The news came rather suddenly. Evan had guessed it might happen, but nothing had been confirmed before. Now, a date had been set.
When Mulan left the Holy Temple, he felt a little melancholy. Evan was his only close friend with whom he could talk about anything, and he probably would not see him again for a long time.
The Sacred Mountain lay far to the north of the continent, in the West Ridge Duchy, on territory independent of the duchy itself. It was also hailed as the brightest place in the world. Naturally, it was a very long way from Digo, and even modern means of transportation could not make that distance insignificant.
With Evan leaving, neither of them knew when they would meet again. Evan was not merely going to receive a baptism; he also had extensive study and instruction ahead of him. By the time he emerged, he would be a qualified bishop of the Holy Temple, responsible for managing a diocese. No matter how talented he was, that would certainly take a considerable amount of time.
After all, Mulan knew that Evan's greatest strength was the utterly pure devotion in his heart. But stepping into the true reality and perfecting his formative world would still be difficult. The Holy Temple would presumably spare no resources or potions, and might even send powerful individuals to take Evan into the Otherworld in search of elements and to develop his totem.
But resonance required building a formative world through one's own power. Bringing the connections between the three worlds into harmony and stability, with oneself at their center, was no simple matter either. Transcending mortal limits was difficult.
When he returned home that evening, Mulan wrote down the morning of February 28 in his little notebook of reminders, along