

“Lord Prophet must be preforming miracles on the land again!”

 

”I can feel myself getting younger already! Hail the Life God! Hail the Scion of Life!” 

 

The people outside of the temple kneeled and produced even more faithful energy for Yang Yang. People on the other mountains did the same thing and gave him their faith. 

 

The jade-gold lights returned to the temple and transformed back into the angelic magic-aspect. However, this time, the jade-colored Orb of Three Lives was in the magic-aspect’s left hand. A jade-colored Immortal Lantern floated beside it, blazing in the golden Flame of Purity.

 

It wore the Godly Regalia, a white robe with golden armor, making it look very sagely and mystical. Nine stars rotated on its forehead, thrumming with power and perfection. 

 

However, Yang Yang wasn’t finished. He had a greater control over his soul and he took out nine slivers of it, transferring them to the magic-aspect. Now the angelic magic-aspect was even stronger. If the break through made the magic-aspect tenfold stronger, then additional slivers of soul made it tenfold stronger again, for a grand total of hundredfold increase in power. 

 

Tears welled up in Yang Yang’s eyes. “One of my biggest lifetime regrets had just been redeem. Two years is very, very short, but not so much for this body. I’ll spend a little more time to increase my magical power and then leave. I’ve only picked up bits and pieces of information on the Sacred Cult, but I have good understanding of what’s going on.”  

 

There were still some leftover amount of faithful energy and additional faithful energy as well to absorb. He went back into mediation and was only ready to leave when the momentum of his break through to Manifest Aspect waned.

 

......

 

In the Seventeenth Layer, the Arcane Dark Kingdom, a group of eight cloaked figures were sitting around a round table. Seven of those figures wore blood-red cardinal cloaks, but one of them wore a golden-red cloak. 

 

“The Festival of Offering is almost ready.” 

 

“Indeed. This time it’s a little more exciting since there’s some traitors involved.” 

 

“Yeah. Though, we need to increase security as well. I heard the Red Ogre is at it again.”

 

“Hmph! I heard he’s a ninth-step Manifest Aspect magus, but for some reason, two cardinals and five archbishops couldn’t even catch up to him.” 

 

“Shut up. He was fast, alright?” 

 

“Yeah! Who knew someone like that would be this damn pit and he’s not even from the Arcane Temple.” 

 

“It a real ass-eat-ass world in here. Though, at least it’s better than the outside. I heard that battles been pretty rough lately.” 

 

“A squad was suppose to send us some equipment, but now we’re stuck here to deal with more crap again.” 

 

“Enough with the gossip!” The golden-red cloaked figure slammed his hand on the table. The seven cardinals quieted down. “Let’s get real for once. There’s report in the Arcane Mountain Range that temples are erected under the name of another god. The lack of faith isn’t very noticeable, but this organization is expanding very quickly. Moreover, our scouts has been disappearing from there as well.” 

 

“What? Could it be the Arcane Temple again?” 

 

“No. This god is different. Reports say that the temples radiate auras of life, order, righteousness, virtue, kind-”

 

“Your highness, I think we heard enough.” 

 

“Ugh! Those are disgusting properties.” 

 

“I’m sending one cardinal to check it out. Seventh, you shall go.” 

 

“Yes sir.” 

 

“Good. Meeting dismiss.” When the cardinals left, the golden-red figure spoke quietly to himself. “His holiness said that a scion has arrived. Wonderful, truly wonderful. With the blood of a scion and his holiness’ blessing, I can reach the same level as my father. Planning, planing. I need to plan this out carefully. Nothing wrong must happen. I think I’ll have to visit my nephew to share in these good news.” 

 

The golden-red cloaked figure breathed erratically, but a small smirk could be seen on his face.