Sanctuary Paradise

Chapter 920 Prayer and Miracles

"As for the Soul Furnace... since you've already brought it here, let's just assume it's destined to be put to use here again."

On the throne, after recounting the whereabouts of the other previous Lords of Cinder, Rudolphus looked at the small furnace in Sinley's hand. He reached out and slowly took it into his hand, gently stroking the stone furnace body that was full of the marks of time, a look of reminiscence appearing in his eyes.

"Heh... I didn't expect you to come back in the end." With that, Rudolfs turned his gaze to Sin Lai Lai and said slowly, "Alright, Ashman, bring out those powerful souls you've hunted along the way."

"With the Soul Forge in place, as long as there is a sufficiently powerful soul as a guide, and a sufficient amount of soul power as fuel, it can be used to forge some extraordinary things. I'm sure you already know this."

"However, I should remind you beforehand that the stronger the soul, the more fuel it needs, and if necessary, it may also require some foundational materials for support. As for this part, I..."

"1000 million points, plus all this equipment and materials, is that enough to forge all these souls?"

Before Rudolfs could finish speaking, Xin Lailai interrupted him, throwing out a small mountain of various equipment, along with a dazzling array of flame-shaped souls and gems. This silenced Rudolfs, who was about to continue. The old blacksmith beside him stared intently at the gems inside, looking extremely tempted.

"Even Rosamira and that corrupted dragon fell to your hands. It seems you were better prepared than I thought."

After a long silence, Rudolfs looked at the number of powerful souls, which was much greater than he had expected, and the equipment reserves, which were far more abundant than he had anticipated, and then spoke.

"It was just a coincidence." In response to Rudolfs' reaction, Xin Lailai simply replied, then looked at the Soul Furnace in his hand and said:

"So, 1000 million soul points, is that enough to dispose of all of these?"

"...In terms of firewood, it's more than enough. However, if you want to obtain sufficiently powerful equipment, my strength alone is probably not enough."

As Rudolfs spoke, his gaze lingered for a moment on the pile of equipment and gems that Sinley had thrown out, before continuing, "My expertise lies only in forging spellcasting mediums. As for other things, they are not within my area of ​​expertise. Therefore, if you want to forge them into the shape you desire, you will probably need the assistance of a sufficiently skilled craftsman."

As Rudolfs spoke, his gaze involuntarily fell on the white-haired old blacksmith who was clearly very interested in the materials. The old blacksmith was silent for a moment, then glanced at Xin Lailai beside him and said:

"For the sake of these materials, Ash, I can promise that as long as what you want to forge is within my capabilities, I will not charge any fees."

"Then I'll have to trouble you, Your Excellency. As for what I specifically want to have made, I'll explain it to you later."

As Xin Lailai spoke, she nodded, thanked the old blacksmith, and then took out the [Deep Braille Codex] that she had previously looted from Elizid's palace, and said:

"And, regarding this prayer book, may I ask if anyone here can interpret it?"

When he found this thing, he opened it and found that the contents were all written in characters he didn't recognize. Moreover, the blessing interface did not seem to offer any translation function. That's why he took it out to ask about it.

"Hmm... the prayer book of the Cult of the Deepest Gods? Heh, if you don't mind, this old woman knows about it..."

"Regarding this... if you don't mind, Lord Black Sword, would you mind letting me guide you through the reading?"

After the questioning subsided and a brief silence ensued, the cloaked old woman beside the old blacksmith pondered for a moment, about to speak, when a gentle voice, tinged with hesitation, suddenly broke through, interrupting her. Xin Lailai turned her head in surprise, only to see the blindfolded nun, who had barely spoken, gently biting her lip and hesitatingly saying:

"Although I am not a believer who serves gods, Granny Rondor once taught me some profound prayer verses, and I have also learned some things from books. I think that if it's just about deciphering, I might be able to help you, Lord Black Sword..."

"Very well, then I'll trouble you, Sister."

Before the blindfolded nun could finish speaking, Xin Lailai nodded directly, concluding the matter of studying the Profound Prayer. This caused the blindfolded nun to pause and hesitate, saying:
"Um, Lord Black Sword, I haven't..."

"It's alright. I trust Sister's judgment. As for any content that is difficult to interpret during the process, just consider it as adding space for thought and discussion."

As Xin Lailai spoke, she looked at the blindfolded nun beside her who seemed hesitant to speak, and said in a calm and firm tone.

Upon hearing this, the blindfolded nun paused slightly, remained silent for a moment, then gently bit her lip. As if she had made up her mind, she raised her head and revealed a gentle smile: "Yes, I understand. Since you say so, Lord Black Sword, I will try my best not to let you down."

……

……

Seven days later, fire was bestowed upon the sacrificial site.

"Here... well, according to this passage, the pronunciation should be 'desflirea' 'Miracolul vieii', which corresponds to the healing series of prayers. As for the specific construction impression..."

A gentle voice echoed softly from the fire-lit grotto. Inside the small, hastily prepared grotto, a blindfolded nun sat gracefully on a carpet, her fingertips lightly tracing the strange characters carved with profound power. Like a mother teaching her child to read, she gently recounted the contents of the book to the black-haired youth beside her.

"Hmm... a healing prayer? Well, thank you, Sister. I understand this part. Please wait a moment while I verify my idea."

The next second, a thoughtful, contemplative voice fell, and Xin Lailai gazed at the book before her, covered in strange cryptic script. She nodded slightly, then looked at the sacred bell in her hand, closed her eyes, and quickly conjured in her mind an image of a gentle, black-winged serpent that wrapped its wings around her. She then uttered in a soft, rhythmic voice:

"Domnul Marelor Profunditi, Te rog Descinde, minunea vieii."

Om-! !

As the chanting with a peculiar rhythm ended, a wisp of black light unfolded from beneath him, and numerous thread-like objects shot out from it, entering his body and transforming into bursts of light that began to linger around his body.

"I see. So, the devouring property of the Dark Power absorbs the surrounding Royal Fire power, and then the erosive property allows these weak Royal Fire powers to quickly 'erode' into the user's body, thus replenishing life force..." "If that's the case, perhaps..."

As the eerie light rose, Xin Lailai, who had observed the entire process with her spiritual power, also showed a thoughtful expression, as if she had thought of a new idea.

prayer.

They had been curious about this system in the Ash World ever since they learned about it from Vic. Now, with a ready-made prayer book and the assistance of the blindfolded nun's interpretation, their understanding of prayer in the Ash World had reached a level far exceeding that of any native inhabitant of this world over the past seven days.

First, there's the issue of the extraordinary energy consumed.

As a large system that is seemingly different from the outside world, the reason why prayer in the Ash World only requires the consumption of soul power, without the addition of faith power or other things, is primarily because its definition of prayer is completely different from the prayer system in the Astral Plane.

The reason why prayers in the astral system require the consumption of faith power is that the essence of these prayers is to use the omnipotent nature of faith power to make a 'wish', allowing oneself to briefly simulate the authority of the deity worshipped, and thus use the corresponding prayer spells.

At the same time, it is important to understand that prayer in the astral realm is actually a power system derived from divine magic controlled by the gods. Although its status can be regarded as the cornerstone of the entire belief system, in reality, just as they mentioned when they first condensed their divine souls, in terms of effect, prayer is actually just a lower-level substitute for divine magic.

Take their mastery of 'Divine Art - Luck' as an example. Although 'Divine Art' has the name of an art, it is essentially more like a kind of innate divine power that gods are born with. However, if they are willing to take the time to go to the temple of the gods in the future and analyze and expand this divine art with the proper structure of the art, they can dismantle and develop it into various 'luck-type prayers' that do not need to rely on the gods themselves and can be used as long as they have qualified faith.

Although these derived 'luck-type prayers' are certainly not as powerful as the 'divine magic luck' they have mastered, just as they mentioned at the beginning, the advantage of prayers in the astral system lies in their comprehensiveness rather than their specialization.

As long as the corresponding spell is constructed in the mental space, the required faith power is available, and the corresponding usage method is mastered, even the most heinous criminal can theoretically unleash a prayer spell from the Church of Justice.

Of course, this is just an extreme example. The essence of the astral prayer system is to simulate the authority of the gods with the power of faith. In other words, the quality and inclination of the power of faith will greatly affect the effect of the prayer.

In this situation, using the power of faith that is completely incompatible with the direction the deity is taking to perform prayers is not only tantamount to suicide, but also almost like inexplicably cutting yourself.

As for stealing the power of faith from someone else's followers to use their prayers?
Yes, the idea is nice, but as I said before, the power of faith is the supernatural power in the astral plane that is closest to the concept of 'idealism'. And what this means is that even if a person with a dirty heart obtains the power of faith from the cult of justice, that power of faith will spontaneously reject him because of his true faith.

While there are indeed some individuals with unique methods who can successfully utilize the power of faith that contradicts their true beliefs by deceiving their own minds, exceptions are always exceptions. Moreover, such methods only further prove just how strict and unreasonable the power of faith is in its 'idealistic selection'.

The above are the characteristics of the prayer system in the Astral Plane, and the reason why it requires the use of the power of faith. After understanding these, if we turn our attention back to the prayer system in the Ash World, we will find a very obvious problem:
That is the prayer in the Ash World, which is not as universal as the Astral Prayer, but is more similar to the 'miracle' of 'collecting taxes and doing things'.

—No, it's not just similar. In fact, the 'prayer' in the Ash World is just a variant of the 'miracle' in the Astral Belief System.

Miracle.

They also mentioned when they were gathering their divine souls that this was a system that ran parallel to prayer, but was completely different from it. If the core of prayer was to imitate the power of the gods with the power of faith, then the core of miracles was to use the power of faith to summon the power of the gods.

Compared to prayer, miracles have extremely limited applications and consume enormous amounts of energy, but they are the most important way for a belief system to gain power that transcends its own level.

Its use of faith power is essentially more like an offering. Believers use rituals as altars to offer a sufficient amount of faith power to the gods, who then personally consume divine energy to bring down miracles through divine magic.

This is the principle of miracles.

It's simple and easy to understand; even those specializing in pure magic-based classes can grasp it at a glance.

However, if we compare it with the prayer in the Ashes world, we will find that the prayer in the Ashes world is actually a reskinned version of the miracle, replacing the 'offering' with the power of faith and the 'deity' with 'royal fire'.

Of course, strictly speaking, calling it a reskinned version isn't entirely accurate. After all, when you look closely, there are still quite a few differences between prayers in the Ash World and miracles in the Astral Sphere, aside from the power consumed and the object of the prayer.

First, you need to master the method. No matter how mysterious the miracles in the astral system are described, they are ultimately just a kind of spell developed by the gods as part of their divine arts. It's just that the uses of this spell are quite unique, but it is still very simple to learn.

Just like making a phone call, the miracle is the phone number, the faith power consumed is the phone bill and the cost of the operation, and the deity is the boss you want to call for help. The hardest part to raise in this whole process is always the phone bill and the cost of the operation, not how to write down the phone number or how to dial it.

But the prayers of the Ash World are quite extraordinary. According to their seven days of testing, this thing not only has extremely strict requirements for faith, but also has an absurdly difficult setup.

Using the analogy above, the learning threshold for prayer in the Ash World is like a Morse code that only high-ranking personnel are qualified to know. Those who are not of sufficient status and faith must leave first, those who cannot decipher the code must also leave, and even if you call someone, the other party will never provide you with any overly powerful strength, but will give you an ordinary reward that is not much stronger than the spell cast by an enemy of the same level.

Of course, on the other hand, as a benefit of so many restrictions, the Prayer in Ash World really only charges you a 'phone fee' and doesn't charge any subsequent 'operation fees', which is one of its few advantages compared to the Miracles system in Astral Plane.

As for the target audience, these are two completely opposite approaches.

While the Miracles of the Astral Realm may seem to have a low learning threshold, the high cost of using them means that only powerful individuals with considerable resources can afford to use them.

While the prayers in the Ash World seem to have an extremely high barrier to entry, because they only require a small amount of soul energy each time, even the weakest beings can use them consistently and frequently.

This also explains why the cult in the Ash World so strictly controls the way prayer is learned. After all, unlike the miracles in the Astral Plane, which you might not be able to use even if you learn them, prayer here is something you can actually use as long as you learn it.

Of course, this still wasn't what Xin Lailai cared about most about his prayers to the Ash World. Taking the healing prayer from earlier as an example, after studying it in depth, what truly piqued his interest was something else entirely:

—That is…the prayer in the world of ashes, the actual process of its effectiveness actually relies on certain spells that do not require the participation of the caster!

……

(End of this chapter)