When the plot-skips players into the game world

Chapter 666: Chapter 62: Branding, Part Two Chapter 666: Chapter 62: Branding, Part Two Aiwass completed a full prayer for Lord of Scalefeather, calmly and honestly.

In gratitude to Lord of Scalefeather—God of Light Speed Payment, Generous God.

Afterward, he finally exhaled in relief.

Looking at Lily, who stood quietly at the end of the bed, Aiwass was moved and reached out towards her.

There was no need for a special chant, nor any materials.

The Blessing from Spirit Amber Celestial Marshal descended upon her instantly—

—Illumination·Soothing Blessing!

In an instant, Lily’s mind, which had been tired and stiff from getting up so abruptly, became crystal clear.

The cluttered thoughts and remnants of nightmares were dispelled immediately; she felt her thoughts so lucid that the entire world seemed brighter by it.

Subsequently, a light burst forth from within Lily’s body.

That radiant flash was fleeting but had granted Lily a treatment equivalent to the Illumination Art.

This was the evolved art of “Radiance”!

Generally, one can only bear a single Blessing.

When a new Blessing is received, it will replace the previous one…

This is because Blessings either come from different Celestial Marshals and Pillar Gods, or they are different gifts from the same Pillar God.

If a Priest’s Blessing falls on something inanimate, it can indeed last longer…

For example, sanctifying salt, water, or some accessories is much simpler than blessing people.

And the Blessing cast on people is easily disrupted by other Blessings.

Hence, although Priests all master the art of Blessing, only one long-lasting BUFF from a Priest can be applied when raiding.

For instance, giving a Melee Tank Profession “Strength” or “Bravery”—the former makes attack and defense higher the more health one has, helping tanks withstand significant damage; the latter increases basic attributes of strength, constitution, and resistance to fear, charm, and stun…

Although the latter isn’t very significant against BOSSes, it is quite useful against players.

Mages usually get “Soothing” or “Elevation,” while assassins and Hunters can only receive “Swiftness.” Priests choose between “Lifedrain” or “Bravery”—the former isn’t just actual life draining, but refers to the ability to steal life, hence the name borrowed from the racial trait of the Son of the Moon, just like “Vampire’s Touch,” which is used to replenish blood for Priests; the latter is to increase the health pool, to prevent the sudden death of healers.

It is fundamental knowledge to apply different, appropriate BUFFs for different professions—the benefits of 20% conditional activation and the significant dual attribute boosts in different categories, especially Swiftness—a 20% dual speed boost provides a considerable enhancement to the handling of Hunters and assassins.

With these BUFFs applied to a few teammates, the Priests’ missing damage output in the raid is compensated for.

When Aiwass first started playing this game, he was berated by an assassin teammate for applying the wrong BUFF throughout a dungeon.

He thought since assassins are a damage-dealing profession and being squishy they might easily die, he applied Strength to increase their damage output and prevent sudden death.

—Of course, it was mainly because this profession was rare and not highly regarded, so Aiwass wasn’t too familiar with it.

However, an assassin accustomed to the Swiftness Blessing found their rhythm completely disrupted, and even their alignment went off for a while.

In a fit of anger, they began to rant at Aiwass.

Since the Blessing ritual requires a ten-second channeling time, it generally must be initiated before combat, as casting a Blessing during battle is akin to letting the front line become vulnerable.

Although Aiwass retorted at the time—if the BUFF was wrong, why didn’t you say something at the time instead of after the battle started?

After the quarrel, Aiwass reflected and thought that it was indeed his fault.

Therefore, Aiwass seriously researched information on forums, studied extensively, and memorized the exhaustive situations for a Priest on how to apply BUFFs.

The reason why the Illuminator, despite healing far less, became a T0 profession, the darling of the version immediately after this job transfer was released…

is because it can apply three BUFFs to each person, and the casting time for BUFFs is only one second!

Thus, the fault tolerance, strength, and professional flexibility instantly increased—because Priests previously needed materials to cast Blessings.

Though not much, this expense ultimately had to come out of the Priest’s pocket.

And since Blessings can be applied to a group, many professions choose to form a team to leech off the BUFFs of mainstream professions.

Hunters and rogues fall out of favor exactly because they must consume Swiftness to maintain their hand-feel, and this Blessing must be applied individually by Priests.

While the Illuminator’s BUFFs are single-target, they are free!

Not only that, but Illuminators even provide a remote, free heal while applying BUFFs—though this also means piano-like operations, constantly switching BUFFs to trigger the free heal.

An already applied BUFF cannot be reapplied, and sometimes, a sudden switch of critical BUFFs can lead to teammate fatalities or missing out on burst damage, so the difficulty is there.

Even a barebones Illuminator is useful just applying three BUFFs and then going AFK.

Another enhancement is the transformation of touch-based healing “Illumination” into the remote heal “Radiance.”

A target blessed by an Illuminator is, in essence, marked.

It also changed from focused casting to echo casting—specifically, no longer a sustained mana-draining channeling spell, which limited the caster to slow walking under its effect.

Instead, it became an instant spell with a one-second cooldown, with healing output pulsing each second, breaking away from a smooth curve to a blocky, step-like line.

The healing output was also consolidated from five small ticks per second to one large tick per second.

The disadvantage is the same—piano playing.

Even without applying BUFFs, one needs to tirelessly press “111111”…

basically, there is no chance to deal damage.

It’s closer to the traditional Priest in MMO games, highlighting that if you dare to take a sip of water during battle, I dare to die.

Compared to the Torchbearer, who, with the “Body of Light,” just needs to turn on the Illumination aura to start rapidly burning mana for group healing…

Besides toggling the healing aura, hardly any operation is needed, both hands free, one with a shield and the other able to spare some shots or swings of the hammer; with the Illuminator, both the skill floor and the ceiling were raised, and the complexity of operations was noticeably higher.

However, Aiwass thought it was quite reasonable at the time.

The design of any long-term game generally follows this pattern—the mechanics at the early stages of server opening are easy to understand, and later, they slowly introduce new, heaven-defying, complex mechanics with skills that seem like short essays, making people dizzy and confused.

And these new additions are likely worth their learning cost in terms of strength.

For Aiwass, this profession had another significant advantage.

That was emergency healing.

Although small numbers and big numbers didn’t make much of a difference in the game, even the small numbers could prevent healing overflow.

But in the real world, the amount of healing directly related to the healing effect.

So a big number meant an instantaneous high-efficiency healing—distant, instantaneous high-efficiency healing that could even pull someone back from the brink of death in one go and was likely to have much better effects in dispelling negative statuses.

That meaning was much stronger than Illumination Art.

“Right… what time is it?”

Aiwass asked.

Lily, who was somewhat surprised and feeling the boost from the Blessing with her eyes closed, opened her eyes upon hearing Aiwass’s inquiry and answered, “It’s about four in the morning now.”

Lily paused then added, “Do you need to have breakfast now?”

“Ah, no need.”

Aiwass declined, “You should go back to rest as well…

Thank you for the warm towel.”

As he spoke, Aiwass took the towel and wiped his face, to show appreciation for Lily’s sudden waking up to take care of him.

The newly formed skin still seemed a bit sensitive and felt a bit odd when wiped.

Four o’clock, huh…

Putting the towel back, Aiwass muttered in his heart.

He didn’t know what time the ritual began, but it generally started around noon.

The ritual time compared to the real world was twenty-four to one.

That meant the ritual had been going on for about four days in reality.

That is, they hadn’t just jumped from shortly after the first day to the end of the third day.

They really went through all that time; it’s just that their consciousnesses were blurred.

Combining the benefits given by the Lord of Scalefeather, Aiwass roughly guessed the entire scenario.

…That is to say, when I’m in my promotion ritual, the Bear Celestial Marshal or His apostles will be able to sense me in the Dream Realm.

Thinking of this, Aiwass felt somewhat nervous.

Avalon doesn’t teach about the Bear Celestial Marshal, and furthermore, very few people are familiar with or believe in the Bear Celestial Marshal, so information about him isn’t plentiful now.

Aiwass only knew that three of the four great Angel Envoys that served the Bear Celestial Marshal when He was a Pillar God had run off, but he didn’t know if He had recruited any new Envoys.

If he were to advance again, it might be possible to encounter other Apostles.

Although they were probably not as powerful as Breaker of Sieges, it would be difficult for Aiwass to encounter another Pillar God like the Lord of Scalefeather, who was inherently setting a trap to betray her.

And moreover…

It’s even possible that next time, it will be the Bear Celestial Marshal himself.

Based on Aiwass’s understanding of the Bear Celestial Marshal, He was absolutely capable of doing such a thing.

With that thought, Aiwass tensed up inside.

——He clarified one thing:

Unless he figured out the situation in the Dream Realm or found other protection…

his Demon Scholar profession would not be promoted for now.

After all, he also didn’t know who the “invigilator” would be for the next promotion ritual.

If it were the Candle Master, the Silver-Crowned Dragon, the Gemini Mirror, or the Lord of Scalefeather, that would be best, as Aiwass had a good relationship with them.@@novelbin@@

Although he didn’t know the Hourglass, the entity was always involved with many affairs, and would certainly meddle if such things happened.

But as for Amber, Eternal Self, Great Sage, Serpent Father, and other more reclusive Pillar Gods who rarely got involved, it was entirely possible that they would just ignore it.

If caught by the Bear Celestial Marshal in the Dream Realm, that would be big trouble.

Even though the marks hadn’t stacked up to the full count…

“Hmm…?”

Just then, Aiwass suddenly felt a burning sensation in his chest.

He looked down to see that the fresh skin he had just shed and acquired…

in addition to the silver scales on the back of his hands, and the crystal snake scales on his right forearm, his chest had been marked by a new, fresh bear claw wound.

The wound was even clearer and deeper than before.

[You have obtained the trait: Authority – Brand of the Second]

[Authority – Brand of the Second: The Bear Celestial Marshal has swung down the claw of the future, declaring to end your life with such a strike.

This is the second brand, its number must not total seven——]

——Using “Essence of Erinyes” as a medium, the Bear Celestial Marshal’s understanding of Aiwass deepened!