A Powerful Martial Artist Reincarnates as a Nun Knight

After surveying the altar with just her gaze for a while, Sophia strode over to it. Her hands then deftly manipulated the various altar components, occasionally restoring worn inscriptions or images with delicate fingertip precision in an uncanny display of skill.

Once finished, she infused three of the altar’s stone statues with ‘pure mana flows’ – the fundamental resource utilized by mages to construct spell formulas, omnipresent throughout existence. As the mana flows permeated them, the three statues began glowing brilliantly, emitting a lucent jade radiance.

Though a wondrous spectacle, Sophia paid no heed to such marvels, bluntly stating in an overbearing tone:

“No use feigning ignorance. Reveal yourself obediently, or I shall destroy this altar and permanently seal this dungeon by the Order’s authority.”

Sophia issued an intensely coercive threat – comply, or face destruction and eternal entombment.

“Is it really okay to threaten it like that?”

Watching with a puzzled expression, Conra asked Hildegard, who nodded matter-of-factly in response:

“Of course. The Order cannot simply leave such a suspicious dungeon be. While countermeasures vary per dungeon, the simplest and most stable approach with minimal repercussions is to suppress the breach, reseal the dungeon, and restore the land. Strictly speaking, it’s not a threat, but simply the obvious procedure to be implemented given the circumstances.”

Continuing, Hildegard added:

“But your Master is truly remarkable. I’ve observed archaeologists working in dungeons when deployed for related incidents, but I’ve never witnessed such effortless restoration of ancient rituals and altars at a glance before. Such a feat shouldn’t be so simple…”

Her incredulous admiration made Conra’s chest swell with pride.

“Well, she is the Master. I don’t recall ever seeing her struggle since becoming her squire.”

After a momentary pause, the boy appended, “Though I haven’t been her squire for very long,” revealing his conscience. Seeing this, Hildegard gave the boy an affectionate ruffle of his head, prompting cries of “Uwah, stop that! Ah, my hair!”

As they bantered, the obstinately silent altar finally reacted as Sophia bulked up her astral muscles, gripping her longsword’s blade like a hammer with her gauntleted hand.

{St-Stop this! Do you realize how important these ruins are?!}
“It worked?!”

Conra exclaimed in shock from his observing position. Regardless, Sophia maintained her stern expression as she addressed the altar:

“I’ll be brief. What are you, and what is the true nature of this dungeon?”

The altar flickered in apparent contemplation before Sophia’s direct questioning. However, as she again bulked up her astral muscles, it hastily responded:

{W-Wait! I’ll tell you everything! Just give me a moment! This place was originally a research facility our Silver folk created for environmental experiments! After its purpose was served, it was later repurposed for entertainment!}
“This is a Silver Age ruin, yet the final gatekeeper was a Bronze Age warrior?”
{When breaching the chronological strata upwards, it merged with traces of the Bronze Age! The bizarre structural shifts you encountered were all due to that convergence!}

From its explanation, it seemed blameless for the dungeon’s anomalous structure. Though Hildegard and Conra were ready to accept this, Sophia suddenly inquired:

“Then what was your role in these ruins?”
{The facility manager.}
“Hmm, guilty.”

Paaah – a brilliant luminous power illuminated the altar, immediately prompting anguished screams from within.

{※∂⌒∇￥√★&#!!!}

After Sophia ceased emitting the luminous power, the altar flickered a pitiful, trembling jade hue instead of its previous lucent glow, only able to emit feeble groans.

“Luminous power has an intriguing effect. It suppresses spiritually malformed existences, guiding them back to their proper form and place. The interesting part is that this applies even to presiding and possessing spirits, without exception.”

Except for ‘spirits’ whose intrinsic domains were natural phenomena, ‘holy spirits’ intrinsically tied to luminous power, and ‘divine spirits’ properly spiritually perfected, no spiritual existence could withstand the suppression of luminous power.

While some could temporarily resist based on their wisdom and strength, against a Paladin knight wielding it, even their endurance became meaningless. This was why even presiding or possessing spirits struggled to defy Paladins, who were transcendent warriors and formidable mages.

“As the facility manager, you must have held administrative authority over its systems. Moreover, you seem to have synchronized yourself with the ruins through rituals around the Silver Age’s demise – a wise choice. While other spirits underwent cumbersome processes to maintain existence, you could persist synchronized with the ruins.”

Fundamentally, spirits followed mages to sustain their existence by whispering spell knowledge and assisting spellcasting, gaining sustaining power while sharing newly created spell knowledge to further empower themselves.

However, spirits did not simply follow any mage – their sharing of spell knowledge was akin to an investment. After all, mere spell knowledge did not guarantee effortless spellcasting or new spell combinations, which was why mages and spellcasting were so highly valued.

Thus, spirits vied for promising, talented mages – yet identifying such individuals was never easy.

Sophia had praised the altar spirit’s wisdom in this regard.

“However, you seem to have grown arrogant from dwelling too long within the altar. Perhaps that allowed the Bronze Age’s martial toxins to temporarily contaminate you during the dungeon conversion and fusion with those remnants. How dare you play such pranks before us?”
{I reflect and regret my actions.}

The spirit swiftly replied with humility, likely fearing further torment if it remained silent.

Admittedly, from the spirit’s perspective, this was rather unfair. Luminous power was a mythical force said to exist only in the fabled Golden Age by Silver Age standards. How could it have foreseen such power manifesting in this Iron Age after its own Silver Age, let alone the Bronze Age, had long since perished?

Unaware of the Great Ascetic’s existence that seeded the Order’s origins, how could it have anticipated luminous power?

Moreover, lacking any monster difficulty ratings, it had simply indulged in creating various hazardous, arduous, and exhausting gimmicks that this party had swiftly obliterated before even its strongest trump card, the Bronze Age warrior, was bisected.

No, the true mistake was joyfully concocting dungeon gimmicks solely because it had manifested in the present world through dungeon conversion. By excessively maximizing its capabilities in an atmospheric frenzy to thoroughly vex the intruders, it had only enraged its current opposition.

It could likely summon another Bronze Age warrior by depleting its existence, but there was little point. Even if that second warrior definitively triumphed, which seemed improbable, the party would undoubtedly not let it off easily if their opponent was defeated again.

“Very well, I shall pass judgment.”

Seeing the altar spirit’s complete submission, Sophia finally rendered her verdict:

“I’ve considered it, and leaving you in this dungeon seems too risky. So for now, you shall be under surveillance.”
{Surveillance, you say?}
“You shall accompany my squire here for the time being.”

Upon Sophia’s pronouncement, Conra’s eyes widened. So he too would have a presiding spirit? Come to think of it, he was an amateur mage himself as a druid and alchemist – having a presiding spirit was certainly appealing.

Observing Conra, the altar spirit seemed to concur he was a talented mage. However, it responded:

{But I’ve already synchronized with these ruins through rituals, making separation difficult?}
“No need to worry about that. While restoring the ritual to summon you from the altar’s surface, I retroactively derived the ritual you underwent to synchronize with these ruins. A slight modification should allow me to invoke the ‘countering spell’ directly.”

The altar spirit recoiled at Sophia’s casual utterance of such madness. As a knowledgeable spirit, it recognized how ridiculous her words were regarding spellcraft.

Yet before it could instinctively rebut the armchair mage’s improbable claims, the looming threat of luminous power and Sophia’s beautiful, dazzling spell incantations forced it to swallow its intended words, rendered mute in awe.

At this point, even the spirit had to reconsider. Perhaps by accompanying Conra and assisting him, it could also witness Sophia’s spellcasting besides Conra’s? Could this truly be an unprecedented opportunity in its spirit life?

Thus, a presiding spirit joined the nun knight party.