Leveling through Lust

The idea behind helping Mariel from her coma was simple … but not exactly easy. It required a lot of care and attention, as well as time.

It was why I started the process even before finishing up the necrotic god properly, instead, of letting the light ward constantly attack and weaken him further. Even locked in a small domain, it took a while to take him down, and I didn’t want to keep Mariel waiting anymore.

I created a thick shell of mana around her as the first step, one that covered about a mile. However, this time, I created two layers. A thicker outer layer that would keep any interference from outside blocked.

And, an inner layer made of the most malleable pure mana I could create, perfect for her to change and manipulate as she needed once she started stirring back. With that protection layer complete, I turned my attention to the area that was covered by the ward, purifying every inch with great care, not leaving even a hint of necrotic mana to ruin the process.

Then, I brought Mariel into the center, and gently coaxed her into her shell, touching her Divine Spark gently with my mana, and led the smallest tendril which was a mixture of Darkness and Light out, slowly spreading through the tiny domain, doing my best to copy how Helga and Seldanna achieved the same aim.

I waited, holding my breath. A minute passed, then two minutes … five minutes, making me wonder whether I needed to do something more.

Then, her Divine Spark started spreading. Slowly at first, but slowly picking up speed.

“Excellent,” I murmured as I moved out of her domain. I still had several wards that allowed me to observe every minute change that was going on, but I had other things to do.

First, the enemy god. I teleported to the outside of his cage while at the same time, tapping into the Aether Dimension, using all the available purified spark to drain necrotic mana, converting it into the modified light mana, and flooding the ward.

Once the transformation was complete, gods were strong and resilient, especially in their own domains. Unfortunately, to my enemy, that wasn’t exactly good news. It only expanded his suffering while I cut down his Divinity down bit by bit, until he ceased to exist.

Not in a glorious last stand, but with a pathetic whimper.

Giving me the most incredible bounty I had ever received.

[+4,491,152 Purified Spark]

I immediately channeled the most into my stats. Purified spark had its uses, but not without the necessary power to control it. As I received my new burst of power, I could feel my abilities reaching a new level. With all stats increasing, almost double, the combined effect was far more than just multiplying it by two.

[+50 All Stats]

[+20 Endurance]

[+15 Intelligence]

[- 4,282,460 Purified Spark]

It was a useful upgrade as I had a very tedious task at hand. Turning the plane into somewhere that Mariel could adapt as quickly as possible. Which was much harder to do for her than it was for Helga or Seldanna. Helga only had to create a tiny domain for herself, making her job easy.

And, Seldanna had both the heritage of the old Nature God that tried to possess her, and a huge spread of existing creatures, both elves and trees, that she was aligned well to use as vectors.

Mariel only had a ruined, dead plane still filled with zombies.

She was lucky that my abilities lent themselves to such a cleanup task particularly well, and the current spread of assets only made it easier.

First, I commanded our treant army to spread around the plane, even teleporting some of them to distant corners. Then I used the avatar I still had — diminished since I didn’t need all that power — to trigger them.

First, transforming them into giant trees, then ordering them to flood the plane with their mana, triggering a sudden vibrant growth all along the plane, destroying the remaining presence completely.

However, as they pushed life into their surroundings, they started to lose their color, fading silently. I let them do so, intervening only when they were at the edge of collapsing. Even then, I didn’t heal them, but kept them in that state. I had a plan for them, but I was hoping that it wouldn’t be necessary.

It was a simple yet tedious work, one that took almost a week.

Meanwhile, Mariel managed to create a tentative bond with the small area I had created for her, but her coma was still a problem. Clearly, such a basic link wasn’t enough to relieve the soul pressure. Maybe she would have been cured if I left her here for a few decades. It was a time that most divine beings treated as a momentary rest, but my perception hadn’t been warped that much yet.

Not to mention, there was no guarantee the Eternal would leave us alone for that long. And, trying to defend her during an attack was far more dangerous than the little experiment I had.

I pulled all the Divine Spark I had from the main avatar and challenged the Nature Spark back to Seldanna. At the same time, I drained all the mana from the Avatar. The outer layers rotted with a rapid speed, falling apart before I gust of wing spread those pieces around to turn into fertilizer.

After the amount of mana it had been channeled through that wood, it made an excellent fertilizer.

All that remained of that giant avatar was a seed, one that maintained a tenuous connection with the near-dead forest around us.

At the same time, I grabbed a unit of new Divine Spark that Mariel slowly spreading into her new domain.

I named it Twilight Spark. The theme and the feeling it gave me fit it perfectly.

[+1 Twilight Spark]

Then, I moved to the center of Mariel’s new domain and buried that seed there, gently leading the solo point of Twilight Spark I had taken from her. First, it crystallized, making the seed a Chosen. Then, very carefully, I spread the weak spark into a demigod soul, and at the same time, started feeding pseudo-HP and pure mana.

[-1 Twilight Spark]

Unlike the flood of nature mana, the combined treatment didn’t allow the tree to suddenly sprout into a giant tree but barely allowed it to sprout. As it sprouted, the Divine Spark mixed into its structure further, reaching into the first step of godhood.

The same trick I had pulled with my God Forest, creating an unthinking, unfeeling divine vessel.

The perfect weapon for a goddess.

It took half a day of careful caring for the tree to reach a foot of length. At that point, Mariel’s domain finally embraced it, her tendrils of mana touching.

I touched the connection where they melded, allowing Mariel to bond with it. Slowly, her Divine Spark started to flow to it, strengthening the budding tree. Its trunk turned into a dull, tainted silver color … no, not tainted, I corrected a moment later, but shadowy. Like they were dancing at the surface, dulling and brightening repeatedly.

Similarly, the leaves turned into bright gray, but with dark streaks spreading through its structure, glowing and devouring light at the same time.

Fascinating, I thought even as made a temporary connection with the tree, and stole quite a bit more Twilight Spark. Luckily, the budding tree got strong enough to handle it.

[+57 Twilight Spark]

I used that spark to convert purified main into Twilight mana, which, assisted by my stats, was far faster than Mariel could have achieved with the same amount of Spark. Her small domain was filled with Twilight Spark, but it was just a start.

I teleported out, and started Twilight Spark to connect the god tree with the other trees that were about to die … which was only possible because every single tree had originally been a part of that avatar, allowing the connection to be established successfully, but not easily.

I had to visit every single tree by myself and build the connections one by one, each taking a minute to successfully establish, and that was only with my most recent stat boost. Without it, it would have probably taken hours for every tree.

Even in its shortened version, ten thousand trees meant ten thousand minutes, it took a week without even a wink of sleep. But, it allowed her slowly strengthening Twilight God Forest to spread across the plane, allowing her to bond with it much faster.

Two more days.

And her eyes opened.

I was there, waiting for her.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

{Strength: 115 Charisma: 115

Precision: 115 Perception: 115

Agility: 115 Manipulation: 115

Speed: 115 Intelligence: 151

Endurance: 168 Wisdom: 115}

{Purified Divine Spark: 1.147,577}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Twilight - Chosen 30

Nature - Chosen 10

Knowledge - Chosen 10}

{MINIONS

GODDESSES

Elven Goddess

Goddess of Knowledge}