Chapter 609 – Holy Light Magic

The Angels’ angelic power also influenced their understanding of light.

In the memories of both Otaros and Koltama, there was a famous quote from the “Miracle Shard – Holy Light”: “Light is the will of the divine, not a tool.”

Angels proclaimed themselves the agents of the gods, and the will of the gods was the will of the Angels.

They believed that light was a tool for carrying their will.

In reality, this was because their angelic power was a type of active light element imbued with will.

As a result, the holy light magic they cast using angelic power always carried the influence of personal will.

For example, Angels abhorred darkness, so holy light magic had an additional suppressive effect on dark-element-related magic and was also remarkably effective against creatures of darkness.

For another example, light-element casters with affinity for light could never use holy light magic no matter what, precisely because the angelic power driving holy light magic contained the Angels’ will constraining the light element.

Natural light elements, on the other hand, were neutral energy devoid of any will. Any caster with decent light-element affinity could learn the corresponding light-element magic, whether they were human, Witch, Elf, or Beastman.

Moreover, some light-element magic could even complement dark-element magic — the two were not inherently incompatible.

After Mo Lan figured out the true nature of angelic power, she began sensing the feeling of angelic power from Otaros and Koltama’s memories while simultaneously attempting to convert and replicate it with mana.

Converting mana into active light-element energy imbued with will posed no problems, but the final result seemed somewhat different from actual angelic power.

She tried casting a simple holy light magic spell, Radiant Blade, to confirm it wasn’t just her imagination.

The effect of her Radiant Blade was no different from the light-element magic spell Light Blade — it completely lacked the additional lethality of holy light magic.

Mo Lan checked several times over. The conversion process was entirely correct, and even the energy fluctuations were identical — it was indeed angelic power, no question about it.

She was utterly baffled, until she finished reviewing every section related to holy light magic in Otaros and Koltama’s memories and finally sensed something was off.

Every Miracle Shard containing holy light magic knowledge emphasized that they should cultivate their personal refinement.

The way Angels cultivated their refinement was by absorbing Miracle Shards containing knowledge of Angel history, social customs, aesthetic pursuits, and other such information.

She had seen this passage many times without quite understanding it — what did acquiring knowledge completely unrelated to magic have to do with strengthening holy light magic?

Left with no choice, she went back to examine the portions of Otaros and Koltama’s memories related to this knowledge. After reviewing all of it, she finally understood.

When other races studied various histories and general knowledge, it was to broaden their horizons, deepen their understanding of the world, improve their survival odds, and at most strengthen some sense of racial identity.

But this type of knowledge in the Angel heritage had nothing to do with survival whatsoever. Its sole purpose was to cultivate in every Angel a unified attitude of lofty superiority, looking down upon all beings, loathing darkness, and pursuing the light.

In their heritage knowledge, the word “humility” simply did not exist.

Whether the knowledge was accurate didn’t matter — what mattered was shaping the Angels into a supreme, sacred race.

This extreme cognition and personality caused their angelic power to carry an equally extreme will. Only then could the holy light magic they cast possess both additional intimidation and lethality against darkness and hostile forces, as well as additional healing and protective capabilities for themselves and their followers.

After all, every Angel was guided and educated by their heritage knowledge into becoming a “god.” Beneath the gods, all living things were mere ants. Anything that defied the divine will was a wicked blasphemer deserving of death. Only creatures who submitted to the divine will were pitiable little things acknowledged by the light — and when the Angels were in a good mood, they might deign to bestow a scrap of mercy and grace.

The more of this heritage knowledge one absorbed, the more extreme one’s cognition became, the stronger the will within one’s angelic power grew, and the more powerful one’s holy light magic became.

What was even more terrifying was that the changes Otaros and Koltama had undergone in their memories were simply too drastic.

And every change occurred after they had absorbed and digested a Miracle Shard.

When they were still inside their eggs, they had been Angel infants endlessly curious about the outside world, even finding the blank whiteness inside their eggs boring.

For a long time after hatching, they had been especially fascinated by the colorful world below, curious about other races, and constantly scheming to sneak out through the Gate of Heaven to play.

But after absorbing one Miracle Shard after another, they transformed into beings who only appreciated white and gold, felt revulsion toward other colors, found the lower world tedious, used Light-Shadow Sprites solely to punish lower-world creatures that displeased them, and only occasionally bestowed a bit of favor upon lower-world creatures that happened to meet their preferences.

The magnitude of this transformation was deeply unsettling the more one thought about it.

Mo Lan even suspected that those Miracle Shards contained components of mental suggestion or control.

After figuring all of this out, Mo Lan thought with regret that she probably couldn’t learn holy light magic after all.

She could hardly turn herself into an arrogant extremist just to learn holy light magic and gain that bit of extra lethality!

In her view, the Angels were essentially deceiving themselves.

Angels were certainly powerful, but gods? They were far from that!

Having to rely on self-deception to achieve results — in Mo Lan’s mind, the Angels’ holy light magic instantly dropped several tiers in value and lost all its appeal.

There was no shortage of powerful magic out there. There was no need to transform herself into something she despised just for one type of holy light magic.

Without the slightest hesitation, Mo Lan struck holy light magic from her magic study list.

However, she did gain some inspiration from the Angels’ holy light magic.

If the Angels’ extreme cognition producing extreme will could activate light elemental force into angelic power and cast holy light magic distinct from ordinary light-element magic, then could her own will, combined with various types of magical energy, have a positive effect on her spells?

This was an excellent research topic. Mo Lan noted it down, planning to investigate when she had the time.

Now that holy light magic — one of the Angels’ two signature magic systems — had lost its appeal for Mo Lan, only faith magic remained.

Holy light magic’s actual contribution to an Angel’s strength was not that significant — far from enough to make them stand out among Valen’s many races and earn the title of a top-tier race.

What truly made Angels one of Valen’s top-tier races was faith magic.

However, both Otaros and Koltama were merely low-ranking Angels who had never absorbed a Miracle Crystal.

Only by absorbing a Miracle Crystal could one truly obtain the core knowledge of faith magic and set foot upon the path of faith.

In the memories of the two of them, knowledge regarding faith magic was truly scarce. Everything they knew about faith magic came entirely from a type of Miracle Shard called “Faith Enlightenment.”