Chapter 33

The next morning Tirr woke up exhausted and still feeling drained from the night before. He sat sleepily in his chair at the dining table as he ate his breakfast. Ignoring the questioning glances from Maria about the apparition from the night before untill she couldn’t resist her curiosity and asked him outright.

Tirr smirked proudly, “That was my Aspect of Life. It’s a high-level technique where you summon the physical embodiment of your Blessing’s power. Even I was only able to summon it for a few seconds because of how weak I am currently am and that was only possible because I’m amazing. Usually it’s not something you should even think about untill you reach the rank of Zealot.”

“So that’s something I’ll be able to do eventually?”

“Eventually yes, but every Aspect is different for each Blessed…” Tirr stopped, thinking for a second, “I was planning on teaching more after you grew further but these Shard Users have been better than I thought. It might be better to start teaching you some stuff early.”

“Stuff like what?” Maria asked.

“For now, at least more of the basics and what you should expect. We’ll start with ranks, there are 6 main ranks of Blessed. Starting with Devotees and followed by Disciples, what you are currently. Then Adherents, Zealots, Bishops, and Champions. Each rank has new ways to use and apply your Blessing, including the Aspect Summoning that I showed last night.”

Tirr spoke seriously as he explained to the rapt Maria. “Devotees are the first rank and we’ve talked a bit about them before. A Devotee uses a method called early Expression to make use of their Blessing.”

“They’re unstable as their Blessing hasn’t fully grown yet so they have to roughly force their Blessing out to use it. Without proper control it just disappears once it leaves the body which means they must be in contact with their target to accomplish anything. It also costs more energy to use as they don’t have proper control over how much to use at once.”

“Disciples are the next rank and the first to be able to use Manipulation. Manipulation lets you actively control your blessing and its output. This is the main reason you can heal more then the others, your blessing isn’t that much stronger, but your control over it is much better. It takes much less energy for you to heal the same things they do.”

“Manipulation can also let you shape or control things like the release of your blessing. Like when you strengthen your body. You could also use it to plant some of your blessing within someone to be activated when needed later. For most techniques in the future, Manipulation is an important foundation, so that’s what we’re going to start to work on harder.”

“The Shard Users that attacked were disciples then, right? Because they were controlling the flames?” Maria cut in, thinking back to the way the Shard users had fought.

“Yes, they used manipulation to increase the effect of their attacks before firing them but had no control of the flames once they let go. Tirr replied frowning, “The man I fought last had a high level of Manipulation usually seen in Late Stage Disciples, which means he either had good talent or a good teacher. Either way is enough to start taking more precautions.”

“The Flame Blessing was one of the best in direct combat because of its destructive power. I’m still too weak to properly deal with an Adherent or worse. We can only hope that man was one of the stronger ones.”

Tirr sighed shaking his head as he tried not to worry to much about it for now, he just needed to get stronger, and the first part of that was properly training his Apostle.

“The last rank we’ll talk about today is Adherent. Adherent is important because it’s the first rank that starts to accumulate Faith. Before Adherent, using the Blessing uses your own physical strength, exhausting you quickly. Once you reach Adherent, you gain your own Disciples and your Blessing grows enough to start accumulating Faith. From that point you can use Faith as fuel for your Blessing, allowing you more creative ways of using it without worrying about tiring yourself too quickly.”

“As an Adherent you can also use ranged Manipulation, allowing you to control your blessing at range. For the Life blessing this is mainly used as support in battles, allowing you to heal people or even groups from a distance.”

“Does that mean the Life Blessing is weaker than others in combat since it doesn’t have ranged attacks?” Maria asked.

“No!” Tirr said grinning, “While the Life Blessed don’t have ranged attacks like the others, they excel in close quarters. One way to understand it is if you say a normal person can lift 100 pounds. Having any Blessing naturally strengthens the body, so any Adherent could lift around 300 pounds. Those with the life Blessing can use Faith to strengthen themselves even further, making themselves five times stronger than even that!”

Maria struggled to even imagine what lifting that much would even look like, she thought of herself lifting one of the huge boulders that lay around the forest and couldn’t stop from laughing. Tirr gave an annoyed look at her response, having expected her to be amazed.

She apologized seriously, before asking how long until she would reach Adherent. Tirr quickly forgot about it as he got back into teacher mode.

“After the fight you’ve just managed to reach Mid Stage Disciple, which is honestly quite fast considering you’ve only had the blessing for a few weeks. The combat experience must have helped you grow. Your priority for now should be selecting your next three Devotees. This time we should be careful to pick out people that will be useful.”

“Can’t we just pick random people? Why does it matter?”

“These people will be the foundation of your Blessing. You get to choose three more now and another four once you hit Late Stage. After that you won’t be able to pass on your blessing any further. Part of your growth will depend on your followers and how dedicated they are. As you grow, they’ll get the opportunity to grow as well but if they are lazy or incompetent, you’ll be held back.”

“So, I can only pass on the Blessing ten times?” Maria asked surprised.

“You can pass it on as many times as you like, but like a branch you can only support so much. If you support more followers than your strength can handle, you’ll break and the whole branch will fall. Ten followers of the rank below your own was the average, some could handle more, others less. Since you’re the Apostle of Light which ten you choose is important.”

Maria sighed holding her head as she thought about the candidates that had already been put forward to receive the blessing next. A couple dozen had already requested it and the thought of narrowing it down to 3 was exhausting.

“It doesn’t have to be immediate.” Tirr laughed at her tired expression. “And we need a good mix of combat and support focus, we’ll get Doron to recommend two of his best fighters and ask your grandmother for one of the helpers from the medic team. The last four can wait untill you find people you really want to join after you hit Late Stage.”

The idea left Maria feeling much better and she quickly moved to clean up the remaining dishes, before going out with Tirr to find Doron. They found him passed out in his home, somewhat a mess after the late night drinking the adults had taken part in the night before.

After explaining the situation, he gave them his best recommendations before they moved along to find Nora handing out hangover cures for some of the villagers. She greeted them happily before giving her own recommendation.

That night they held a small ceremony at the Temple as the new Devotees were given the Blessing. Roger and Maria both looked awkward as she held his hand to pass on the blessing.

She moved on quickly once finished to another one of the fighters Doron had been training, this time a woman that Maria knew had retired in the village after her service ended.

Finally, there was a young man around Lina’s age that she had seen helping with the cure’s and bandages around the temple recently.

As they finished the ceremony the three were sent home to rest before starting their training the next day. As they prepared to head back inside, Claire, who had been watching with her maid, caught up to them and asked to come in.

She entered the Temple laughing and chatting about the ceremony and teasing Maria about the blushes shared between her and Roger. Tirr annoyed for reasons unknown to himself asked her about what she wanted.

Claire stopped chatting looking at him seriously as she sat at the table. She looked over at Jill before looking back at Tirr with a nervous smile.

“Will you come to the Capital with me?”