"Has the mission failed?" the Cardinal looked down at the reporting officer and nodded.
The Cardinal was an old man with a soft expression, while he looked thin and weak, he was in fact the exact opposite.
Through the unnatural magic energy within the lump of snakes, he had figured out the general scale of the magical ritual involved. For the sake of security, he had sent out three Red Sun Knights and five of the most excellent Night Watchers, but never did he consider that there would be an interloper who managed to kill them all.
"Report this to their family members, make sure that consolation money and other supports are up to standard" the Cardinal then added as he recalled something: "Give a warning to 'those ones', their faith to God shall not be a reason for them to commit another mistake"
"If I find out anyone that tries to embezzle consolation money again, he will face the judgement of God, as such an act will tarnish the glory of God"
"If Crete's child is talented enough, they can be directly accepted into the training barracks; Alda's as well. Both of them have both gotten married so their lives are tough, tell the others to take care of them somewhat"
"And also, Reid had a younger brother called Green, did he not?" the Cardinal pondered.
This old man recognized most members of the Sun Shadow church and even had a certain level of understanding of their families; in fact, the Cardinal could still remember some knights who were killed in battle over ten years ago as well as their hobbies.
He had hosted both the baptism and funeral of many knights. This old man might have been the only person to remember many of the people he had come into contact with.
Although supernatural power did strengthen one's memories, with how many people and things one came across when they had lived as long as he did, unless one truly puts their mind to it, it would be next to impossible to recall them all.
"I remember that he failed to become a knight of the church due to his lack of faith" the Cardinal sighed: "The image of the church has affected the people's faith"
Lohr was under the form of management in which God's authority – which also meant the church - presided over all else, but God did not always care about a single town. Anyone could easily imagine what kind of state the church's management would be in when the only requirement to be accepted was faith in God.
Especially since faith in God and one's morals did not correlate.
This led to the creation of the church's Reformist faction, who suggested that one's morals must also be a point of consideration in choosing members of the church, changing the current state of affairs where faith was the only determining virtue. The Reformist faction believed that if the morals of church members were not properly managed, it would affect the image of the church, and thus the faith of people in God.
However, the other side – the Conservative faction – greatly objected to this. They were the current benefactors of this system, where they were free to do as they pleased by borrowing the name and authority of the church as long as their faith was upheld. How could they agree to put such shackles on themselves?
Because of this, the reason they used to object this proposal was very simple: faith in God must not be deluded, and one's morals must not be put above one's faith, not even a little bit. If they compromised today and allowed morals to become more important than faith, then they could compromise again tomorrow to bring another factor above faith.
Ultimately, when a person without enough faith sits on the ruling seats, that would only harm the benefit of the church as a whole.
In truth, the root cause of this issue was a single basic problem: while there were always evil cultists who frequently caused trouble and numerous supernatural creatures roaming the streets, they have all, without fail, been suppressed by the seven Righteous Gods. These Evil Gods could only scheme and plot for a bit of benefit, but never could actually overturn the situation.
Due to this absolute ruling authority, without sufficient external pressure, the church's Conservative faction had always been at an advantage.
The Cardinal of Lohr was a member of the Reformist faction, who hoped for nothing but to see a better church. A while ago, during one of his trips back to the church's headquarters, what he was greeted with when he returned to Lohr was that someone had dared to embezzle a knight's consolation money with the excuse that their family members did not have a satisfactory level of faith.
"If Green can put his faith in God, reinstate him as a proper knight" the Cardinal ordered the reporting officer, then the old man's expression turned solemn as he turned to the others: "Now that we're done with the consolation matters, let us discuss how to deal with the next issue"
"Catch that sinner, send him to the Unrepenting Abyss!"
…
Donning the Soul Mask of Green, Negary perfectly acted out the pain and grief of losing a family member.
When he found out that the sinner still hadn't been caught, he grandly vowed to avenge his elder brother, but as he regretfully couldn't access the network of divine techniques due to his lack of faith, he failed to be reinstated as a knight.
While waiting for the outside world to react accordingly, Negary was studying the Book of Snakes he obtained from Isrig.
A total of three kinds of supernatural powers had been exhibited in this world at this point.
Firstly, the power from God obtained through faith: the Blessing of Glory and the Brand of the Red Sun were both, in essence, divine techniques that were solidified on the bodies of knights by bishop-level priests; even the holy water that regular knights took to strengthen their bodies were the results of a divine technique.
The second was the power originating from the blood of evil, as those who had such blood flowing through their veins would eventually transform into monsters, while the power of the Night Watchers also originated from these monsters.
The final method was power obtained through magical rituals; the Book of Snakes belonged to this category.
Most known magical rituals were founded on the basis of the axle ritual, while the function of the axle ritual was to allow the one performing the ritual to contact the source of certain supernatural powers through the power of supernatural items.
For example, the Book of Snakes. In essence, it was the creation of snake serums through using snake-type creatures, then performing the axle ritual through the serums to contact the Snake God, thus obtaining the Snake God's powers.
Fully performing one cycle of the ritual would allow the user to obtain the corresponding power of said cycle, through each cycle, the user would become closer and closer to the Snake God until they ultimately become an aspect of the Snake God themselves.
In the end, this was still seeking the power of an Evil God, even if some axle rituals did not lead the user into contacting Evil Gods, they would still lead towards otherworldly plains like the Deep Subterranean Abyss or the Unrepenting Abyss.
〖 This type of power is better to not use. The axle ritual is simply the process of turning oneself into a better clone for the Evil God through each cycle, the uppermost limit would be to merely maintain a portion of one's sense of 'self'〗closing the Book of Snakes, Negary was slowly digesting the information within: 〖 However, this line of thought is highly valuable as reference material 〗
〖 The power might come from the Evil Gods, but the knowledge of the axle rituals themselves belong to each person 〗Negary pondered the various remarkable aspects of the axle ritual and couldn't help but praise it.
The 'axle' is the shaft which acts as the driving force for the wheel; in a broader meaning, it was the driving force that brings oneself – the wheel - closer to other entities, thus connecting and leading oneself to the pathways of greater beings.
Many of the knowledge, serums, rituals, incantations and other mysticisms were similar to one another, the only difference was which great entity the rituals were connecting to.
Naturally, other than the axle ritual, the Book of Snakes also detailed quite a bit of knowledge about how to utilize the powers of the Snake God. For example, by using a certain incantation, one could reform the Snake God's power as a spell, which encompasses the use of power in general.
Quite a bit of this was knowledge that Negary needed to learn.
〖 In that case, as long as I know enough about axle rituals and magic, my plans can be achieved 〗Negary thought as he burned his hair off with his finger: 〖 Furthermore, it is about time I compile the things I obtained from that dragon and Shennai as my own, thoroughly redeeming my shortcoming of not having an [Origin] 〗
