At a hidden chamber in the Curtana Mansion.

Nicholas, Maria, and Clarice are currently inside a large chamber, which is separated into 10 rooms. Nicholas called Maria and Clarice to one of these rooms in the basement of the Curtana mansion since today will be the time for their promotion; hence, they were gathered together.

Two weeks had already passed since the three of them had a talk about their promotion. Nicholas has been collecting the materials necessary for the past two weeks, and yesterday he was able to complete everything.

According to Nicholas, it took a few weeks to gather the necessary enchantment stone, elemental core, elemental beast materials, and promotion gem.

In truth, however, it didn't take that much time to complete these since Nicholas already had the necessary enchantment stones and elemental core for his team. The only missing or lacking components needed for Maria and Clarice's promotion were the elemental beast materials. What took a long time to procure was Nicholas's extra promotion gem and a conduit for his second soul core awakening.

Getting a conduit isn't that hard to get with a proper backing, but getting it anonymously is another matter because the church tends to do background checks before distributing it. So procuring conduit will surely take a lot of time to get from the church.

Another thing was the promotion gem; it is not hard to get. You can get promotion gems by buying them in the market or mining them in dungeons or mana-ore-rich places. The problem is that it will take a lot of time for it to be delivered. The Curtana does have these materials, but they are all accounted for since each piece of promotion gem is expensive. He cannot wait for that long, so he used a different tactic to procure these materials.

For the conduit to remain anonymous and avoid suspicion, he had to use a different identity using the phantom phoenix amulet to reserve a piece of conduit from the church. Since the church isn't that strict in distributing such resources, they just needed to come from a reputable source; it just took a bit of connection to receive a slot. He used a known merchant's identity to secure a slot by disguising himself as that merchant. Although it took some time for the church to provide the conduit, he still received it faster than ordering it, which was anonymous in the end.

As for the extra promotion gem, he was chill about it and bet that he could just get it from his mother if necessary.

…

Nicholas took out the necessary materials for the promotion into three separate baskets.

Clarice: "My Liege, are these all the materials needed for the promotion?" She was curious about the materials, so he asked Nicholas, who was carefully separating the material.

Nicholas: "Yes," he replied while continuously separating the material from each basket.

He gave Maria and Clarice one set of each of the materials needed. Maria and Clarice examined the contents of the basket given to them by Nicholas. After examining, they began to compare each other's baskets.

For Maria, Nicholas gave her 50 enchantment stones, an ice golem elemental core, assorted beast materials for wind and water elements, a promotion gem, and other necessary materials.

For Clarice, he gave her the same amount of enchantment stone, a thunder drake elemental core, assorted beast material for wind and fire elements, and a promotion gem.

Clarice: "We have different types of materials." She asked Maria with an inquisitive tone.

Maria: "Well, we will be promoting differently, so it's natural that we don't have the same exact materials." She replied to Clarice as if it were obvious.

After distributing the necessary materials for promotion, he began to explain the importance and process of how to do it.

Nicholas: "Okay, Maria and Clarice, listen up. This is the most important part of the promotion. Even with proper materials and gems, without a proper process, the promotion will definitely fail."

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First of all, he told them that he found a seller from the Trade Stock Union who sold an ice golem core while he used his connections to find a thunder drake core.

Since it was a bit suspicious to have a high-level elemental core for the girls, Secondary elemental cores, such as what Nicholas provided, can only be seen in level 60 and above dungeons. The ice golem core has both water and wind elements, while the thunder drake core has both fire and wind elements. Both of these secondary elemental cores are perfect for Maria and Clarice when promoting.

Most of the time, when promoting, regular awakeners can only choose between learning other elements or strengthening their current ones since most of them are using elementary elements. But with a secondary elemental core, awakeners can simultaneously strengthen and learn new elements.

This kind of elemental core is rare; however, it isn't unreasonable for a count family to acquire such precious resources. But this gesture of Nicholas to Maria and Clarice really had an impact, showing how much he really cares for the girls. At least this is what the girls thought when they received the elemental core. They thought Nicholas utilized a large amount of favor and money to acquire such materials; however, in truth, Nicholas received them using a system.

After telling them about the elemental core, he proceeded to tell them the process of promoting to the second level.

The first step in promoting was the process of assimilation of the elemental core with the elemental beast material. This process will strengthen the elemental core's affinity; this strengthening process of the elemental core will prevent the core from breaking when fusing with the soul core. Also, it allows preliminary manipulation, which improves the malleability and ductility of the core, which prevents the core from shattering when promoted.

Fusing the soul core and the elemental core essentially creates a strain from both the soul core and the elemental core. The elemental core is a lot weaker than the soul core, which is susceptible to damage without infusing it with elemental beast materials. Even if an awakener successfully fuses the soul core with an elemental core when promoting without help with elemental beast materials, It can lead to internal injuries, which can lessen their efficiency in circulating mana and the amount of enchantment stone used compared to awakeners who used elemental beast materials.

The next step will be taking out your soul core and fusing it with a promotion gem. This will start the promotion process and create an aperture through which the elemental core can enter to fuse with the soul core.

When the aperture created by the promotion gem is wide enough, slowly fuse the soul core and elemental core. This will take some time, which depends on the compatibility of the elemental core and the precision of the awakener fusing the two materials together. Patience and careful manipulation are the two main things needed in this part of the process.

Then, after a complete fusion of the two cores, it will be time to enchant the two recently fused cores. This will allow the soul core, which was fused with the elemental core, to strengthen further.

Enchanting it will have a lot of positive effects, like being able to store and circulate mana more efficiently and increasing the power of the awakener's body and soul.

This step is also similar to the awakening ceremony, which opens avenues to overenchantment, but awakeners should be more vigilant since recently fused elements and the soul core are a lot more fragile when compared to the awakening process.

And lastly, after finishing all that, consolidate everything by checking for any abnormalities, fully fusing the soul and elemental core, and circulating the recently upgraded element inside the body.

Nicholas: "That is the gist of the explanation and process. If you are confused or have any questions, please ask me."

Maria and Clarice both raised their hands since there were parts that were a bit confusing for them. Nicholas, on the other hand, patiently answered each of their questions.

Nicholas continued to give some more advice that he learned to Maria and Clarice about promoting. After some time, he finally finished talking and led the two girls to a separate room, which they could promote in.

As they entered the room, he reassured them and wished them both luck, saying that this promotion would definitely be a success. This calmed their minds a bit since, even if the rate of success is high, it is never 100 percent. There is still a chance that it won't succeed, which will be a waste of resources, or, in the worst-case scenario, the awakener will be crippled and their soul core will be destroyed.

Nicholas, too, was afraid of that, so after reassuring the girls, he composed himself by repeating the process in his head as he walked to his own separate space. Inside his own room, he proceeded to place all his awakening materials and promotional materials on the side.

Nicholas: "Take deep breaths. Inhale, Exhale, Inhale, Exhale. You can do this. Just like last time."

Afterward, he did a meditative pose, took out the promotion slot scroll from his inventory, and proceeded to use it. As he activated it, a beam of light came from the scroll and shot to his forehead, which embedded knowledge about the process of awakening a new soul core.

It took a few minutes to transfer, and after transferring the necessary knowledge that Nicholas needed to know from the scroll, it slowly disintegrated into nothing.

Nicholas: "Let's awaken first before proceeding with promotion."

He decided to awaken first since he was quite eager to get his new soul core and know his new element and weapon type. So, he first took out the material for awakening, separating it from the promotion materials.