Everyone was slackjaw as they finished hearing Jade’s tale that felt like a fantasy but it was before them. Every god has a special crest but Jade easily produced every god's crest and showed how it connected.
Only the god of knightly concept had only an aura but seemed even more compelling that she could only display when all of the crests were together.
“To think… to think that an ancient god would bless you. They want to make a Pantheon built alongside the Order of Golden Lion. To think that this would happen in my lifetime.” Maxwell said.
“The ancient god said that it was important for master. Only his past grudges keep master from truly focusing on his future instead of his past.” Jade said.
“Past…” Max said and grinned. “Yes, I see. I hadn’t thought of this but you and Olivia both have unresolved grudges. Rules dictate that the order would help deal with the grudges. Naturally we cannot destroy Shiarus but entering and leaving that place to find your lost family is not a problem.” he said.
Logan frowned at this, “That… is good but the suffering they passed through can’t be ignored. Saving them is okay first but every name I got for those who have done cruel things to them will face the day of reckoning.” Logan said.
“We will do what we can. But this is quite a dilemma. Splitting the order and religion is difficult.” Max said.
“Why split it? The pantheon is towards all facets of what makes the knights honor shine. They told me that the rules of the Golden Lions were made alongside the hero and the gods when the hero created the Golden lions.” Jade said and took the rule book. “Religion is simply a way of thinking and the rules here coincide with the rules the gods most desire to spread. All facets of knightly honor can be easily picked up in the rules. The religion doesn’t directly need priests, instead it has to have those who can learn from the gods and spread the belief and the order already follows these rules through the orders own mandates and oaths.” Jade explained.
Max thought about it and realized why he felt the desire to kneel, his own oaths resonated with the crest of all the gods. His own mentality was that of a knight who followed the rules laid down by those gods and he nodded finally putting down these regards.
“It will be hard to get all the others on this but i think they are likely to turn around to it, that said… your race changed again.” He said. “It is a Lesser Knight Priestess Lord.” He said.
“Well, that makes sense, it would be stranger if she didn’t change.” Logan said.
“Now the problem comes, will the priest accept this?” Max said.
They all understood that if he wanted to make trouble, he could.
They could only go to bed and wait for morning.
When it came, they returned and got another meeting with the same priest.
“I see you have obtained your blessing and grown with this.” he said.
“Yes, among the gods were many who were quite understanding. I have connected to Gods of Knight.” she said.
“Gods?” the priest said.
“Yes, my master is from the Golden Lions and so his origins are that of a knight and that connection was felt by the gods. Knights have many aspects so a few of them came together when I resonated with them.” She said and didn’t hide parts of the crests, she would not reveal that she got the ancient god of knighthood’s personal blessing alongside every other similar god.
The paladins in the church felt the true feeling of the knights crest and were surprised seeing the combined crest.
“I see, your blessings are that of quite noble gods.” The priest said. “Are you still going to need holy water though? As a priestess of the gods of knights, most of their followers become paladins who heal using swords or weapons instead of common staves.” he asked.
“I am, at the end of the day, the medium is the only thing that changes.” she said meaning that what was different was only her changing a staff or wand for a sword.
He simply nodded and looked at Maxwell, “As an A rank, the limit is 500 liters and you cannot obtain more above this for 6 months.” the priest said.
“That is plenty for a single priestess.” Max said.
The priest nodded and asked if they had vials and tanks for proper storage and that was naturally a no so along with the 100,000 tip for a 500 liters, they got a tank alongside ten vials for holy water and finally achieved their objective.
She took one and filled it with water and at the top of the staff, she fit it into a slot that went into the center of the head designed specifically for the special vials made for them.
When it was put in, the staff began to glow as the holy mana of the water flowed naturally through the staff until it settled down.
She was very happy and Logan capped the tank and stored it into his Inventory box. They gave a slight bow of thanks and left.
“How do we get home? From the expression you gave, you clearly do not want to go back on the train.” Logan said.
“Nor will we.” He said coldly after they reached the first floor.
“So what is the plan?” Logan asked.
“The train is the safest and most comfortable, not the only way.” Max said.
They followed him out into the desert a good distance and he stopped and reached into a magic bag and pulled out a pure gold door. There were vein like cracks all over the place and an amazing amount of mana was flowing through it.
“What is this?” Logan asked.
“An extremely hard to make and charge, one way return door to the Golden Lion Micro World Olivia has. I’ve personally never used it since I’ve always had it with me but I finally got to use it and took one of them out.” Maxwell said.
“You mean this will go all the way back to Olivia?” Logan asked.
“Yep, but it is a single usage, the larger the distance, the more mana it needs. Breaking the barrier of space between such a long distance also puts a massive burden on the door so they literally blow up from the mana overload and the pressure of the twisted space around it once the door closes.” Max said.
“Why is there even something like this?” Logan asked.
“Of course, if you send a division to a place with much stronger people, you always have to give them a way out at least for someone to bring back information of their deaths and the cause of death. Don’t underestimate how vital that is, with our rank limited to B rank, we have had to create many things to secure the safety of future generations.” Max said.
“I see.” Logan said and nodded.
Still conflicted, Max slammed the door down and opened the door. Instantly there was a sound of shattering as the knob turned and when it opened, it was a fully swirling vortex compared to the stable connection.
“You two, go into Logan’s micro world. The less people using the door, the less turbulence we will face.” Max said.
“There are even things like this!?” Logan shouted.
“Shut up and just get them inside.” Max said, giving Logan a slap to the head.
Grumbling he opened a doorway and Storm and Jade walked inside before it closed.
“Good, now channel and clad yourself in as much mana as possible, we have to cross thousands of kilometers to reach the microworld and it isn’t safe for weaker people so make sure to cover up well. I will give additional protection.” Max said.
Logan focused until his body was clad in mana before Max picked him up and they jumped in.
The door slowly closed and as soon as the door clicked, the brightness of the glowing door increased and it erupted into a massive storm of mana and the door was ground to dust lifting up a huge wall of sand. Magic in the surroundings suddenly gathered and pushed down the mana preventing an extremely dangerous sand storm powered by chaotic mana from forming and no problems arose beyond that.
However, for the two who entered, they felt their bodies stretched and worse is that as the door was destroyed, the entrance tunnel was collapsing as they moved. Max released mana into the surrounding tunnel making it more stable as they went and after what seemed like forever they finally burst through the exit and watched as the turbulent energy at the door dispersed.
“Were back safely.” Max said with a sigh.
“The tunnel collapsed!” Logan said.
“Yeah, that is the danger, usually the strongest people go last while everyone releases mana to keep the tunnel stable. Teleportation magic is far from reaching large-scale usage for common people and it is why only people with A rank and above can even learn short distance teleportation. As for large scale, that is impossible if you aren’t an abnormal being surpassing S rank and above.” Max said and collapsed with a sigh.
“We shouldn’t lay around, the ability to contain mana in your body, everyone needs to learn this and the adults need to help achieve this. This isn’t a small change, it will cause immense growth that is needed by everyone to keep up with their mana.” Logan said.
“Right. You deal with your charge, I will head to the other guys and help them locate the channels and from there we can go down the line. Leave that girl with the A rank mana for last, I want to be present so that nothing goes wrong.” Max said.
Logan nodded and sighed as he stood up and took out the stable door to his micro world and headed in while Max went looking for the others. Soon a loud horn sounded throughout the entire micro world and anyone who was even extremely far away began to gather up.
In Logan’s world, the children were training hard even without his words and he walked over and had them stop.
“Alright, today we are going to do something different. This is a very important discovery I made that will let humans obtain a special thing only monsters have had.” Logan said.
“What?” one goblin said curiously.
“Well, most races have mana in their bodies even their blood and bones and it is how hobgoblins evolve. Many races obtain this and grow extremely strong but humans never had it but by some twist, I discovered how but it is very hard and painful.” Logan said.
All the eyes were shining but he stopped the monsters, “You guys will form this all naturally, I have ogre horns that will let you all obtain this but humans can’t get that freely so I will do it for them. Each of you will get the horns when I see it is time.” Logan said.
The monsters became sad but he just smiled and called the six kids.
“Jade, I need you to prepare some kind of medicine or spell that causes an anesthetic effect. This is extremely painful so i need you to give it to each child as I do this process for them.” Logan said.
“Alright master.” She said.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He started with the biggest of the boys and had him lay down and Jade put the spell on him making him instantly fall asleep like a patient that was given anesthesia.
Logan injected some of his own mana into his body and began to feel around the mana pool but he was also feeling his own body and after a bit, ignoring the common exits, he found very tiny exits and smiled.
The mana pierced into one and opened it a bit and a strand stayed in that opening while he searched for the next. He spent close to an hour just to find the ten openings before he began to open them with a very small spinning force like the development segment of mana channels.
Even with the spell to basically remove pain, the boy flinched and had reactions while Logan was feeding the opening of the ten channels at once and this went for half an hour until it finally connected to the veins.
When it did the mana in his body began to move as if leaking. Logan’s mana entered the veins and moved through his body but was soon leaked out but as the boy’s own mana moved it attached naturally to the blood and began to fill his body.
He naturally began to absorb mana pushing the quantity higher but it maintained the quantity inside the mana pool. His body began to glow until it did one large flash like the goblins did when their monster core was fixed but no extreme changes happened except the seal on the mana body forming.
Jade ended the spell but he was completely asleep.
Storm picked him up and took him to bed and the next one laid down and the process repeated several times until only Helen was left.
“It is my turn.” She said with sparkling eyes.
“Let’s go outside. Your case is special and needs special care.” He said.
She nodded and understood so they left and walked around the large HQ and soon found Max doing the 6th A rank’s connection. Five others were constantly flashing while asleep on the side so they waited a while until the process finished.
“Are you done?” Max asked.
“Yeah, Helen is the last one left.” Logan said.
“Good, we will watch the process and move to control the mana if something goes wrong.” Max said as he needed time to relax.
Helen laid down and Jade used the magic to take the pain away and Logan did the process.
The A rank mana was a big pressure on his senses but that didn’t stop his progress in finding it slowly and slowly opening the channels.
When it finally connected, Logan stepped back as he felt his mana leak out of her body.
That said, the A rank mana didn’t. It instantly began to leave the mana pool and enter into the veins even if slowly but it clearly entered her veins and everyone with the golden eyes could see that every vein it passed began to glow like it was evolving.
It continued until it entered her heart and it instantly covered her entire heart and spread through her body as her blood pumped, spreading more and more until her entire body was covered in this evolutionary light.
“This! She isn’t pure human!” Max exclaimed.
As this happened, her body began to float and from her back, four long but thin insect-like wings began to form while mana gathered in abundance as two tiny horns formed on her head and she landed on her feet as the body stopped glowing.
Her appearance was the same, a small girl but her hair had grown out and the four wings were fluttering disconnected but still very much connected to her. That said, as they felt amazed by the evolution, Logan noticed something, “All the A rank mana, it was completely consumed!” he shouted.
When he said that, they all seemed to wake up and also noticed that. Although it was amazing and she had a very magical presence now, her body lacked any A rank mana.
Maxwell didn’t wait and walked over and took her hand and focused hard as his eyes looked deeper. “I see… She is the daughter of a male fairy and a female human. Her fairy blood was likely inactive and memories of it were gone. Tell me, do you remember your father?” He asked.
“No, my mother was a single mother.” She said.
“Yes, as expected. Fairies rarely appear to humans and those that do are very nice. Likely, he used a lot of power to become as big as your mother because fairies are the size of your hand. It likely loved her but had to retreat to restore his life force. He probably hid all knowledge of it after a few years like that and should have been during the war.” Max said.
“My mom died because of disease and my dad was said to be dead from the war so I was left alone.” Helen said.
“Don’t worry, this A rank mana, it was likely meant to push back the poison until you could get cured or simply live a more normal life. Maybe as a side effect, with this process done, your fairy blood obtained sufficient mana to awaken. You are an active hybrid fairy and your magical abilities will only grow better but that doesn’t mean you can stop your training. Having strong mana means nothing without skill to use it.” Max said.
She nodded, “Thank you for helping me.” She said to everyone.
“Alright, Logan, take her back to rest. I’ll be busy for the next few days.” Max said.
“Where is Olivia?” Logan asked.
“She is still training the new forms to the kids but it isn’t going that well since they aren’t respecting her as much as us who follow Maxwell more.” one of the A ranks said.
Logan thought for a moment and sent Helen to go rest. He then began to stretch, “Where is she?” he asked.
They pointed to the field she was and then he asked for the bag with all the weapons and headed to the field where Olivia was trying to train over 600 children alone and failing spectacularly.
He walked through their poor ranks and called her.
She sighed and let them go when he said that there were important things to deal with.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Get a large room so i can show you.” He said.
She just led him to a random big room and he brought out all the weapons, organized. “Pick out a weapon from each element and weapon type, I’ve done the same.” he said simply.
“All these weapons…!” She said, shocked.
“Max had them made while we traveled, choose yours so that Hydra would grow.” He said.
She looked and nodded.
Logan told her about the resonance and like him she looked for them and then filled the remaining spots until she had one of each available category done and fixed it up inside Hydra while Logan stored up the weapons.
He watched as Hydra began to glow stronger as the elemental energies grew.
When she was done, she woke up and was startled.
“Hydra is now generating a lot of elemental power thanks to the weapons. You are going to need to train the mana development and grind it all and absorb everything down. It will give you a big boost.” He said. “I’ll protect you here while you do that, if the new generation comes, I’ll deal with it.” he said.
She looked and nodded and began to flow it.
“Hold the handle with both hands and flow the mana through both hands in and out of Hydra like that.” Logan said.
She was a little surprised before holding the Nodachi facing up like Logan did when he had gotten his epiphany.
He watched and as she trained he felt like the flow was getting stronger but it didn’t pass that last hurdle. That said she was very concentrated and the mana was stuffing them both.
“Hydra, the leak point is at the tip of your sword.” He said simply and suddenly the mana flow changed and gathered at the tip and it finally broke through.
Suddenly mana all around began to gather towards the sword as the mana filled and entered the body until it reached the handle but would not break the limit of Olivia’s body. However, she had fully fallen into feeling nothing but herself and Hydra.
“You won’t break that limit there, it is in the mana pool, there are veins in the acupoint of the heart that must be connected to the veins of the heart to let mana fill her body.” Logan once more informed the sword and it instantly transformed into a tanto and she moved it as mana gathered and finally touched her heart. “So that is what it looked like when i did it. If someone appeared, during this, it would be dangerous as you could be killed by your own weapon if they have ill intent.” Logan thought.
The point began to glow as it developed quickly until it finally reached the veins.
The mana finally found an outlet but it did not stop gathering, purifying and compressing as it entered her body. Light that adapted her body flashed until like all the others, a film formed to contain her mana. From there the mana calmed down but it continued to gather as her body and mana pool were slowly filling up until it was completely full.
Logan sat down and just watched her as the sun set and eventually rose when she opened her eyes and felt the amazing difference in her body.
Logan grinned and congratulated her on achieving the dream of humans and explained what happened.
“Seriously!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, you should get a good spar to figure out your strength. How about we have those punks watch while we have a bit of sparring to our highest limit and see which of us is stronger now?” Logan asked.
Olivia blinked before a cat-like grin appeared on her face. She had never gotten respect from them even as she tried to beat it in. They had fought but holding back she never reached a point of even using the full sword magic because it was dangerous but now she could. Logan was just like her, a golden lion sword, close levels of strength and most importantly the weapon art.
She felt excited just to fight someone equal so they gathered for breakfast and headed to the training field as the new generation was less than excited.
“Alright, we aren’t going to start training, instead, since I have been away awhile we are going to fight each other going all out. None of you have even started using the full weapon techniques because you are all too lazy to relearn the ancient style from what i heard. We are going to give you a complete demonstration, if you all can follow along, then good job. Now get to the seating area and out of our way!” Logan shouted.
The disciples grumbled hearing him and just casually walked off to a layered seat area clearly showing that Olivia wasn’t putting her foot down hard enough.
The two separated by over 100 meters and Logan shouted, “Until you get used to it, I’ll stay defensive but I judge how long that is.” Logan shouted.
He drew Arashi and she transformed into a two handed sword that radiated earth magic. He turned it and stabbed down and suddenly the area became heavier and it was filled with earth mana and high gravity. “Beast King’s Unfazing Stance.” He said.
This stance was a strong defensive stance which increased pressure. It weakened your foe and their magic while buffing the caster and those he sees as allies strength making it a powerful defensive posture.
His body was low, reducing his center of gravity and openings.
Olivia was not stupid and knew to attack from the front but her body felt off but she felt excited to work this feeling out.
Hydra began to glow and she rushed forward until she was just outside the field of magic and swung Dawn’s Horizon.
BOOM!
It smashed into the magic and began to move towards Logan but their equal power ground away at the attack despite the short distance and impact onto the sword.
Instantly the ground behind Logan burst and filled with cracks as he withstood it until the spell broke and he jumped back to let off the last of the power as Arashi came off the ground.
Olivia looked at her hands and stabbed Hydra down as her fists began to light up.
Logan laughed and sheathed Arashi and his own fists began to glow like her own.
“Fist of Regulus!” they both shouted and shot forward.
Logan defended by meeting her fist to fist and this set off shockwaves. They were slow but they both started going faster and faster as they began to clad themselves and their brains began to work faster matching their speeds.
Soon the new generation could only feel the shockwaves when they both split and appeared for a moment as their weapons appeared and changed and they shot forward as golden lights filled the field growing more intense. Those who could follow, that was only the ones who had some kind of enhancement magic for their eyes or a skill similar to brain overclock to follow the movements, felt their mouth dry from the immense power displayed.
This fight continued for a full hour until the two finally came to a stop as their swords met one last time as they focused all their power into the last attack, causing the ground under them to collapse.
Finally they had no energy left to fight and were breathing hard but they both were grinning as they both felt incredibly refreshed. Logan had fought but maybe because he finished the fight with the construct quite soon, before it fully learned his style and made it impossible to beat, he had destroyed it.
Fighting Olivia was different, they both knew everything each other knew but each had their own style of implementing it.
As they slowly sheathed their weapons they began to laugh. Logan felt completely relaxed, the first time in a long time he didn’t feel much mental baggage because he simply let loose. It was amazing when you had someone who could follow you blow for blow. Having someone stronger take it might even cause stress but having a rival is an amazing feeling.
They looked around at all the scars and craters and laughed at the destruction they caused. “This place is a mess but compared to dad…” Olivia said.
They both nodded, it was even more true now that they had gone up a rank. She was aware that all the old generation was having this done and soon these young generation kids would have this as well. The mana would feed their body mana just like monsters and it would be much easier to balance their strength as they grew. Humans were extremely rigid as a race but that didn’t mean they could not adapt and evolve. All that was required was technique and knowledge.
They walked out of the final crater and looked at the new generation. They both grinned as they saw the fear and awe on their faces.
“Go on.” Logan muttered.
Olivia took a step forward, “So, what do you all think of the ancient techniques? Still as weak as you all believed them to be?” she shouted, her voice resonating throughout the field.
They all suddenly stood up in unison out of fear. “NO SIR!”.
“Good, once the field is fixed we will start training from the beginning, I do not want to see messing ranking and I want full dedication!” She shouted.d
“YES SIR!” they roared once more.
She dismissed them and they all walked out but were orderly and in single file lines.
Far away, on a high building, the adults laughed, “Well, your daughter isn’t good with initiative but it is quite clear that you raised one hell of a Vice leader for her.” one of the A ranks said laughing.
“A good leader needs good subordinates, an organization is an organism, we have to properly grow the good parts so that bad parts do not take over.” Max replied.
They all nodded in agreement.
“Come on boys, we still have a number of you bastards to finish up. Once that is done you all can take care of your own kids. Then we need to go to dungeons and get a huge number of ogre horns to have the supply for all the monsters or it will be hard to figure out each monster’s mana body condition.” Max shouted. “We need this done quickly because our little leader and Vice leader have the rights to have their grudges resolved.” Max said
They all exclaimed and walked inside as the A ranks began to each work on the B ranks to get through this quickly.