At the same time.
The Church of Astalia.
After finishing the morning service, Brellita—dressed in her magnificent Holy Maiden regalia—walked back from the cathedral to her private meditation chamber.
Behind her followed four sword-bearing knights with stern, resolute faces, each around their early thirties.
These four were the core candidates Brellita intended to push as the church's next generation of Holy Paladins.
On the surface, this Paladin Selection looked like a contest among the nine Holy Maidens—whose promoted knight could win the rare Holy Paladin class.
But beneath that, court power was tangled in the shadows: it was a direct collision between royal authority and divine authority, with consequences that would inevitably run deep.
Brellita had sharply sensed the importance of this selection—and the fact that she was being subtly isolated by the other Holy Maidens—which was why she was willing to seek external support.
Even as the so-called "agent of the god," her position was not absolutely secure until she possessed absolute power. There were still Holy Maidens strong enough to potentially replace her and take the Holy Supplicant class for themselves.
Leon was the helper she had chosen after investigating many sources, judging him the best fit.
"Holy Maiden… do we really have to follow the command of that outsider mage during the selection?"
The one questioning her was Karl, publicly recognized as Brellita's strongest paladin trainee—third tier.
The church's paladin trainees were all orphans—raised by the church from childhood. Their faith was firm, their killing experience rich; each was a first-class warrior-type expert.
And with the knight class's unique "code" amplification, they could even burst beyond their tier in critical moments.
This Paladin Selection was exactly such a contest—top third-tier knights fighting for the right to class-change into Holy Paladin.
If not for the Holy Paladin prize, Karl could have advanced to fourth tier long ago—so naturally he looked down on an outsider.
"Karl," Brellita asked lightly, "could you defeat a powerful second-tier monster while you were only first tier?"
"I… couldn't."
"And if you had a third-tier teammate?"
"There'd be a chance… no—then we'd definitely win!"
Karl hesitated, then his voice turned firm.
"But you didn't actually do it," Brellita said calmly. "Did you?"
"…No. But I believe I can!"
"Good." Brellita's tone stayed effortless. "And the one who will command you not only can accomplish what I just described—he can defeat powerful third-tier monsters as well. What do you think?"
"That's impossible!"
Karl flat-out refused to believe that was possible for an outsider.
If the Holy Maiden herself did it, he could accept it.
But an outsider—someone not even long-lived—how could that be?
"Impossible or not, you'll witness it soon," Brellita said. "As for whether you obey, do you or do you not want to become a Holy Paladin? I trust you'll choose."
"I understand, Holy Maiden. I won't disappoint you."
Fire ignited in Karl's eyes. Why would the Holy Maiden believe the outsider could do it, yet insist Karl couldn't?
She clearly didn't know that Karl had already mastered a fourth-tier combat technique in advance—fully refined, nothing like his "barely qualified" state months ago.
Among the other third-tier paladin trainees, none could match him.
He wanted to see for himself: why should someone like him be commanded by anyone?
A newly advanced second-tier—what could that person possibly have, to earn the Holy Maiden's trust?
…
In the blink of an eye, a week passed.
During this week, Hamla still had not awakened.
Even when they fed her crushed monster jerky, she continued to waste away day by day.
If not for the foundation of a sixth-tier body, she likely wouldn't have held on at all.
Leon visited twice when he could.
The rest of the time—even while taking shifts at the Court Mage Corps office—he coordinated with colleagues to take the late-night rotations as much as possible.
It was the best time to "slack" while meditating and training.
His main training focus was replicating the spell imagery of Ice Deceleration.
So far he had copied about 23% of the surface-level imagery. There was no bottleneck, but progress remained slow.
He still couldn't cast even a "surface" version yet—unfortunate.
But it was a magic crown. Being difficult was normal.
Once he obtained Iris's talent reward, his efficiency would definitely rise.
Second was intermediate magic training. Thanks to combat insights and faster elemental sensing after advancing, his progress was excellent.
Intermediate fire spell: Hurricane Flame Bolt — about 90% mastery; can form full imagery in 2 seconds; chantless casting possible; power meets standard.
Intermediate wind spell: Tornado — about 50% mastery; can cast with long chanting (6 successes out of 10); medium power.
Intermediate ice spell: Cold Front — a bit over 60% mastery; can cast with rapid chanting; power meets standard.
These were all spells he had already "pre-learned" as pseudo-intermediate versions, with imagery familiarity ahead of time.
Without that familiarity—and without mastery of the underlying beginner spell images—an ordinary person starting from scratch might not learn them in years.
Hurricane Flame Bolt progressed fastest because Leon had used it in real combat for a full week against the fourth-tier man-eating flower.
Cold Front was second because of the Kraken brain core and the Ice-Slow Horn.
The horn also held a faint spell image for Cold Front—not clear, but still helpful.
Additionally, the Elemental Mage class gave Leon High-Speed Mana Recovery and moderate elemental affinity.
That doubled the number of practice casts he could do daily, pushing his progress noticeably faster.
Even though he still hadn't produced Ice Deceleration's surface form, the other intermediate spells had advanced, giving him more trump cards.
As for combat techniques, he kept up daily physical training, but because so much energy went into magic, he made no obvious progress.
Beyond training, other things happened this week:
Leon was officially recognized as second-tier within the mage corps (he hid the Elemental Mage class), and his pay rose slightly—he now earned 1 gold per month.
That salary wasn't much. Work for thirty years and you still couldn't buy a house in the capital.
Extraordinary people generally earned their real income in the dungeon.
To Leon, 1 gold/month was basically a guaranteed minimum—steady income mattered more than the amount.
More importantly, being part of the Court Mage Corps gave him an affiliation—making it easier and freer to act in the capital.
Without that identity, a freelance mage's life in the capital was far harder.
At the very least, without the "court mage" title, he probably wouldn't have been able to meet Iris through official channels. With only a quasi-baron's fourth-son status, he couldn't even enter decent social circles.
Now Leon and Iris stood near Oradu's dungeon entrance, both in brand-new equipment, waiting to meet Brellita's team.
Since Minotaur hide needed to be made into an inner lining and would take at least two weeks, Leon had asked the craftsman to prioritize repairing his second-tier magic sword instead.
It cost 15 gold, restoring durability to about 93%—very cost-effective.
Iris's staff, naturally, had been fitted with a new second-tier un-aspected magic stone, helping her cast more efficiently and save mana.
With the new stone, her casting mana costs would drop by at least 30%.
"Leon… when we meet Brellita, what kind of attitude should we take?"
While waiting, Iris looked tense.
Not tense about "how to face her," but tense about what the encounter would reveal:
Could Brellita be trusted? Could she be asked to remove her mother's curse?
And Grani's words from a week ago had also shaken her.
Iris realized she might be suppressing certain feelings in herself.
She began to feel she should try facing them.
And as her thinking shifted, she also vaguely sensed something else:
Her reaction to Brellita wasn't just "natural enemy" wariness.
It was that Iris instinctively knew—Brellita was an even more dangerous rival than Grani, one she needed to be far more cautious about.
~~~
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