[…]

[The Librarian beside you calls your name several times before you finally react…]

[He clears his throat and says, Apostle, congratulations on completing the special trial and touching the true power of the Immortal level for the first time.]

[He knows you must have many questions in your heart. There is no need to worry. As the reward for passing the trial, he will explain everything to you one by one.]

[You immediately ask the administrator about the sudden drop in Shell Quality.]

[The Librarian does not answer right away, but instead asks you, Apostle, after experiencing so many chapters and witnessing all kinds of monsters and plot characters, do you think they are powerful because of their Shell or because of their soul?]

[You frown. According to your understanding, a monster’s strength of course comes from its Shell. Without a Shell, even if it has reached the immortal realm like the Executor, with your power you could still personally annihilate its soul.]

[However, having experienced the Firefly chapter, you know matters are far from that simple.]

[You once saw the powerful will of the Wet Nurse descend into a demigod Shell, and it could raise the Shell’s strength to an unbelievable degree.]

[That level of power was something even a true god in peak condition absolutely could not contend against. The only ones able to cross swords with it were main gods of the same level!]

[Seeing your thoughtful expression, the administrator smiles and says that before reaching the height of gods, the strength of the Shell is undoubtedly the most important thing. If the Shell is stronger by even one degree, that means the user’s strength is stronger by one degree.]

[At that stage, the soul is too weak and simply cannot influence the Shell’s strength. But as the helmsman controlling the Shell, the soul’s ability is far more than merely using will to manipulate the Shell.]

[The true power of the soul can amplify the Shell’s strength, and can even raise the Shell’s strength without limit, just like the Desire Wet Nurse you saw in the Firefly world.]

[Once one reaches the height of gods, Shell and soul complement each other. Whichever side is weaker will cause a tremendous decline in strength.]

[As for why beings of the immortal grade, like Apostles, can release their souls when the Shell dies, allowing the soul to survive independently without relying on the Shell, it is precisely because of the power of the soul.]

[Of course, ordinary Apostles, without the protection of The Book of Salvation, cannot survive with their souls separated from their bodies. That is also why Apostles cannot resurrect as wandering souls if they die in reality…]

[Why not guess what the key to a powerful soul is, or in other words, what the key is that allowed the Executor to ascend from demigod to god, and then fall from god back to demigod?]

[You instantly recall what Rona once told you. The boundary between human and god cannot be broken through by strength alone. The key lies in… authority!]

[Only by raising one’s own authority to a level approaching that of a god can one use authority to bring the Shell along in ascending to Immortality!]

[As weakened manifestations of authority, special attributes have nothing to do with the Shell, and are connected only to the soul.]

[So even if you kill a monster with a special attribute, you still cannot inherit that special attribute by Possessing its Shell. That is because authority is not in the Shell, but in the soul!]

[After the Executor was killed by you, its soul was also annihilated by you. The Shell lost its authority, so naturally it fell from immortal grade back to mythic grade…]

[You used Beginning of the Holy Spirit to temporarily raise your authority to the height of a god.]

[Thus, when your soul entered and Possessed that Shell, Flesh Authority could exert its effect and allow this Shell to continue remaining in the realm of Immortality.]

[And when the effect of Beginning of the Holy Spirit faded, your Flesh Authority was beaten back to its original state, and this Shell likewise fell back to mythic+ grade.]

“So in that case, the Apostles who became pseudo gods in reality have each mastered some kind of authority?”

“That should not be right… weakened authority, which is to say special attributes, only exists in hell chapters. No, that is not precise. It should be said that only the special attributes of hell chapters are strong enough to appear in the form of panel data.”

“Ordinary chapters and nightmare chapters also have special attributes, but because the main gods of those chapters are comparatively weak, the special attributes they grant are also comparatively lousy. So lousy that they do not even show up on the data panel.”

“Even for me, who possesses the special attributes of a hell chapter, if I want to raise them into authority, who knows how long it would take… after all, my Knowledge stat is already this high, yet I still have not seen my special attribute turn into Analysis Authority.”

“So how do ordinary Apostles master authority?”

“As for the other way of obtaining authority… I only got Flesh Authority by borrowing the hand of the Extreme Delusion Fruit to kill the Wet Nurse, this main god, and only then receiving an SSS grade evaluation. In reality, how could so many Apostles achieve something like that?”

“Could there be other methods for obtaining authority, and for increasing the power of authority?”

[The administrator nods and answers, as authority is a necessary condition for advancing to godhood, naturally it cannot be obtained only through those two extremely difficult methods. Otherwise, The Book of Salvation would have no way to produce a certain number of Apostles in the Immortal realm, or even the Eternal realm.]

[There are three other ways to obtain authority. The first is when an Apostle is approaching Immortality, but has not yet mastered any authority. In that case, the administrator will arrange a special trial to help the Apostle master the related authority.]

[Since you already possess authority… and what you possess is a supreme-level authority, a power held only by main gods, there was no need at all to specially arrange an Authority Trial. So the reward of this trial was changed to the Executor’s Shell instead.]

[Another way to obtain authority is hidden within chapter progression. When an Apostle, through various methods, receives the particular favor of a main god, they can obtain the seed of authority power.]

[For example, Rona by your side once received favor and obtained a sliver of the extremely weak Omniscient Authority.]

[And the third way to obtain authority… from an essential standpoint, is the same as the first.]

[The only difference is that one is obtained in advance with the help of external force in the trial, while the other is obtained through one’s own effort and growth.]

[At this point, the administrator says with meaningful intent, Apostle, have you never wondered what soul talent really is?]

In that instant, all kinds of thoughts flashed through Lin Xun’s mind.

“Could it be…”

[The administrator smiles and nods, saying, Correct. An Apostle’s soul talent is itself a kind of authority with limitless potential!]

At the moment he received the answer, everything was both beyond expectation and perfectly reasonable.

Why could an Apostle’s soul talent be enhanced with Divine items? Because Divinity contained ownerless authority!

A Divine Image of a main god worshipped by tens of millions of believers, a Divine gem condensed from many special attributes, carried authority power within it.

A Divine item dropped from killing monsters like the Veiled Aberration carried leftover authority power from the related main god.

A Divine item obtained by annihilating a god’s soul carried the leftover authority power in that god’s soul that had not yet dissipated.

Therefore, Divine items could enhance an Apostle’s soul talent, because both were manifestations of authority power in essence!

“Then what authority does my soul talent represent?”

Lin Xun opened the Apostle Panel and stared blankly at his soul talent, Thousand Faces, Ten Thousand Forms!