Low-Fantasy Occultist

Chapter 405

Nick sat in the middle of his favorite lab, feeling the room's silence intensify as the heavy privacy wards he had layered on the walls took effect.

It still didn’t feel like enough, but it was the best he could do with the Tower’s magic all around him. It wouldn’t let ownership-based wards last, so this had to be it.

On the workbench before him lay the package Valeriana had given him. He had examined it with every detection spell in his arsenal, searching for curses, trackers, or delayed-blast spells. When he found nothing, he finally unwrapped the heavy oilcloth.

Inside, a jagged shard of white marble sat. It seemed harmless enough, just a piece of a broken statue, maybe from an arm or a leg. But to Nick’s spiritual senses, it was screaming. It radiated a static, buzzing field of Denial. It pushed against his mana, forming a no-go zone in the center of his lab.

Considering the story Valeriana had shared with him before handing it over, he suspected it might have come straight from Ismal. The feeling it gave off definitely had the right tone to belong to some sun deity, but he couldn’t be sure, and he doubted she’d ever tell.

It was exactly what he needed: a localized source of hostile Faith mana, an ideal test subject for a spell designed to bypass divine protection.

And therein lay the problem. How did she know?

Nick leaned back in his chair, staring at the artifact. He hadn't shared his theory about Kinetic magic and Pride with anyone. He hadn't even fully worked it out himself until Tholm’s lecture. Still, Valeriana, a woman he had hardly spoken to, handed him the one tool he needed to bring it to life.

Did she read my mind? No, [Blasphemy] would have engaged if that were the case. It resisted a Feral God, so a non-Prestige witch shouldn’t have been capable of bypassing it.

That still left many options open. Divination was the simplest solution, but as far as he knew, it wasn’t possible within the Tower. Foresight, then? She might have looked ahead and seen me cast the complete spell.

He had no doubt he would have eventually figured it out on his own, but it was unsettling to realize that he could be predicted so easily.

Future sight had always been a dangerous topic, best left to those with the gift for it, and even then, it often brought terrible consequences, like madness, to those who delved too deeply or trusted it too wholeheartedly. But it was entirely possible that Valeriana was only the messenger, having received the information from the Shadows.

And who knew what powers they had access to? If he were the king, he’d certainly push for his most skilled intelligence officers to get access to someone with the Sight, no matter the risks.

"One mystery at a time," Nick muttered, pushing the paranoia aside. He wasn’t likely to solve it anytime soon anyway, and time was a precious commodity these days. The priests were tainting the ether more and more with each passing day, and in just over a week, the festival would take place.

Standing up, he pulled a simple copper coin from his spatial ring and activated [Empyrean Intuition], preparing to observe exactly what was about to occur.

Holding it in his palm, he concentrated on his Kinetic affinity, visualizing a vector around it, calculated the force needed to accelerate the coin to the speed of a crossbow bolt, and once he was sure every single element was just right, he cast.

“[Push].”

The coin snapped forward, speeding through the air, and headed straight for the Idol fragment, only to stop two inches away from its surface.

It didn't collide with a wall, like with the artifacts Tholm had used; instead, it simply lost all momentum. The field of faith around the shard asserted the concept of Sanctity, and within its radius, violence was prohibited. The kinetic energy disappeared instantly, and the coin dropped to the floor with a dull clatter.

In a sense, it behaved like the lovechild between [Blasphemy] and [Territory], stopping the magic from manifesting within its limits.

That alone gave Nick more ideas for where to take his spells, but now was not the time to get distracted.

Summoning the coin back into his hand and vanishing it into the ring, he tried again, this time using [Quake Push]. He attempted to vibrate the air to shatter the field, and although the power exerted was considerably greater and there was no medium for the faith magic to focus on, the result was the same. The vibrations ceased the moment they touched the perimeter.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I’m pretty sure I could overpower it if I really put my mind to it, but that isn’t what this is about. I need to stop attacking it head-on and focus on how it actually works.

Reaching deep into his soul, bypassing the outer layers where his affinities lay, he found the sephira of Gevurah, the Judgment. And deeper still, he pursued the emotion he believed was most likely to work: pride.

It wasn't easy to summon. Nick was confident, yes, but he was also pragmatic. He knew he was small compared to the Archmages, compared to the Gods. True hubris—the kind that could challenge reality—required a level of delusion he didn't naturally possess.

But is that true? A small voice at the back of his mind argued. Did I not believe myself capable of taking on a Prestige Guardian at the heart of his power? Did I not stare down not one but two gods and refuse their offers?

Nick was a realist most of the time, but a part of him rebelled against the constraints of mortality. That side sparked his occult interests, always craving more from the hand he was dealt. It would never be satisfied.

What he was facing now wasn’t simply an Archmage’s spell, filled with immense mana and built on centuries of knowledge. If that were the case, he could have been fighting for years without finding a solution. No, the faith-based effect was different, more a belief taken shape because a voice beyond the stars declared it so.

What gives it the right?

That thought sparked a flicker of irritation.

What are priests, if not beggars borrowing the authority of something they can’t fully understand? I earned my power, fought for it, bled for it. I lived through a life where nothing was handed to me, yet I still rose above it.

The irritation hardened into cold arrogance. He had crystallized his soul. He had stared down a Greater Demon and rebuffed it. He had witnessed the full power of Gods and kept his mind intact.

Why should I respect the boundaries of a dead god, whose faith collapsed on itself and led to the destruction of an entire city?!

I am the one who decides what happens here. I am the only one with agency!

The mana in his coils shifted, turning cold and sharp. The kinetic energy, usually restless and bouncy, suddenly became heavy, stopped seeking the path of least resistance, and started seeking a target.

When Nick opened his eyes, which he knew were glowing with purple light, he summoned the coin back out.

This time, he didn't calculate the perfect vector or worry about air resistance. He simply decided that the coin was currently here, and in a moment, it would be there.

Anything that dared to stand in his way or threaten his goal was irrelevant. Not worth even considering.

The words formed in his mind like a swirling mass of pure arrogance, fueled by the weight of his soul. "[Hubris' Reach]," he whispered, without bothering to shout or gesture. After all, this was the logical outcome of his desire. There was no other choice but for it to succeed.

There was no noise of acceleration or any motion blur. One moment, the coin was in his hand; the next, it was lodged deeply into the wall behind the Idol fragment.

Its divine light didn’t even flicker as the coin had passed right through it.

A low hum resonated through the room as the Tower repaired itself, and only then did he realize he had somehow managed to actually damage the stone.

It was nothing it couldn't recover from in an instant, and he was sure this wasn’t the highest level of protection it could offer a room. However, the fact that he’d done anything to it indicated that the spell he’d just devised was more than just a simple weapon.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You have developed a new spell! [Hubris' Reach] [Proficient]

+200,000 Exp

Nick exhaled, the violet light fading from his eyes as a wave of mental exhaustion swept over him. Sustaining that level of solipsistic arrogance was draining, but he knew that with training, he’d be able to raise it faster and with less effort, just as he had with his other spiritual-elemental magics.

“It worked," he whispered, a grin spreading across his face as he walked over to the wall and summoned the coin. It was flattened and deformed by the impact, but his mana still hummed through it, untouched by the divine field.

A day later, after practicing the spell enough to cast it in his sleep and recovering enough not to feel like he’d pass out at a moment’s notice, Nick sat in a private booth at the back of the student lounge. A privacy spell was active, and he had even cast the [Mire of Avarice] around the table, just in case.

Valeriana might have made me a bit paranoid, he silently admitted.

"You look like you haven't slept in a week," Eona noted, sliding into the booth opposite him and blinking as she felt the rest of the room fade away.

“You know how I am with my research," Nick said, waving a hand. "Thanks for coming, guys.”

Bellamy nodded, looking surprisingly serious, while Tim was nervous but trying to put on a brave front, clearly eager to help.

"Is this about the festival?" Bellamy asked, getting straight to the point. "Everyone is going crazy over it. My father says the Duke is furious but can't do anything without looking like he opposes the temples, and it will help the city recover.”

"It's exactly about the festival, and why we need to ruin it,” Nick said.

Tim choked on his water. "Ruin it? Nick, the Tidemaster himself is hosting it. If there’s another attack, the temples will go crazy!”

"We aren't going to blow anything up," Nick assured him. "At least, not physically.”

He leaned forward, subconsciously lowering his voice despite all the precautions. "I have it on good authority that the Priests aren't just celebrating.”

The others didn’t seem very surprised, and it wasn’t an uncommon sentiment within the Tower. Everyone was wary of the sudden rise in clergymen, but no one could figure out their true goal, other than boosting their influence.

“So, it was true that they are trying something?” Eona asked.

Nick nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been noticing a change in the ambient mana, and I’m sure you would too if you went down to the docks. If you couple that with the lecture Archmage Politod gave, it’s not hard to pin down their objective.”

“You think they’re trying to gain control of the city?” Bellamy asked flatly. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes, and Nick was reminded that, for all his laid-back nature, he was part of the ducal house. Any challenge to their rule of Alluria was something to be taken extremely seriously.

“Nothing too public,” Nick said. "This isn’t a hostile takeover or anything that would trigger violence. However, if I’m correct and they succeed, they will have shifted the power heavily in their favor, making it impossible to maintain the current balance.”

“Alright,” Tim said, surprisingly the first to come on board. “What do you need us to do?”