Ch 26: Signs of Divinus and Aspects

A little while later Baldeur's fear came closer to being realized. The head inspector returned with a stoic look.

"His eminence would like to meet with all of you." He said.

The group had no choice but to follow him out of the old cathedral. As they did, Baldeur noticed a different inspector break away from them and head in another direction.

They were on the outer edge of the city and the city walls were on one side while the major part of the city could be seen rising upward on a massive hill.

A few streets over, just as the streets began to slope up the hill, they came to a grander cathedral than the one containing the gate. It was kept in good condition, showing that it was still in use.

However, at this time there were armored priests that were keeping people away.

The head inspector saluted the priests and the priests gave the group a bow as they were let into the cathedral. The citizens that had come to pray either gave them confused or scornful looks.

The large entry way contained seven stained glass windows depicting the seven spirits that this religion worshiped.

Each of Baldeur's group had amulets around their necks that allowed them to understand the native language. It took a moment for the words under each stained glass figure to be translated in their minds.

Faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence.

Since these were often seen as the opposite of the sins of Infernius, Baldeur began to understand the inspector's reaction to Ailsing. Of course he knew that was a misunderstanding of how the two Sources were related to each other.

Many people thought of it as a direct opposite of Infernius and its sins but that wasn't fully the case.

Divinus works through order and mathematics, not through the understanding of virtues. That's why its power is triggered through song.

It wasn't until they entered the main part of the cathedral that Baldeur began to put things together even more. He could feel Divinus Source energy coming from deep below the building.

It was extremely faint and impossible to feel outside of this room. Baldeur wasn't even sure most Divinus users would be able to feel it. He also didn't think it was naturally produced Source energy but more likely collected from the devotion of those that came to pray.

Then there was what was carved into the columns and the walls. The amulet couldn't translate what most people thought of as purely decorative scrawlings.

But Baldeur could read the curved lines and intersecting geometric shapes since it was the written language of Celestion, where Baldeur lived his fourth life as an angel.

He hadn't encountered anything from the other worlds he had lived on in the City of Gates, but was encountering it now. Why?

While Baldeur was reading the Celestion writing, the rest of the group was focused on the man near the altar that had his back to them. He was wearing long red robes with gold trim.

When he turned around he had a charming smile and short cut lite blonde hair. He looked to be in his mid 20's and the women in the group found it hard not to be attracted to him.

"Hmm, commendable. You've developed the nature aspect of mating to a really high degree. Especially for someone your age. You must be the one that wanted to meet us." Piaras words pulled everyone out of the daze that he had put them in.

The women had a mix of embarrassment and anger going through their minds. No one liked being charmed, especially in that way. They also wondered why he used his magic like that since he was very attractive just on his own.

"I thank you for your compliment. I understand that you have four aspects, that isn't an easy feat either, no matter how old you are." The man responded.

Sources like Mana and Qi had set boundaries that were easy to identify and rank its users against; nine circles and nine realms.

It was harder to do that with Anodular. The more one understands about the aspect of nature that they have a connection with, the stronger they become in matters related to that aspect.

Take Baldeur's Winter aspect for example. The easiest understanding comes in the form of it being colder, along with snow and ice being a feature. Cold based magic in Anodular came easier for him than it did for Aisling. While her Wild Hunt aspect allowed her to use better tracking magic.

But Winter also means the lack of growth, the silence of a snowing plain, the sleep of the longer nights, and other abstract thoughts.

A user of Anodular had to reach a certain level of understanding in their current aspects before they could make a connection to another aspect of nature. And with each additional aspect, the depth of understanding needed to add a new aspect increased.

In addition, the more aspects you had the harder it was to even progress in any, as your attention was being pulled in different directions.

That meant that someone with a very deep understanding of one aspect could be much more powerful than someone with more.

Understanding three aspects was considered average, making Piaras' four just above average.

Baldeur understood winter to the point that he could add a second aspect but he wasn't sure which he wanted at the moment.

He figured that with his talent he'd be able to have six or seven aspects within a decade. After that it would take a decade before he'd be able to understand another and the time for each after that would double. Meaning it would take him over 600 years to connect to all 13 aspects.

Since he'd start aging slower and slower the higher he went in all of his Sources, that wasn't out of the question. He just needed to decide what to do in the short term.

Infernius worked in a similar manner; needing to understand a sin to become more powerful. The major difference was that a user of Infernius didn't need to reach a certain level of understanding to start learning other sins.

Their primary sin would always be the easiest for them to understand but they could gain different levels of insight into any of the sins at any moment.

Unlike his previous life Baldeur's primary sin wasn't Envy but Pride.

"Where are my manners. My name is High Priest Sansone Dorie." The man said.

Piaras then introduced them one by one. When he introduced Aisling, Baldeur detected a tinge of lust from the priest that quickly vanished. But he wasn't paying too much attention to that, as he was focused on the altar behind Sansone.

While the carvings were an interesting find, they seemed to be copied from something else for aesthetic purposes. The sentences were out of order and were only about very basic first and second choir music theory.

But that altar was made from pure Singing Stone. It was capable of storing Divinus Source energy and even collecting strong devotion and turning it into Divinus energy. But more importantly, pure Singing Stone shouldn't be found outside of worlds that had Divinus as a Source. Only lesser qualities.

Baldeur was finding this world very interesting. If only that man didn't say what he said next.