Chapter 296: The Will of the Heavenly Spark Soul King (Patreon)

Kalli

Challenge CVII

A measure of will

Directions: Last as long as you can under the pressure of the deceased elder god while using no skills or abilities to protect yourself

Grading Criteria: The strength of your will in relation to your age

After a day of rest, the next challenge started.

The platforms under all the potential inheritors again lifted up and moved forward to where each contestant had begun to feel overwhelmed by the pressure during the previous challenge, giving Kalli almost no time to think. Instead, she had to struggle with everything she had to just not pass out.

Eventually, however, like all the other potential inheritors, she did.

Challenge CVII over!

Your rank was 1st.

12 points gained.

Current Inheritor Points: 1,404

When she woke up, it felt like only a few seconds had passed and her platform was already moving back at quite a high speed, moving her to the edge of the subspace where all the other potential inheritors were located, seemingly in order of when they’d failed the challenge, the ones who’d done the worst further back. And, for some reason, the Heavenly Spark Soul King was the furthest back, possibly having given up on the challenge entirely.

Now, it was a common guess among those she’d talked to after the C rank Universal Tournament that the Heavenly Spark Soul King likely wouldn’t be very good at will. Soul defense, sure—the man was a Soul Lord—but most things concerning cultivation had come too easily to him and those that didn’t he’d had others in his force to take over the burden.

If he was going to do badly on any of the challenges, it would have been this one.

But last?

The man had broken all sorts of records. Even if will was his biggest weakness, it was relative, and would almost certainly be higher than any average C rank, especially one as young as him, definitely higher than two of the C ranks who were just there to fill up the numbers and three of the D ranks as well.

She wasn’t given more time to think about the problem, however, as nine divine artifacts suddenly appeared in front of them, the pair of glasses the Heavenly Spark Soul King had gotten into an argument with in the center.

Challenge CVIII

Self Advocacy

Directions: Describe your best creations or new inventions in the field of artificing and advocate for why you should be Spirit Smith Camoran’s inheritor

Grading Criteria: Up to the judges

There was a sudden shift in the energy around her and Kalli couldn’t help but take her eyes off the wondrous forms of the nine divine artifacts and look back at the Heavenly Spark Soul King.

Like when he’d fought against Emperor Thunderstrike, the azure-scaled fingerless glove on his left hand had somehow expanded to cover his entire body other than his head and fingers—the azure scales highlighting the dark blue color of his semi-translucent shoulder length hair and his bright orange eyes—and his powerful artifact wings had appeared on his back, emanating out a strong power of order.

Then, as she watched, that large purple sword he used was summoned into his right hand, somehow emanating both an aura of absolute holiness and an aura of absolute evil, and his armor moved up from his left hand to end at his wrist, exposing a ring seemingly made of pure darkness around the base of his second to last finger which connected to an intricate black and gold tattoo covering the entirety of his left hand which his armor artifact would normally cover.

“Would everyone mind if I went first?” The Heavenly Spark Soul King took a few steps forward. “I would like to get this competition over with as quickly as possible.”

Several of her fellow crafters from the forces ruled by the Primordial Humans seemed about to object, but one of the divine artifacts, an obviously incredibly poisonous knife, moved quickly forward and flew around the Heavenly Spark Soul King a few times.

“Sure,” it sent out through mana waves, its voice sounding excited. “Go ahead.”

Then, as one of the other divine artifacts—a sword seemingly made originally for Kalli’s aunt, the Lady of Hellwater—began to send out a mana wave of its own, the little knife flew back and rammed itself into the weapon, causing it to not continue trying to speak.

“Alright.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King smiled, the irritation which had been on his face quickly fading away. “Then please allow me to talk about these four Divine grade B rank artifacts.”

With his left hand he pointed at his chest. “First, the Left Hand of the Runescribe. Despite how it may look, boosting my defense is only this armor’s tertiary function. First and foremost, it is designed to boost my crafting abilities, a tool through which I can focus my crafting skills to allow for better control.” From seemingly nowhere, a series of runes appeared around every single other potential inheritor, each set an array designed to strengthen any other type of energy which flowed through them. “In combat, this makes it much easier to create runes, one of my primary ways of fighting.

“Second, it strengthens my control over natural energy and my own Territory.” The area for as far as Kalli could sense suddenly became flooded with the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s Laws and a type of energy she couldn’t recognize, the presence of all weaker Laws, including Kalli’s own, almost completely disappearing. “This is also incredibly useful for crafting, but has quite a few combat applications as well.”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King smiled widely. “Originally, I was quite stupid, and designed this artifact to have a subspace which would contain 12 needles to help with runescribing, but, after I realized how easy it was to write runes directly into the space around me, I got rid of those needles when upgrading it, so now it just works as a very high grade spatial storage artifact, one with its own full minor dimension.”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King’s wings then filled with energy and Kalli soul began to feel suppressed as the presence of the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s Laws became even stronger, to the level A ranks might have trouble using their Laws, let alone a little D rank like her. “Second of my artifacts is the Wings of Order, built with two main effects. First, it resonates with my Left Hand of the Runescribe to increase the presence of my Laws within my local Territory, which helps with crafting, and, second, it exceptionally boosts my Heavenly Spark Wings of the Emperor skill, raising the skill’s power by 6 levels and thereby boosting many of my other skills as well, including my sensing skills, also very useful for crafting.”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King then raised his large purple blade and flooded it with energy. “Third is Legacy of the Fallen. Originally named Epecteos’s Vengence, it was created as a sin blade when I wasn’t fully sane, and I used it to kill the B rank who killed my first master back when I was a lowly little E rank. With the help of my wife, I’ve since modified it into a combination between a sin blade and a sword of virtue and infused it with quite a few rare and expensive materials she helped me find.

“As a weapon, it is designed to be sharp, and to handle all the energy I can flood into it, but it also has a powerful extra effect as well. Using the skill built into the blade’s soul, I can bless my allies and curse my enemies.”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King thrust the blade into the air, launching 106 beams of gray energy which curved toward each and every one of his competitors, Kalli included, and Kalli felt like she was about to die. But then one of the nine divine artifacts, the one which looked like a seal, did something and Kalli suddenly felt cut off from the space around her.

She could still see everyone, the amused expression on the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s face, the terrified expressions on everyone else’s, and she could still hear them as well, but she couldn’t sense them with any of her other senses, magical or otherwise. No longer could she sense the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s oppressive control of the area around him. No longer could she sense the power from the nine divine artifacts. And no longer could she feel the suppression from the skeleton of the dead elder god in the center of the subspace.

Instead, she felt her soul start to burn, and, looking around, it seemed like all the other crafters under the seal’s protection were feeling the same thing.

“Finally.” The Heavenly Spark Soul King continued speaking as if nothing had happened, the sword in his right hand disappearing as he lifted up his left to show his ring of darkness and its accompanying tattoo. “There is this ring, Shadow’s Pledge, the ring representing my wife’s promise to always stay by my side.

“It’s effects are pretty simple. First, it is nearly undetectable via magical senses itself and helps me hide the power of my other artifacts as well, making them seem like C rank artifacts for the purpose of System teleportation and going through inter-universe portals, and, second, it hides my connections to my servants, making those connections nearly undetectable as well.

“For example, after all my fellow contestants, seemingly unused to operating in a part of the universe where the System can’t reach and slightly delirious from the effects of the Radiant Behemoth’s suppression, accepted my requests to take them on as servants, no one here seems to have noticed, not even their own souls, at least until you blocked off my connection to them.”

The Heavenly Spark Soul King bowed toward the seal artifact. “Lord Endless Seal, I must thank you for your help in this competition. Personally, I thought you were against me given your unfair judgements throughout this competition to raise up my cousin, but it seems you were just biding your time. Thank you so much for assisting all my competitors in their decision to suicide. I was just going to bless them before asking if I could take my leave, but this is so much better.”

The wings artifact on the Heavenly Spark Soul King’s back disappeared and his armor flowed back to just cover his left hand as a fingerless glove.

“As to why I think I should be Spirit Smith Camoran’s inheritor, beyond being demonstrably the best crafter in this competition by far, my main argument is that I am my own master. I am the only one in this competition who hasn’t already made an oath to give everything previously owned by the Spirit Smith to someone else, and I am the only one who can still take on a new master of my own choice if I ever so desired without sacrificing my life.”

The last thing Kalli saw, before her own soul burned itself to death for breaking the contract she’d signed with her father to never take another master, was the Heavenly Spark Soul King smirking toward the other eight divine artifacts while the knife artifact zoomed around him, seemingly in extreme happiness.