Chapter 194 - 194: Requirements to Wield Magic
The dark void of the sanctuary remained completely silent after Red severed the connection with Iron-Scale.
Red tapped the console and initiated a direct summons.
A soft light materialized in the center of the room. Sylara formed from a swirl of drifting spores. She looked nervously around the quiet void before bowing her head.
"You called for me, Sovereign?" Sylara asked quietly.
"You reached Rank eighteen recently, right?" Red stated, resting his chin on his hand. "And you told me your interface displayed a new permanent toggle option regarding your followers and granting them magic. Explain it to me."
Sylara summoned her own interface with a wave of her pale hand and traced a finger over a bright red prompt.
"It is a specialized empowerment function," she explained, her voice carrying a nervous tremor. "This ability allows a god to share their personal Divine Points directly with their followers so the mortals can learn and wield magic."
Red narrowed his eyes at the holographic text hovering in front of her. "That is an incredibly potent tool to keep hidden. Why does the system restrict such a fundamental advantage until a deity reaches rank eighteen? Unless there are some kind of other hidden requirements for it."
"Because the inherent risk is catastrophic," Sylara replied, pointing toward a series of severe warning labels attached to the prompt. "The amount of DP the followers can draw from their god is entirely unconditional, meaning there is absolutely no limit to the drain."
"Oh…"
She looked up to meet his gaze to ensure he understood the gravity of the mechanic.
"If an army is not deeply practiced and knowledgeable, they will violently burn through a god's treasury just trying to cast basic spells. Untalented followers can drain a deity completely dry in a matter of hours, which ultimately forces the god to de-rank."
Red processed the information while drumming his fingers against his armrest. "Can you simply disable the connection if the resource drain becomes too severe?"
"No," Sylara whispered, stepping back slightly from the ominous warnings on her screen. "That is exactly why the system advises against it. This is not a feature you can toggle on and off at will. Once a god establishes that connection, it is permanent."
She closed her panel with a swift motion to avoid accidentally triggering the feature.
"This irreversible gamble places a god's actual survival directly in the hands of their mortals," Sylara continued. "Most deities actively avoid it."
Red leaned forward in his hovering chair, a calculated gleam in his dark eyes.
"That perfectly explains why the established gods fear it," Red noted smoothly. "However, I am going to activate my own sharing function once the western shipyards fall."
Sylara stared at him in pure shock.
"But you just acknowledged the danger, Rubedo," she murmured. "Granting that power to an entire army could ruin you."
"I hold the resources of an entire continent, and I will shoulder the burden," Red corrected her. "I will not grant it to everyone blindly. Only the eligible veterans who survive the shipyards will earn that right. I will give them magic."
"The system does not allow just anyone to receive it," Sylara cautioned, pulling her interface back up to read the finer details. "There are three strict prerequisites a mortal must meet before they can safely process divine energy."
She traced a glowing line of text on her screen.
"First, the follower must hold an advanced combat class and possess a physical vessel strong enough to properly develop an internal mana core. Second, they must have already awakened their personal aura and achieved absolute control over it. Third, they need to reach a designated threshold of faith devotion to survive the initial connection."
Red tapped his console to pull up his Vanguard analytics. He reviewed the demographic data scrolling across the holographic display.
"I currently command nearly one million personal followers," Red observed flatly. "Yet fewer than a thousand actually meet all three criteria. Those few are mostly my original soldiers who survived the earliest hardships alongside me, so their physical and spiritual eligibility makes perfect sense. I also have roughly fifteen thousand troops who only lack that final faith requirement by a very slim margin."
He leaned back on his throne and dismissed the data screen with a flick of his wrist.
"Even if those fifteen thousand cross the threshold during this campaign, I refuse to grant this power to all of them. Handing out magic too freely breeds complacency. I will not let my vanguard abandon their foundational brute strength to rely entirely on ranged spells."
Sylara offered a small, understanding nod. Her silk-moths settled quietly against her shoulders.
"You retain full authority over exactly who receives the connection, Sovereign," she added quietly. "But you must understand one final limitation regarding this mechanic. While you hold the power to grant magic, you cannot assign specific elemental attributes to your soldiers. The type of magic they awaken depends entirely on their individual biology, lineage, and personal nature."
Red acknowledged the restriction with a slow nod. He already knew his earliest followers possessed the sheer willpower necessary to manifest devastating abilities. The impending bloodbath at the western shipyards would serve as the perfect catalyst to push the rest of his elite forces past that final faith threshold.
"Thanks, Sylara. How are your preparations going?" Red asked curiously.
"As you know, I ranked up recently, so I need to focus on increasing my DP for the time being."
"GoodLuck. I will contact you once I have secured the second and third continents."
The connection ended.
Red stared at the screens on his console. The City of the Spiral was doing fine and Elian was diligently doing his duties, but sometimes still having love life crises. The Onyx Hall was and the Bastion was also being managed properly.
Gorak was hunting down the apex predators.
The Vassal gods were preparing to send another five hundred thousand troops to the city of the spiral for the next voyage.
"Things are going smoothly. Way too smoothly…"