'Show Me The Way, Sensai'

After that first batch, I decided to wow the present company by 'filling bottles' in bulk with only my renewed reserves. This process took only a little less than an hour.

Where these guys usually stopped to take a break with a larger version of my potion roughly every half-hour, I could currently chug like a drinking contest and work at the same time.

However, I only needed that first potion to completely fill twenty more crates with vials of holy water. All it took was some light telekinesis to slowly fill the buckets halfway with vials and them empty the remaining holy water by telekinesis. This combination of my will and mental magics cost next to nothing unless it exceeded my Strength.

I could have used it all up to critical doing all the crates slowly but at once, but I probably would not have gotten another notification which informed me of both an increase in Willpower and Endurance from completing all of the crates. Next came the arduous task of almost literally chugging while I was working.

With pockets loaded with the first bath of potions from the first set of crates, I started converting raw mana from all of my available sources into an immense radiance over four crates at a time. Simply because it went through process and care through 'conventional magic' means, the glass of the vials themselves would fill up faster and could hold more mana than the wooden crates. The holy water itself only took about a minute to absorb almost fifty percent of the energy that passed through it.

Low conductivity in a material not only limited its overall capacity for holding mana but also how quickly it could absorb that energy. As the largest bodies of the lowest materials that I was working with, the crates took the longest to be imbued and thus made for the perfect timers.

After roughly ten minutes of shining out combined energies, the second batch of crates were imbued from almost eighty percent of my and my wisps' overall mana. I simply sipped through the next mana potion while walking a few short steps down the table to the next batch. Likewise, ten minutes and most of my mana later, the third batch was ready for blessing.

In this fashion, the imbuing of the holy water took about as long as filling a batch of vials by hand.

Little more than three hours had passed and everybody else was still hard at work going through their crates of filled vials. A few of them were still on the early crates from where they started. I had just finished my entire table.

Nobody said a word and neither did I break the silence, but the Old Man wordlessly walked over and briefly scanned the table before nodding with satisfaction. "Have you thought about idolizing a specific deity?" He asks softly as everybody in our work area quickly got back to work with a renewed vigor.

This was almost certainly related to having a benefactor, which probably meant the head priest was about to try to teach me something. If this were a video game, I would be making one of those hard choices about what power-up I wanted to take. Knowing the overall situation put me somewhat short on time, I say somewhat honestly, "If it came down to it, I was thinking about getting closer to Rayven to hopefully share in your experiences and remain close to home."

"Good, that will makes this and other things easier for the both of us," he replies with some relief. "If you choose to go through with this, it will be a quick and simple process of repeating after me. However, these words will help to forge a lifelong bond."

"Show me the way, Sensei," I reply in similar relief.

Nodding his head, the head priest clasps his hand together in his sleeves and gestured for me to do the same while saying, "Face the first batch of crates and close your eyes. Nod when you are ready… repeat after me. To the celestial throne I pray, beseeching the father of law and war to grant me aid in my time of need."

"To the celestial throne I pray, beseeching the father of law and war to grant me aid in my time of need," I repeat in the same mechanical way that Old Man had spoken them.

"While facing this tide of darkness please watch over me and bless me with these weapons against the profane," he continues only a second or so after I had spoken.

"While facing this tide of darkness please watch over me and bless me with these weapons against the profane."

"I seek the anointment of these waters to weaken and repel the unholy adversaries advancing upon me," he says with a vague but unrecognizable deviation in his voice.

"I seek the anointment of these waters to weaken and repel the unholy adversaries advancing upon me."

"In Rayven's name of balance I pray, amen," he finishes at last with a generic translation.

"In Rayven's name of balance I pray, amen."

[You have chosen Balanced Affinity]

[All holy/unholy and associated elements are 10% per effective and efficient]

[Rayen has acknowledged you as one of his Adjutants]

[Awarded Title: Adjutant of Balance]

[Piety stat activated]

[Piety increased to: 333]

[Perform righteous deeds in Rayven's name to increase Piety]

"You may open your eyes, now," the head priest informs me, seeming to permit me to see the air filled with transparent ethereal flames rising from the crates before me. The true divine energy radiating from these crates was roughly as strong as the energy radiating off of the baptism pool. I was shocked and awed beyond belief at more than just the size of the notification stacks.

"Normally when I do it alone, it is a little bit weaker," Old Man remarks casually, "but with both of us blessing the water it has a much greater affect. I would even go so far as to say your Piety would be in the hundreds."

"Three-" I start to say, only for the head priest to suddenly shake his head once subtly to either side withing his hood.

"To know you have already been accepted to such a degree as to have received your Piety stat is enough to satisfy this old man," he explains softly while walking forward to the table as if to continue inspecting the crates. "At another time, we will have much to discuss, but now is sadly not the time. Would you like to continue on your own?"

"We need all the power we can get right now," I say with a quick shake of my head. "If they're this strong together, we should probably do all of hem today together. Or do you need me to continue mass production?"

"No, you've produced a few thousand bottles, these should be enough to hallow the grounds around each of the four gates for about a mile each," he reassures me briefly. "I'll have an acolyte bring you a book of blessings and prayers to read while you wait on the others and myself to finish their production stage."

These words were not soft like the ones previously and were clearly heard by the others in the area who quickly hardened their efforts as the head priest and I continued praying. In the sudden mild silence broken only by water and glass noises, I found a seat near Old Man's work station and was soon brought a large leather and wood bound book thick with leathery pages. This book was big enough to cover my lap when closed and on the first page when I opened it was an ancient introduction in a language I had not seen yet.

This book targeted recent recruits to the various religious factions and would contain most of their practices from daily prayers to death rites. The parts from this personalized index that caught my attention were several sections on different blessings. However, for the sake of my recent bond forging, I looked up the 'daily and life needs' mentioned in the index.

Not long after skimming through the pages of displaced blocks of characters, some small and off to the side and others large in explaining the prayer above and beside them, I found a section that simply explained to add your personal deity to any of these prayers. After having read a few of the morning and evening prayers, I decided it was time to flip on over to the general blessings.

This area of the book, thankfully, was organized per god as well as a short section at the end about ambiguous or unnamed blessings. To use blessings, one needed to have some level of backing from an actual god- which eventually grew into Piety- and if somebody wanted to ask any gods who would answer rather than troubling their own they would simply leave blessings of small scale unnamed at the end.

Obviously, these blessings had a chance of not working at all.

After only an hour of reading, the clergy working with us were finished with their batches of imbued holy water. Because all three elements were covered between the few of them, the three of them had shared one large work station and thus were the first to finish after me. Luckily, they all could compensate the holy trinity of mana which meant I did not have to go behind them with imbuing.

They, however, took it upon themselves to vacate the area while the head priest and I prayed. In lieu of relaxing with the completion of their work, however, they all moved on to assist the others in their production and imbuing. I was both satisfied with their wordless way of working and upset that I would have less time to study the book once I was done praying.

Our prayers were over much sooner this time and almost in perfect sync after the first batch of crates. Afterward, I simply went right back to my seat and continued committing prayers to heart.

Like the blessing of the holy water, many prayers shared similar components and only the identifying factors were different. Each prayer was like pleading a case, it was written, justifying the gods taking action in your plight. This explained why our current holy water blessing was so heavily directed at the undead.

After memorizing several of every type of blessing offered for each of the gods, I had a general idea of how to come up with both ambiguous and otherwise quick prayers for various circumstances. With this, I could possibly bless whatever attack I use during the preemptive to have even greater potential. Now all I needed was to put together some materials.

After some time spent contemplating what form of prayer I should use, I suddenly look over to where the head priest was sitting and simply ask, "Can I bottle some of the divine energy from the baptism pool?"

Old Man did not say anything at first, only look up in startles surprise before turning to give me a considering look. Finally, he asks in response, "Did your parents talk to you about the recent meeting and strategies?"

"We discussed it on the way here," I reply mostly earnestly. "I wanted to put some materials together to help out and even just a few vials of that divine energy would make all the different."

Nodding his head solemnly as he looks over at the physical mana pool, he finally sighs lightly and rises to his feet. Going over to a nearby stack of unused vial crates, the head priest takes out three vials and remove their corks before transmuting them into a congealed mass. Doing the same with the corks, the head priest soon holds globs of semi-transmuted material in either hand before creating a bottle a little larger than the mana potions provided to me.

And a suitably sized corked.

Carrying his creation over to the baptism pool, the head priest simply dunks the open bottle into the pool and fills it up to its short neck before removing it. Corking the bottle as it fumes divine energy from its mouth, Old man brings me the bottle and says, "Normally, I would have no choice but to tell you no, but this… use it wisely, Chuck."

*