Lit candlesticks, high-hanging portraits, a brightly colored carpet, and scattered religious decorations – this was a spacious office. Sitting behind a desk piled high with documents was the Cardinal Amanda, dressed in red robes. She was currently leaning back in her chair, her brow furrowed. Standing in front of her, opposite the desk, was the ghostly figure of a Sister.
"Captain, things seem to be a bit off. Now, both within and outside the Church, rumors are circulating that the Church will send Sister Vanya as a special envoy to Adus to resolve the otherworld issue there. Not only ordinary newspapers outside the Church, but even internal Church publications like the Gospel News and the Saving News have published such information. The news of Sister Vanya going to Adus spread everywhere almost overnight. There's a strong sense that someone is planning this behind the scenes."
With a slightly heavy and serious tone, the ghostly Sister spoke to Amanda. Hearing the ghostly Sister's words, Amanda sighed slightly and then continued to speak.
"Of course, someone is planning it behind the scenes, Hilbert. I didn't expect him to create such a stir just to force me. This time I was careless."
Amanda said slowly, clearly the current situation was somewhat beyond her expectation.
"I didn't expect that the request for help from the nobles of Adus would arrive at this particular time, not earlier or later, which led to Hilbert getting the upper hand in the last Cardinal Council. The situation is a bit troublesome now..."
Rubbing her temples, Amanda murmured with a heavy tone. At this moment, the ghostly Sister in front of her spoke again.
"So what should we do now, Captain? Do we really have to let Sister Vanya go to Adus? The situation there is not something she can handle."
"Now we can only let her go. Hilbert seized the opportunity, letting his momentum overlap with our publicity, directly pushing that little Sister into the eye of the storm. In this situation, she has to go there." Amanda thought with a serious expression. After weighing the pros and cons, that little Sister had to go to Adus no matter what the outcome would be. It was better than suppressing her from going.
"From now on, form a special envoy group to Adus. We can arrange as much security as possible. Although we can't expect that little Sister to do anything, at least we can let her come back safely."
Amanda continued to say this. The situation in Adus is currently chaotic and dangerous. If she goes there without strong security protection, there might be some danger.
As a special envoy Sister, even if she returns without success, the most she will suffer is damage to the influence she has accumulated before. But if something happens to her there, the consequences could be...
"Yes... I will arrange this... However, Captain Hilbert seems to have a lot of involvement in the security aspect. Do you have any other plans in this regard, Captain?"
With a solemn expression, the ghostly Sister spoke to Amanda. Hearing the ghostly Sister's words, Amanda's eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a glimmer of thought.
...
North Shore of Conquest Sea, Iweig.
At night, in Adria, a large coastal city in Iweig, various lights illuminated the entire city as darkness fell. The reflection on the river divided the night view of lights into two parts, above and below the water, bringing a wonderful night view rarely seen in other places to this city focused on tourism.
In a private room of a high-end restaurant in Adria, Dorothy, wearing a little evening dress, sat inside, admiring the beautiful night view outside the window. On the dining table in front of her was a thick book, """wen hai hang zhi""". The opened text contained the content of her conversation with Vanya not long ago. Dorothy thus pondered the content of her conversation with Vanya while admiring the night view.
'Lecher Valley, the holy land where the Holy Mother first descended to the world, actually has a giant tree similar to Natsuki Island... And the Church is built under the giant tree, which has extremely similar characteristics to the sacrificial ground under the holy tree on Natsuki Island... Plus the fact that Adele's teacher's former hometown, which believed in Fertility, was also transformed into a Holy Mother Church, it seems that there is a very close connection between the Holy Mother faith and Fertility. The Holy Mother holy land in Lecher Valley was very likely a temple of the Fertility Goddess before, and it was one that was much larger and more important than Natsuki, maybe even the main temple.
'According to the Light Scripture, Lecher Valley is the place where the Holy Mother descended. After the Radiant Savior divided into Three Saints, the Holy Mother first appeared here, and as soon as She appeared, She defeated the Southern Beast that came from the sea...
'This Southern Beast is also hard not to be concerned about. Conception, water, disease, devouring, temptation, flesh and blood... In the description of the Holy Scripture, the Southern Beast possesses almost all the authorities of the """Cup""", almost overlapping with the image of the Cup Mother. If the Southern Beast is really the Cup Mother, how did the Holy Mother, who is just a mixed-color god, defeat the other party?
'Fertility Goddess, Cup Mother, Holy Mother... three goddesses related to the """Cup""", there seems to be some indescribable relationship between them... What kind of connection do they have? It's really hard to figure out...'
Touching her chin, Dorothy thought so in her heart. Those three goddesses, two are the former and current pure-color gods who are the """Cup""", and one is a mixed-color god who is mainly """Lamp""" and secondarily """Cup""". Logically speaking, it is understandable that the Fertility Goddess and the Cup Mother, two gods who are in a direct inheritance relationship, are closely connected, but what is this mixed-color god, the Holy Mother, doing here? The Holy Mother is essentially a god in the """Lamp""" system, and even if there is a connection with those two pure-color """Cup""", it shouldn't be this close...
Gazing out the window, Dorothy thought about the various relationships between the gods in her heart. After being unable to figure out more, Dorothy turned her attention to the """wen hai hang zhi""", gazing at some other things that Vanya had mentioned to her on that page. The most important of these was that Vanya had finally successfully advanced.
Under the Church's full operation, Vanya has successfully advanced to an Extraordinary of the Chalk of the Holy Mother's Path in the Saving Large Cathedral in the Holy Mother's holy land, from a Healing Priest to a Grace Priest.
Grace Priest, this is the title of an Extraordinary of the Chalk of the Holy Mother's Path. Compared to a Healing Priest, a Grace Priest not only has improved basic abilities of """Lamp""" and """Cup""", but also has strengthened original healing abilities and gained some new abilities.
Compared to a Healing Priest, a Grace Priest's efficiency in healing wounds is enhanced, and they can also contact recipients who do not resist through a simplified "Grace" ritual and add a mark on them. The Grace Priest can sense the physical condition of the recipient from a distance through the mark, judge whether the other party is injured or dead, and this mark also serves as a Beacon, allowing the Grace Priest to sense the recipient's location in real time.
When the recipient is within a kilometer radius of the Grace Priest, the Grace Priest can remotely heal the recipient's injuries. When the Grace Priest can see the recipient, and the recipient is within the Grace Priest's line of sight, this healing effect will be stronger.
In addition to healing, the Grace Priest can also add buffs to the recipient, adding passive enhancements equivalent to first-order """Lamp""" and first-order """Cup""", allowing Extraordinary or mortals without """Cup""" or """Lamp""" passive abilities to experience their power. This blessing can also suppress diseases and toxins targeting the body to a certain extent, and lighter diseases and toxins can be directly dispelled.
Finally, something quite interesting is that the Grace Priest can bless intangible beings such as Ghosts, materializing their forms to a certain extent, thus allowing them to be harmed by physical means. Under normal circumstances, intangible beings will strongly resist this uncomfortable or painful transformation and quickly flee, hence this is also a means of exorcism.
It is worth noting that this transformation cannot give a Ghost a complete body of flesh and blood and thus resurrect it. It is merely the growth of a pile of rotten flesh closely connected to the Ghost itself on the Ghost's Spirituality, trapping the spiritual body. The Ghost cannot even control this flesh cage that confines itself, and damaging this flesh cage will also damage the Ghost itself, causing damage to its spiritual body. Therefore, all intangible beings will resist this so-called "blessing", and this "blessing" is also a powerful means for the Church to fight against intangible beings.
'Grace Priest... seems like a good Extraordinary class. Not only does it gain the ability to remotely locate and detect body vital signs, but it can even heal remotely.
'Tracking and physical examination distance radius of hundreds of kilometers, healing distance radius of one kilometer... The ability release range is quite good, but the disadvantage is that to use this ability, you have to perform the Grace ritual beforehand, contact the non-resisting recipient and give them a mark. You can't just heal anyone remotely.
'This Grace mark is somewhat similar to my puppet mark. In general, it can only be placed on teammates. The problem is that it is difficult to put the mark on enemies, so the effect is slightly worse when fighting the enemy.
'This problem may not be a problem for ordinary Grace Priests. Anyway, their positioning in the Church is to play support and can heal teammates. But for Extraordinary like Vanya who can cause damage by malicious healing, this is undoubtedly a limitation. This means that Vanya can no longer remotely perform malicious healing on enemies and can only rely on touching wounds in close combat to worsen them.
'The more interesting ability of the Grace Priest is the flesh and blood blessing that can pull intangible beings towards materialization. This thing can greatly enhance the killing power of things that are immune to physics, such as Ghosts. 'Bless' a vengeful spirit or something, and then you can shoot it down with a single shot. It's a magical ability that can turn supernatural horror movies into gore horror movies.'
Looking at Vanya's handwriting on the """wen hai hang zhi""" on the table, Dorothy analyzed and thought in her heart. Among the new abilities Vanya had acquired, the one that made her most curious was this ability that was said to be a blessing but felt more like a curse to intangible beings. Up to now, various mundane firearms and explosives are still an important part of her combat power, and these weapons and firearms have no effect on ghosts at all. With this ability, shooting ghosts is completely feasible.
"Overall, Vanya's abilities after advancing are pretty good... It wasn't in vain that we made so many preparations before. The advancement ritual went smoothly..."
Dorothy murmured softly. To avoid any accidents, Dorothy and Vanya had made many preparations before Vanya's advancement. For example, to cope with the Spirituality inspection of the personnel in the holy land, Vanya had secretly removed all the miscellaneous Spirituality in her body except for """Cup""" and """Lamp""" to avoid suspicion if these miscellaneous Spirituality accumulated through the reading method were detected.
The specific method of removing this Spirituality is to consume Spirituality by performing various meaningless rituals. For example, a divination ritual can consume """Lamp""" and """enlightenment"". Even a failed divination ritual that only provides one kind of Spirituality can still consume Spirituality. Dorothy had Vanya continuously perform such failed divinations so that the """enlightenment""" she had accumulated through the reading method could be completely consumed.
Of course, Vanya did not fail all divinations. When consuming Spirituality, more than half of the divinations were normal divinations that simultaneously used """Lamp""" and """enlightenment""". Besides divining some things Dorothy wanted to know, all of these divinations were used to divine information about evil cult organizations such as the Eight Point Nest, Wolf Blood Society, Sea Abyss Church, Dark Gold Society, Netherworld Coffin Society, etc. Of course, as expected, they were all blocked, but they also appropriately stimulated the nerves of these cult organizations, making them nervous, and incidentally further stimulated the overall """enlightenment""" market. It is said that the price of """enlightenment""", which had finally eased, began to rise again.
If it weren't for the need to ensure Vanya was in a full """Lamp""" state during the advancement, Dorothy would have directly used all of Vanya's """enlightenment""" to divine, without any deliberate waste. Vanya had accumulated more than twenty points of """enlightenment""" over a long period, which was enough for these organizations to have a headache.
Although Vanya currently has no other Spirituality besides """Lamp""" and """Cup""", as long as she has the reading method, it is easy to accumulate these Spirituality back. Therefore, Dorothy is not worried that Vanya will encounter any special situations that require other Spirituality and be unable to cope.
Sitting in the restaurant, Dorothy took another sip of coffee. After finishing Vanya's contact page, she turned to another page. The handwriting on this page belonged to Naifnis. Vanya was not the only one who had made progress recently.
It was actually easy to guess what Naifnis's progress was. After more than a week of express delivery, Davis's subsequent handwriting finally arrived in Adria from Tivian. From her Grandpa's subsequent notes, Naifnis finally found the advancement ritual for the Chalk of the Body Possession Path.
According to the subsequent records in Davis's notes, the Chalk of the Body Possession Path has a site requirement. The ritual needs to be held in the depths of a cemetery with a large number of Ghosts and abundant """Silent""" Spirituality. The ritual requires collecting three bone fragments sealed with souls at the Black Earth level, and one's body must suppress a soul at the Chalk level. Only under these circumstances can the ritual be successful.
In Davis's handwriting, he clearly wrote that the advancement above the Chalk of """Silent""" Extraordinary often requires finding enough spiritual fields where a large number of undead gather. Such spiritual fields are often sites of massacres, ancient battlefields, sites of large-scale disasters, etc. However, these places are often controlled by official Extraordinary organizations and the Netherworld Coffin Society, and spiritual fields not under the control of these two organizations exist almost only in two marginal areas.
One is the wilderness forest of the New World where Wilderness Spirit gather, and the other is the ancient tombs of North Africa where a large number of human souls were buried as sacrifices.