Chapter 427: Breathe in some Inspiration

Figg inspected the Church a little more, in search of secrets or perhaps anything that had been left behind when it was abandoned. But other than the portal, and the signs of the beasts who had gone through it, nothing had turned up.

A part of him wanted to take one of the flowers next to the portal, as they were incredibly rare and exceptionally beautiful, which would make them the perfect addition to his growing garden, Figg stayed his hand. That was because the other part of him, the rational part that surprisingly did exist, was warning him that doing such a thing could result in some kind of Divine Punishment.

He didn’t need that Elarian freak coming after him for ransacking a temple of its flowers. He definitely seemed like the type to do that.

When he made it outside, he immediately noticed Belladonna’s Fox Figurine hard at work. It had naturally taken on her appearance as it was borrowing her skills, and was in the process of setting up a better perception field around the church.

It was one that the Elarian could absolutely break through without issue, but hopefully it would be enough to turn away the beasts that wanted to use it until they could set up a proper base.

This perception spell was made through a combination of Vestra’s magic and Belladonna’s glyph knowledge.

Multiple poles were set up at the cardinal points around the church, just outside of the silver grass area. Each pole was as tall as a person, with a large head-sized crystal at the top as if it was supposed to be some scientific attempt at a scarecrow.

These crystals were special mana crystals purchased from the Tower of Mystica, and were similar to an artificially created Source Remnant. They were made to be used as batteries for ritual spells and a benefit of them was that they could be purchased empty for cheaper.

Fill these crystals up with a sizable amount of mana from the right class, and you had yourself the perfect base for a ritual spell. Unfortunately at this size, that amount of mana was roughly about what Vestra could store in her source at the moment.

Filling each of these up drained her completely, but it was good training at least, or that’s what Belladonna often told her.

As for the poles, those were where Belladonna came in, as they were covered in a variety of runes that linked them together into one giant circle, and conducted ambient mana into the pattern for the spell, aswell as kept the crystals charged since they now had their elemental alignment.

Figg glanced at the clone, watching it make a few adjustments to the carving for the new enviroment, as they were programmed for the lackluster ambient mana of their own world, before it planted them into the ground.

It didn’t seem all too bothered by the snakes, taking their venomous bites without a care. It seemed that as a Golem, venom had no effect on it, even a venom like this. That would be useful.

As for the real Belladonna, she was sat cross legged on the grass, her eyes closed and her back rigidly straight as she bathed in the moonlight.

"Why is she meditating here? She shouldn’t be too low on mana to need to meditate for more." He muttered to himself.

He had seen her do it a few times, meditating to concentrate on her magic, and had taught the rest of them how to do it as a better way to absorb mana since they couldn’t gobble cheat crystals like her. But it was because she had that cheat code that this didn’t really make sense.

"Don’t you get it dude? She’s going with the flow. Adapting to the harsh vibes." Raev said with a half-baked smile, as he strolled around Belladonna.

In proper terms, Belladonna was intentionally absorbing the hostile mana of the Divine area and was trying to adapt her body to be accepting of it, so that it didn’t weaken her. It was like a magical version of microdosing on venom.

Her face occasionally twitched with pain as she drank in the moonlight infused mana into her system, and let it attack her from within.

They were only small shocks of pain, as it clearly didn’t like being inside of her, but Belladonna endured the pain and kept it inside. Forcing it deep within her, as she studied the pain and tried to harness it.

However she was struggling. She understood pain, even this new soul pain was becoming a little more familiar with her constant exposure to it, but she just couldn’t figure out how to lessen this pain.

It kept shocking her, trying to get out and no matter how much she was trying to restrain it, it was like trying to hold a poker in your fist whilst it refused to get colder. She just couldn’t understand why and kept trying to brute force it, waiting for her body to adapt to something that it kept rejecting and that kept rejecting it.

Outside, the Avatar frowned softly. He could sense everything that was going on within Belladonna’s body. Just from the way she was treating the mana, he could understand her mindset, and he understood why it was wrong and failing.

In fact he knew that she could sit there for a thousand years, trying over and over to make it work this way, and it would always fail. It was just a fundamental misunderstanding in her methodology.

Taking a long drag of his latest joint, Raev let out a heavy sigh and, in the process, spewed a thick cloud of smoke into Belladonna’s face.

Belladonna winced, not just at the pain but from the strange smell invading her nostrils as she tried to concentrate.

She was just about to snap at the Avatar for interrupting her mediation, when she found herself slowly relaxing.

Her anger faded away as the smoke filled her lungs, as did the pain of the moonlight mana.

Belladonna’s rage melted off her face, as she slid right back into her meditation and fell even deeper into it.

Without the pain of the moonlight constantly attacking her, she realised how wrong she had been about it. It was like a lightbulb had been suddenly flicked on inside of her mind, and revealed the entire picture when she had been focused on just a tiny fraction of it.

It wasn’t just moonlight infused mana. There was something else, something fundamentally deeper and infinitely more powerful mixed in with the moonlight. As soon as she noticed that, Belladonna lost herself completely in her meditation as she experienced a state known as Enlightenment.