Leveling through Lust

“Your little tantrum is over, my sons and daughters, drop your weapons!” I shouted as I started radiating even more mana. Charisma came useful to make that order effective, but not as effective as the sixteen trees still growing despite the presence of the Tree of Life, similar in appearance, already taller than half a mile.

Growth magic was convenient.

“It’s just a trick, we can still —“ one of the commanders started, only for a root to burst out of the ground to skewer him. He tried to defend himself, and was successful in cutting the root. He was even successful in cutting the next three. “Come on, fight, we can—“ he tried to encourage the others, but the next chain of attack, two dozen roots, was enough to take him down.

{+128 Nature Spark, God Forest}

All it took was a second, before the others could even react, and his incompetent display proved to be enough to break the courage of the rest. Which was good, because if all of them tried to retreat, I could have taken down only a fraction of them. Focusing only on one target made it much easier.

Not to mention, I didn’t want to kill them, not when they were useful against the undead.

“Bow down to your god!” I shouted like a megalomaniac, enhancing my voice with Arcane magic — even adding several illusions around me to make me more intimidating. Amusingly, it worked much better than I expected, and they started to fall to their knees.

“Good, now, you five, lead them to the defense of the capital,” I said, and five roots burst out of the ground once more. They panicked for a second, but the sudden flood of strength was enough to change their attitude.

“Thank you, my god,” they shouted as their Divine Spark melded into a Divine Sea, turning them into demigods. Then, since I had the connection, I broke the crystals they had in their possession, and pushed that amount into them as well, so each of them had about five hundred Divine Spark.

I didn’t exactly want them empowered, but I could always take that power back. As long as I kept an eye on them, it should be alright.

Their sudden empowerment worked better than I expected. I was trying to create some capable commanders that could hold the undead back, but I had forgotten most of them were ready to betray their kind for power — the existence of a god that could grant power made things much simpler.

“Now, go forth and fight for your land!” I ordered, and all elves knelt.

A fake god wielding punishment and distributing rewards was very effective, especially to a group that was already dealing with an existential crisis. I decided to push my luck a bit more.

“Before leaving, drop those crystals and acorns on the ground. They are cursed, and anyone that uses them, I’ll punish them with damnation. That made them freeze, and I had no doubt that, if it wasn’t for my earlier display of empowering the five priests — who were still showing off their newfound power — they would have protested a lot.

Instead, most of them dropped their crystals on the ground, and roots appeared, devouring them. Some had Necrotic Spark, but most were filled with Nature Spark. Enough that it would take me a while to actually absorb…

{+13592 Nature Spark, God Forest}

[+2128 Purified Spark}

I planned to repurpose some of the Nature Spark, but not immediately, not when I could use all the nature mana they generated to grow more and more guardian trees — a necessity against the constant undead attack.

Still, being rich was a convenient feeling.

And, speaking of being rich, I could still sense some Divine Spark imprisoned in Crystals. “You have three breaths to drop them, or…” I shouted.

Some believed me, dropping their crystals. The others didn’t, and ended up skewered in roots, injured and bereft of their spark — just a flicker left to prevent them from absorbing a new one.

Giving me another convenient burst of Divine Spark.

{+1420 Nature Spark, God Forest}

[+301 Purified Spark}

“Now that the traitors are dealt with, go and destroy the undead, my sons and daughters,” I said, raising my hand to pump a wild wave of nature mana, one that destroyed most of the advantage the undead strike force managed to collect.

They rushed forward, ready to show off to their seemingly omnipotent new god, and I flew above them, unaided,, radiating mana and providing courage. While I flew, however, I cast a spell to bring one of the remaining commanders with the highest rank.

The commander looked shocked, not by the fact he was flying — which was not impossible, even with nature mana — but by the intensity of mana that wrapped him. It was a wasteful move by me, but intentional as well.

I wanted them scared. I was too busy to deal with a rebellion.

“Where’s this portal leading, explain,” I ordered.

“M-my god,” he stammered. “T-that’s the arrangement of my priest, a tool that’s acquired from a group of mysterious merchants, leading our people into safety.”

“The same merchants that are buying the crystals,” I asked.

“Y-yes, my god, but you have to believe me. That was all Prince’s idea, and we tried to argue but he never listened,” he argued, doing his best to cut the connection with it. I didn’t care much either way … not like I actually planned to rule them in the first place.

Too much work.

Instead, I split my attention. Part of it, I kept making sure the counter-attack against the undead didn’t cost any life — knowing that a flawless victory would do wonders to handle it. However, I limited myself to casting a few wide-area spells that would renew the dead zones around the capital to destroy the strategic advantage of the undead. Then, just to be safe, I summoned a few treants and linked them to the God Forest. “Go forth and destroy the undead, my children!” I shouted. “I’ll go and save the citizens from the betrayal of that rotten noble!”

With that, I turned my attention toward where the last few citizens were still using the portal to leave. Admittedly, while I cared about the fate of the citizens, it was significantly lesser compared to the attraction of the portal itself.

It was an ingenious production, just the capability enough to allow me to design half a dozen spells on the spot.

The ability to open semi-stable connections between two points, not just to teleport but also to allow the movement of the others was a very interesting concept. Unfortunately, despite the cursory similarities with teleportation, even a distant glance was enough to show the working principles were completely different.

Teleport just required shearing of the space barrier to allow a step into the Aether dimension, and using another beacon to navigate toward the other destination, the constantly shifting nature making the destination much shorter.

However, while that fluid nature made it easy to traverse great distances, it worked reverse on any attempt to build a semi-permanent pathway through it.

Luckily, while the elves were spoiled and arrogant, they weren’t entirely stupid. The moment I started flying toward the gate, they pulled back and started worshipping — one that already started to yield benefits.

{+1 Purified Spark}

Not much, but reminding me that saving them had important implications. I arrived at the artifact that was keeping the gateway open, stretched my mana, and started examining it. The first thing I noticed was … the artifact was a masterpiece, the kind I had to work on for years even to have a hope of copying. It was incredible, elegant … yet recognizable.

The touch of the skills was unmistakable. It was heavily reliant on Arcana, but it was not the only thing that it was relying on. I could see the traces of Darkness, Light, Elemental, all carefully separated by the ingenious applications of crafting to prevent a cascading failure.

Then, after a minute of studying, I realized that it wasn’t even the real artifact. It was just a marker, not unlike my own beacon wards, just more advanced, guiding the pathway to here. The real task of maintaining the pathway was done from the other side.

And, there was no reason to build something that magnificent, that strong, just to move people in the same plane. It might have been a move of luxury, but while the Eternals could be wasteful, it was not to this degree.

No, I just needed to stretch my mana inside the gateway to feel the immensity of the distance it was traveling. The other end was not somewhere that was in this plane. For a moment, I wondered if the other end led back to my home.

If that were the case, I would have found myself in an important dilemma.

But,, after examining the ephemeral tunnel, I felt that it was not as strong to resist the chaos of the Primordial Aether. Tracing, I felt the other half of the artifact right at the planar border, cutting through the swirling mana shield, uncaring of the long-term damage it was leaving.

Then, before I could decipher more, I felt the artifact on my side growing chaotic, far too sudden and intense to be accidental. I could feel the different types of mana mixing together, about to explode.

I infused it with Tantric immediately to calm that mana down, which also ruined the device without any hope of working again — but not only it prevented the explosion, but also it saved the device for further study.

However, as much as I wanted to ignore everything else and study the structure, I wasn’t able to do so. Not when I could already feel the destabilizing tunnel being flooded with Necrotic mana. It was a good way to prevent me from following them.

Unfortunately, it was very effective.

{Strength: 16 Charisma: 22

Precision: 16 Perception: 16

Agility: 16 Manipulation: 22

Speed: 16 Intelligence: 16

Endurance: 16 Wisdom: 16}

{Purified Divine Spark: 3272}

{Pseudo-HP: 8000 Mana: 15000}

{ADDITIONAL SPARKS

Light - Chosen 7.4

Nature - Chosen 10}

{MINIONS

Guardian God Forest - 18183}

Elven Priestess - XXXX}

[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]