Chapter 29: Leaving the Church of the Holy Light

When I saw that the room was on the verge of collapsing, I quickly ran and grabbed Stephanie and the wisp to get them out of the room. I analyzed their conditions through the power of the Library, and it appears that Stephanie is in pretty big trouble, but I still have time before she goes critical. As for the wisp, he is on the verge of dying. With the help of my mana, I healed most of his grievous wounds to stop him from dying. Due to my mana cultivation being so low, I felt so weak afterward. I contemplated if I should meditate, but with the commotion that happened earlier inside the room, I doubt that we would remain safe for much longer. With the last of energy, I carried both the wisp and Stephanie to the nearest room I saw. It turned out that it was the room of the old knight which I was able to determine upon seeing a picture of him hanging on the wall. I didn’t have the strength to look around and all I noticed was a stack of papers and a picture frame facing down on top of a desk.

I am so out of strength to the point that I might pass out. But then I remembered the liquid droplet that Jolly gave me before entering the portal. As I licked the liquid, it had a sweet taste to it. That sweet taste traveled down to my tongue and spread all throughout my body. As I felt the sweetness flowing, I felt my fatigue being washed away. After a little while, I felt a whole lot better. Now that I have enough energy to take care of Stephanie, I looked through her book once more. Stephanie's soul is not yet fully healed from the repeated cutting brought by her previous health condition. And just earlier, her entire soul was dragged out of her body. With all these traumas, Stephanie’s soul is now once again on the verge of dissipating. Right now, the only way to save Stephanie is by making her undergo the Spirit Awakening ritual. Thankfully, I gained knowledge about this ritual upon receiving the Bestowal of the Teacher and getting a hold of my personal collection.

With the Spirit Awakening ritual, I can show the true form of her soul. For people who undergo this kind of ritual, there are two possible results. First, if the soul turns into an object, the soul would be an extension of one’s self. Second, if the soul turns into an animal, the body of the soul would take on the characteristics of the said animal. The only caveat of performing this ritual is that the soul will always be bound to the body. Along the path of cultivation for people who have not undergone this ritual, leaving the body through the soul is possible. In some cases, splitting the soul is also possible. This is not the case for Stephanie because her soul will always be bound to her body once she undergoes the ritual. This Spirit Awakening ritual isn’t that hard. I just have to rouse the spirit, and eventually, the soul would show its true self. Then, Stephanie would just have to take hold of her soul-spirit. But as I pumped the first bit of mana, Stephanie's soul turned stronger. It seems that the Heavenly Way’s mana can cure not just the body, but also the soul through nourishing. Right, I have just remembered that the mana that people are using in this new world has a spiritual side. With this, I won’t have to go through the ritual, and Stephanie would still be able to choose the future for her soul.

I waited for both of them to awaken. While I was waiting, I sat down, meditated, and thought about what had happened since the bestowal. Various thoughts started flooding my mind. "I killed a person. Is that fine?" "It should be fine, right? I only did it to protect Stephanie from being taken forcefully." If the spiritual side does exist, doesn’t that mean that the afterlife exists? Maybe killing their bodies isn’t so bad since their souls can still go on and continue to exist in the afterlife. My thoughts then drifted to how we will escape. I guess the rest of the people here are only at Rank 5 or below. We should be pretty safe if they are only at that level. While I was thinking this, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and a clearly annoyed Stephanie was the first thing I saw. “MEDITATE HERE, MEDITATE THERE. WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP MEDITATING? WE ARE IN DANGER, YOU KNOW?! After your fight with the warrior, you just sat down and ignored me. And then, a second guard came walking near the room. I had no choice but to willingly go with him to start the ritual because if I chose to resist, he might threaten me by killing the defenseless you! When the light descended down, the wisp here, entered through the stained windows of the ritual hall, and tried to stop it, but the ritual had begun, and I already lost my consciousness. I do believe that you are the only capable person to get us out of here so please stop meditating while we are in danger. Save that for later, will you? You can meditate all you want once we're safe!"

Being awoken by that speech, I felt my face heating up because I was embarrassed about what was happening. Good thing, my mask is still on and she can’t see my face blushing. She's right, I should have kept guard rather than meditate at this critical juncture. With me and Stephanie, escaping through the portal won’t be so hard, especially now that her body strength is equal to that of a Rank-5 warrior. We then devised a plan on how we could escape. I told Stephanie that she needs to be aware of the surroundings while she carries the wisp out. She readily agreed to this. My job, on the other hand, is to take care of any trouble that may come our way. Luckily, there weren’t any. When we reached the main entrance of the church building, I saw that the ground was littered with injured bodies of knights. I must say that the wisp did a great job of fulfilling his part in our previous plan. Seeing as we haven’t been attacked since we left the ritual room, it is very likely that the only people remaining are non-combatants like the support staff, cooks, cleaners, and orphans. I guess these people are operating a rather legit church business, doing their part to help the community. We were finally able to leave the church vicinity. We then walked through the dirt road headed down to the stone archway that leads to nowhere.