I teleported out of the palace.

I teleported into the nearest market.

I bought a ton of Pureite. It gleamed gold, with a soft gold coloring that seemed like life, and the familiar sheen of Greatite was mixed in.

I put my hammer into it, and that's when it began to speak.

"You, the Chosen, shall prevail."

It spoke in a cryptic voice. I teleported back to the palace.

"Greatite, when fused with complete condensed Life Mana, will create Lifeite. It attacks on four planes:

"Essence, physical, light, and dark.

"Focus mana, as a beam, into the hammer to create the beam of light attack I always use."

A level 75 fodder monster spawned. I focus a paltry 2% of my mana into it.

The shadowy shadow-aspect monster had bolts of pure white mana running through it. Within a second, it was dead as any dark monster should be. A level 95 monster spawned.

Hell.

This idiot probably was carried by his cult to level 200. He probably had no idea what essence compression was, he was that idiotic. He had probably read a few books on hammer theory, written by the level 175s in his cult, and became good at the hammer like that.

I used the bolt with 15% of my mana. It was stunned, but I knew that wouldn't do it in. I used my transcendence, which created a cage of Greatite hammers. It should have been stuck in there, but it had a trump card too.

The entire room turned into shadows for a second, allowing it to escape. It hit me.

I felt darkness spreading from the chest where it had hit me into my head. I fought it off, with my Truth fighting it's. But I would prevail.

"I am the Warhammer."

As I said that, I got a 25% boost to all physical stats.

It also utterly repelled that false truth out of my body.

"I squash your life, and reap your death."

Power flew into my limbs.

I had no time to think.

I was on the elemental, in striking position, in the blink of an eye.

I brought my hammer down.

When my hammer flew down, it slowly changed from gray to red, as did my skin.

It hit the elemental harder than I had thought possible.

I collapsed.

I was in the land of one thousand deaths again.

"Child, you have found your Mandate Phrase. I guess it's time you are not merely a child, but an adult."

"I won't restrain myself."

I flew at the idiot, hammer blazing. I would not be stopped.

"I end your death, and bring you into my embrace."

My spirit shuddered at the sentence. I was being completely repressed.

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"I am the Warhammer."

If a Truth was level 75, this must have been level 200.

It made no difference.

"I squash your life, and I reap your death."

There was still no reprise.

I focused all my mana into my hammer. I focused it into a needle-like beam. I let it fly.

A tiny beem of pure gold energy flew at the shadow. It was small, but the shadows were being repressed. Not by much. But still, I was managing a weak attack against a level 200.

I was stronger than any idiot level 87 from Cancall. I'd kill one like nothing more than a bug.

"Okay. It's time to stop toying around."

The beam was abruptly stopped. A blast of shadow so powerful that any normal level 79 should have been annihilated by seeing it flew at me.

A golden shield blocked it.

"Brother, no. Go and nurture your own chosen, not drag mine into your realm."

The beam of light, much more powerful from the sheer compression of the level 200's compression alone, not to mention any skills he probably had for his bread-and-butter attack.

A blast of shadow flew at it. The darkness was intense enough that my perception was completely rendered useless.

The blast subsided, and neither looked any worse.

The light king focused a blast of pure light that was so bright I doubted anyone in any of the five empires could see anything.

The light king then grabbed me and teleported both of us out.

"I don't know how, but the dark king just pulled you into his realm. Here, take this ring. Touch the diamond on it three times, and it will send me a notification. However, only use this if someone you cannot escape from attacks. As it will let me hone onto it until you turn it off, by clicking it three times again after I've come, if I don't arrive within two minutes, I'm either in the middle of an intense fight, or wounded. If that happens, it will notify all high priests.

"I will have to see how that happens for me to teach you how to resist, but until then, you'll keep learning. At this learning speed, you're going to become one of the strongest Light has ever seen. By level 90, you should be able to fight dark.

"That'll be one of the proudest days of my life: my disciple killing the king of darkness. Until then, I want you to become the most powerful."

A level 189 monster spawned two feet on top of me.

"Hell."

This was going to be the end for me. I tried shooting a beam of light, but before my mana had moved at all, the king had shota beam of light at it, breaking all three of the arcane elemental's cores, instantly killing it.

"What was that?"

"Random monster spawning. Nothing to worry about, there's usually a level 160 with high training on the street, and plus, that was a boss."

"I'll have you fight level 85 hordes for exp. I want you at level 80 before we began training for real."

He clicked a button for level 85 shadow elementals a few hundred times, and they spawned.

I used an attack, whirlwind, to suck all the shadows near me. Once they were all near, the attack had them within the range of my hammer, which executed all the fodder.

"Okay. Those were just a warm-up. Here's the real deal."

Level 85 shadow elementals came, much stronger. I used that attack, but they resisted. Armor without an attack wasn't much good, so I shot out a few bolts. The elementals hit fell to the ground, shocked. I teleported to each one, and slammed it a few times with my hammer in rapid succession, killing it.

Rinse. Repeat.

After I had killed 1,100 monsters, I was dismissed. I went home.

On the way home, I checked my armor.

It was basic arcanite stuff from when I was level 68.

Hell, that was outdated.

However, the Sasomac Empire had no diamond-section blacksmith, so I was just making it work with endless crudely applied reinforcements.

Now, though, it was affecting my movement. I knew I needed a new set of armor.

I went out shopping. The vast majority of cult members were level 150 mages who used an aspect to do something with light or life. Or were healers. Mages and healers wore robes, though, so I was in a bad position. I knew my only hope was to get something custom-made.

I went to the blacksmith. It was a small, heated stone room, with a desk. There were two people, one a level 155 blacksmith, the other a girl who seemed 19 or 20.

The girl was standing at a desk. "Sir, what shall I do for you today?"

"I want a custom-made armor."

"Would you like a complementary weapon?"

"No. I'll get the exact details hammered out with the blacksmith."

"Okay. He should be ready in fifteen minutes."

"Okay."

I teleported just outside the shop, and tried the seed of eternal truth. It went just like every previous time had.

Fifteen minutes were over once I emerged. The blacksmith was waiting outside the desk, a man with huge muscles and a short beard, with goggles.

"Okay. What would you like, great Chosen? It'll be free for you."

This was so much better than the early Earth days.

I said, "I know all blacksmiths need measurements, but I don't want to go through that hassle again. Here's the chart the blacksmith for another armor gave me."

He took it. "What runes would you like, sir? I can customize the armor any way you like, but one rune, a cooling rune, will cost a gold coin, as I'm out of gold, and it needs gold. I will give you one back later, though."

"I'd like all of set 6, 8, 27, and 543."

"Yes, sir. Make?"

"I'd like ring spots on all fingers, a stress chain visor, plate connection joints, quadruple layer, with only Lifeite, rough grips-"

"Sir, the Legendary Hammerist armor has all that you've asked for, plus thousands more life support systems, for only 3/4 of the price."

"Sure, I'll take that.

"Okay. It'll take two days to make."

And I had a lesson tomorrow.