Although her sister was so formidable, Xingyuan should have been proud of her. But... she was currently facing a significant problem.
While the monthly lectures were mandatory for a Saintess of the Temple of Light, getting closer to her sister was proving extremely difficult for her at the moment.
Should she become a believer of the Temple of Light? Xingyuan pondered this.
Then, she shook her head with a troubled expression. She couldn't do it.
While Xingyuan was lost in her worries, Qing Suyue was resting in her room within the temple.
Hailed as a once-in-a-millennium genius with an exceptionally high affinity for light, her daily tasks were to meditate on divine power within the temple and to lecture those who were about to join or had already become followers of the God of Light. This was her routine, day in and day out.
She hadn't considered going out to slay magical beasts, but the elders of the temple forbade it. They said her primary mission was to strive for communication with the God of Light. But... they all knew that the god had not responded to her followers in a long time, and perhaps he was long gone...
Qing Suyue shook her head, trying to dispel the disrespectful thoughts about the deity from her mind. However, the more she tried, the harder it became to suppress her impulses.
She had developed inner demons!
But... those elders wouldn't care, would they! Qing Suyue gave a self-deprecating laugh, as if mocking her own naivety. After all these years, she still harbored illusions about those people.
She was merely a tool, a tool to connect with the gods. How could she possibly aspire to things she had never received!
Perhaps it was seeing those vibrant youths today that had made her start to harbor such wild thoughts again.
Qing Suyue began her daily compulsory task: perusing ancient texts.
She refused to believe that there were only these two irresponsible gods in the world! Whether it was a dark god, as long as it could grant her freedom, even cooperating with a dark god, she was willing to pay the corresponding price.
Unfortunately... she still found no information about summoning dark gods.
She looked up at the window, her soul seeming to fly away with the solitary little bird outside.
Xingyuan found an apothecary, though not a legitimate one. This person often provided potions to those undergoing assessments for the Temple of Light, allowing them to temporarily boost their abilities and pass the tests.
Although these potions were also filled with divine light power, with the help of the potions, impersonating a follower of light wouldn't be a problem.
Xingyuan thought confidently, then downed the potion in one gulp.
However... as soon as the potion entered Xingyuan's body, the dark divine power within her seemed to be provoked, and it ravenously devoured the divine light power.
Xingyuan: (((φ(◎ロ◎;)φ)))!!!
There was no need to be so loyal and protective of the master at this moment! Her gold coins, the magic potion she had finally bought, and her almost within-reach future wife, all gone in an instant! ˚‧º·(˚˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅)‧º·˚
Xingyuan pounded her chest, coldly warning the dark divine power within her to behave and not to be exclusionary for the time being, then bought another bottle.
Perhaps she should be happy. She had been dormant for so long that a small portion of her divine power had developed a sliver of sentience. If it had been any later, it might have evolved into a new species.
However, for now, she could only keep them. If they dared to ruin her plans again, she would directly extract them from her body. But since they were her own power, their removal would leave her weakened for a period, so she wouldn't resort to that unless absolutely necessary.
Although the portion of divine power within her had become a bit more obedient, the influx of opposing forces and her body's instinctive repulsion caused Xingyuan to exchange all the gold coins she had brought for potions.
This time, it was all or nothing! If she couldn't infiltrate the Temple of Light, she would reveal her true form and snatch her sister back. With prolonged exposure, a possessive relationship might not be so bad.
Fortunately, heaven seemed to have heard her plea, and her plan was proceeding quite smoothly. She successfully became a humble cleaning attendant in the Temple of Light.
Although her status was low, she had managed to get in, and Xingyuan felt quite satisfied.
As for progressing further, there was no rush. She didn't have divine light power, after all. To care for her sister, she had to make her sister personally ask for her.
When Xingyuan deliberately tried to build relationships with others, it was often twice as effective with half the effort. But this time... she encountered a Waterloo.
Wuwuwu x﹏x! Those with divine light power generally disliked those who possessed dark divine power. Xingyuan couldn't afford to constantly drink light potions either, otherwise, the ones she had bought would be gone in just a few days.
There was competition even among the attendants. The face Xingyuan had crafted this time was too perfect.
Even though those with divine light power generally upheld justice, basic emotions like jealousy still existed. It was one thing to be beautiful, but to be perfectly beautiful was simply unreasonable!
Xingyuan reluctantly accepted the fact that she was disliked. She suddenly felt a pang of anxiety. If these people with low light affinity disliked her, wouldn't the Saintess, who was rumored to have the highest light affinity, start disliking her from afar?
In order to integrate into the small group and obtain more beneficial information, Xingyuan made a significant sacrifice. She exchanged the gold coins from the magical beasts she had casually killed for a high-grade potion—a Mimicry Disfigurement Potion.
This potion could be used regardless of whether one possessed divine light power or dark divine power. Furthermore, because the user catalyzed it with their own power, unless the other party's divine power was two tiers higher than the user's, it would be impossible to see through the disguise.
And if Xingyuan used it herself, then, unless she actively erased the traces, even the God of Light himself would never see her true appearance.
Thus, Xingyuan personally applied two very faint scars to her face with the potion. Although the scars were unsightly, they did not significantly detract from the overall beauty of her face. However, in the eyes of others, Xingyuan was still a beautiful woman, just not as perfect.
They gossiped about it behind her back. Sometimes, when Xingyuan overheard them, she would just smile shyly at them. They were already jealous of Xingyuan's beauty, and now that Xingyuan had lost some of her beauty and was actively trying to appease them, their sense of exclusion towards her lessened considerably. At the same time, Xingyuan spent a considerable amount of money to build good relationships with them, thereby obtaining much of the information she desired from them.
For instance, the Saintess lived alone in the highest tower of the temple and rarely came down unless there were special circumstances, with the monthly lectures being one such special occasion.
Xingyuan summarized this information one by one and then formulated her operational objectives.