There was another use for the holy crystals. Yes, it could be used to build divine nations, sanctuaries for hosting the main body of the divine spirits to negate most enemy attacks. Even if the main body’s location was found out, most enemies would have no way of breaking through the defense of the divine states.

There were a lot of advantages in holding one divine state. As the training ground for the divine spirit’s main body, there tended to be better absorption for the worship power of the followers. Sometimes, the most devoted followers might just be drawn into becoming members of the state.

Now, Thief God Milton had no state. By that standard, he was not a complete divine spirit. There were not a lot of holy crystals that needed to be spent on building divine nations. Of course, this was not just for Abel, who had already held a total of 5300 on himself. Milton had been spending his entire life searching for holy crystals, but all he really got were five, which were left a while back. That’s just how difficult it was to find holy crystals.

Take Doff, for instance. Even with the entire Battlecry Plateau as his energy source, it would still take several centuries to produce one holy crystal. Yes, Doff had his figure in place now, but to reach a production rate of 100 was still something that seemed implausible in the short term.

100 holy crystals were the minimum requirement for building divine nations. That was the starting level. For the intermediate level, the number would be multiplied by ten times, whereas the divine state would be ten times on top of that. The holy crystals did possess other abilities. For instance, the Nation of God would often use dimensional force for blockade purposes. This was an example of how holy crystals could be utilized for something. There was also the time when the legendary sacred knight used one of his holy crystals for an attack. In a sense, the crystal could also be used to break through barriers. Needless to say, most regular divine spirits would have no way of spending resources like this.

Of course, that was before. Now that Abel had visited the central temple of the Nation of God, he figured that he might be able to use more holy crystals at his will. As it stood, there were not a lot of holy crystals stored inside the Nation of God. Some of the higher-staff would only store less than 100. Most of them were in the hands of the Saint, but even he had no control over some of the ones that were produced by the most powerful fighters the state had.

Abel was flicking through the records for the divine spirit heritage. He was starting to gain some understanding of how divine spirits worked. He was also starting to understand what the holy crystals in his hands meant.

Thief God Milton was getting impatient, “I’ve completed your request already, Grandmaster Bennett. Can you please let me go now?”

Abel replied, “You’re rushing a bit too much here, Thief God Milton. I still can’t confirm whether what you sent me is genuine or not.”

Thief God Milton insisted, “In the name of my holy title, Grandmaster Bennett, there is nothing fake about this!”

“Just wait a bit.”

Abel didn’t understand what weight a divine spirit’s oath was, but he trusted Lorraine more than Thief God Milton. Since the heritage he received had nothing to do with the Goddess Temple, he just needed to ask Lorraine some questions without having her reveal anything about the Moon Goddess Temple.

He spoke to the research spirit, “Contact Lorraine now.”

Inside the Goddess Temple, Lorraine still had her lessons. She was doing her history lessons taught by Druid Beulah. She was in the study meant only for the Sainte. Everything here was as top-notch as it could. No elves would come here to interrupt her lessons. Well, that was supposed to be the case until a female druid rushed in.

Druid Beulah asked, “What is this?”

Druid Beulah was not going to be in a good mood if someone came in to interrupt her lessons. This was especially now that there weren’t a lot of days left for Lorraine to become a Sainte. This was when studying was as important as it should be.

The female druids reported, “Grandmaster Bennett, Druid Beulah, has just sent an invitation to her Majesty the Sainte.”

Having heard that it was an invitation from Grandmaster Bennett, Druid Beulah’s expression started to look a lot less grim. Grandmaster Bennett was very important to everyone here. He was the one sending all the food and beauty products, so naturally, it’d be hard to have any kind of negative feelings about him.

Druid Beulah turned to Lorraine, “You can go now, Lady Sainte. The lesson will end early today.”

Lorraine was unsure, “Thank you so much, Druid Beulah!”

Lorraine then started jogging away. It was not very Sainte-like of her, but Druid Beulah didn’t make any comment about it.

Having arrived at the front of the contact circle, all the nearby elves made it clear that they would leave now. It was so that she could meet up with Grandmaster Bennett alone.

Abel was starting to notice something, “Are you still having your lessons?”

Lorraine smiled and replied, “It’s fine, Abel. Druid Beulah was the one teaching, and she made the lesson end early.”

Abel made it straight, “I have a complete set of divine spirit heritage here, Lorraine. Can you confirm if it’s real or not for me?”

In this world, Abel didn’t have a lot of people he could trust. If he couldn’t trust Lorraine, he would really have no one else to turn to.

Lorraine laughed proudly, “Good timing, ha! I actually just got a full mark on my course related to divine spirits. I even got a personal compliment from my lecturer!”

Abel was still unsure, “That’s great! Well, but if you need to keep anything confidential, just tell me whether it’s real or not. No need to do any extra explanations.”

He didn’t want his personal affairs to interfere with Lorraine’s career. To Lorraine and the family behind her, becoming Sainte was always the top priority.

Lorraine nodded quickly, “Okay!”

Well, she actually thought of something else. She could tell that Abel cared a lot for the divine spirit heritage, so if there was really anything that went wrong, she didn’t mind using whatever she knew to make sure that Abel was getting a better understanding of it.

Abel passed over what he knew over to Lorraine, while Lorraine caught it with her power of the Will. Once the process was done, Lorraine began looking towards this divine spirit heritage system. She was surprised to see how complete the set was. She couldn’t even find anything off if she tried. It was not as good as the Goddess Temple had, but this was pretty complete in its own way.

Lorraine spoke after checking for the third time, “I don’t see anything wrong with this. If you need some more, I can just give you a version here!”

Abel smiled and replied, “You’ve helped plenty already, Lorraine. Make sure you are on good terms with the elves inside the temple. Tell me if you ever run into trouble.”

He didn’t bother saying much with Lorraine. There was a divine spirit waiting for him in his trap.

Abel turned to Thief God Milton, “There is nothing wrong with what you gave, apparently. You’ve been quite honest with me.”

Thief God Milton was relieved, “Can you get me out now, then?”

Abel replied, “Well, one problem still stands. How do I make sure you’ve not going to go after me after I release you?”

Thief God Milton was getting anxious, “I can make an oath!”

Abel refused, “That’s not enough. I don’t trust you.”

Thief God Milton’s mind was going in different directions, “I, uh, how about I give a part of my soul to you? That way, you’ll have control over me at any time!”

Abel agreed immediately, “A quarter to me, then. I’ll make sure to release you as soon as I get it.”

Separating the soul to let the other side control it. This was a very common method of forming spiritual contracts. The idea that was just proposed wouldn’t work on Thief God Milton most of the time, but Abel would always have the option to destroy a quarter of Thief God Milton’s soul. That should be more than enough to put Milton to sleep.

Abel didn’t think of sparing Thief God Milton, but this was a very good offer he was receiving. The chance was very hard to get. This was a divine spirit that managed to train. Thief God Milton wasn’t a powerful divine spirit, but his expertise was undeniable.

Thief God Milton forged a blade with his power of the WIll and sliced towards himself. A quarter of his spirit was put to the side. The pain was so great that his expression was starting to turn pale.

He said meekly, “This is my spirit, Grandmaster Bennett. You go ahead and take it.”

Thief God Milton was not as lively as before. In fact, Abel never expected that he would ever get to see a divine spirit in such a vulnerable state. He didn’t think that receiving the spirit was anything dangerous, but out of habit, he still allowed his druid spirit to take it over. He was not going to expose his main spirit to any kind of threat.

The druid spirit extended some power of the Will towards the starlight defensive circle. A quarter of Thief God Milton’s soul was retrieved. As soon as it went inside the druid spirit, the portion suddenly went from a quarter to three quarters. Thief God Milton suddenly revealed a sly smile on his face.

Thief God Milton understood that Abel had a very poor understanding of souls, so he made three-quarters of souls take the form of just one quarter. If Abel had some understanding spirits, this trap wouldn’t have worked, obviously, but Abel didn’t see how crafty and decisive Thief God Milton could be. Thief God Milton was not as meek as he demonstrated. He was actually quite bold to pull something like this off.

Thief God Milton was a weak divine spirit, but he did begin as a mortal. With that being said, a lot of courage and wisdom was required in his path to growth. No one just succeeded by accident. It was not an easy path for any divine spirit, and they all had their own ways of surviving in this world.

Thief God Milton could not break through the starlight defensive circle, so he agreed to all of Abel’s requests and, at the same time, proposed a contract that he definitely had no way of refuting. All this was just for a chance to go inside Abel’s soul. A quarter was not enough to deal with a grandmaster alchemist, so he didn’t hesitate to make it three quarters. So, just like that, without Abel’s knowledge, three-quarters just went inside his soul.

If there was anything that Thief God Milton wasn’t sure of, it’d be that the body he infiltrated was not actually Abel’s main spirit but Abel’s druid spirit. Now, the druid spirit was a special spirit. Its concentration was actually more than that of Abel’s main spirit. It could even suffice to become the soul of the angelic spirit. Without an intellect of its own, it was also impossible to be brainwashed. Spiritual manipulation was also impossible since Abel’s conscience was the one controlling the druid spirit and not the druid spirit itself.

As three-quarters of Thief God Milton’s spirit went inside Abel’s druid spirit, an explosion was what took place. The weak-looking spirit became a sea of gold that swarmed towards the druid spirit, but to Thief God Milton’s surprise, the soul he was infiltrating looked too abnormal to him. He saw a crystal angelic statue, transparent energy that could neutralize even him, and vast storage of light element energy. He was starting to think that he was actually inside of some other divine spirit.