Sovereign of the Ashes

While the divine abilities were gifts for Lorthisra’s subordinates, the power of faith stripped from the six divine relics was something she could actually use herself.

Faith power, like divine energy crystals, was one of the most common currencies in transactions between Rank Four and above beings.

Since producing divine energy crystals was a tedious process, some deities, especially the lazier or more impatient ones, preferred to deal in faith power instead.

The white mist swirling around the laboratory was faith power, and Lorthisra stored it in translucent crystal spheres.

By the time the six divine relics had been completely drained, twenty-three of Lorthisra’s crystal spheres were filled to the brim.

Judging by the look on her face, she was extremely pleased with the results.

“The faith power from these Faelorian creatures is surprisingly high quality. The purity’s almost on par with the fallen elves under my command,” she said with a nod and a smile.

As she spoke, she casually tossed two space rings to Sein.

Each one had a sizable internal storage and was loaded with the resources she had promised him.

Most of them were rare materials native to Blackhaven, though a few came from her followers elsewhere, including some exotic goods from the Elven World.

These two space rings were Sein’s full payout for the divine abilities and faith power he had traded away.

The divine abilities and faith power locked in those relics were not much use to him anyway.

If he had not traded with Lorthisra, he probably would have just sold them through the Magus Alliance’s commercial networks later on.

Honestly, cutting a deal directly with the Spider Queen made more sense.

There were no middlemen or markup involved, and Lorthisra had more than enough wealth and resources to make the deal worth his while.

Plus, her sense of value did not quite match that of Sein and the Magus Alliance’s more traditional views.

Most of Blackhaven’s resources were cultivated by black mages. Soul-infused materials and parts for undead chimera beasts were always in high demand on the open market.

Since the Magus Civilization had blocked Blackhaven out of trade for years, their unique resources had remained consistently high.

Despite being banned from trading with the external regions for so long, many black mages were willing to take the risk.

Even regular mages and knights from the divine towers and knightly orders participated in these dealings, because the profits involved were just too good to pass up.

The sheer wealth up for grabs was enough to tempt those with weak resolve to give in.

Some of the specialty resources from the Elven World that Lorthisra gave Sein were also hot commodities.

As a massive, resource-rich plane, the Elven World had a stellar reputation in the Magus Alliance, and the goods it produced always had solid demand.

Sein had long been interested in its unique ancient trees and plant seeds. Treasures like the Life Spring and Elemental Spring[1] also came from that world.

He did not comb through everything in the space ring, but even a quick glance told him the deal was well worth it.

Had he gone through the Magus Alliance’s channels to sell those divine relics, he probably would not have gotten nearly as much in return.

This whole experience sparked a dangerous idea in Sein’s mind: what if he established a long-term trade with Blackhaven?

It would be a blatant violation of the alliance’s law, but he could not stop himself from considering it.

Once things settled down, he planned to dive into the alliance’s legal framework, especially the rules governing the divine towers, knightly orders, and guardians, so that he could find ways to exploit them and create opportunities to smuggle goods.

Of course, completely skirting the rules was practically impossible.

Blackhaven had been under lockdown for so long that many other “clever ones” like Sein had surely tried the same thing.

Whatever loopholes once existed were probably patched by now.

But Sein had something the others did not—he had the Spider Queen’s backing.

The fact that she had managed to spread her faith in the Magus World said plenty about how capable she really was.

Just walking through three floors of her tower, Sein had already spotted at least seven or eight chimera beasts.

All of them were further proof that her background was anything but ordinary!

Since there was no real way to completely dodge the alliance’s rules, maybe Sein could set up a frontman to run the operation—just like he had back when he poached initiates from the Alveroth Empire.

If things went south, he could just cut ties with the frontman.

Back when he was with the Divine Tower of Dark Flame, they had only gotten away with poaching initiates because of the tower master’s support and the fact that the Alveroth Empire did not really seem interested in crossing borders to settle the score.

If push had come to shove back then, Bousse—the guy who raked in obscene profits running the initiate smuggling network—would have been made a scapegoat by Sein.

Making money in this world was never easy.

Since Bousse had made a fortune big enough to make Rank Two and even Rank Three mages jealous, it was only natural that he had to shoulder the risk that came with it.

Sein had not spelled that out for the guy, but Bousse probably figured it out on his own.

Once the divine abilities and faith power had been stripped from the six divine relics, Lorthisra tossed them back to Sein.

“I left some divinity in them for you. Faeloria’s unique planar laws give Rank Four beings a bit of a boost when it comes to forming divinity and grasping laws,” she said.

“But the quantity and quality of their divinity aren’t anything special. That’s why they ended up as those so-called weakened deities.” Lorthisra curled her lip, clearly unimpressed.

Sein’s six relics had all come from those wielders of weak divine power, early-stage Rank Four creatures by the Astral Realm’s standards.

It was no surprise that the Spider Queen looked down on them.

Still, Rank Four creatures were worlds apart from those of lower ranks.

She might have been unimpressed, but Sein was more than happy with what he got.

Aside from those six divine relics, most of the spoils he had collected in Faeloria still had not been properly sorted.

He was not even sure how much some of it might fetch in the Magus Alliance.

That included the divine bodies of a few deities, all now stored safely in his space conch.

He would have to wait until he got back to the Divine Tower of Verdant Spring—or visited one of the alliance’s specialized trade hubs to get a real estimate of their value.

Even with a conservative estimate, he was pretty sure the final number would be jaw-dropping.

1. Life Spring and Elemental Spring are restorative spring water. They were first mentioned in Chapter 861 when Sein acquired the former at an auction. ☜