Sovereign of the Ashes

The death crystals gathered from Fermont’s body, Marduk’s Rank Five pyro-attribute secondary divine relic, Venerable Tianyang’s overlord blood, and all the other rare materials Sein had brought back...

The sight of these treasures dazzled Leena, but it also stirred Mikaeli, whose soul resided within her.

At first, Mikaeli had no intention of speaking.

Sein and Leena had not seen each other in years. This was their time to catch up and enjoy their long-awaited reunion.

In the end, however, Mikaeli simply could not contain her curiosity.

“Where did you get all these things?” she asked.

As Mikaeli spoke, Leena walked over to the experimental table. She first picked up a death crystal and examined it before reaching for Marduk’s pyro-attribute secondary divine relic.

A pair of dark elemental goggles materialised before her beautiful eyes as she immediately began analysing the properties of both crystals.

After more than a thousand years of sharing the same body, the connection between Leena and Mikaeli’s souls had become far more harmonious.

At the very least, Sein could no longer see any signs of discomfort between them. They were able to work perfectly in sync.

Sein had also learned that because there were two Rank Five souls in Leena’s body, she was capable of something rather unusual.

As long as she had sufficient mana, the two souls could multitask, simultaneously casting two different Rank Five spells of tremendous destructive power.

Was this not, in some sense, a form of “fusion”? It was even a little similar to the fusion between Sein and Fermera.

During her recent years on the battlefield, the strongest opponent Leena had encountered was a peak Rank Five creature from the Grand Apocalypse World.

Although she ultimately failed to defeat it, she had still emerged from the battle unscathed.

For a mage who had only recently advanced to Rank Five, that was already quite an achievement. Of course, Mikaeli’s assistance had played a major role in this.

In a way, that peak Rank Five creature had actually been fighting two Rank Five Magus World mages at once.

And unlike ordinary partners, these two could communicate and coordinate flawlessly.

Sein did not answer Mikaeli’s question right away.

There were simply too many people waiting to see him. For now, he would leave the gifts here. There would be plenty of time later to explain where each of them had come from.

Sein gently kissed Leena on the forehead before leaving for his office, where Marie and the others were already waiting for him.

Leena watched until his figure disappeared beyond the laboratory. Only after a long while did Mikaeli speak from within her.

“He’s really nice to you,” she commented enviously.

A faint smile touched Leena’s lips. She turned back toward the experimental table, holding a death crystal in one hand and the overgod’s pyro-attribute divine relic in the other.

“Why don’t we each take one, Master? One of us can handle the death crystal while the other looks into this divine relic,” she suggested.

“Sure, but next time, you have to let me take control of your body for a while,” Mikaeli bargained.

“No, you’ll have to wait a little longer,” Leena replied with a laugh, her eyes curving into crescents.

***

Sein met Marie in the tower master’s office at Ashen Fortress.

Now a Rank Four mage, Marie looked remarkably poised and considerably younger than she had during her demigod days.

Her report mainly covered the Divine Tower of Ashes’ financial expenditures, personnel changes, resource acquisitions, and overall development over the past few years.

By now, the Divine Tower of Ashes had more than thirty thousand registered full-fledged mages.

It was hard to imagine that when the divine tower had first been established, it had only around a hundred members.

To grow to such a scale in just a few millennia was no small achievement.

By comparison, Gregory’s Divine Tower of Whispering Flame currently had only a little over twenty thousand members.

The main reason was that Gregory simply was not particularly skilled at management. Unlike Sein, he did not have someone as capable as Marie helping him run things.

“With your return, our Divine Tower of Ashes is bound to enter another period of rapid expansion. We’ve been growing steadily over the years, but I never dared recruit too many members at once because we lacked a central figure to guide everyone,” Marie explained.

The Divine Tower of Ashes had been able to develop so rapidly for two main reasons. First, its training system, beginning from the initiate level, was extremely well-developed. Second, the benefits it offered were excellent.

The competitive training system Sein had introduced for initiates had even begun spreading to more and more regions of Magus World.

As for the tower’s generous benefits, Feylis and the others did provide some support from the civilizational battlefields, but most of its resources actually came from the Goddess of Wealth.

For years, Aurelia had continuously channelled enormous amounts of wealth and resources into the Divine Tower of Ashes.

Even Marie sometimes felt her heart skip a beat when she saw just how much Aurelia sent over.

The Goddess of Wealth was simply great at making money!

In fact, after receiving vast amounts of divine power and undergoing continuous enhancement during her time here, Aurelia’s situation had become rather strange.

The Aurelia by Sein’s side now seemed more like the Goddess of Wealth’s true self, while her original body, still imprisoned in Faeloria, increasingly resembled an unconscious shell.

Aurelia’s performance was certainly impressive. She could practically sustain the operation and continued development of the entire Divine Tower of Ashes on her own.

Even so, there was still a limit to what she could provide. After all, Aurelia herself was only an intermediate deity of Faeloria.[1]

By comparison, the treasures and spoils Sein had brought back this time were enough to drive countless Rank Five and Rank Six beings into a frenzy.

After listening to Marie’s report, Sein sincerely thanked her for everything she had done over the years. He also suggested that, if she wished, she could establish a divine tower of her own in the future.

“I’ll give you my full support,” Sein said.

“Forget it. I’ve grown too attached to the Divine Tower of Ashes. For now, I just want to remain its dean. You’re not planning to fire me, are you?” Marie asked with a smile.

“Of course not,” Sein replied solemnly.

Besides giving Sein her report and receiving some of the resources and wealth he had brought back from foreign worlds to replenish the Divine Tower of Ashes’ treasury, Marie also updated him on several developments that had taken place in Ashenreach over the past few years.

Jessica and Mussor had both established divine towers there, while two other Rank Four knights were now hoping to establish knightly orders in the region.

Since Ashenreach was Sein’s territory, they naturally had to inform him first.

In most regions of Magus World, the ratio of divine towers to knightly orders was usually around one to three.

In some places, that ratio could rise to four to one or even higher.

It was rare to see fewer than two knightly orders for every divine tower.

Ashenreach, however, currently had three divine towers and only three knightly orders. That was already far from the usual pattern of development.

If Marie were to establish her own divine tower in Ashenreach as Sein had suggested, the number of divine towers there would actually exceed the number of knightly orders.

Such a situation was rare even in Magus World.

It was therefore understandable that two Rank Four knights would want to establish their own knightly orders in Ashenreach.

It was even possible that the Magus Civilization itself had encouraged them to come.

After all, the more divine towers there were in a region, the more beneficial it was for the surrounding knightly orders.

The leadership of the Magus Civilization was also naturally happy to see every region of their world continue to thrive and develop.

As for the two Rank Four knights hoping to establish knightly orders in Ashenreach, Sein said he would contact them later and arrange a meeting.

After discussing these matters, Sein suddenly thought of something else.

“How has House Grantt been doing in recent years? Has Julius shown any signs of advancing to Rank Four?”

House Grantt was his own family, after all, so Sein naturally paid closer attention to its development.

Marie shook her head regretfully.

“I heard Julius attempted to advance to Rank Four twice in recent years, but both attempts ended in failure. His chances of succeeding in the future are probably quite slim.”

Sein frowned.

“Is that so? Two attempts in such a short time... Great-grandfather must be getting impatient. I’ll go see him later,” he said.

He still had quite a few top-grade blood crystals on hand, which should be of considerable help to Julius in another attempt to advance to Rank Four.

If Julius truly had the potential, Sein would not mind giving him a helping hand.

As Sein considered this, Marie glanced at him and hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Selina and Eileen also failed in their attempts to reach the Demigod Realm. Their soul flames are very weak now.”

At those words, Sein fell into an even deeper silence.

1. Translator’s recap: An intermediate deity is equivalent to a Rank Five being. However, keep in mind that deities from worlds like Faeloria are generally weaker than beings from Magus World, even when they are technically of the same rank. ☜