After all, a physical constitution check isn’t like a willpower check—aside from directly ingesting poison with one’s mouth, attacks that pass the physical constitution check had already struck and injured the holder.
And will-based checks are often far-reaching spells that can completely turn the situation around with just one failure.
Be it an outright instant-death Spell that kills if failed... or spells that manipulate minds to make enemies swap sides, forcibly dissolve hostility, or plunge soone into extre panic, they all imdiately affect the situation.
But, once reaching the Gold rank, the ability to use Elental Power becos extrely useful.
In just a few seconds, whether it’s a Gold rank Spell or Elental Power, either can turn the tables. This is the unique advantage of warrior Transcendents at the Gold rank—if they have a part-ti job as warriors and their physical attribute surpasses one hundred, they could even gain an "Mythic Physique" bonus effect, obtaining the hit-resistance capability similar to that of mythical creatures.
Moreover, after Annan had maxed out the Victorious Knight, he allocated all his free skill points to the Brilliant Sword.
When the Brilliant Sword reached levels seven and ten, Annan gained additional effects:
[LV7: When HP is below 50%, damage reaches its maximum (previously 30%)]
[LV10: Upon releasing "Brilliant Sword," the "Light of Brilliance" state is activated until the end of the combat]
[Light of Brilliance] is a new skill that Annan obtained from the last point of the free skill after maxing out the level of Victorious Knight.
This is a skill that isn’t available at the Silver rank... showing that Victorious Knight originally had the potential of the Gold rank.
Its skill description is "When possessing two or more of the six Elents of [Justice], [Sacrifice], [rcy], [Brilliance], [Victory], [Glory], the weakest one receives 50% awakening depth bonus from the highest."
And when activated, "all awakened and usable Elents among these six are bound to the blade."
—Undoubtedly, this is the power only available at the Gold rank... belonging to the "more efficient use of Elental Power."
Annan had been close to the Gold rank for quite a while.
As "Elental Power" was a key knowledge, he certainly couldn’t avoid studying it.
Because of this, Annan knew the significance of this skill.
[Justice] and [Victory] were fine as these two powers were already adjacent to the domain of the "sword" and could enhance the weapon by their own power.
However, the Elents that Annan possessed were unable to bind to his sword.
Since "Light Born from the Mirror," the Elent of [Brilliance] required attachnt to a mirror-like surface for usage, such as mirrors, lake surfaces, or pupils.
While [rcy] was more for healing and aiding—a supportive Elent, which could maybe attach to wooden staffs, hands, or other dical devices.
[Glory] was used to bolster oneself, usually used to increase resistance or strengthen a noble façade.
Many spells and abilities at the Gold rank required possession and usability of a certain Elental Power.
The skills and spells that could cross domains in using Elental Power existed too but were relatively rarer.
"It’s ti to prepare for advancent."
Annan thought.
At the very least, he needed to start preparing for an advanced profession.
He was just four levels away from the highest rank of Frostspeaker within the Silver rank.
Annan today was completely different in strength compared to when he had first advanced to the Silver rank—saying he could fight five of himself was definitely an understatent; if exaggerated a bit, he could take on several by himself...
Annan was confident now.
As long as he could advance to the Gold rank... even without the skills provided by the new profession of Gold rank, relying solely on the currently possessed skills and Elents.
He might not need to use the Philosopher’s Stone... just a sip of so concoction mixed by his senior, even not needing a Lockblood Potion-grade transmutation, he could defeat the Spirit Bearers by his own strength.
And if he used the power of the Philosopher’s Stone, he could still forcefully kill—unless he saw Annan and turned to run.
Annan was closing his eyes then, feeling the rapid strengthening of his power.
Then he heard Maria’s call.
"...Annan, Annan!"
She sat next to Annan, sounding sowhat worried, "Are you okay over there?"
"...Ah? What could be wrong with ?"
Annan said and paused slightly, "Didn’t you see the contents of the nightmare through the ritual?"
At this point, Annan realized that there were far more people watching him than he had imagined.
Kafney and Salvatore had just awakened—their consciousness still sowhat blurry, as if subrged in sleepiness.
And apart from Maria and Captain Alexander, there were about seven or eight priests of the Silver Baron in the room, including two cardinals.
They were like technicians repairing so massive machinery.
Scattered around the room, either kneeling, standing, or sitting, they pointed and discussed the ritual they were engaged in.
"Yes, we cannot see."
The old captain, with a face like a lion, solemnly explained beside them, "The Dream Peeping Ritual encountered a more powerful ritual’s interference... We cannot see, nor can we terminate the nightmare."
"I imdiately gathered the nearby priests, and we were very fortunate to find Cardinal Lorenzo and Cardinal Lancelot. Cardinal Lancelot is the church’s master ritualist; he taught the current generation of ritualists."
After the two elderly gentlen politely bowed slightly to Annan as a sign, the knight captain continued, "They brought over priests skilled in ritual studies to inspect the ritual here and applied Divine Arts for physiological monitoring and a more effective nightmare severing ritual.
"As soon as we detect any adverse signs, we will start the extraction process and pull you out of the nightmare unhard."
"...Can that really be done?"
Annan was curious.
His grandmother’s priests were not skilled in these kinds of rituals, though they were quite good at fighting.
After all, there was no "Knighthood" in Winter to protect the priests.
The old gentleman introduced by Captain Alexander as "Cardinal Lancelot" stepped forward and provided a more detailed explanation to Annan, "Your Majesty,
"The interference ritual was successfully removed ten minutes ago. We have successfully discovered that this cos from a high-level ritual in the domain of murder and conspiracy called ’Sleeping Beauty.’ The effect is to seal the cleanser holding the [Beauty] elent within a nightmare... As long as the nightmare does not completely collapse, it will continue indefinitely.
"Because a higher-level ritual covered this nightmare, the Dream Peeping Ritual was neutralized.
"We successfully designed the ’Ritual: Dreamworld Swap’ on top of this ritual, centered around ’trade.’ The effect of this ritual is to send soone into the nightmare to swap soone out, thus ignoring so of the nightmare’s lock effects. Of course... this is also because the ritualist who constructed ’Ritual: Sleeping Beauty’ did not deliberately block subsequent rituals."
"...Can you find out who used this ritual?"
Kafney, still full of drowsiness, asked.
She was still in bed, rubbing her eyes. Her voice was soft and quite gentle, yet it oddly carried a faint authority.
Cardinal Lorenzo imdiately responded, "We are already investigating... We have constructed a tracking ritual centered on this room. Everyone who has interfered with this room will be traced sequentially from most recent to earliest.
"But...to use such a complex high-level ritual without leaving any traces,"
Cardinal Lorenzo and Cardinal Lancelot exchanged a glance, holding back further comnts.
Cardinal Lancelot whispered, "We suspect this might be the handiwork of the Tragedy Writer himself.
"Or, perhaps, the Wolf Professor. It could also possibly be the Pope of the Tragedy Writers."
Cardinal Lorenzo added.
"This information is already sufficient."
Annan slightly narrowed his eyes.
He then nodded, "Thank you very much, everyone. The Duchy of Winter and the Old Grandmother will rember your efforts.
"Here are so gifts for your troubles."
"All the silver coins needed for the ritual can be deducted from my account," Kafney added.
Maria also politely bowed to everyone, solemnly saying, "May the Old Grandmother bless you."
Then, the three unconsciously looked toward Salvatore.
Salvatore, who had just woken up, was still lying in bed drinking hot tea and looked over in a daze.
"Ah, no problem."
Salvatore, a beat late, instinctively responded, "It’s fine, anything."
"Idiot..."
Vatore’s sister’s voice resonated lowly.
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