Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 206

Chapter 206: Medium
[item name: Holy branch

Item rank: medium (rare)

Item description:

A branch of a holy tree, it has acted as a medium of faith and prayers towards a certain god for hundreds of years.

Item effects:

While holding it-

mana recovery+20%,

Wisdom+50,

Increased mana control,

Nature’s path spells +30 % efficiency.]

“Oh, this?

It’s a gift I received from someone, today’s my birthday”

“Birthday? Do you celebrate birthdays?”

“Yeah we do”

“Alright, but still… that seems to be a bit too much for a birthday gift”

“Mh… indeed, I saved this person from trouble a few times”

“That already makes more sense”

“Why did you have such a strong reaction though?”

“It’s because of the holy power that branch holds, it seems like it has been used as a medium for a really long time.

It’s similar to the ice altar we had at the temple of the winter goddess, and it’s incredibly rare.”

“Why? What use does it have?”

“Well, if you’re a believer or an apostle, it allows you to communicate or hear the god’s prophecies without any dangers and difficulties”

“Dangers? How would a god’s prophecy translate into dangers?”

“Most of the time, the things gods talk about hold heavy secrets, and the fact that they are telling those secrets to you almost counts as them interfering with the world of the mortals.

For that reason, what we call “Fate” intervenes, these breaches of the laws are usually not that bad, and not heavy enough to punish a god, so “Fate” punishes someone dear to them, in this case, the apostles and the believers, however, using an item as a medium greatly reduces the penalty inflicted to the person.”

“Mh… does that mean I would be able to meet a god with this thing?”

“Meet a god? I mean, maybe, but if that were to happen, the power of “Fate” would be too much even for the medium and the item would probably break, the left punishment would even backlash onto you…

Already hearing a god’s words is something most of the strongest beings do not have the honor of doing, so do not be too greedy…

Also, when talking about this, it is obvious I am implying a god has to want to speak to or see you, you can’t just go and find a god, you wouldn’t be able to find any of them anyway.”

“Mh… then, one last question, you said the power of “Fate” punishes whoever hears information that should not be revealed to mortals, wouldn’t that mean a god could just kill any of us by talking about things we aren’t supposed to hear?”

“Uh…

That…. I’m not so sure myself, but I suppose “Fate” would punish the god in that case, since the whole idea is to punish the god slightly by punishing someone who is dear or important to them.”

“I see…”

“I’ve answered your questions, so could you answer one of mine?”

“What is it?”

“If people where you live don’t know things like this, and gods aren’t publicly announced, then why did she gift you such a thing?”

“Probably to use it as a staff”

“A staff?”

“Mh, I’m not sure about how it works since I’ve never used one myself, but we use staves to increase our magic output and casting time, other than many other things.”

“Mh… so you use them as catalysts”

“Not exactly, more like double catalysts, because we usually tie a catalyst to the staves, and that increases the effects exponentially.”

“Wow, that’s… smart.

Are you sure mages only appeared a decade ago on this planet?”

“Yeah, they probably figured out thanks to mathematics of something, kind of like multiplying a number two times instead of one, first with the actual staff, and then with the catalyst tied to it”

“I can not understand what you have just said even if the meaning is directly imprinted in my brain”

“….”

“Whatever, I’ll have to go and ask the old man if he can make me a full-fledged staff, and for now, I’ll just use it as it is.”

“Who is this old man? An artifact refiner?”

“Yeah, something like that”

….

Hans talked with Caelan for more than an hour and then spent the rest of the night sleeping, since meditating did not provide him any extra wisdom stat anymore.

The following day, Hans was walking towards his office, which was in the main building, just a couple of meters and a floor away from his class.

‘I asked Caelan about it yesterday night… about how irregular gates are created, of course, we had already talked about it, and I had already understood that it was the work of someone, more precisely, it was their work… the work of those people who both I and Caleb suspect to be attacking my world, and have already turned his into ruins.

The only question was… why?

Why would they create such portals instead of simply creating normal gates?

The only thing we concluded was that they do that when taking care of creatures they don’t want to take care of…

Initially, that seemed to be strange to me, since, even if at the time I struggled facing them, the bests I met in those gates would probably be nothing more than ants in the eyes of those monstrous beings.

However, after doing a more in-depth analysis of the irregular gates I explored, we discovered something that confirmed the first hypothesis:

Caelan himself was a threat they had already failed to beat, so they probably bonded him to a gate in order to let us Hearthlings kill him and wash their hands of him, as for the other two irregular gates I’ve been to…

Only the {Polar Gate} where I fought the Ice Dragon king and the {Snake’s Den Gate} where I fought the Moonlight Phyton were irregular, all the other difficult gates I came across simply hadn’t been measured correctly, and the beasts that were inside those gate had something in common…’

“It’s probably because they’re descendants of mythical beasts, that’s what I like to call them at least”

“Mythical beasts?”

“Yeah, the goddess told me there are beasts who possess powers on par with those of gods, and have a physical body to use them, They live tens of thousands of years, and when they eventually die, all their powers will be passed down to one of their descendants, because of that, they all treasure their own kin, and that’s why no one ever touches their descendants.”

“I… killed them…”

“Sigh…”

….

Or at least that’s what he told me… indeed, after killing the dragon I did get cursed, even though it was hidden under the skill I acquired when I ate the dragon’s heart:

{Dragon’s Nemesis (C-Rank)

Description: As a human who has ingested a drop of dragon’s blood, you are now destined to fight against them.

Effect: Any dragon encountering you will be enraged, +10% to all stats while facing a dragon, +30% boost to all stats when facing dragonoids]

But strangely enough, that did not happen when I killed the snake… I’m sure Caelan told me that there’s a high chance the Moon Python could be one of the distant descendants of the snake mythic beast, so how come I haven’t been affected?

Maybe it’s because I’m raising Ember…

Well… for whatever reason, it’s better like this, I’ve already enranged the dragons so it’s better if I don’t also get the snakes on my bad side.’

By the time Hans had wrapped up his thoughts, he had arrived at his office.

After waiting a few minutes inside, a knocking sound came from outside the door.

“Please come in”

The young man said.

Entering the room was a girl, specifically, it was Marisol Hinton, a girl who attended Hans’s first class.

Despite her having plenty of talent and even a decent learning capability, she did not have the mentality required to continue attending this academy and become a hunter in the future.

The world needed hunters… the country needed hunters, but it was certainly not their right to force an awakened to become one.

“So you’ve decided to do it in the end”

Hans commented when he saw the timid girl sitting down in front of him”

“Yes, I.… Decided to quit”

“Sigh…”

“I’m sorry teach, it’s not because of you, or because of the Academy, it’s me who’s in the wrong.

I am not made for this, everything I do won’t be of any help…

While seeing monsters for the first time, most awakened are scared, I was traumatized, and not only the first time, but the second, the third, and fourth too…

I tremble whenever I am faced with danger, and now that I’ve reached the peak of the second rank, it is time for me to accept the reality, even staying here has become tiring, seeing my friends improve while I’m stuck at the same level because of my cowardice… certainly doesn’t feel good.

Thank you for everything, I will be leaving tomorrow”

“Marisol…”

Hans was about to speak, but he closed his mouth once before opening it again:

“It’s okay, not everyone was born to be a hunter, you can come back here anytime you want… I’m sure your classmates will like it”