Nurturing Humanity Novel - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: Temple

After this short exchange, Zhao Xu started to get a good idea of Reyan’s flippant style of speech.

“Also, I hope you don’t think you really managed to attack Antonya,” said Reyan.

Zhao Xu shook his head. He knew what he was really capable of.

And from the tone of voice Reyan used, even an idiot could sense something wrong.

Theoretically, Antonya could able to cast a spell like Prismatic Sphere, so she could have defended herself against his attack.

“Not so bad, you aren’t like me. Back then, I really thought that I had seriously hit my mentor and I was happy for nothing for so long.” Reyan smiled nostalgically.

Zhao Xu suddenly felt a little awkward. Why did this story sound so much like a recurring theme from a particular anime about having to snatch a bell?

“Actually, with Antonya, there’s no way any of your spells could have worked on her. That’s because we wizards can use Counterspell, and it’s enough to hold off novice wizards like you easily. But that’s another topic altogether. When you start training in Arcana we’ll talk about this again.”

After that, Reyan teleported them both to Mystra, below the floating city.

This was the first time Zhao Xu had set foot back on the ground of Arthur after half a month in the floating city.

The air around him felt different when he breathed in.

The Temple of the Goddess of Magic and its religious headquarters, the Sacred Heart Cathedral, were next to one another.

The temple was where the goddess had lived before becoming a deity and had expanded from there.

The Sacred Heart Cathedral was built right next to it. The daily affairs of the clergy were all taken care of in the inner hall, while the outer hall was for believers to pray to the deity they believed in.

The Wizard Association headquarters had arranged for most of their research groups to remain in the floating city.

As such, the temple and church took up a huge space within the town.

In fact, the town of Mystra was built with the temple and church at its center, and the rest of the town looked like beams extending out from the middle.

Since this was the central place of worship for believers, Sacred Heart Cathedral’s outer hall was often crowded and bustling with activity.

Zhao Xu had experienced this for himself on his first day there.

After coming back, he noticed that the crowd was so densely packed that it was impossible to squeeze through.

Normally, the area nearer to the inside of a church would be busier, but now, even the outermost section of the church was equally busy.

“Today is the day we commemorate the Goddess’ birth, that’s why it’s so busy,” explained Reyan.

When Zhao Xu heard this, he nodded along.

In his previous life, his family had lived in a harsh place in the north. Most of the residents believed in deities like the God of Justice and the God of War.

On the birthdays of those deities, the local churches would send blessings to the believers.

One of the most popular gifts that everyone wanted was Holy Water, which normally retailed for 25 gold pieces.

Since there was free Holy Water given away on the birthday of a deity, then of course everyone was going to try to grab some.

But he was now in a luxurious town in the south. Living in Mystra was like living in the capital city of a country on earth.

The residents might not have a higher status than others, but their standard of living was considered among the best of the towns of Arthur.

And, if you looked carefully at this crowd, many of them were dressed pretty well and nobody looked like they were poor at all.

On the roadway further out, horse carriages were being barred from coming in too.

“On the Goddess’ birthday, she might actually decide to come down to Arthur’s main plane,” explained Reyan. “And there’s also a possibility that the Goddess will send her blessing and make someone a cleric.”

Zhao Xu couldn’t help but feel excited when he heard these words.

Even though he was 99 percent sure that he was going to become a Level 1 Cleric, but if he could make that chance 100%, then why not?

The clerics of Arthur generally had two paths.

The first path was to be groomed from a young age as a cleric apprentice. You would study the theology of the deity according to the local church’s practice and you would go through some basic character class training.

After that, you just had to wait.

When the deity could feel your piety, then you would be able to move up a rank from apprentice to become a Level 1 Cleric proper.

If the path to becoming a wizard was hard at first, and easy later, then a cleric apprentice’s road was easy at first, and hard at the back.

When Zhao Xu attended the awakening ceremony of the wizard apprentices, a large majority of the people present would successfully become a wizard at the end of the ceremony.

But for a cleric apprentice, there was a huge number of people with more years of experience in line ahead of you, and they were all waiting for the deity to notice their piety.

The number of clerics per deity was limited, otherwise, everyone could become a cleric and they would have become a huge power in Arthur.

The other path that a cleric had was to be favored by the deity and be chosen to become a cleric.

When this sort of person came to the church, he was just going through the motion to receive some training.

So, Zhao Xu was confident that he would be able to complete the cleric training within a week.

When he thought about these things, Zhao Xu couldn’t help but sigh.

In his previous life, his wife was also from earth.

After the transmigration, she had been recognized by the local Goddess of Luck, Bella, and taken in as a cleric apprentice.

But even after his wife had worked hard for two whole years, she was still unable to become an actual cleric.

At that time among the people from Earth that had transmigrated to Arthur, many of the players who had suddenly become someone of the most powerful people in Arthur had slowly started to look toward finding partners.

During those two years, Zhao Xu had been a guard of the town and had done pretty well, had a good reputation, and knew his way around quite well.

Since there was no hope of advancing further, his wife’s parents had helped her to get together with Zhao Xu to become a married couple and start a family.

If all this had happened on Earth and they hadn’t transmigrated…

His wife was a beautiful lady from an aristocratic family, and someone like him would never have had the chance to get anywhere near her.

He didn’t even have any channel by which he could communicate with her right now.

But one fine day, he was going to make the poets of Arthur continue to sing of his fame.

“Mr. Reyan, if it’s so crowded, why aren’t we just teleporting ourselves in?” Zhao Xu asked after he snapped out of his daze and looked at how Reyan was still happily waiting in line.

“Even the Chairman has to enter from the front door,” Reyan said unhappily. “When you become a cleric, you could fly in directly, if you like, but I can’t.”

“Mr. Reyan, you’re not a cleric?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? Anybody in the association can become a cleric too but as a Contact Officer, I can’t. Otherwise, whose Contact Officer would I be? The association’s? Or the Temple’s?”

Zhao Xu immediately realized that he had overlooked this part.

In his previous life, he was considered a rather high ranking person in his town, but he wasn’t so high ranking that the king had heard of him. Any leader of the land could smite him easily.

“But even a Contact Officer shouldn’t have to just wait in line like this either, right?” huffed Zhao Xu.

To put it in simple terms, if Reyan was on earth, then he’d be considered an ambassador of sorts.

He might not have special privileges, but surely he deserved better treatment than this.

“I’ve already informed them that I’m coming, but I don’t know what’s going on today inside and it’s taking them a long time. On a normal day, I would have just shamelessly cut the line or used some spell to disperse the people. But I probably couldn’t get away with such a thing on the Goddess’ birthday.”

Suddenly, a middle-aged cleric in a white robe walked out.

When the believers saw this cleric walk out, they all immediately cleared a path for him to walk through.

The outer hall of the church, which had been as crowded as the filling of a dumpling, suddenly had a clear path as wide as three people.

“Mr. Reyan, I’m sorry for making you wait so long,” the cleric bowed his head a little to express his apology.

“No worries, let’s hurry up and go in. It’s this fellow who’s becoming a cleric,” said Reyan nonchalantly as he tugged at Zhao Xu’s wizard robe and marched right in.

Zhao Xu had his hood on in the same style as Antonya, so his entire face was covered in the shadow of his hood, cutting off the curious glances of the people around him.

The cleric took a second glance at Zhao Xu, then nodded and said, “Please, follow me.”

Once the middle-aged cleric said this, Zhao Xu and Reyan quickly followed him. If they were too slow, then they might get stuck in this human jam again.

The outer wall of the Sacred Heart Cathedral was covered in carvings of the Goddess performing miracles.

The main entrance step wasn’t made of angular stone steps. Instead, it was just the side of a circular stone pillar, with only half sticking out, as if the other half was buried in the ground.

After the two in front of him walked over this step, Zhao Xu followed behind them.

Suddenly, he felt like his head went numb.

The temple behind the church resonated with the melodious sound of bells.

They came, one wave after another.

“All praise to the Goddess.” The middle-aged cleric hurriedly bowed his head and started to pray quietly.

The countless people around them also bent their heads and started praying. Some even knelt where they were to worship.

“The Goddess is here,” whispered Reyan.

Zhao Xu didn’t quite understand him, too caught up with the changes in his mind.

He seemed to have a few additional divine magic spell slots.