In short, Lucimia pieced together this world’s frame like a map unrolling under dawn light.
There used to be a Dark Deity here, but an ancestor of the Lancelot Family drove it out, like a storm swept past and left only wreckage—its believers and some lingering Evil Entities.
Both believers and Evil Entities carry Blessings, like iron scales under shadow; ordinary folk can’t handle them, so the Purification Church sends Purification Knights, steel against miasma.
Her family fights another way, using the Blessing of Exemption, so they’re called Exemption Knights, lanterns that refuse the fog.
It seems whatever Authority Power you bear decides what kind of Knight you become, name following nature like a river follows its bed.
After hearing her father’s tale, curiosity pricked Lucimia like a nettle in her palm; her mind turned toward the Dark Deity’s origin.
What are Dark Deities, really? Where do they come from? How are they born? From what well do their Authority Powers rise? Where were they driven?
No one could answer, like fishermen casting into mist; scholars still argue and sift, their lamps bobbing on a dark lake.
A worry budded in her chest like a thorn before she spoke. Since Exemption is tied to a Dark Deity, if we use Exemption’s Authority Power, won’t the Purification Church mind?
Oh, that’s mainly because we have no contact with Ruigana, Alvis said, calm as stone in rain. We need no sacrifices, no rituals, yet we can use part of Exemption’s Authority Power, and it brings no side effects.
It’s as if we snatched a sliver of Exemption’s Authority Power and made it our own, like borrowing fire and not getting burned, Alvis explained.
Lucimia lowered her head, thoughts settling like snow on branches, silently digesting what she’d learned.
Alvis waited a beat, then spoke again with the gravity of a bell toll: Lucimia, do you want to become an Exemption Knight?
A blank drifted through her heart like a cloud across the moon. She lifted her gaze, her round eyes meeting his. I don’t know.
Truth be told, she had zero interest in being a Holy Knight; if not for fear of exposure, she’d have skipped the bookstore and slept like a cat in sun.
Hmm… Alvis stalled, words catching like twigs in a stream; he’d imagined his daughter would accept with blazing fervor. Forget it. Whether you want it or not, today I’ll tell you how our family trains Exemption Knights. What you do is your choice.
He pulled a palm-sized box from a desk drawer, dark violet like the sky before rain, the kind used for proposal rings in her previous life.
Alvis flipped it open; inside lay a ring, quiet as a moonstone.
Its craft was exquisite. The band gleamed with a clean shine, two flowing lines etched along it, and a pale violet gem in the middle, set within the ring’s inner curve.
Tiny starry flecks shimmered inside the gem, like a pocket of night sky caught in glass.
Beautiful—so beautiful even in her past life, when she’d been him, he would’ve said so without a second thought.
Alvis lifted the ring from its nest.
This is a Storage Ring, he said, voice steady as a blade’s flat. I know you already have one, but this one’s different. It’s also a magic artifact; if you suffer a lethal blow, it will block one attack, like a shield blooming in winter.
He set the ring in Lucimia’s palm. Besides, it reduces your mana cost when you cast, like wind at your back.
It was hard to refuse without breaking the surface of calm; she accepted the pretty ring, like taking a warm cup in cold hands.
Seeing that, Alvis arched a brow and smiled, a line of sun across stone. You’re a mage, right? A magic artifact suits you. When your second brother became a Holy Knight, I gave him a sword, since he’s a Swordmaster. Your eldest brother was stronger still, both magic and blade, so I gave him two pieces of gear.
She had two brothers—one gone, one chasing shadows. The truth tasted of iron.
Her eldest died before she was born. Family said he’d returned from slaying an Evil Entity, only to die the next morning in a sunlit breakfast.
His skin shattered like glass and turned to fine dust, a silent snowfall across the table.
It was clearly the touch of a Dark Deity’s Authority Power, a blade in the dark he never saw.
After that, her second brother set off to seek the cause, a lone rider vanishing into fog.
Back to the point—
Thank you… With words thin as autumn reeds, she could only thank him.
She didn’t want to be a Holy Knight; the thought sat in her chest like a stone in a well.
Alvis waved it off, easy as a breeze through curtains. Don’t be so stiff. We’re family. A father giving his daughter a gift is normal. And don’t worry—being a Knight is up to you.
Lucimia blinked, then nodded, fingers curling around the ring like closing a shell.
A trinket that can stop one lethal strike, and a father who won’t force her path—warmth rose like firelight. She felt the shape of family love.
She remembered how, when sick in that other life, no one cared; people flinched from her cough like it was smoke, even when she kept her distance.
Clutching the ring, Lucimia decided in secret, like a vow etched on ice: her family must never learn her identity. It’s safer for her, and safer for them.
They might not believe she’s the Dark Deity. They’d rather believe their daughter was puppeted by an Evil Entity or replaced by a Deceiver; either way, it means she’s already gone, a grave without a stone.
Her mother’s fragile face rose in her mind like a petal in rain, and pity softened her heart. This warmth was the only hearth she’d felt in two lives; she wanted to guard it.
Yes—she would try.
In the end, she also took a stack of magic books from her father, pages thick with inked sigils, to fill the gaps in her current arsenal.
Against the Deceiver, she had relied only on control, like bare hands against a storm; lacking set forms had been a real hassle.
If she grasped the principles of spell forms and fused them with her control, maybe she could craft new techniques, like forging a blade from frost and thunder.
She slipped the books into the new Storage Ring, the weight vanishing like stones into water, and prepared to return to her room.
Before leaving, she asked her father how to tell Deceivers apart. He said rumor holds that while a Deceiver can replace someone, it can’t read their memories—like wearing a mask without knowing the lines.
He also told her not to worry about Deceivers; he and the Church would handle it, calm settling over her like a blanket.
The Church had suffered badly from Deceivers before; with fresh clues, they’d likely mobilize to the last torch and hammer the Deceivers hard.
Speaking of which, the Church’s squad arrives tomorrow, Lucimia muttered, biting her nail like a squirrel on a twig. Exemption only exempts evil taint. If the Purification Deity is also a Dark Deity, does that make His power evil in nature? Can Exemption nullify the Church’s inspection?
She could only wait for morning light to lift the answer from the dark.
Her mother had also said a new Purification Knight, her age, would be among them; curiosity pricked like a pin—she wanted a look.
Back in her bedroom, Lucimia changed into a thin white dress, moon-pale, and lay down softly on the bed.
She lay there long, turning like a leaf in a shallow current, sleep refusing to come.
So she rose, sat at her desk, and flipped open a magic book, the dense principles coiling like vines.
Sure enough, drowsiness drifted in like fog over fields; she returned to bed and closed her eyes.
Thinking of sleep brought last night’s dream—Olivya the Dark Deity’s Sacrificial Ritual—back like embers in ash.
Would it come again tonight?
If only she could speak within the dream. She could leave questions to the believers, and not fear cracking the deity’s image—she could call it a trial, and grant Blessings as reward.
Even though to this day, she still hadn’t figured out what her own Authority Power was, a sealed spring under ice.
