Chapter 227: An Absurd Idea

Upon seeing Charles, Oswald's eyes widened.

"You ranked up?"

Meanwhile, Charles nodded and soon spoke with a sigh.

"I indeed ranked up. But I also encountered something terrifying and lost."

"What happened? What did you encounter?" Oswald walked in front of Charles and asked with a serious look on his face.

It had only been a few hours before Charles went out to do the mission. But he already returned with a coma-stated Destiny Lady, which caused Oswald to be stunned inside.

Upon hearing Oswald's words, Charles walked towards the nearby ladderback chair, sat on it, and shifted his gaze towards the underground entrance.

"I already locked the underground basement. Not even God can spy on us," The white-haired old man said in a proud tone.

Meanwhile, Charles breathed out a sigh of relief and spoke.

"I encountered the 'Divine,' and I lost."

"Divine? How come you are still alive?" Oswald stared at him with a confused face.

"No, it's not like that." Charles took a deep breath and began to explain what had happened during the past few hours.

When Oswald heard about the strange female voice, he squinted his eyes and then checked him using his wisdom power.

"Hmm? I didn't see any curse in your body or your soul." Puzzlement appeared on Oswald's face.

'No curse? Then, what was that?' Charles thought for a moment and soon shook his head.

'First, I need to construct Rank-4 Spell models and increase my strength.' He muttered inwardly and shifted his attention to the Inner World.

'With my current wisdom power, I can only construct two spell models. Any more than that, I might face failure during the construction process.' He halted his thinking for a moment, stared at the white-haired old man, and asked.

"How did the ancient mages improve their wisdom power?"

Meanwhile, Oswald didn't put much thought into it and responded casually.

"Mostly, we use spirit technique and potions to increase our wisdom power. But there are some forbidden methods and artifacts that could help the mages extract a small amount of soul essence from one's soul. If the mages use those methods and absorb the soul essence, they could indeed increase their wisdom power at an unimaginable speed." He deliberated for a moment and added.

"Your secret artifact might come under this section."

"But it's not helping me increase my wisdom power at a greater margin now," Charles said with a helpless look on his face.

From his understanding, Charles knew that his wisdom power needed to reach 100 points for the next rank up. It was just one of the restrictions, though.

'I also need to increase my other attributes to the next level. Then, there is the comprehension process and sub-class skills improvement. Thankfully, I got all the emotions now.'

While he was in muse, Oswald also went silent for the next few seconds and finally spoke.

"I can give you the 'spirit' technique. It simply allows you to absorb the soul essence from the surroundings and helps you increase your wisdom power. But if you follow this method, it might take more than two decades for you to reach peak Rank-4 stage."

"2 decades?" Charles froze for a moment and soon shook his head.

"I don't have enough time." He paused for a moment and asked.

"What about potion recipes?"

"I have plenty of them, but potioneering is not an easy matter. Even the Ancient Mage Alchemists face difficulties when concocting the potions. If you give the full recipe of a potion to the current [Alchemist] Class Mystics, they won't succeed at all. During ancient times, even a Rank-3 Alchemist Mage could concoct a Sunset potion (Rank-4). But now? A Rank-4 Alchemist is struggling very hard to concoct a Midday potion (Rank-3)." Oswald said in disdain.

Meanwhile, Charles suddenly thought of something and asked.

"What about you?"

"No. I was a Runic Master back then, and I didn't have enough patience and money to walk on the Alchemist pathway. Wait. You can go to the City of Miracles and ask for a High-rank Alchemist's help in exchange for potion recipes. I also heard that the mages in that city are well versed in planar invasion and explore ancient ruins, pocket dimensions, and even dangerous dungeons to search for potions and materials. Why not try that?"

Charles fell into deep thoughts as he heard the Holem's Crown's words.

'I have three options now. The first one is kidnapping a potion master and forces him to brew potions for me. Nope, it's a suicidal idea. What if he put some poisons in the potion when concocting and tries to kill me?'

'The second option is learning to concoct the potion myself. From Runeth's earlier words, ancient mages seemed to have used their knowledge and patience to concoct the potion using the recipes. From the looks of it, one needs to think at a fast speed when concocting the potion. But I'm damn sure that it might take more than a decade for me to concoct a [Sunset] potion successfully.'

'The final option is to go to the City of Miracles and look for a high-level Alchemist and asks his help... But if I give an ancient potion recipe to such an Alchemist, the other party might use some underhand methods to plot against me. He might try to capture me and extract my memories to get the full recipe for himself.' The more he thought about it, the more depressed he became.

Upon noticing his facial expression, Oswald let out a deep sigh and was about to say something, but suddenly froze.

At that moment, an absurd idea popped up in his head.

"I have an idea. But this one is risky. As long as you succeed, your wisdom power would rose to an unimaginable level. But if you fail, there is a high chance that you might die." Oswald said in a severe tone.

'I have a bad feeling about this.' Charles stared into the old man's amber eyes for a moment and furrowed his brows.

"What is it?"

At that moment, Oswald's lips suddenly started to go upward and formed into a grin.

"There is a taboo method that ancient mages use to strengthen their wisdom power. They would steal divine trinket or 'Divinity' from God's avatar or incarnation, steal the divine power using artifacts, and uses the 'divine power' to enchant their wisdom. Yes, divine power, soul power, wisdom power, and spiritual power. In a sense, all these powers are the same. Take out the 'Divinity Extractor' gem-" Before he could finish the sentence, Charles's eyes lit up as he raised his hand and gestured Oswald to stop his talking.

'I indeed picked up a strange azure gem called [Divinity Extractor] when fighting against Red Prince's lackeys.' His eyes flashed as he shifted his gaze towards the space ring and hurriedly checked the contents. [Ref. Chapter 73.]

Within two seconds, he took out a thumb-sized azure gem and placed it on his palm.

Meanwhile, Oswald nodded his head with a pleased smile and spoke.

"The will of a 'Devil' is still residing in this gem. Erase it."

Without any refusal, Charles used his wisdom power, broke the chaotic imprint with full force.

A moment later, a shrill voice came out from the gem and soon died down.

"What are we going to do with this gem?" Charles couldn't hide his curiousness as he glanced at the old man and asked in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Oswald crossed his arms together and said calmly.

"First, I will modify this gem a bit and change it into extracting divine power instead of divinity. Then, we are going to capture the stalking 'Divine' and steal her divine power."

Charles's mind went blank for a moment.

"F*ck, you are insane! She is a 'Goddess,' not some random sheep." He couldn't help but shout as he heard Oswald's words.

On the other hand, Oswald shook his head and spoke.

"No. You clearly didn't understand the current situation of this world. After the Planar Alliance, all the Gods agreed not to interfere with mortals' business. Not only that, but they also formed an agreement not to send avatars or incarnations to the world to help mortals. But how come this stalking 'Divine' is acting here? There is only one possible answer, and that is: She is using one of her 'consciousnesses' to possess a mortal body and scheming something big. Unlike humans, Gods could even create hundreds of separate perfect consciousnesses. The one that is targeting you might be a perfect consciousness of a Divine. So, our target is not the all mighty 'Divine' but this perfect crafty consciousness."

Charles's expression turned ugly as he heard those words.

"A while ago, I was outsmarted by the Divine's consciousness and even received some invisible curse as a reward. We know nothing about this consciousness. The enemy is hiding in the darkness while we are in the open." Charles felt that it was an impossible task to capture a Divine.

"Even if it is just consciousness, it has the ability even to control a peak level Rank-4 Existence. What is terrifying me most is that Fake Elder died without even knowing that he was manipulated all the time. Haa, I now understand why you got captured by some 'Divine' and turned into an artifact. Your plans are always suicidal." Charles said in a cold tone.