Myths Reawakened

Unsurprisingly, the subsequent tries all ended with failure. Even though Silvia kept encouraging him that failure was the mother of success, that he shouldn’t give up, the outlook didn’t seem promising.

Only success could give birth to success. Failure couldn’t be success’s mother, not even a stepmother.

Wayne failed more than ten times consecutively, making Silvia question herself. “Doesn’t make sense,” she muttered. “Is the original bloodline this absurdly great that even a sacred artifact isn’t enough to guide him?”

She frowned, wondering where she would find a better sacred artifact.

Wayne felt ashamed to have made his master worry over him. She had done well enough. The problem lay in him, so not even another sacred artifact would help; it would only end up becoming another feast for the Book of Greed.

Wait, the Book of Greed!

His eyes lit up. Right, why would he need some artifact? He only needed Nature’s divine power, which was plentiful in the Book of Greed.

Realizing that, he sat down and crossed his legs, closing his eyes to meet the gaze of the large eye of the Book of Greed. Once he was in the book’s perspective, he looked toward one of the smaller eyes beside it that represented Nature. Every time the book swallowed divine power related to Nature, the eye would become a little brighter.

It lit up, supplying him with the refined divine power of Nature. The light washed over his mana and turned him into a human green light, so radiant that Silvia could barely open her eyes.

Silvia gaped, quickly looking at his hand. The card was glowing. She promptly squeezed his shoulder and rattled off, “The sacred artifact didn’t release everything in the previous few tries. This is a rare opportunity. You’ll succeed this time.”

Wayne didn’t hear her clearly. Under the violent waves of mana, his void and self couldn’t maintain stability, and the two glowing points dissolved into particles. With the formula running its course, the light enveloped Nature’s divine power and slowly took shape.

The glowing hexagram in his body dispersed, replaced by a vague cross star.

God!

Life!

Void!

Self!

The four components each occupied a corner in pairs, and the hexagonal border reshaped into a square. Wayne looked over. The brightest point of the cross star was life, followed by god. On the other hand, void and self were dimmest due to being exhausted.

“Master, I su—”

He turned to Silvia in elation, but his words were quickly muffled.

)`‸눈)

“You did it, Wayne!”

Silvia grabbed her student’s head with one arm, ruffling his hair with genuine joy for him.

Wayne knew she saw him as a son, but this was his second life, and he had lived for more than thirty years; he couldn’t bear such hefty motherly love. He extracted himself with difficulty.

Silvia smiled, patting him on the shoulder. This was not only her student’s success, but also hers. She had witnessed his mana turning green. He now belonged to the Goddess of Nature, so she never had to worry about him getting lured away.

At least the Goddess of Darkness and the Goddess of Death could no longer seduce him. But Sun and Moonlight...

Silvia barely had time to be happy before she started sighing again. In the end, it was the inside job that was the most difficult to prevent. The smartest enemies often pretended to be allies.

Oh, and the Free Mage Alliance!

She grabbed Wayne and started lecturing him about the dark history of the Church of Sun and the Church of Moonlight, as well as the many misdeeds of the Free Mage Alliance, trying to convince him that all outsiders were terrible.

Master, this is gaslighting! It’s wrong!

Wayne listened seriously without making any comment. Yes, not only were all people bad, they were devilish. It was okay, though, since he wasn’t a good person, either.

Silvia ranted for a full hour. Her student was so talented that she couldn’t rest easy even after the spiel. She wondered if she should give Wayne a heavier workload so that he would be trapped in the church, rarely seeing the sunlight outside. It wouldn’t matter how many tricks the temptresses in the wild could pull when he never even encountered them.

But she couldn’t!

The more talented a mage was, the more they should be venturing into the real world. Sitting in an office would only make one mediocre. Silvia slapped her forehead. She would love to make her student her assistant, but Flora was at the head office in Windsor. If Flora set her eyes on her extraordinary student...

The child was young. He would certainly give himself away for free.

Silvia found it necessary to warn him, so she lowered her voice and said, “I have a rival at the church. Our relationship has been antagonistic for a long time. Her name’s Flora Evelina. If you ever run into her, be careful. She’s the cunning type. Don’t let her fool you.”

“Is she not a priestess of the church?” Wayne remembered hearing that name somewhere in Cambrook County, when his subordinates were talking behind the back of their new leader. He had stayed quiet and secretly collected information.

“She’s the previous Holy Maiden, now retired.”

“An old woman!”

Silvia clicked her tongue. While she liked his comment about Flora, the woman was one year younger than she was. It would be better to call her an ‘oldish woman’.

***

With his Silver Cross completed, Wayne was officially a Silver-rank mage. He didn’t feel the change clearly as his improvement lay in his senses. It was as if he could see better.

At Silver rank, a mage could control their mana with more finesse. Silvia taught Wayne how to conceal his energy with his mana first thing so that other people wouldn’t be able to tell his current rank.

That was a crucial skill. Wayne’s mana was discrete in nature. With the concealment, he would seem no different from a regular person in the crowd, greatly increasing his chance of catching his enemies off guard. She didn’t teach him the techniques of mana manipulation, such as sustaining or blasting mana. One thing at a time. It was best not to bite off more than he could chew.

After the lesson, Silvia took the card back and stashed it in the hidden compartment of her study gingerly. Then she took two books off the shelf to hand over to Wayne.

Knowledge!

In Wayne’s Silver Cross, the void component, which represented knowledge, was dim. He had to learn a great amount regarding faith magic and fill out the god part of his cross. As Silvia had explained before, the key to a mage’s Silver Cross was balance. All four components had to be present.

Wayne left with the books. The study was open to him, so he could come and retrieve other books until he went through everything. Then Silvia would bring more books from the church.

“Young Master Wayne,” Megan appeared behind him like a ghost and handed him an invitation.

“What is this?”

“Master’s business meeting on the fourteenth of the next month. You’re invited.”

“???”