I Became the Patron of Villains (Novel) - Chapter 18 - The Blue Tower (4)

Chapter 18 – The Blue Tower (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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One month after returning from the Blue Tower, Alon discovered a new rule regarding incantation phrases.

Thanks to the Bracelet of the Profane, he could now use proper magic three times a day, or even four if he divided his mana carefully.

And as of today, one thing had become clear.

Even if identical phrases did not stack, sufficiently similar phrases could produce an effect close to stacking.

He had not yet fully solved the mechanism. Some phrases seemed to require other phrases to come first in order for the overlap to work.

It probably has something to do with arrangement.

Before he could think further, Evan spoke.

“Count, your magic seems to get stronger every time I see it.”

“Does it?”

“Not ‘does it.’ Look at that.”

Alon followed Evan’s gaze.

The middle of the training ground had been gouged out in a wide crater.

“A second-circle spell should not have that kind of power. Your magic never looked like ordinary second-circle magic to begin with, but now it feels like something else entirely.”

Alon studied the damaged ground.

He had sensed it too.

For reasons he could not explain, his magic was gradually growing stronger.

The spell he had just tested was Gravity, a second-circle gravity spell.

Under normal conditions it was not powerful enough to crush a human being to death, much less carve a pit into the earth even if its range were narrowed and its force concentrated.

So what had happened here was impossible.

It wasn’t a simple increase in proficiency.

His control and precision had certainly improved through constant research, but ordinary mastery did not explain growth of this kind.

Neither did the phrases themselves.

For four months he had been experimenting with similar incantations, and for the last two weeks he had been alternating near-identical ones specifically to compare their effects.

The data was clear.

His magic was trending upward.

Not dramatically, but steadily.

Could it be because I’m becoming more accustomed to using the phrases?

No.

One of the things he had learned after years of studying them was that incantation phrases functioned more like triggers than skills.

They did not grow stronger through repetition the way a technique would. They were more like switches that imposed or transformed specific properties within a spell.

That left only a few possibilities.

In this world, sudden growth in power usually came from one of two sources:

Receiving faith.

Or receiving the reward of a curse.

He eliminated the first immediately.

Whatever else he was, he was only the count of a relatively small kingdom, and at present his reputation was eroding into mockery more than awe.

That left curses.

But those required either someone sacrificing themselves to curse you, or you placing the curse on yourself. And curses were, for the most part, a practice of the eastern lands.

No one in his current web of connections should have had eastern enemies.

Which meant the only conclusion left was the dumbest one.

“Looks like I’m just in good condition today.”

Evan looked doubtful.

“That’s all. There’s no other reason for my magic to be getting stronger.”

In other words, Alon chose denial.

“I heard a letter from Yutia arrived today. I’ll go read that.”

And with that he ended the day’s magical experiments and returned to his office.

* * *

The Holy Kingdom of Rosaria worshipped the moon goddess Sironia, patron of peace.

Unlike the sacred state beyond the empire, Rosaria placed the moon itself at the center of its devotion.

To the east of the white capital of Lionel, before a prayer house, stood a holy knight named Rok.

He was dressed head to toe in platinum plate armor befitting the city’s title, the Pure White City.

As he carefully opened the door and entered, his eyes soon fell upon a white-haired nun standing before a statue of Sironia.

She wore a neat habit and a calm smile.

Nothing about her suggested high rank.

She did not even wear the sacred cords that marked Rosaria’s senior clergy.

By rank alone, she stood below Rok, who was a holy knight.

Yet the moment he saw her, he bowed.

“Greetings, Sister.”

“Hello, Sir Rok. Have you been well?”

She accepted the greeting with a smile.

The situation was strange.

Yet neither of them treated it as strange in the slightest.

“Thanks to you, Sister, I was able once again to save eight children and twenty-five lives from small villages in the east and west.”

“That is wonderful.”

“It is all thanks to you.”

“Surely not. You were the one who saved them.”

But Rok did not yield.

“I may have saved them with my own hands, but you were the one who showed me the path and granted me strength where I had none.”

In truth, he had once been no holy knight at all.

He had been a devout believer in Sironia and a trainee desperate to become a holy knight, yet he could not wield holy power.

He could not even sense it.

Eight years passed while his peers awakened holy power and advanced, but Rok remained a trainee.

At the point where despair drove him to abandon his dream, he met her.

A nun with red eyes and a calm smile who told him to believe in the moon.

At first, he did not understand.

What difference was there between believing in the moon and believing in Sironia, who was herself the moon goddess?

But he had been desperate enough to grasp any straw offered to him.

So he prayed to the moon.

And after only a few days of doing so, Rok, who had spent twenty years without gaining any holy power at all, suddenly obtained it and became a holy knight.

At first his joy was followed immediately by suspicion.

He was a lifelong believer raised in Rosaria. Part of him feared he had stepped onto the path of heresy. After all, it was only after turning his faith toward the moon rather than Sironia directly that his power appeared.

Yet with time, his suspicion faded.

Because the holy power he gained by believing in the moon was no different at all from the holy power of Sironia’s believers.

The sacred implements authorized in the goddess’s name still shone in his hands.

Eventually, unable to bear the question any longer, he asked the nun why she had told him to believe in the moon.

Her answer was not theological.

It was not even especially mystical.

Faith begins with belief in what cannot be seen.

But that takes too long for most people.

It is easier to believe when you start from something that truly exists in front of you.

That is why I told you to believe in the moon.

The goddess may dwell on high, but the moon is always by our side.

And Sironia is the moon as well.

That was all.

It was merely a practical way for those plagued by doubt to believe more firmly.

Rok accepted the explanation.

And from then on, he was sincerely grateful to her for teaching him how to believe.

“If you’d like to express that gratitude, would you join us in prayer? Prayer time is about to begin, and many others are already gathered.”

“Gladly.”

With that, she led him into the prayer hall.

Inside sat all kinds of people:

Believers.

Children.

Trainees.

Ascetics.

Holy knights.

Some stood.

Some sat.

Some knelt on the floor.

Some simply bowed their heads hand in hand.

Yet every last one of them shared the same solemn stillness.

There was not a sound among them.

They merely waited in pious silence as the nun walked to the front of the hall.

Under the moonlight filtering through the stained glass, Yutia Bloodia smiled gently and said:

“Now then.”

“Let us pray.”

“To the Great Moon.”