Chapter 286: Remains Fusion
Dei Commercial Street, House of Rest.
Inside the shop's materials room, William stood in place with his eyes tightly closed.
In front of him was a skeleton. At this moment, many spirit threads connected the two.
Accompanied by a wave of pure Holy Power fluctuation, the skeleton was gradually pulled toward William, and before long, it submerged into his body.
"Phew... It's finally preliminarily completed." William breathed a sigh of relief.
Just now, he had fused that set of Saint's Remains into his body. This was the second-level Holy Art of the "Bones" stage—[Spirit Bone Preaching], which allowed Holy Clergy Members to use the bones of others as weapons.
William clenched his fists, and then three narrow, long, and sharp arm bones extended from the roots of the gaps between his fingers.
"If I just had a cigar right now, I'd really look the part."
He tried swinging them a few times, and a series of sounds piercing the air instantly echoed in the room.
This was just one of the ways to use [Spirit Bone Preaching].
William had already tested it; when the bones collided, he himself would not feel any pain. Therefore, he didn't need to fear being implicated if the remains were damaged.
In addition, he could also summon the entire set of remains out completely, using them as a summoned creature.
However, the current control range was limited, and the remains could not stray too far. But at least when encountering danger, he could throw the remains out as a shield.
The above were merely some of the abilities of the Holy Art itself.
And the remains still held some residual divine marrow; the abilities of this substance went without saying.
Since using some last time, William had spent quite a bit of time fusing a portion of it.
An item capable of affecting mental power like this was an ability only possessed by the fourth-level Holy Art, [Body of Sin].
He had absolutely picked up a massive bargain. Therefore, he wouldn't use it lightly, only treating it as a trump card for critical moments.
As for the third-level Holy Art of the "Bones" stage, William had also read the relevant materials.
The corresponding Holy Art was named [Bone Resonance].
First, it required the Holy Clergy Member to establish a connection with other bones using Holy Power, and then understand the "Sin" remaining within the bones.
These could be evil deeds committed by the original owner, or the hatred of dying with grievances.
And what William had to do was to experience these "Sins" and bear them upon his own bones; only then could he achieve resonance between the bones.
He thought about it; this Holy Art should be preparation for the subsequent "divine marrow."
Just looking at the method of practice, the entire process would probably be very painful.
However, since William had fused a set of Saint's Remains, perhaps he could directly use these remains as a vessel to bear the "Sin"?
Otherwise, for this series of Holy Arts, why would one need to fuse so many remains in the very beginning.
William decided to give it a try.
Actually, his guess was not wrong. But the weight of "Sin" was very heavy. Ordinary bones would collapse upon slight contact, simply unable to bear it.
And not all Holy Clergy Members could obtain a complete set of Saint's Remains at the very beginning of their practice.
Therefore, other Holy Clergy Members could only obediently endure this portion of pain.
After dealing with the Saint's Remains, William finally looked at the text surfacing before his eyes—
[Envoy of Sin]
Current Progress: Tier 3 (407/1000)
Acquired Ability: Emotional Guidance. Can distinguish the emotions of the Seven Deadly Sins, and to a certain extent, can change the emotions towards the guided direction.
[Divine Eye Seal]
Current Progress: Tier 3 (12/1000)
Acquired Ability: The Focused One. Can accurately distinguish the simple and complex parts composed of spirit particles.
[Furnace of Holy Relics]
Current Progress: Tier 4 (23/1000)
Acquired Ability: The Devout Favored. The Holy Water you produce naturally suppresses evil. Current production quality reaches the 40-year vintage mark.
[Missionary]
Current Progress: Tier 3 (32/1000)
Acquired Ability: Soul Cleansing. Your research into holy righteousness has transcended ordinary people. Every time you recite scriptures aloud, you can engrave your soul power into this world. Your existence is the truth of the world.
[Holy Body]
Progress 1: Skin (Completed)
Progress 2: Bones (Spirit Bone Preaching)
Progress 3: Blood (Not Started)
Acquired Ability: The Chosen Lightbearer. Significantly improves the theological practice efficiency of the bodily parts.
As early as when dealing with the clown in Derry town, the panel ability [Holy Water Cleansing] had already advanced.
And its upgraded name was completely identical to the third-level Holy Art of the "Eyes" stage.
And the new ability [The Focused One] also corresponded to the practice of this stage.
William had already consulted Church texts.
[Divine Eye Seal] uses the eyes to project Holy Power to stir the spirit particles in the air, allowing the spirit particles near the spirit body to be controlled by the caster, thereby achieving the goal of restricting the enemy.
And when practicing this level of Holy Art further upward, one had to understand the composition of these spirit particles.
William took out a portion of evil material.
Besides the evil aura, he could also see many tiny runes on the surface of the spirit body.
These symbols were arranged together according to some special pattern; some were just a single pattern, looking very simple.
But the vast majority were very complex, stacked and nested together with various spirit particle runes, extremely complicated to understand.
These symbol textures were exactly the reason a spirit body could exist, just as most creatures need to breathe.
If this rule was broken, it would very likely cause the spirit body to vanish from this world.
And [Divine Eye Seal] required the Holy Clergy Member to understand and master these rules, thereby achieving the goal of using spirit particles to control the enemy.
Such a Holy Art could already be considered high-tier.
In the Church, only an extremely small number of Holy Clergy Members could master it.
Aside from requiring high innate talent and massive Holy Power support, understanding these rune magic arrays was also an extremely difficult task—the practitioner needed to find the very first rune and understand it.
Only then could they analyze the more complex spirit particles on the next layer based on this foundation.
If, after practicing for a period of time, they discovered that the bottom-layer rune was not the "initial" rune.
Then all previous understanding would become an "error," and the Holy Clergy Member would have to abandon their existing progress and start all over again from zero.
This was a massive torment to one's mental power.
Only a small number of Holy Clergy Members could complete this Holy Art; many more went mad halfway through their practice.
Ultimately, they either degenerated into evil existences, or remained unable to return to normal until death.
Therefore, this Holy Art was also regulated by the Church—without permission, no Holy Clergy Member was allowed to practice it privately.
But William was naturally an exception.
Under the premise of having [The Focused One], the runes on the surface of the evil materials were all dyed with a layer of color.
Some parts were a patch of bright red, almost making the rune content indiscernible.
While some parts emitted a faint white glow.
He just took a few casual glances and immediately noticed that those faintly glowing runes were extremely easy to understand, clearly being the initial rune magic arrays.
"This is simply a guided tutorial for Holy Art practice," William nodded in amazement.
In the practice of this Holy Art, he was probably the most relaxed person in the entire Church.
Besides this item, [Furnace of Holy Relics] had also advanced silently.
Now, William could already produce forty-year vintage holy artifacts.
Reaching this quality, casually taking out one piece could make a diocese-level church red-eyed with envy.
At the same time, in dealing with evil, because the quality of the holy artifacts had improved, the power of the corresponding magic arrays was also significantly enhanced.
Now, it was very difficult for ordinary evil spirits to escape after entering the magic array, let alone with a certain prodigal setting up interlocking traps every time as if they cost nothing.
But this conversely gave William quite a demand for low-vintage holy artifacts.
After all, casually pulling out holy-relic-level artifacts seemed a bit too ostentatious.
Therefore, this area had actually cost him quite a bit of money.
Lastly, the [Holy Body] section.
Judging from the panel display, the current progress of the bones was at [Spirit Bone Preaching], which matched the Holy Art itself.
And William had practiced the previous "Skin" section up to the third-level Holy Art.
Looking at it this way, to complete the [Holy Body], he had to practice the Holy Arts for "Skin, Bones, and Blood" all to the third level.
It might be very difficult for others, but with the panel, achieving the above was not difficult for William.
After finishing with the theological practice section, he finally took a letter out from the drawer. It bore the stamp of Archbishop Matthew.
The content of the letter had only one message—"The selection for the Holy See's Priest Order is about to begin. Please return to the academy as soon as possible."
☆☆☆
-> 30 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you