Even through it was a single drop of blood, it contained endless information about its owner. Of course to unravel that information was not something everybody could do.
Lucien had already come up with a couple of options on what to do with it. The first thing that came to his mind was to clone Maria using this drop of blood and it was quite achievable, but in the end he gave up that plan.
The Paths wouldn't be cloned, as a single drop of blood of a Rank 2 Practitioner couldn't contain the Paths, so Lucien would have to use the blood to create a vessel and use his Paths to perfect the clone. And here was where issues popped, the Light Path Lucien had was at Rank 1, while the Light Path of Maria was already at Rank 2, the clone wouldn't be perfect.
Besides, why should he spend 10 000 Existence Points for a clone with Rank 2 Potential, when he could just do it himself, after all everything he needed was the aura and the body of the Saintess.
Changing the body would be a piece of cake, he could already alter even his bone structure slightly to make himself taller or shorter using his Lower Paths, with a bit of disguising, a mask, and the holy aura, he could pass as Maria in front of the common masses, only if someone of high Rank saw him, he could be exposed, but everybody would be busy fighting among themselves.
Looking at the drop of blood, Lucien knew it was too small to help with anything, so he cut himself slightly and squeezed a drop of his own, erasing all the information and will inside of it.
'Lower it's quality to be slightly lower than the drop.'
The drop of blood, as if decompressing enlarged while it's color dulled quite a bit. Once it settled as a head sized sphere, Lucien sent the small drop inside.
Since the blood was prepared to be neutral and with no owner, once they merged the aura of the small drop spread as if conquering the rest of the blood. Without the Blood Path, Lucien wouldn't be able to erase his mark from his blood and this wouldn't be possible, but now within seconds he had much more blood that had the same holy aura.
Changing his structure to match the height of Maria and using some materials to replicate other parts of her body, Lucien was almost ready.
Willing for it, the sphere of blood flew towards his face, where it made a thin film which solidified into a beautiful face, the leftovers spread around his body to make sure every part of him gave off a holy feeling. Even if it was pretty rough, it would do the job.
While waiting for her to leave the palace again, Lucien even practiced a bit his expression to make sure everything was covered. It was not hard imitating Maria, as she only kept her cold poker face all the time.
A week later Maria left the palace once more to bless the people, and while she was walking around in one part of the capital, Lucien went to another part to have some fun.
As a start he didn't do anything rash or drastic, as it would be too obvious, he even provided 'blessings', moving the particles to surround the people and shine was all it took.
To see how people reacted and what would happen, he did just some small things. He pushed a kid 'accidentally', didn't bless one of crowds that had gathered. Normally if there were beggars, Maria would stop, bless them and give some money, but he ignored them the whole time. Once he made a round or two, he took his leave silently, waiting to hear some gossips.
And unsurprisingly gossips spread that same day. Once she treated people that way for long periods of time, they took it for granted and if she changed something, it would seem unfair to them, even through she did it for free.
The gossips were nothing grand, just some murmurs of unsatisfied trash on the streets, but they spread fast and soon everybody knew about the small acts.
They even got to Maria the same day, who was pretty shocked as she didn't do those things. Considering her cold personality it didn't take her long to start ignoring this matter.
Things went this way for a couple of months, with Lucien using most of the time to practice his Darkness Path together with the clone, apparently even through they were separated by quite a distance, they could still share their progress and findings. Because of this fact, his practice speed was twice as fast.
On the other hand, as Maria went out once a week, he didn't make moves during the rest of the time, it had to be as believable as possible, and he slowly kept escalating the situation. From pushing a kid 'accidentally', to slapping him in public and from not blessing one crowd, to not blessing anyone at all. He still didn't bully beggars, as he had read a couple of novels in his previous life, beggars could be scary characters, there were no need for risks.
The rumors escalated and had already started affecting the position Maria held. Even through the royals kept firm grasp on the church and nothing could shake them, there were many fanatics that wouldn't mind risking their lives to throw a rock or two at them, after all if they could replace the royal family, they would be closer to their God.
The Bishop, who was also the Emperor of the Empire didn't do anything to retaliate, he was testing his daughters faith and will, and even if her mother wanted to intervene, he would stop her. Even those who would go to the bottom of it and support her, were benched by him.
Maria didn't know what was happening, after her close sister died in the tournament, she didn't feel that alone as she still had her father and mother, but now all of a sudden she was alone, with nobody willing to support her. Nobody wanted to dirty their hands with this faithless Saintess.
She still kept going out as it was a routine she used to polish her faith and skills. But nowadays, even when she was blessing, a dazed expression was covering her face.
Looking at her with his Soul Domain, Lucien was calm.
'It's only starting, little girl. Let's see how long can you hold.'