For about a year now, Catherine had been preparing for her advancement.
Like gathering the main ingredients and other things like preparing the ritual—especially the ritual.
The ritual was to corrupt seven mid-to-high ranking individuals of a country, and then consume the potion while creating situatios favorable to her in the city.
But Catherine had taken a different approach and corrupted dozens of low-ranking officials and civil servants working under mid-level ranking people. She had done this through blackmail, bribes, embezzlement, exploitation, and every other underhanded method.
It was not that hard, considering she was a Sequence 5 Beyonder and had various types of artifacts to manipulate people.
Of course, even after doing all this, it was not what the ritual specified, but fortunately Catherine had an artifact.
It was the golden 'Winner' stopwatch; it gave the user astronomical degree of luck and made the user a true winner.
Catherine was quite certain that this would work out.
She had gone the wrong way and corrupted dozens of low-ranking people rather than seven mid or higher-ranking people in the country; it was a losing gamble, but with the Winner stopwatch her luck would turn around and make her 'win' in performing her ritual successfully, regardless of its obvious flaws...
Of course, the ritual aside, the advancement was still going to be extremely difficult since it was an advancement to godhood.
It was going to be challenging both physically and mentally; so Catherine had been taking potions she got from her contacts in the Sanguine to keep her physical condition in perfect shape. Additionally, she had also been treating herself psychologically with the 'Hypnotist' necklace she had to keep her mental condition in a healthy state.
She had already brewed the potion with the ingredients and kept the glass bottle in the leather bag slung around her shoulder.
Standing in her hall before Jace and his new marionette, she nodded with a glint of determination in her eyes
.
"Okay, let's go then," Jace said, looking at Catherine as he took her hand in his.
His marionette Christoph, who stood behind them, stepped forward. "Excuse me," he said, as he put both his hands on Jace's as well as Catherine's shoulders.
They faded into the spirit world, traveling at a fast speed.
After hearing that Catherine was ready for advancement, Jace had selected a perfect place for it. After all, they couldn't just do the advancement in Backlund, as it would alert the churches... so right now they were going to 'Bansy Harbour'. The place was messed up as it was, so he decided he might as well use it for a demigod advancement.
Catherine, meanwhile, was mesmerized by the unique landscape of the spirit world—witnessing it for the first time. Of course, she had heard about it, and Jace had told her about this particular ability of his new marionette, but she was quite surprised nonetheless...
—
Soon, they arrived at Bansy Harbour, but at a different part of the coast near the sea where there were no people anywhere near.
By now the light of the setting sun had almost faded, and the crescent red moon shined softly. The trees swayed with the gentle wind, and shallow waves hit the large stones on the coast...
The environment was quite nice, but to admire the place was not what they were here for.
Catherine and Jace stood before each other, while Christoph was standing several meters away from them.
Jace looked at Catherine. The mature and authoritative woman looked nervous, with some sweat on her pale forehead; it reminded Jace that Catherine was still just a woman...
By now Jace had taken the leather bag from her, and it was on his shoulder right now. He brought it forward, pulled out the glass potion bottle, and handed it to Catherine.
He looked at Catherine, who stared at the bottle absent-mindedly. "Hey," he called out to her.
"Mm?" Catherine looked up.
Jace leaned in and kissed her cheek softly. "Good luck," he said, and then he smiled and showed her his hand—on which, the chains of both the 'lucky' and 'winner' stopwatches were tangled. "Literally!" he said.
Catherine narrowed her brow in amusement and chuckled softly.
Jace went on ahead and tangled the chains of both stopwatches on her wrist. He was not sure if the 'lucky' stopwatch would have much of an effect considering it worked on Sequence 5s at best, but Jace just threw it on as a charm nonetheless.
Looking at her, he asked, "Ready?"
"No..." Catherine replied.
Jace smiled and snapped his fingers, and a fire jumped about 60 meters away from Catherine, standing on a high ground.
Within seconds after he appeared, Christoph blinked behind him.
Catherine looked at the bottle of potion in her hand. The potion was swirling and black-colored, with an eyeball floating in the middle.
She turned on both the stopwatches on her hand, and without wasting a second she twisted open the cap and drank the potion whole, without the hesitation that Jace expected her to have considering her earlier nervousness.
"And so it begins..." Jace muttered as he looked at Catherine, who fell to her knees after a few moments of consuming the potion.
A few minutes passed by as Catherine suffered. Soon the skin on her body turned dark and thick, and the bones in her body twisted unnaturally.
Jace could hear her agonized screams... he also heard whispers and ravings in his mind as his head started to hurt; this was due to the partial manifestation of an incomplete mythical creature's form.
Jace immediately turned around to avoid looking at it, but he felt through his intuition that she still wasn't there yet. So he turned to his marionette. "Christoph."
"Yes, sir," Christoph replied, as he momentarily turned toward Catherine and raised his hand toward her. The space around his fingers rippled slightly as he used one of his two recorded demigod abilities.
"Magnify!"
He used revirded sequence 4 power to 'magnify' effects of the 'winner' stopwatch.
Jace did not at all mind using one of only two demigod powers he had on Catherine as upon her successful advancement he could just record another ones form her.
The recorded demigod power would work at about 60% at best compared to the original, but a demigod-level power was still significantly powerful even at half of its strength.
But he didn't stop at that. Christoph still had his hand raised. "God says it's effective!" he declared.
This was one of many other Sequence 5 and 6 powers Christoph had recorded; he used it with the 'lucky' stopwatch this time.
After that, Christoph turned around and waited with Jace. Jace, meanwhile, was using the Polymath Ring's imitated 'Placate' on himself to soothe his mind that was affected by seeing Catherine...
A few more minutes passed by. Usually, an advancement even to Sequence 4 wouldn't take this long, but it was especially hard for Catherine given her situation of advancement.
After a few moments, Jace felt through his intuition that it was alright to turn around now, and so he did.
He saw Catherine still on her knees, but her form was slowly returning to what it was before, and it was almost there.
Jace immediately flipped a coin, divining whether the advancement was successful, and the result was positive.
He immediately snapped his fingers and appeared near her. Christoph appeared with him and immediately started using the recorded Placid on Catherine, who was breathing heavily.
Jace, meanwhile, walked before her and offered her a hand, which she took after a moment and got up with his help.
Her hair was disheveled. Moving closer to her, Jace adjusted it with his hands as he looked into her eyes. They looked a little dull, but it was obvious to him that she was cogitating and was still recovering from the ravings and whispers.
She was different; it was obvious to Jace as a Seer. Before, she gave off an aura of order and authority, being a Sequence 5 of the Arbiter pathway.
But now it was different. She still had the authoritative aura of an Arbiter, but more than that, she now had a majestic, commanding presence that made Jace feel submissive to her and feel like he should bow to her—of course, this wasn't going to affect him as he was a Sequence 5, but the air around her had changed indeed.
Finally seeing for himself that Catherine had indeed become a demigod successfully, Jace heaved a heavy breath of relief.
Looking at her for a moment or two with soft eyes, he then hugged her tightly. "I'm so relieved...., your advancement was successful...."
"Mm," Catherine hugged him back lightly.