The Divine incantation
Late at night, after settling various matters, Aiden arrived at the dungeon beneath the office.
Upon opening the massive prison door, Aiden discovered that Mephilia was not asleep as usual but was staring at him with her silver-gray eyes wide open.
"I've been waiting for you, my warden," she grinned at Aiden.
"You knew I would come to find you?" Aiden wasn't surprised.
"Oh, of course, because you and I are connected..." Mephilia said in a teasing tone.
But Aiden didn't take it as a joke. "I say, can you read my mind?"
He had long felt that Mephilia possessed some ability to gather external information and suspected she might have the power to read minds.
"Don't worry, mind-reading is indeed one of the powers of spiritual authority, but being sealed by the Holy Nail, I can't use it now. So as I said, we are just connected in spirit. You shouldn't be able to see it, right? There's an invisible red thread between us, hahaha..." Mephilia teased Aiden.
It seemed she was unwilling to explain any further, but Aiden could at least confirm that there was some peculiar connection between Mephilia and him. This connection might have been established when he was summoned to this world, likely a result of the corresponding effects of divine words.
He could vaguely sense that even when he was outside the dungeon, Mephilia could still "observe" him through this connection.
However, from Aiden's experience, it seemed that Mephilia did not know everything he knew. This "observation" was not at the level of constant monitoring.
"I can tell you have a lot of questions. So Let's skip the games today. Ask whatever you want to know," Mephilia calmly brought up a serious topic.
After a moment of silence, Aiden, who had been through a lot in the past few days, resolving the issues with Rebecca and Priscilla, infiltrating the witches' gathering, learning about divinity and divine words....., and the Blood Moon Cult....
He indeed had many questions. But the question he most wanted to ask was, "The divinity on me, it's from you, isn't it?"
"Of course. Happy about it? You've always carried my 'initial gift.' Knowing about divinity also means..." Mephilia narrowed her eyes suddenly, "You have mastered the Divine incantation, right?"
"Divine incantation? Does that thing actually have such a specific term?" Aiden asked back.
"Yes, the thirty-six sentences of the Divine incantation representing the authority of dominion, each sentence symbolizing a unique power," Mephilia said joyfully. "The fact That you could master it, truly hasn't disappointed me."
“Why are you so happy? Why did you give me divinity?” Aiden asked bluntly.
Facing this question, Mephilia just raised an eyebrow, "Have you ever raised a pet?"
Aiden responded instantly, "i see."
Mephilia flashed a knowing smile.
Aiden understood that Mephilia intention was simply to nurture him with divinity as one would feed a pet, like humans feeding goldfish, lizards, or insects, treating them with food, considering them lower beings.
Having been fed divinity, Aiden could successfully grasp the Divine incantation. For Mephilia, it was undoubtedly enjoyable to observe a pet rapidly grow after feeding it.
Although this notion was somewhat unpleasant, Aiden did benefit from the situation, so he remained silent. After all, in Mephilia eyes, humans like him were just insignificant creatures; he was well aware of that.
"So, which sentence of the Divine incantation have you mastered? Tell me about it," Mephilia asked.
"It's a sentence that disperses magic and automatically tidies up a things," Aiden answered.
Aiden chose not to reveal the specific sentence of the Divine incantation, and only briefly summarizing its effects. He wasn't certain if disclosing it to Mephilia would pose any danger.
"Ah, I see. It's the 'Return' from the 'Order,'" Mephilia immediately understood. "This incantation can return all things altered by external forces to what the dominator deems 'normal.' However, with your current level of divinity, you can probably only dispel simple magic, repair minor damages, and tidy up a room to some extent."
"Does higher divinity result in stronger effects of the Divine incantation?" Aiden extracted this information from Mephilia words.
"You've got it half right. It's more about mastering a greater number of the same category of incantation, which brings you closer to the corresponding authority of those incantation, making their effects stronger," Mephilia explained slowly. "However, the limit of how many incantation an individual can fully master is determined by the level of divinity. For example, even if you were to learn a second incantation, due to limited divinity, you wouldn't be able to unleash its full effect."
"This sounds a bit like... skill points?" Aiden drew parallels to similar concepts.
(TN: sounds like skyrim Fus Ro Dah)
"Yes, you could say that," Mephilia agreed with the analogy, as Aiden had played tabletop games with RPG elements with her before. Hence, she could grasp the concept. "Like skill points, you can allocate the acquired divinity to the mastered incantation. The more incantation you need to master within the same category, the more divinity is required."
Aiden began to grasp the idea. An individual's divinity was akin to skill points, with each Divine incantation representing a skill. incantation of the same category could form a skill tree, requiring higher skill points to progress deeper into a segment of the tree. Simultaneously, each skill level on that tree would increase. If one could illuminate an entire segment of the skill tree...
As if reading Aiden's thoughts, Mephilia continued to provide more information.
"If one can collect all the incantation of a category, and then meet certain conditions, the individual can ascend to the rank of dominator. How about it? Interested? This is the path to divine ascension and glory," Mephilia suddenly added an encouraging tone.
"It would be false to say I'm not interested at all, but this whole thing sounds very troublesome," Aiden replied.
The Divine incantation... divinity...
The witches' gathering and the Blood Moon Cult, these two dangerous groups were clearly aiming for this so-called path to divinity. Aiden believed there were probably many similar organizations in this world. Honestly, he wanted nothing to do with such matters.
"But you're already deeply entangled in this trouble, aren't you?" Mephilia smirked slyly. "Don't forget how your predecessor died."
"I see." Aiden nodded. "Would that person... also be able to use the Divine incantation?"