Chapter 9: Fame And Riches

“Your Young Eminence!” The elderly, green mustached third level Martial Moral priest, overseeing the safety of the Solar Basil Leaf and the Diluted Element, blurted.

At the instance of the nearby disturbance in the dark attribute worldly energy, he raised his guard, awaiting a culprit to appear in an attempt to steal the two treasures. When he saw a silhouette approaching fast, he prepared himself to attack; only, before he followed through with his countermeasures he discovered that the owner of the silhouette is Stelero Masr. Furthermore, he was not alone, accompanying him were six third level Martial Mortals, Sister Beatriz among them!

“Sister Iaura’s treasures, where are they?!” Stelero Mars demanded.

“Still in the casing, Your Young Eminence, no one came to stealing them, yet”. The green mustached priest said.

“Take them and hand them to me!” Stelero Mars barked. His fury skyrocketed. For the belonging of Sister Iaura to get stolen unacceptable and he was not willing to trust them being in anyone’s hands but his own, Archbishop Silternja’s, Cardinal Northstar’s or the original owner, Sister Iaura.

“Your young-” The green mustached priest tried to persuade him otherwise. Right now the formation on the casing was a safety measure not even he could break.

“Now!” Stelero Mars roared, his white aura whipped, ensuing a threat for disobedience. Unlike Sister Iaura, his patience had only been extended to a select few of this remote mud ball’s experts.

“Y-yes!” The green mustached priest answered and rushed to remove the formation on the casing.

Behind Stelero Mars, Sister Beatriz and the other five third level Martial Mortals had complicated looks on their faces, which they hurried to conceal. Stelero Mars has disparaged them, and one of the best formations the church had in Ercas Mir, a little too much.

The casing’s formation was one of the most difficult to erect and break, hence dismantling it was a rigorous task on its own. The green mustached priest had to prevent the slightest err, else the formation will reassemble itself and His Young Eminence’s patience will grow thinner, which he rather avoid at all cost.

“Well?” Stelero Mars stepped forward, inquiring. The casing’s formation had a dark golden color when it was complete. As it is being dismantled or getting broken its hue becomes paler.

“Three seconds, Your Young Eminence, then I will be able to break it without worrying”. The green mustached priest’s only shortcut into pacifying Stelero Mars was to collapse the formation by force once its hue became light gold.

BANG!

The ceiling of the third floor quaked and then crumbled. A pitch black figure descended from above.

Zax scanned the third floor, seeing whether there are enemies. ‘Right, here is where the prizes are exhibited. Eh? Aren’t they that Sister and Ascended Elite, Stelero Mars?’ He did not expect to encounter them.

Actually, Zax did not even plan to steal the Solar Basil Leaf and the Diluted Element, in fear that he will not be able to break the formation on their casing and waste his life for nothing increasing the risk to them. Additionally, after descending to the fourth floor from the fifth he tried to break the walls to the outside of the Grand Abode, but the formation embedded to them required the span of time to break a blink will pass in, in other words, enough time for the church dangerous experts to catch up with him.

‘What are they doing?’ Zax wondered as he kept falling, awaiting contact with the third floor’s tiles, to crush and proceed to the second floor and down.

“Him?!” Stelero Mars’s reaction surprisingly was a bit faster than Sister Beatriz. He did not know Zax but he saw the faces of all the contenders and could recognize Zax’s fake one even though it was the second stage of the Dark Titan Storm form.

Sister Beatriz was in the midst of uttering something when her eyes met Zax. Something in them, the darkness, seemed familiar, but before she could figure what it is, his pupils moved to His Young Eminence.

‘Third level Martial Mortal?! An intermediate one, at that?!’ Zax was confused. ‘How did his cultivation improve so fast?! A little over a year ago he was just at the Peak of the Core Master realm! Did he use a third realm Pure Core to break through?’

His guess was correct. After nearly incidentally dying in Demirva Ridge and recovering due to the innocent mercy of Sister Iaura, Stelero Mars had an epiphany. His proud self who perceived and comprehended five bottlenecks of insight in less than a century, had realized that his pursuit for the sixth and last bottleneck is in vain and will remain unsuccessful even if we will leave the full fifteen hundred years life span of a Core Master. As such, he decided to finally break through to the third realm. Using three types of third realm Pure Cores, each separately sufficient for either the first, second and third Martial Mortal levels, to accelerate the process, he managed in about a year and couple of months to reach his current cultivation. His goal, as the goal of any in his shoes, was to reach as early as possibly to the Peak of the Martial Mortal realm and seek for Nature’s graciousness for Evolutionary Ascension.

Stelero Mars’s line of sight and Zax’s intersected. Stelero Mars might have been in a lower phase than Sister Beatriz, but his understanding of the light attribute was far superior to her own in the windy attribute. As a matter of a fact, even a Beginner fourth level Martial Mortal could not kill him in a simple strike.

His eyes followed Zax’s trajectory. Aware that he cannot beat him but the fluctuation of dark attribute energy, he still mustered as much light attribute energy as he could, intending to obstruct the obvious intruder to this Luminous Church of the Holy Palace.

Zax’s noticed Stelero Mars’s actions and his eyes radiated killing intent. ‘Did he forgot the fear of death?!’ His mind roared as he was ready to remind him by giving him a taste of past’s events.

The dark attribute energy in his right arm transformed it to a black Dark Lance.

“This is...” Seeing the peculiar shape of the Dark Lance provoked ominous feelings in Stelero Mars’s heart. He was sure that he had seen something like this before, but could not connect it to any battle or dark attribute energy technique in his recollection. Only when the intruder thrust did an image of a bitter memory resurfaced in his mind. “No”, the tip of the Dark Lance was a two meters away. “It”, it got closer, fast, already touching the golden ornaments of his white cleric robe. “Can’t”, it pierced the layer of protective light attribute energy. “Be!”