"They say that power is poison. The more of it you get, the more clouded your world becomes. Your cohort's words get sweeter. Your foes seem to falter more. Your struggles start to wain… and" A philosopher was preaching next to me.
Today we were set to meet in the country of Oisha, the birthplace of Prana. A small nation to the south housing only a couple thousand people. Standing outside an embassy waiting for an official to welcome me inside, I was the first one there. The sun was loud in its brightness. I was sweating inside the armour.
I took off my helmet and leaned against a wall trying to hide in the shadow.
"Huff." It barely helped though.
There was a crowd of people chattering right in front of me. Kids, wives, and men with muffled voices and fingers pointed at me. Their eyes were glistening. It was clear that they were talking about me so I waved at them with a smile and they cheered back.
This was something the previous apostle would have done as well. I found that if I treated everyone else like she had treated me and the other kids, I could live up to her image. The image of a powerful, selfless, and courageous idol that people could place their faith in. She was indeed the perfect role model.
A part of me thought this act was despicably fake of me, but then again so was she. So it felt alright.
Of course, building a cult following was not the only activity I conducted throughout the past year. Through practice that left even me half dead, I got fast. Unbelievably fast. To the point that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me stopping time or moving around unless it was for long distances or involved complex manoeuvres.
Stopping time was infinitely more powerful than just going fast. It allowed me the ability and choice to do a lot of things amid battle that simply moving fast did not allow. But I confirmed throughout the last year that the more I stopped time the more vision was taken away from me. I could see comfortably still, but it became paramount that I needed to be economical with my use of Prana of Time. And moving quickly throughout stopped time was an even greater advantage.
The final thing I had fixed over the last year was my attacks. Having mastered the enormous cross I called a sword, I could summon lightning whenever I wished. Iudex was the perfect companion to my fighting style. Electrocution had a surprising amount of uses. In my case, I used the ability of electrocution it with Iudex's near-infinite durability to make the sword vibrate in place.
I noticed that that made it a lot sharper.
With all of this, I figured I was ready to head past the battlefield into enemy territory.
"I should have expected that you would be the first one here." Lithia snuck up from behind me and circled around. "It's been a long time, Miss Apostle, you still look as unnecessarily beautiful as ever." Really? I thought I was getting old at seventeen. Almost past the marriageable age already.
"I can't say the same about you though. You have changed everything about yourself." The entire air around her was different. The Prana felt more abundant. Her rough hair had been smoothed out and left down. As a person, she felt more refined.
"Those Directors were an incredibly stuck-up bunch and incredibly rude to anyone they deemed less sophisticated. I had to learn to live around that." Her statement was backed up by her new gear. Lithia featured a red top and red pants with a black skirt going halfway around the pants as if she was concealing something. She grabbed one end of the skirt and bowed. "I have returned to divinity's presence."
"And the wand?" While still bowing down and not looking up she held her other hand to a side. I felt the Prana circulate the tip of her fingers as a warp in reality opened up, out of which slowly a wand emerged.
Sharp on both sides, a grip and a gem in the middle. It looked like a perfectly precise white needle. But more than that-
"The Prana of Space?!"
"It's not that impressive, doing just that drained like a third of what I could do in a day. But I can do it now."
"No, still... that is incredibly impressive. That's a Prana that can't even be inherited with incredible talent. The rumors said it was theoretically possible. But most believed it to be fiction.
"It's my proudest achievement. I got to the wand six months into the pillar and spent the rest of the time learning from the books at the higher levels. Turns out that high efficiency in one field got me really in tune with Prana. I intuitively understood a lot of the other fields after a little practice. Unfortunately being surrounded by scholars, I had no way to test the battle viability of most of the things I learned."
"It must've been difficult to reach that level of proficiency, I am incredibly impressed." I felt like she had reached a stage that I would not be able to beat without using my skills. My initial impression and belief weren't wrong.
"I got lucky with meditation. Since learning Prana only requires your brain, the first thing I learnt was meditation. That almost tripled the time in my head, unlike reality. I recommend yo-"
"I even left an hour early and am still late." The third member had finally decided to join in. He was only wearing oversized trousers and his skin was tanned. In the middle of his chest, there was a black crystal with popping veins around it. You could see his heart through the crystal. He had a shield on his back and a bag in his hand. "I brought souvenirs." He held the bag up.
And immediately things went wrong.
Upon seeing him Lithia lost her refined feel instantly. She threw the bag off his hands and grabbed his arm. Not the arm that was holding the bag, but the arm that was missing. In the span of a year he had become disabled.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Immediately all the sophistication exited Lithia's body. The end of Jave's arm was degraded was dripping dark sand-like material. "NO!"
Dejectedly the man looked down at the floor.