Inside a comfortable suite in a certain hotel in Adria, Dorothy sat by a window seat, intently gazing at the words Beverly had responded with on the "wen hai hang zhi" in front of her, her mind couldn't help but ponder.
'Modifying the temple symbol, replacing the chief priest... So that's how it works... It's true, among the cults I've seen before, some did have similar actions. For example, the Eight Point Nest has been replacing the faith of the Mirror Moon Goddess throughout Prit and turning it into their own Spider Queen.
'Since those Eight-Pointed Nest guys can do it, then I can do it too. Modifying a temple is much simpler than building one from scratch myself. This is indeed a method.'
Dorothy thought to herself like this, and after thinking, she silently made a decision, picking up her pen on the "wen hai hang zhi" and writing directly.
"How much does that method of yours cost? Tell me."
"It's not much, just nine hundred pound. And the content is very short. If you're sure you want to buy it, I can write it directly here for you. You can pay at the usual place later." Beverly quickly responded to Dorothy on the paper. Dorothy saw it and let out a little 'oh', then immediately picked up her pen to respond.
"Deliver first, pay later? That's rare for you guys."
"It's just a business of less than a thousand pound anyway, I don't need to be so particular. Besides, don't you often say you're an old customer?" Beverly responded to Dorothy like this. Dorothy nodded silently after reading, then picked up her pen again.
"Alright, in that case, copy the content over to me now. I'll go pay later."
"Wait a moment~" Beverly wrote like this, then her words briefly paused, followed by a blank line before reappearing, and spreading downwards at a high speed faster than any modern printer Dorothy had seen, instantly covering a whole page. Dorothy turned to the second page and saw the writing still spreading rapidly from top to bottom, stopping only after filling two full pages.
"Okay~ That's all the content. Please enjoy it slowly. Remember to pay after reading." After the secret transmission, Beverly's normal conversation appeared, and Dorothy immediately wrote back in response.
"Okay, thank you."
After greeting Beverly, Dorothy began to look at the secret transmission she had just bought, quickly reading through the words on it. In no time, she had finished reading all of it. However, after fully digesting the content of this new secret transmission, she couldn't help but frown slightly.
After studying this secret transmission, Dorothy found that the difficulty of the temporary chief priest replacement ritual was not too high for her. It was possible to complete it with her conditions, but the key lay in the ritual's requirements for the temple being replaced. This point made Dorothy a bit hesitant. At this moment, she began to worry about the choice of the target temple.
Originally, when Dorothy heard Beverly say that she could use the temple of another god to perform the divine blessing ritual, she immediately started thinking quickly about suitable candidates. After thinking it over and over, she realized she had almost no options.
Firstly, although the Shining Light Church system had the most temples, they were also the ones she could least afford to target actively. All the diocesan churches were guarded by Scarlet Archbishops. It was extremely difficult to pull off any small tricks under the Light of the Scarlet Tier. Even if successful, she might be hunted down everywhere by the Church for the serious crime of blasphemy. Therefore, Dorothy had never thought of targeting the Church.
Outside the Shining Light Church, Dorothy also thought of the Shamanic sacrificial grounds in this context, but according to the Shamanic knowledge she had previously obtained from Uta, the sacrificial grounds were extremely sacred places among the various indigenous tribes of the New World. Not only were there dedicated guardian tribes stationed there long-term, but also several of the most powerful Wilderness Spirits were protecting them. At critical moments, the guardian tribes could also call upon other surrounding tribes for reinforcement, and even the Main Continent colonists did not dare to easily invade. It was very dangerous to perform a blasphemous replacement ritual in such a place.
Moreover, whether the ritual succeeded or not, Dorothy's relationship with the Shamanic faith would likely become very bad, and she would not be able to get the support of the Tupa Tribe afterwards. The same applied to Little Fox and their Butterfly faith. If Dorothy wanted Little Fox to lend her the Butterfly God's temple for replacement, they would probably want to snatch back the phantom scale incense cage, and it would be difficult for her to get their help in the future.
As for the numerous cults outside the Shamanic faith, Shining Light Church, and Butterfly faith, Dorothy had no ideas either. First of all, their temples were guarded by Scarlet, making them difficult to deal with, not to mention that she didn't even know where their temples were? She couldn't even find them in the first place, let alone perform a ritual.
Therefore, Dorothy initially thought her only option was the Qiwen Temple in Adis. First, the Judge of Heaven had long been gone, and besides the shell organization she had created, no one in the world seemed to believe in his religious group. No one would come looking for trouble if she used his temple to perform the replacement ritual. Secondly, Adis was within Adus, in the remote North Wu region, and Adus was ruled by Shadi, with whom she had some acquaintance. It was also very safe to do things on his territory. Before carefully reading the secret transmission of the replacement ritual, the Qiwen Temple was almost arguably Dorothy's best choice.
However, when Dorothy finished reading the secret transmission of the replacement, and understood the replacement ritual from various details, her heart immediately sank.
According to the secret transmission given by Beverly, there were several requirements for the temple being temporarily replaced. First, it could not be too severely damaged, and some key structural points must be preserved. Then, as Beverly had said before, this temple must be the original one, not one that had been replaced before. This replacement ritual could not take effect twice in the same temple. A temple whose chief priest had been replaced could only be returned to its original chief priest using a conversion ritual, and whether before or after returning, the temple could no longer be replaced. Simply put, the replacement ritual could only be effective once in a temple.
The key lay in the second point: the target of the replacement ritual could only be an original temple. However, the Qiwen Temple in Adis was not original; its chief priest had been changed long ago. In the Third Epoch, the chief priest here was changed from the Judge of Heaven to the Light King. Later, in the early Fourth Epoch, it was changed to the Radiant Lord by the Radiant Lord Church. After the Radiant Lord Church compromised with the Shining Light Church, it was changed to the Radiant Savior and additionally began to worship the Three Saints. Afterwards, the Savior Descends Faction came and removed the Three Saints, and recently they were going to be invited back.
It could be said... the chief priest of the Qiwen Temple had already been changed. At first, Dorothy thought that since the Qiwen Temple had a hidden space, it would be fine if the hidden part wasn't changed, but after she finished reading the secret transmission of the replacement ritual, she found that this was not the case. The key to this replacement ritual was the outside, not the inside. The hidden space of the Qiwen Temple was the library and the control center of the city defense system, which was strictly speaking not very related to the religious system. The main part of the Qiwen Temple's religious system was outside, and it had been changed beyond recognition, so Dorothy couldn't use it.
'This is troublesome now...'
Looking at the secret transmission copied by Beverly in front of her, Dorothy rubbed her temples, thinking in distress. If the Qiwen Temple couldn't be used, she had no alternative targets for a while. Besides the Qiwen Temple, the other temples she knew couldn't be touched, and the Qiwen Temple didn't meet the requirements. Suddenly, she didn't know what to do.
'I can't possibly really save money to build my own temple, can I? How long would that take? Or should I focus on archaeology and go around excavating everywhere to see if I can unearth the ruins of some fallen ancient god's temple? That's also a considerable project that can't be completed in a short time...'
Dorothy continued to ponder, and after thinking for a while and still not coming up with any ideas, she used the ""wen hai hang zhi"" again to contact Beverly, asking if she could borrow the temple of the order construct core for the ritual. Beverly immediately agreed, stating it would be no problem as long as Dorothy could pay enough. However, when Dorothy saw the specific cost requirements, she immediately gave up on the idea, thinking it would be cheaper to save money and build one herself than to rent the temple of the order construct core.
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Finally, after pondering for a whole morning with no results, Dorothy temporarily gave up thinking and instead chose to finish the current tasks.
Dorothy first sent her Corpse Puppet to deliver the money for the secret transmission to the local Craftsmen's Guild, and then extracted the Spirituality from the two secret transmissions she had just purchased. Since the content of these two secret transmissions was very comprehensive, Dorothy obtained all types of Spirituality during the extraction.
First, from the secret transmission of the divine blessing ritual, Dorothy obtained 4 points of all types of Spirituality and 6 points of ""enlightenment"". From the secret transmission of the displacement ritual, Dorothy obtained 2 points of all types of Spirituality and 4 points of ""enlightenment"".
In total, Dorothy's Spirituality status is now as follows:
11 cup, 16 Stone, 50 Shadow, 17 Light, 31 Silence, 50 enlightenment.
Although it cost a large sum of 2100 pound, Dorothy's Spirituality gains were quite substantial, and she also obtained crucial information. Overall, it wasn't a loss.
However, after spending so much money, Dorothy now only has about 500 pound in cash left. After Edward's secret transmission arrives, she feels she should be able to replenish her "cup" to meet the promotion conditions. This would leave her with only "Light" and "Stone" not meeting the standard. The missing amount is estimated to require two or three secret transmissions, and Dorothy's 500 pound is probably only enough to buy about one. She needs to find a way to get some more money.
However, compared to the difficulties with the temple, money is just a minor issue; she can always find a way to gather some. Dorothy's top priority now is to find a temple that can be used for the displacement ritual. This is the most important task.
Thus, Dorothy began to rest in Adria while pondering how to find a temple. Since she needed to wait for Edward's secret transmission here, she couldn't go anywhere else for now.
The afternoon of the day after Dorothy learned about the divine blessing ritual, while she was reading at the municipal library in Adria, she suddenly felt a slight abnormality within her magic box. After careful sensing, she discovered that her ""wen hai hang zhi"" had a Spirituality reaction, indicating that someone was contacting her using a sub-text of the ""wen hai hang zhi"".
'Who could be contacting me at this time?'
With a hint of curiosity, Dorothy took out and unfolded the ""wen hai hang zhi"", turning to the page where new text appeared. After checking, she was surprised to find that the person contacting her was the Royal Knight sister from the Prit An Yin Bureau, Grego's superior. She had written a sentence on it.
"If you can see this, please respond."
'Is this... the Royal Knight named Misha? She's actually contacting me voluntarily now? Could it be that she found something while investigating the Eight Point Nest?'
Looking at the notes on the page in front of her, Dorothy thought curiously. When she left Prit, she had given all the Barret research materials she had recorded as a Detective to the other party for her to continue researching. Now, after half a year, she suddenly contacted her. Had there been any progress in the research?
With this thought, Dorothy picked up her pen and wrote a response on the ""wen hai hang zhi"".
"I have seen it, Madam Misha. Please speak directly. Have you made any progress in your investigation of the Eight Point Nest?" After writing, Dorothy waited quietly. Before long, Misha's words appeared on the paper again.
"More or less... After a long period of investigation with no results, I've finally found some clues recently. Because I might need your help later, I contacted you using the method you gave me before, Detective."
"Oh? Progress? Tell me about it?"
Dorothy responded curiously, and Misha began to write about her recent investigation experience.
"Since you gave me the Duke Barret's research materials, I've been spending time researching them every day. Due to the need to defend against Spirit Sight, my speed wasn't ideal. It took me four or five months to roughly read through all those research materials, and I only really started researching two months ago."
Misha wrote this, and looking at her words, Dorothy couldn't help but sigh at the limitations Spirit Sight placed on ordinary Extraordinary. Even a Royal Knight like Misha, who possessed ample means to defend against Spirit Sight, took four or five months to read through the materials Dorothy had given her.
"Although I finally managed to read through all those materials, I found it difficult to research anything from them. Duke Barret's materials were mostly folk tales and legends from various eras in Prit, many of which were obscure and difficult to understand. I'm not a knowledgeable scholar, so it was too difficult to research anything from them. So, for the first month of formal research, I had no gains at all. It wasn't until early June that things took a turn for the better.
"At that time, when I was looking through those materials at home, I suddenly realized that one of them, '""you wen jun feng tu kao""', which didn't have Spirit Sight, seemed a bit familiar to me, as if I had seen it somewhere. After thinking hard for a long time, I finally remembered that I had read it in the library when I was studying at Crown University when I was young. Since my hometown is in Youwen County, I would occasionally borrow some related books to read there while I was studying. The fact that this book is now in Duke Barret's research materials proves that he had collected materials from the Crown University library, and this book was borrowed from there. After seeing this book, I had the idea of trying my luck at the Crown University library.
"You said before that your materials were partially recorded by your informant through taking photos of the materials the Eight Point Nest was going to destroy. This means that the original copy of this book has been destroyed, so it is definitely not in the Crown University library now. So I went to the Crown University library and found the borrowing record for this book, '""you wen jun feng su kao""', in the borrowing register from last year. As expected, it was borrowed in October last year and was not returned, so the person who borrowed it should be Duke Barret, and the borrower in the borrowing record was registered as Richard. So I judged at that time that Richard should be the alias Duke Barret used when borrowing books at Crown University.
"After that, I stayed in the archives of the Crown University library for a few days, extensively flipping through the Crown University's borrowing registers, looking for all of Richard's borrowing records. My idea at the time was to read all the books he had read again and see if I could find any clues from them. However, while looking through these borrowing records, I found something very interesting.
"Among Richard's borrowing records, there was a book that he had borrowed repeatedly many times. The name of this book was '""pu li te nong liang nian biao""'. Out of curiosity, I also went to the library to find this unpopular book that was hardly ever borrowed and took a look. As a result, I found something unexpected inside."
"What is it?" Looking at Misha's words, Dorothy's curiosity gradually rose. She couldn't help but actively write and ask, and the other party immediately replied.
"It's a note with writing that is not in Duke Barret's handwriting. The content is... 'Richard, I have found the temple'"