Trying to Sacrifice my reward from Ritual was what reminded me just how many things there were that I needed to pay attention to now. I no longer had only Gravity and Sacrifice as my Aspects to rank up. Now I had Flare, Illumination, and Ritual, on top of my original two. Then there were all my Attributes still hungering for Augmentations since they had hit Silver.

Naturally, I didn’t have enough time in a single day to look over all of that. Technically, I could, but that wasn’t going to result in any meaningful progress in any of them.

Considering how long it had taken just to get the Concentration Affix for Flare, I felt I had enough proof for that conclusion.

Instead, I liked it better when I could focus on one or two Aspects, do my best to rank them up however I could, and then move on to the next Aspect. If everyone had to deal with more and more Aspects as they ranked up, I was starting to understand the underlying principle that higher rank tiers needed more and more time to gain ranks.

I was definitely not getting through Silver in less than a month the same way I had gone through Iron.

Sacrifice tried to work. The sensation was strange. Mana burned to life within me, buzzing and sparking as the livewire threads snaked within my body, I felt a certain internal snap.

A strange snap. Like there was something Sacrifice was trying to latch onto but couldn’t grab hold of for whatever reason.

“Did it work?” Sreketh asked tentatively, watching my expression.

I shook my head, but I kept my smile anyway. “It didn’t. But I think I’m close and just missing a small something to make it click.”

Sreketh rubbed her small hands together. “Let me know when you figure it out. Then I’ll make sure I’ve got it when I get Sacrifice.”

I laughed. Sacrifice’s seeming failure—even though I wasn’t taking it as such—just reminded me I needed to focus on getting an Augmentation for Fervour.

“I would appreciate it if you did not use our premises for your own personal advancement,” the Fire Cult leader said in a dry voice. “Or I might start thinking that was your real goal for this meeting.”

“Well…” I scratched the back of my head apologetically. “You’re not wrong.”

I couldn’t fully see their expression, but the glare I was getting unmistakeably grew stronger, so I took my leave and led Aurier and Sreketh out of there. It was a bit disrespectful, I supposed, but I wasn’t exactly demeaning anybody.

“And here I thought I could retire,” Durica was bemoaning as he led his Wind Cult delegation out of the temple. “Follow in old Escinca’s footsteps and all that.”

“But now you can’t?” the Sea Cult leader asked.

Durica started a bit. “Well, in light of new information…”

His old eyes found mine, and the Sea Cult leader stared at me as well. We were all walking away from the Fire Cult temple, and now, we had somehow gotten together into one small group.

I realized they were all staring at me because I had been the one to bring up the Blight Swarm. There was no Kanis here to tell us off against discussing it publicly in fear of making everyone panic.

“I might have some more information about that,” I said, recalling some of the Councillor’s discussion with the Anymphea. “The specifics regarding distances and things like that. But I’m going to need you to answer some things for me too.”

Durica sighed. “Ask away then.”

“What Fervour Augmentations do you have?”

The Wind and Sea Cult all blinked and looked at me in surprise. Their expression made Sreketh snicker.

“That’s what you want to know?” the Sea Cult leader asked.

I shrugged. “Quid pro quo.”

“What?”

“Uh, never mind.” Did the Weave not translate Latin? Or was there no equivalent saying in this world? I found that hard to believe. “Just an even exchange, in my opinion.”

“I have Sacred Manasense,” Durica said. “It allows me to use mana to determine the level of devotion in others.”

The Seal Cult leader—I needed to ask his name one of these days—tutted. “You can just ask people, you know. Instead, I recommend Communal Manapool. That means you can have an additional store of mana based on the number of devotees in your cult. Very handy when you think you’re running out of mana.”

I could see uses for both, though neither particularly appealed to me. More mana had never been by problem. My mana core was flooded with magical energy. It was just by body’s own limitation that didn’t allow me to channel that huge repository.

And now, I realized I had never asked if people felt the same hollowness I did when they ran out of mana, or if it was a different sensation entirely.

After all, they were somewhat different limitations. Most people wouldn’t have incredible sources of mana that would burn out their own bodies before they could channel it all. They would simply run out of mana first. How did that feel like compared to what I felt?

“I see,” I said. “Thank you. Although—”

“Uh, uh, uh.” The Sea Cult leader was wagging a finger disapprovingly. “Your turn to spill the beans. Where did you learn about this Blight Swarm and how far off is it from us?”

The Councillors hadn’t exactly told me to keep everything I had discussed to myself, although I supposed a certain level of discretion went without saying. It wasn’t easy determining what I had to keep under wraps, but I made the best judgment I could.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I explained that I had attended a meeting between the Councillors and a foreign delegation as an interpreter. The foreigners had warned us about the Blight Swarm. Said foreigners had first encountered the Blight Swarm several weeks ago and immediately began moving south. The Swarm had followed, but at a much slower rate.

“They expect it won’t be here for another couple of months or so,” I said. “So we have time to prepare.”

“Foreigners, eh?” Durica scratched his pointy chin. “You must mean the Anymphea.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You knew all along?”

“I suspected, yes. We have seen some of their famous Bloomwagons roll up into Zairgon proper.”

Ah, right. The area of Ring Four overseen by the Sun Cult wasn’t anywhere close to the entrance to Zairgon or the main road leading up to the gates to Ring Three. But that wasn’t true for the other cults. It wasn’t like the Anymphea had flown into the city or something.

They were curious why I of all people was attending, and I explained about Universal Language Approximator, which they found fascinating. Since that led to divulging how exactly I had acquired it via Sacrifice, I made sure to exact a payment of information regarding other possible Augmentations for Fervour.

It wasn’t that I wanted to hide all information about my progress. But I also had no reason to give it away for free to just anybody.

I learned about Enshrined Growth, where progress made by others in my cult would also help me grow too. That sounded like a very powerful way of getting stronger much more quickly than I had been thinking. Another was Mana Rites, where completing anything holy—which included successfully using any one of the Aspects related to my Path of the Apostle—would give me a strong, temporary buff. Another good choice.

There were others that were either tempting or interesting in some way. Mana Zeal where everyone in my cult using the same Aspect simultaneously would make said Aspect grow that much stronger for the duration it was being cast.

Divine Manabless made using Aspects related to my cultist Path cost almost no mana at all.

Faithful Mana allowed regaining mana or recovering from mana overuse much easier just by praying.

Honestly, I had a bit of a dearth of choices to go with. Some were obviously better suited for me than others. I would need to think about them all some more.

We were about to part ways, so we paused for some last goodbyes.

“Escinca was right in installing you as the new head,” Durica said, eyeing me with approval. “A mere week since you’ve taken over, and you’re already meeting with Councillors. That is rather unprecedented.”

“Don’t let him get a big head, Durica,” the Sea Cult leader said, though his teasing smile reassured me he wasn’t holding anything against me. “We all need to stay grounded.”

“Speak for yourself. We fly like the wind.”

“Sure, but before you fly off, don’t forget that you haven’t told us anything really specific about this Blight Swarm.”

Durica glanced around at everybody, then sighed. Clearly, he was thinking along the same lines as Kanis, but he thought better of hiding it away. We all listened intently as he spoke.

I had obviously gathered some inkling as to the Blight Swarm’s nature. Monsters. Hordes of them. Enough to make even Councillors pause.

“I don’t know a great deal about it either,” he said. “I only heard about the devastation it wrought at Claderov decades ago. It’s as the name suggests. A voracious pestilence of monsters, a remnant of a Monumental Opus created by one of the ancient Ascendants, or so the legends go.”

I frowned. A pestilence of monsters… bugs…

This was the first time I was hearing something about the Ascendants besides the fact that they were the ones responsible for banishing the gods. I noted a hint of animosity from Durica at the mention of the Ascendants. But if people who could banish gods had created this Blight Swarm, then I could see why even the Councillors were alarmed.

On that happy note, we finally parted. A productive meeting all told. I had lots to think about and work on.

“Don’t worry,” I told Aurier and Sreketh just to reassure them. “Since we know ahead of time unlike a lot of people, we can start preparing for it to make sure we can handle things when the time comes.”

They hadn’t seemed too worried to begin with, but I figured a little reassurance now would help ward off any future anxieties.

We returned to the temple where I finally got to relax. And by relax, I meant work on more of my Aspects and Attributes and Augmentations. Oh, and Affixes. Really, why did the Weave love the alphabet A so much?

It wasn’t until the day after that I gained another rank in both Flare and Illumination.

[ Rank Up!

Your Flare and Illumination Aspects have risen by one Rank.

Flare

: Iron VI

Illumination: Iron V ]

I tried using Sacrifice on those, but that didn’t work for whatever reason. Admittedly, that would have been a little too broken, but it was still a bit disappointing.

But I felt like I was getting closer to figuring out why it hadn’t worked on Ritual, even though it felt like it had been about to.

I hadn’t felt the same sensation here, but I had a theory for that too. Sacrificing notifications from the Weave just wasn’t going to work. I needed to offer up as tribute my labour directly. Which I had already done before for my other Aspects, especially Gravity, when I had Sacrificed the casts to boost to the subsequent usage of the Aspect.

I’d just have to satisfy myself with the same process for Flare and Illumination. No broken shortcuts like Sacrificing my Weave boxes.

Labour. I needed to Sacrifice my effort. Hmm…

Illumination was Iron V already, and Flare at Iron VI. That was nice. At this rate, I might get both to Silver in another few weeks. Although, of course, the growth rates would slow down and I’d need to figure out breakthroughs.

But I had plans. For instance, both had the capability to learn another Affix, so I could use that for an easy rank.

Right now, what I was really interested in was how Concentration was improving. It was getting faster and faster. I could draw in heat so fast, tiny blocks of space that I targeted started glowing orange in a mere blink. Interesting that I could do that so quickly while Flare was still Iron-ranked.

Of course, that didn’t make the pocket of heat energy as volatile as I needed it to be. The burst of Flare wasn’t as strong as would be ideal. Not yet. I would need some more ranks.

Hopefully, I could achieve my goal of creating stronger flaring blasts by concentrating the energy before I hit Silver, but I had no way of telling if that was a possibility.

The other thing I was busy with that day was the matron of the orphanage inviting me over to bless all the changes they had done. Since it was the Sun Cult who had helped with all of that, it made sense that the leader was asked to give his blessings.

I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t have the Aspect of Blessing like Escinca had, but Aurier and the others assured me it wasn’t important. What mattered more was the appearance.

So holding back my recalcitrance at the lack of a real blessing, I went over and greeted all the orphans and promised the matron that the Sun Cult would always look out for them. Sreketh accompanied me of course, which added another layer of connection between the Sun Cult and orphanage.

Next, I decided to take my mind off all that by paying attention to my Attributes. I had focused on my Augmentations and my Aspects so far for the past nearly ten days, and now I wanted to get back to ranking up my Power, Vitality, and Agility.

The last one needed an Augmentation too.

Argh.

“You can hold the fort while I’m gone, right?” I asked before I was leaving.

Sreketh hissed out a giggle. “You’re going to train at the blacksmith’s for one afternoon, Ross.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.”

“Everything will be fine. Aqrea is coming soon. Go! Shoo!”

I smiled at her in gratitude before heading off, though apparently Sreketh wasn’t done.

“Did you figure out your Fervour Augmentation?” she called from behind.

“You know, I think I have.” I raised in a hand in farewell. “Just need to figure out how to get it now.”

I thought I faintly heard her asking what I had settled on, but I was already off on my way to Gutran’s.