Chapter 32: The S-Rank Patent Controversy 1

After boarding the ship, Kent took some time to look around and familiarize himself with his surroundings.

There appeared to be roughly thirty crew members aboard. Most were responsible for handling the sails, while the rest served as armed guards. Their quarters were located toward the rear of the ship.

The level where Kent was staying had a corridor running down the center, with cabins on both sides. Each suite opened into a small sitting room. To the left was one bedroom, while the right side contained another bedroom and a bathroom.

Kent couldn’t help admiring the craftsmanship of the shipbuilders. The entire vessel had been constructed almost entirely from timber and iron nails, yet it was remarkably large and well organized.

The floor Kent occupied, along with the level above it, had been assigned to the priests participating in the Church of Light’s trial. The knights occupied the level below.

Leading them were an eighth-rank Silver Priest and a ninth-rank Gold Knight, both of whom were staying on the lower level.

Kent and his companions weren’t wearing their mage badges, but in the eyes of experts at that level, concealing their identities was practically meaningless. The two leaders could easily tell what they were.

Before long, the ship slowly departed from the harbor.

Its massive sails filled with wind, and the vessel gradually began moving along the river.

Looking around, Kent noticed several other large ships of similar design docked nearby.

With nothing else to do, he returned to his cabin and began carefully reading Chronicles of the Continent. Alice was busy consolidating her newly advanced mana, while Delis was reading as well—though her choice was a romantic adventure novel about knights.

After reading for a while, Kent rubbed his forehead.

"Ugh... what a headache."

The book was filled with legends and historical tales, almost all of which glorified individual heroes. Gods were constantly interfering in mortal affairs, demons appeared everywhere, and every story seemed more exaggerated than the last.

Kent found the whole thing exhausting.

Eventually, he took Niu Niu with him and headed up to the open-air terrace on the top deck.

Perhaps because the ship had only just set sail, there weren’t many passengers there. Only a handful of young female priests from the Church of Light were gathered together, chatting animatedly.

The priests wore pure white robes. On their chests was the emblem of an angel holding a silver-white staff. Their rank was indicated by the number of golden lines embroidered onto the emblem.

The knights used a similar insignia, except the angel’s staff was replaced by a knight’s lance.

Kent soon grew bored again.

On both sides of the river, the exposed banks were covered in dull brown mud, a result of the current low-water season. The river rose for half the year and receded during the other half, a phenomenon caused by the gravitational influence of the two moons hanging in this world’s sky.

After staring at the scenery for a while, Kent decided there was little point wasting time.

Improving his strength was what truly mattered.

He turned around and headed back below deck to meditate.

"Anna, what are you looking at?"

Almost immediately after Kent left with Niu Niu, one of the young priestesses turned toward another girl in their group.

Anna suddenly came back to her senses.

"It’s nothing. I’m just feeling a little dizzy," she replied quickly.

But that wasn’t the truth.

A moment earlier, when Kent had been nearby, Anna had sensed a faint pressure directed at her very soul.

It was an extremely strange sensation.

The presence felt warm and strangely familiar, yet at the same time it inspired an instinctive fear deep within her.

Priests cultivated in a completely different way from ordinary mages.

Although they also meditated and absorbed elemental energy, that wasn’t the foundation of their power.

For priests, prayer was far more important.

In other words, their cultivation focused heavily on strengthening and refining the soul.

Because of this, the Church used something known as divine affinity to measure a priest’s potential. The higher one’s affinity with divine power, the greater one’s future achievements were likely to be.

Anna’s divine affinity was an astonishing nine.

That meant that, barring an accident, she possessed the potential to become at least a ninth-rank priest.

But Anna’s talent went even further.

She was a rare Soul Priest.

The divine arts used by Soul Priests didn’t merely damage the physical body—they could directly attack the soul itself.

A ninth-rank Soul Priest was considered a natural nemesis to nearly every profession on the continent.

In fact, every generation of popes within the Church of Light had to be either a Soul Priest or a Soul Knight.

There was a simple reason for that.

Only those who possessed such powerful soul-based abilities could perform the Church’s ultimate divine art—

Angel Summoning.

Technically, even a first-rank Soul Priest could attempt to cast it.

But the price would be their own life.

And even then, the chance of successfully summoning an angel would be extremely low.

“There’s someone else here who carries angelic blood. It’s only the faintest trace, but I can’t possibly be mistaken. And that bloodline is even stronger than the one within me.”

Anna’s heart trembled at the thought.

To outsiders, she was known simply as a Soul Priest. But after awakening as one, she had been taken to a secret location and told the truth: so-called Soul Priests were actually people in whom an ancient angelic bloodline had awakened.

Anna had been strictly ordered never to reveal that secret.

Of course, there were plenty of powerful warriors and mages capable of exerting pressure on her soul. But the sensation she had felt from Kent was different. Alongside the pressure was a faint sense of familiarity, almost like the resonance between two people who shared the same blood.

And Kent’s magical fluctuations clearly showed that he was only a first-rank mage.

That meant the pressure couldn’t possibly have come from his cultivation.

It had to come from his bloodline.

Angelic bloodlines came in many forms, ranging from two-winged angels all the way to twelve-winged angels, with countless variations such as Silver Angels and Golden Angels.

Anna herself carried the bloodline of a four-winged angel.

That was why she was almost certain that Kent possessed, at the very least, the bloodline of a six-winged angel.

Unfortunately, Kent had been wrapped from head to toe in his mage robes, and she hadn’t gotten a clear look at him. By the time one of her companions snapped her out of her daze, he had already disappeared from sight.

“Delis, I know an ancient meditation technique,” Kent said after returning to his cabin. “But before I teach it to you, you have to swear that you’ll never reveal it to anyone. Can you do that?”

Alice was still meditating, while Delis had nothing in particular to do.

Seeing her sitting there, Kent suddenly thought of qigong.

This was one of his greatest secrets, however, so he called Delis into the bedroom and spoke to her with unusual seriousness.

“But I don’t have any magical talent,” Delis said quietly. “And... I’m already too old to start.”

Her expression immediately dimmed.

Delis was several years older than Kent. As a mage, Kent could continue cultivating and potentially live far longer than an ordinary person, while Delis might have only a few short decades ahead of her.

She normally tried not to think about it, burying herself in knightly romances and adventure stories whenever the thought surfaced.

But now that Kent had brought up cultivation, she knew she could no longer avoid the issue.

Kent understood what was troubling her almost immediately.

In truth, that was exactly why he wanted her to try.

He didn’t want to live long enough to watch Delis slowly grow old and die before his eyes.

Their relationship might not have been some legendary, all-consuming love, but they had endured hardship together. That bond meant enough to him that he wasn’t willing to give up on her so easily.

Kent gently stroked her cheek.

“I don’t want to watch you grow old one day while I stay the same,” he said softly. “Maybe you don’t have magical talent, but why not at least try?”

“Give it six months.”

“Even if it’s only for the chance that we might stay together for much longer... isn’t that worth trying?”

Tears immediately filled Delis’s eyes.

Kent’s low, sincere voice, and the depth of feeling behind his words, struck her harder than anything else he could have said.

She fought to keep herself from crying and nodded again and again.

“Alright. From now on, practice in this posture.”

After Delis had calmed down, Kent made her swear never to reveal the technique.

Then he personally helped her adjust her position and carefully explained every detail she needed to pay attention to.

“Clear your mind and focus on sensing what’s happening inside your body,” he instructed.

“If one day you feel a faint current rising from the soles of your feet and flowing inward... then congratulations.”

“You’ve succeeded.”

Kent deliberately avoided mentioning concepts such as acupuncture points or meridians. Explaining too much would only make the method seem suspicious.

Presented this way, it looked like nothing more than an unusual form of meditation.

Once he was satisfied that Delis had assumed the correct posture, Kent quietly left the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Outside, Big Nose was sitting obediently by himself.

Niu Niu, on the other hand, was crouched beside him with intense curiosity.

Every so often, she would reach out and tug on one of Big Nose’s whiskers or pull at his ears.

It was painfully obvious that she had decided the poor Earth Demon Rat was her newest toy.