Once the afternoon arrived, Lucius and Kiana left for the Appraisal hall in a carriage. In about fifteen minutes, they reached there and alighted. Lucius got to see a completely different scene from the last time here was here.

Unlike before, the area was completely empty and dead dried leaves were fallen on the ground everywhere. It was now Autumn and thus trees were shedding leaves everywhere. And since there were no people attending the appraisal hall, the area was not cleaned.

Though the dried leaves added a rather strange charm to the building along with the trees planted at the sides of the pathway and the inner garden of the appraisal hall.

"There is more to the appraisal hall, huh…" Lucius muttered.

He could see that the building extended further than just the front part that they had been in. There were actually three pathways that extended from the sides of the building and went in, while the main entrance was from the center.

"Yes, the appraisal hall has more parts to it, but they are not accessible to most people. Besides, those parts are not useful for most people anyway as they contain the living quarters of the priests and any scholars that come visit.

And… I think there is also a small library there for the priests of Etara. Though it is mostly used for training the acolytes." Kiana answered.

"I see… so does priest Maleck have any students?" Lucius questioned.

"He does, yes. I think he has three students as of now." Kiana answered.

Lucius nodded his head and walked ahead. Unlike the priests of Alana, the priests of Etara didn't need to give up their original gift to become a priest. Since the appraisal was actually done using the unique artifact of the appraisal hall, the priests only needed to use that.

Though it was not like that the Church did not have its own divine gift, it did have a couple of them, but they were only taken up by the ones who wanted them. Lucius had learned that the Divine Gift of Etara was a mental type of gift that increased one's intelligence and thinking abilities.

Overall, it seemed to be a rather useful gift to him and could be considered to be powerful that the gift of Alana, if one knew how to use it properly. After all, the one thing Lucius knew the best was that knowledge was power and Etara was the goddess of knowledge and wisdom.

The Guild of artificers was born from a branch of the Church of Etara and thus all scholars of the guild were followers of the Etara, too.

Having the land of Etara under them was the pride of the Inanis family and they were often envied for this. They were perhaps one of the lowest ranked noble families compared to the others that had a major church based in their territory.

The Grand cathedral of Alana was based in the capital of the Grantz Kingdom and thus came under the purview of the royal family. The Grand Cathedral of the Church of Duran came under the territory of a Duke named Rizal.

The other bigger churches of Alana also came under the territories of other high ranked nobles, the lowest of which were Earls. Inanis family was one rank below them and was thus considered quite lucky.

A lot of people had tried to get their hands on the territory, either by hook or by crook, but they had been unsuccessful. After all, even if the rank of the Inanis family was low in the nobility, they were still strong when comparing military ranks.

Because of this, most of the nobles trod carefully around them. But in the past two generations, the Inanis family had shrunk quite a bit due to not having enough heirs. Both Asher and Gabriel were the sole heirs of their fathers.

Gabriel had been quite worried about it too and wanted more children, but it seemed like fortune was against them. The Inanis family was once feared due to their gift and during the time of Gabriel and his father, the two of them were an unstoppable force on the battlefield.

Back to back, they could take out hundreds of soldiers in mere minutes. Having the same gift also meant that specialized skills could be passed down from father to son. Usually, a person would need to spend years learning about their own gift and how to use them in different ways.

But having an inherited gift solved this problem and allowed them to become far stronger early on in life and then expand upon those very gifts. That way, the experience of one generation was passed on to the next and built upon.

Unfortunately, the cycle was broken upon Asher's birth and he turned out to be giftless.

~huu~

Lucius took a deep breath and stepped into the hall. The sound of his footsteps echoed across the empty hall and reverberated, giving one an ethereal feeling.

"Welcome, Young Lord Asher!" The voice of Priest Maleck came from the end of the hall. 

Lucius could see the man standing at the altar, looking at him. He was dressed in his priest's robes and a few books hung at his side. It was evident he had been waiting for him today.

"Thank you for allowing us to do this, Priest Maleck." Lucius said in a polite tone.

"Ah, there is no need for thanks, young lord Asher. If we truly get some good results, it will be the fortune of the entire territory." Maleck said with a smile.

"Oh, yeah. Though we would prefer if the result is kept hidden for either of the choices." Lucius replied.

Maleck maintained his smile and nodded his head.

"If the young lord wishes so, it shall be done. After all, even if we hide it, the divines will always know. Etara is watching and so are the rest of the divines!" Maleck said out loud, a spark of devotion present in his eyes.