Bab 76: Crumbling Faith
It has been almost a year since the rumors started and her life started falling apart. By now there were people in the palace treating her almost like a heretic, since the Bishop didn't say anything to oppose it, they felt it was completely okay.
Lucien was patiently waiting in his inn, he could have probably finished the Devil State using some other methods, but for some reason he felt it would be much more satisfying and complete if he did it this way.
His training was progressing incredibly fast, and using some of the Herbs as a Source of Particles, he could reach the 7th Gate already, almost ready for the breakthrough.
The system of the Gates was really mysterious. They were illusionary, but at the same time real. Once a Practitioner made contact with the Particles of a certain Path, he could already feel the first gate in his body. And by opening 9 of them he could get stronger by a large margin, thus progressing in the Ranks. And all the gates, no matter which Rank were connected to the previous, thus forming a Path of sorts.
The first 9 Gates of each and every Path was deep within the body, the second 9 gates connected the depths of the body with the skin, thus allowing a practitioner to send his Particles out of his body. And the magical sequence continued outwards, the third 9 gates were outside of the body, each one meter away from the previous one.
Once a practitioner broke through Rank 3, he could take control over the Particles outside his body to make his abilities much stronger, and the range of this ability was exactly 9 meters, which was exactly how far the third set of gates reached.
Unfortunately, before opening the final one, Lucien couldn't access that amazing ability even if he could open 7 of them already. He knew his potential was plenty, but familiarizing himself with the routes of the diagrams took time. And there was one more requirement that impeded him, his control over the Particles outside his body was still not at 100%. Over the past year it reached 97%, but he still needed a little more time to finish it.
On the bright side, he finally understood that without the clone he would need double the time, it would easily take him 4-5 years at this speed, but now he could probably achieve it in 2 years.
He spent most of his time in this room, the people of the inn through he was planning on living here for quite a while. Looking at the increasingly gloomy face Maria was showing each time she came out, he knew it was almost time.
'I think I have it figured out a little bit, this is their thing, our Empire sends their princes out with no influence or help to survive, and here they test their faith using this method. Which means that I probably have to finish this before the year is finished.'
'Makes me wonder what do the Barbarians do, since it seems like a custom for all the Empires and actually even the Vampires have this sort of custom.'
And Maria was indeed feeling increasingly worse, after half a year passed, people were already hiding from her and the streets were empty, but she still kept coming outside, fully aware that someone was doing this behind the scenes. There was no way the whole capital would be scared of her, because of one kid.
When almost a full year passed, she didn't really feel like coming out anymore, she was ready to try one more time and see how it goes, but to improve her resolve, she decided to speak to her father no matter what it took.
The Bishop was surprisingly easy to meet this time, it seemed as he was quite pleased with the strength his daughter had shown. He was fully aware that her faith was crumbling slowly, but if she managed to hold out, that faith would be renewed and strengthened by incredible amounts.
"What is it?" He sounded cold, no matter what, it was a trial dating back to ancient times and he couldn't afford to mess with traditions of this level.
"Why?" Maria only asked a simple question, but they both knew exactly what it meant.
"Because it's the Will of God." The Bishop said exactly what his father had said to him, and what his grandfather said to his father.
Maria looked a bit stunned for a second, not knowing how to respond. After a couple of seconds, she knew that there was nothing further to discuss. That was enough of a reason for any action the Holy Empire might take across the whole continent, not to mention actions involving a child that had not survived the elimination rounds yet. She left silently, and continued walking towards the outside of the palace, ready to try one more time.
The streets were empty as usual, it was as silent as a cemetery. She didn't even have guards at this point, someone in the palace had decided they should be used in other places. Even the beggars who were the only people left for her to help in the past couple of months were now gone.
'They probably gave them some food and shelter for a while so that I can't meet them. I understand their choice, it survival and it doesn't seem selfish from their point of view, they can't always rely on the support and charity I give them once a week. But it still hurts to see all these people leaving me for benefits and makes me feel betrayed, I guess I'm selfish.'
As she was walking and seeing things worsen and never get better, another crack was added to the already incredibly cracked and nearly falling apart stone that was her faith, even a breeze would make it crumble into dust and disappear.
"So we meet again, little girl."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
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