Chapter 266

So Lin Yan thought it over, then first exchanged a fair amount of divine power using faith power.

Then he exchanged the divine power for high-grade divine power.

10 points of low-grade divine power exchange for 1 point of high-grade divine power.

Immediately after, Lin Yan used high-grade divine power to bestow a high-grade blessing upon each of his holy maidens!

City of Divine Miracles.

Meng Ying, who was cultivating magic, sensed that she was only one thin barrier away from Seventh Rank.

But this one barrier, she still had no way to break through quickly right now.

However, Meng Ying did not feel discouraged; she kept on trying.

At that moment, she sensed a sacred power envelop her.

Right after, Meng Ying felt the view before her suddenly brighten.

The fog that had shrouded the path ahead scattered in an instant, letting her see the road before her!

"The God is bestowing a blessing upon me!"

Joy welled up in Meng Ying's heart.

The great Lord of Flames always lent her aid at the most critical moments!

In Meng Ying's heart, the Lord of Flames was her god, and also like her mentor, but Meng Ying did not like associating the Lord of Flames with the role of a mentor, because she was the Lord of Flames' holy maiden — a person of the god.

Just like the fox-woman Sister Qing Ling, she longed for the day she could enter the Lord of Flames' divine kingdom and attend upon the Lord of Flames day after day!

Though overjoyed, Meng Ying did not waste the opportunity.

She seized the chance; relying on the brief, immense boost to her magical sensitivity brought by the high-grade blessing, Meng Ying quickly found the key to advancing to Seventh Rank!

Then, in one stroke, Meng Ying broke through into Seventh Rank!

Seventh Rank — Grand Archmage!

She could already take to the skies and fly!

A Seventh Rank Grand Archmage already had the power to decide the outcome of a war involving ten thousand troops.

Facing ten thousand alone, she could annihilate them all!

Such was the terrifying strength of a Seventh Rank Grand Archmage!

The number of Seventh Rank Grand Archmages was not that great.

In an ordinary human kingdom, there would only be a handful.

Each was a kingdom's trump card!

And now, under Lin Yan's favor, Meng Ying, at the age of seventeen, had become a Seventh Rank Grand Archmage — a pace of advancement that was already quite terrifying.

Spoken aloud, it would probably frighten the wits out of a great many people!

After advancing to Seventh Rank Grand Archmage, Meng Ying's heart brimmed with joy.

Still, she quickly calmed herself.

Because the high-grade blessing's effect of briefly boosting magical sensitivity was still in place.

Cultivating magic at a moment like this, one minute was worth a very long stretch of ordinary time.

So Meng Ying seized the chance and thoroughly stabilized her realm.

Steady and solid advancement, with no hidden dangers — that was what Meng Ying pursued.

It was also what Lin Yan demanded!

At the same time, in another chamber of the temple, having received Lin Yan's high-grade blessing, the fox-woman Sister Qing Ling also smoothly advanced to Sixth Rank Archmage.

Though Sister Qing Ling was now the queen of the Flame Nation, she was also Lin Yan's holy maiden; in her view, the identity of holy maiden was clearly the more important one.

So she still resided within the temple.

The newly built Wang Gong in the City of Divine Miracles was used only for holding deliberations.

In fact, most of the time, Sister Qing Ling held deliberations with Meng Ying and the others inside the temple.

Only when a meeting required more people would Sister Qing Ling go to the Wang Gong to convene it.

"Finally Sixth Rank!"

Sister Qing Ling was overjoyed.

And on this day, the other holy maidens also advanced one after another.

The dwarf queen's strength had never been weak; after staying in the City of Divine Miracles for so long and receiving Lin Yan's favor, the dwarf queen Aiwei also became a Sixth Rank powerful warrior.

In fact, she also knew a bit of magic — she was a Third Rank mage as well!

The centaur girl Bai Ling became a Fifth Rank warrior; she was skilled with the bow, and had recently been practicing swordsmanship — give her a broadsword and she could even cleave through ordinary standard-issue armor!

And when she channeled energy into her arrows, the penetration of her shots would be quite terrifying.

Princess Luoti also studied magic; she had a later start, so she was still a Fourth Rank mage, but her progress was also very pleasing.

The winged girl Mia was more well-rounded; her archery was no weak skill, and she also knew magic, but because she had joined later, she was still a Third Rank mage!

She could also combine magic with archery, making her arrows fly farther, more accurately, and with greater killing power.

It could be said that on this day, Lin Yan's holy maidens had undergone a great advancement.

Right after, following Lin Yan's revelation, Sister Qing Ling began taking stock of and reorganizing the Flame Nation's army.

The number of fox-folk warriors was always kept at ten thousand.

After training, these ten thousand had all become archers.

Their bows were all specially made, imbued with the power of magic.

This kind of bow was also called an enchanted bow.

The function of an enchanted bow was simple: it let them draw the bow with very little effort — even drawing it fully required no great strength — so that in war, the fox-folk archers could shoot far more arrows, the range would also be greater, and the power, needless to say, would certainly be greater!

Such bows were costly to make; forging one in a human kingdom required at least several hundred gold coins.

GLOSSARY:

- Lin Yan

- Wang Gong

- Bai Ling

- Sister Qing Ling

- Princess

- Qinglingcai Society

- Sixth Rank

- Third Rank

- Fifth Rank

- Fourth Rank

- Seventh Rank

- To Seventh Rank

- Away from Seventh Rank

- For the Sake of Seventh Rank

Several hundred gold coins could last many years for an ordinary person.

Like the new teachers arriving in the City of Miracles, their annual salary used to be just a dozen or so gold coins.

The main issue lies in the enchantment and fixation of magic—it requires a Gao Jie mage to perform, and the cost of a single Gao Jie mage's work is never simple.

Moreover, it takes a Gao Jie mage several days to carve the magical runes onto a single bow.

Crafting this bow also requires an extremely skilled craftsman and is particular about materials.

But now, with Lin Yan's slight modifications to the lava fire and the dwarf craftsmen, enchanted bows have been mass-produced and fully issued to the Hu Clan archers.

Arrows fired from enchanted bows can easily reach an astonishing range of over five hundred meters, whereas previously, such range required a very strong Centaur warrior using a heavy bow.

If these arrows are fitted with specially made arrowheads, they can pierce the armor once worn by Centaur warriors.

However, the armor once worn by Centaur warriors has been reforged again, becoming heavier and offering even better protection.

The Cat Clan is not skilled in warfare; they have only five thousand warriors, and the sole duty of these five thousand Cat Clan warriors is to protect ten thousand Hu Clan archers.

The Centaur warriors have been trained to a strength of twenty thousand.

Now the Centaur warriors are divided into two groups, each numbering ten thousand!

The first group consists of the strongest Centaur warriors, who, after multiple blessings, are mostly Second Rank warriors or higher.

They wear heavier armor with better protection and carry heavy shields.

This is equivalent to the heavy cavalry of human kingdoms.

They are used to break enemy formations.

Now, the opponent of the Flame Nation has become the human kingdom, whose weapons and equipment are superior, with numerous mages and warriors; if the Centaur warriors were still as they were before, they could no longer charge freely on the human kingdom's battlefield.

Therefore, their equipment has been greatly upgraded.

The City of Miracles now has over a hundred thousand dwarves, more than half of whom are craftsmen, forging day and night, and with the Bug of the lava fire, such weapons can certainly be forged!

The other group of ten thousand Centaur warriors are primarily First Rank warriors, with some Second Rank warriors among them; their armor is slightly lighter, and they carry light shields—they are equivalent to light cavalry, used for pursuit, flanking, and support!

Then there are the Lion Clan warriors; after their devotion to the Lord of Flame grew stronger, some Lion Clan warriors were also incorporated.

They are powerful warriors who lost to the City of Miracles mainly due to inferior equipment and lack of high-end combat strength—not because their individual power is weak!

So far, forty thousand Lion Clan warriors have been incorporated; the dwarves have crafted large quantities of customized equipment for them, and this equipment also has excellent magical defense properties.

They are skilled not in spears, but in fighting with one hand holding a shield and the other holding a blade.

Therefore, the dwarves crafted for them a light shield identical to the light shields used by light-equipped Centaurs.

This light shield contains many magical elements, offering good protection without being especially heavy.

Their blades are high-quality steel swords; remember, everything the dwarves forge is perfected to the utmost—even their mass-produced blades, if taken to a human kingdom, could fetch a very high price!

After switching to the new equipment, these Lion Clan warriors have become even stronger!

Since Lion Clan warriors inherently possess strong individual power, adult Lion Clan warriors all have First Rank strength; after blessings, most have reached near-Second Rank strength, and a few have already broken into Second Rank.

Then there are two thousand Xiong Zu warriors, whose effectiveness on the battlefield is far more terrifying than heavy cavalry.