515 Tree of Holy Ligh (1/2)

”Cleansing all Chaos and distortions. This is Holy Light, a power of Order.”

Holy Light was a new power that arose from the previous Holy War. But in this Holy War, it received a new definition. The Southern Sect's new edition of the Holy Codex directly abandoned the Holy Church's way of describing Holy Light as a gift from the God of Holy Light. Instead, the Southern Sect explained Holy Light in the simplest of terms.

”Holy Light is a type of high-purity positive energy. Its core Concept is Cleansing. The way it cleanses is by forcefully restoring Chaos, distorted creatures, or distorted energy back to Order.”

This type of explanation sounded more like what a mage or alchemist would say. According to the first pope of the Southern Sect, the divine Holy Light was actually something ordinary that could be researched. Although the daring archmages long since had such a point of view, ordinary devout priests and Holy Knights all had their worldviews completely upturned.

If this was a materialistic world of nature like my original world, this would have merely been a divide in church sects. However, Eich was a world where Concepts really existed, so things were completely different.

In the past, Holy Knights and Holy Light priests had simply prayed to the Gods, asking for the gift of Holy Light. So, they would level up extremely quickly after receiving the gift of Holy Light. However, this also meant that they had a poor understanding of Holy Light itself, meaning they had poor foundation. No matter how strong Holy Light was, it still belonged to someone else. After reaching a certain level, they would all reach a bottleneck in their power level. Only those who were truly favored by the Gods would receive the most divine power.

Back when I received the wondrous title of ”Child of Holy Light”, that was because I reached Legend rank at the miraculous age of 14. And, I reached that rank primarily because of my unique understanding of Holy Light.

And now, the ”Salvation of Holy Light incident” with Estrada's death in the eastern Bardi plains caused countless Holy Light job class members to reassess the very meaning of Holy Light. Believers in the teachings of ”Pure Holy Light” instead of Holy Light were now spreading all over the world. Holy Light was downgraded from a God-given gift to a more ordinary power. In fact, even many regular mages had begun researching Holy Light and treating it as nothing more than another type of energy.

Holy Light was no longer treated as divine. Perhaps this affected the high status of some Holy Light job class members and Cardinals, but this had far deeper of an impact on how people used Holy Light.

In just the past seven years, after the shackles on how people viewed Holy Light were cast off, it was just like opening a treasure trove of knowledge. There were plenty of expert Holy Light users in this world to begin with, and now that people were allowed to research Holy Light, countless new Holy Light Divine Arts and techniques were born. This only fueled the belief that Holy Light was indeed researchable, helping to shatter the old shackles even more. In the end, this created an entire revolution of Holy Light.

After all, fanaticism and worship would commonly lead a person the farthest away from the truth. And, oftentimes, things weren't truly impossible. People simply didn't dare to do them, or even dare to think about doing them…

Currently, my Yongye City opened up its shadowy canopy. Various seeds were sprouting from the garden in midair atop all the buildings, on top of the ancient Tree of Life.

The tree was being enveloped in a golden glow. Its roots and branches seemed to be crystallized. Liquid energy flowed within it as all the seeds rapidly matured. These translucent crystals gradually expanded to the size where the branches sagged from their weight.

”Seeds of Holy Light…”

This wasn't a spell that I invented. This was actually a spell that the archpriests in the Southern Sect invented... well, although they plagiarized it as well.

The foundational working of this spell was similar to the druids' Seeds of Life spell. Only Holy Light experts like the Southern Sect's archpriests who had studied Holy Light for many decades could have imitated a completely different branch of magic's spell to use as their own.

Although this spell was plagiarized from the druids, I was probably the only person in the world who could show off the maximum potential of this spell.

”After all, I have the second-generation Tree of Life right here. This is a top-class tree that even the elf kingdoms don't have many of!”

”How did you get it?”

”I stole it!”

I gave a big thumbs up and had a proud expression as I said this. When considering our relationship (hatred) with the elf kingdoms, I felt no guilt whatsoever at having stolen from them.

Although the silly cat seemed not to care with her expression, she was actually the one who told me the elves' Tree of Life's location and how to secretly enter the forbidden district. This past Gold Elf princess would be far more proactive than anyone else in the world as long as it involved the ”bastard long-ears who forgot their honor and loyalty suffering misfortune”, even if she was technically one of those long-ears herself.

And right now, this incredibly rare second-generation Tree of Life activated its astonishing power. A tremendous amount of Holy Light entered it, causing numerous Holy Light crystals to form on its branches.

”47%, 46%, 44%. We're now lower than the safe amount of energy to be. Shall we continue?”

”Notify me when we reach 30%. We need to keep a minimum of 10% extra energy for backup.”

Although we were using the Winged Tribe's floating city technology, Yongye City was overloaded on equipment and facilities, making it require even more energy than normal to stay afloat. At only a 20% energy level, Yongye City wouldn't even be able to float or keep up its defensive shields anymore.

A tremendous amount of Yongye City's mana reserves were transformed into the power of Holy Light. All the ancient artifacts and churches I stole from the Holy Church acted as the best energy transformers. But despite this, the energy transforming efficiency would only be 70% at maximum.

As the Seeds of Holy Light grew ever bigger on the branches, our energy reserves started dipping rather low. And, Conservation noticed that we were preparing something, so she unhesitatingly started attacking us without stopping. Although Harloys successfully blocked all her spell attacks, our energy reserves were dipping dangerously low.

”Damn it, this floating city's mana battery still has such a small capacity. I need to find one with a bigger capacity next time.”

”I remember that you stole the Cloud Tower's backup energy battery, which is probably the strongest energy battery for a mage tower in the entire world. Where are you going to steal a better one than this? A real Titan's heart?”

”Nice idea! Let's steal from the Titans next time! They're currently living in my land, so it's time that they paid some rent.”

”Is a Titan's heart a true perpetual energy source? Isn't that just a false rumor created by other people?”

”I don't know if they can be perpetual energy sources or not, but as long as we catch a Titan to produce energy for us, we definitely won't need to worry about lacking energy in the future. Isn't this such a pure and harmless perpetual motion machine?”

I kept cracking terrible jokes that might come true one day, but we were currently worried about our energy level that had now reached 34%. Right now, the entire canopy of Yongye City was opened up, while the main body of the Tree of Life was still here with us. However, the light extending out of the tree had now covered all of Yongye City.

If you looked at it from afar, you would see that a giant tree of light had now grown to become larger than the entirety of Yongye City itself. Countless branches of light were extending into the clouds, and the floating city now appeared to be nothing more than a flower vase in comparison to the tree's size. And, the Tree of Holy Light was emanating frightfully powerful shock waves that could easily destroy any undead who got close. Even an idiot undead would have realized that the situation wasn't good for them.

Unfortunately for the undead, no matter how powerful their army was, they couldn't do anything about us. Skeleton archers and ordinary liches would be unable to attack us so high up in the sky. Most of the gargoyles and bone dragons in the Undead Calamity were currently harassing Starwood City. The few present here didn't even dare to get anywhere close to the Tree of Holy Light. The only threat that remained was Conservation's constant bombardment of long-distance magical attacks.

”Boom!”

But this time, Harloys intentionally conserved mana, and didn't succeed at blocking Conservation's attack. Judging from where the smoke was coming from, Yongye City lost its third negative energy pool, as well as recording room, swimming room, and a candy warehouse… Fine, I admit that losing the last three was no big deal. The lack of candy would only result in a certain cat being displeased, but the loss of a negative energy pool made our energy shortage even worse.

”27%! 25! Just release the spell. We can't hold on any longer, so just release it.”

”This isn't enough, this power level still isn't enough! There's no helping it, we'll have to take this risk.”

While I was still being anxious, a sudden beam of light landed from the outskirts of the sky and directly hit the Tree of Holy Light.

I didn't even have the time to react when that Tree of Holy Light suddenly expanded its size yet again. Its branches were now completely in the clouds. If it wasn't for my personal Hell world's concealment, this gigantic Tree of Holy Light would have been visible from Starwood City.

And by the stars, at the very top of Hell, on the very top of the golden Pillar of Holy Light of Salvation, a faint tall figure was waving at me, seemingly trying to tell me something.

”What's he saying?”