Chapter Forty-Five: Preparing the Divine Arts

He sighed inwardly at how biased that existence was. This youngster probably had no idea how valuable a position inside was. In all of Mystra, countless mage families and old noble houses dwell in seclusion. The number of relatives and dependents among these powerful clans is beyond counting, and their intermarriages make things even more tangled, not to mention the branching kin who come from afar seeking patronage.

To preserve their family's influence, naturally, they strive to nurture their heirs into spellcasters. The path of the mage tests one's talent, but priests are chosen more by the gods' favor. Usually, there's little anyone can do to sway the gods' opinion. After all, during prayers, you can't just praise a relative and hope the deity grants them the rank of a first-level priest.

Only the seat on the Day of the God's Birth can so directly showcase each house's prestige, making it convenient to insert their own people. The Goddess of Magic can hear her followers' thoughts, but on such festive days, when her consciousness descends upon the temple, the apprentice priests present around her always catch her eye a bit more. Or rather, she gives the Church of Arthur some face, arranging for a few apprentices to be promoted.

But then came Zhao Xu, who stood at the entrance and directly received divine power. If it were any other day, no one would question the promotion of a devout priest. But today, it was obvious—the moment the Goddess descended, she favored the one at the door and granted him divine magic. How would the three hundred apprentice priests inside who failed to advance feel? It made them seem lacking.

Lei'an hadn't expected, when he brought along this calm-faced junior, that he'd encounter such a situation. "Keep this quiet for now. Don't get excited and use your divine magic. Go through the training first, and on the last day, reveal you have divine power. Register formally and you'll be free to leave."

Zhao Xu hadn't expected such advice, but he nodded directly. He'd struggled in Arthur for nine years; he wasn't about to waste his life. His foundation lay in the Final Scroll, so naturally the other party didn't want him drawing too much attention in the church—especially not getting entangled with low-level priests.

Lei'an then went forward to communicate with the middle-aged priest, arranging Zhao Xu's next steps. After their conversation, Zhao Xu followed Lei'an and was reassigned to the inner district by the priest. Ultimately, under the church's arrangement, Zhao Xu was given a new dormitory and a schedule.

Though the schedule was densely written, a closer look made it clear enough—morning prayer meetings for unified worship, followed by study of religious texts until noon, lunch, and then tailored priest training in the afternoon. His dorm room was a single, though much narrower—he feared even turning around might be difficult if he gained any weight.

The room's furnishings were simple: just a bed and a wooden desk. After completing the handover, Lei'an pointed out the Mage Association's liaison office within the church. In the days to come, Lei'an couldn't watch over Zhao Xu twenty-four hours a day. Instead, if Zhao Xu needed anything, he could go to the liaison office, where they'd notify Lei'an.

Once everything was explained, Lei'an left with the middle-aged priest. The Day of the God's Birth was not just about the divine presence; many ceremonies followed. As the liaison officer, Lei'an had to coordinate the arrival of Mage Association staff. In the end, only Zhao Xu remained alone in the room.

For the rest of the day until night, the church had no scheduled training on the Day of the God's Birth, so he was left idle. Sitting on the bed, Zhao Xu casually took out a religious tome from the wall cabinet. After less than half an hour, he shoved it back, carefully closing it. The texts were not only convoluted in wording but laden with complex metaphors, leaving him with a headache. He couldn't help but wonder how others managed to digest such material.

Turning his attention back, Zhao Xu resumed studying his divine magic. Just because he couldn't demonstrate it openly didn't mean he couldn't use it in private. The only trouble was that priests as a group usually had fixed times for prayer. It was then that the gods distributed divine spells en masse. If a priest wanted to change the timing, it depended on whether the god would make an exception.

He had lived in Arthur for years in his previous life; countless Earthlings tried to use their original knowledge to verify or even judge what planet Arthur truly was. All ultimately surrendered, accepting that Arthur was not part of the original cosmic system, but rather a unique planar structure.

Thus, on Arthur's primary material plane, all places shared a unified time zone, watching the endless horizon's sun rise and set together. In his previous life, Zhao Xu had struggled for a while, only accepting this planar concept after seeing models drawn by others.

Cross-legged, Zhao Xu began meditative prayer, attempting to acquire divine magic. After skimming the religious texts, he'd at least mastered the basic prayer phrases. Fortunately, divine magic wasn't finicky—it didn't demand eight hours of rest.

Gradually, Zhao Xu noticed specks of light emerging in his mind. The spell slot symbols on his character sheet began to sway, as if turning from gray to shining. During his meditation, the image of the Goddess of Magic became clearer in his mind, the details of her face assembling piece by piece.

In Arthur, the gods’ appearances were always portrayed in a vague manner. Even the stone statues achieved resemblance in spirit but not in form. When Zhao Xu had sat upon the Arcane Throne and was summoned back through history, he’d seen Xisylvina before her ascension and hadn’t recognized her. Had she been a deity then, with a presence identical to her statue, he wouldn’t have mistaken her for a succubus.

Zhao Xu became one of the few in Arthur who truly knew the goddess’s face. However, just as her visage was reconstructed in his mind, the lively features dissolved into countless starlit fragments. He saw numerous floating spheres of light, coalescing from those star points. Focusing on them, he realized they were descriptions of specific divine spells.

Each sphere represented a divine spell he could choose to prepare. The bottom row was naturally zero-level spells; the larger spheres above were first-level spells. Counting them roughly, Zhao Xu found twelve zero-level and twenty-five first-level spells—a total of thirty-seven options.

Unlike wizards, who must painstakingly copy each spell, the gods were generous, listing all the spells available for selection at once. Even though he could only prepare five or six spells now, the selection was vast.

Some spells overlapped with arcane magic—for instance, the zero-level spell Detect Magic existed in both arcane and divine forms. But some spells were exclusive to divine magic, beyond the reach of wizards.

At this moment, Zhao Xu hadn’t realized—not every ninth-level priest could cast “Raise Dead,” a fifth-level spell. The twelve zero-level and twenty-five first-level spells constituted the standard set. There were even more first-level spells, including expanded options, just as his first-level arcane spell Teleportation was not standard and required special means to learn.

Most first-level priests wouldn’t have more than these twenty-five spells to choose from at the start. Even having ten spells to pick from was considered excellent; only by gradually gaining divine favor could one unlock more. Only those most favored by the gods would have the full set of twenty-five first-level divine spells listed upon reaching first-level.