Lu Mingfei Development Program

Chapter 509 Why is it Florence?
"Xizel...so you are here." Lu Mingfei said softly.

"I have always been here." The inner voice whispered, "So, devil, what are you looking for? What has found me?"

"First of all, I'm not a devil." Lu Mingfei answered him, "Secondly, if you were here, you should have spoken earlier, so that I wouldn't be so ignorant of everything in this world."

The voice in my heart was a little confused: "Aren't you a devil? Then why are you occupying my body?"

“…Actually, I also want to ask about this.” Lu Mingfei said thoughtfully, “Perhaps there is some kind of connection between us, which caused me to wake up in your body when I passed through the door.”

"Door? What is that?" the voice in my heart asked again.

Lu Mingfei said: "It literally means to cross the door between two worlds."

"The other world...is it hell?" the voice in my heart pondered.

“Boy…” Lu Mingfei said darkly, “Even if I’m easy to talk to, I would still be unhappy if you described the world I grew up in as hell.”

The voice in my heart suddenly fell silent, and after a long time it responded: "Sorry..."

"If you really want to apologize, tell me what happened here." Lu Mingfei said, "I'm blind now."

"Can't the devil's words read people's memories?" asked the voice in his heart.

"I said, I'm not a devil... Of course, I'm not incapable of forcibly reading other people's memories." Lu Mingfei sat on the only chair in the temporary dormitory, "But I won't do something that is almost like the devil's behavior."

As someone who inherited the spiritual elements of Izanami, he could indeed do this. Of course, the person being read would not feel good. Secondly, with his current weak bloodline power, he could not do this.

"Isn't this almost devilish?" the inner voice continued.

Lu Mingfei sighed helplessly: "Why are you so obsessed with exploring the devil's affairs?"

It was certainly surprising that his body was taken over by an unknown soul, but Xizel's obsession with the devil was beyond Lu Mingfei's expectations.

"Because if the devil exists, God should also exist." The voice in my heart whispered.

Lu Mingfei paused. Putting aside the existence of supernatural creatures such as dragons, the existence of gods and demons has been debated for thousands of years in his world. If one of them is proven to exist, then the other should also exist.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, I'm not a devil." Lu Mingfei said regretfully, "As for whether God exists or not, I actually want to know too."

The voice in my heart asked again: "Don't you know God exists?"

"If God really exists, I would really like to meet Him." Lu Mingfei said dimly.

"Really..." The voice in my heart answered silently, seeming a little disappointed.

"Why do you want to know whether God exists?" Lu Mingfei asked curiously.

Whether it was fighting in armor in an underground fighting arena to make money, or attending a luxurious mechanical college, Xizel did not look like a devout believer no matter how you looked at him.

After a long silence, the voice in my heart said quietly: "If God really exists, then those who have suffered enough in the world may really go to heaven."

"...I'm sorry, I can't answer this question for you." Lu Mingfei said softly.

A huge regret overflowed from his heart. Lu Mingfei himself naturally had no regrets. The one who regretted was Xizel. He seemed to hope that someone who had passed away could enter heaven.

"Let's talk about what happened between us." Lu Mingfei said, "For some reason I don't know, I have taken over your body, and I don't know how long I will stay there."

"I understand." To Lu Mingfei's surprise, Xizel's acceptance of his situation was beyond his expectations.

Lu Mingfei asked with some doubt: "You don't seem surprised?"

"There are accidents," Xizel said calmly, "but I have already prepared for the possibility of my body being taken over by the devil."

“…That’s why I’m not a devil.” Lu Mingfei sighed.

Xizel answered him in an extremely calm voice, but Lu Mingfei, who was currently occupying his body, could still feel the unspeakable heaviness in his heart.

He seemed to really believe that he might be possessed by someone someday in the future. It could be a devil, a demon, or... a god.

"Let's talk about something," Lu Mingfei said. He looked around the temporary dormitory. "I have a general understanding of your current situation. You have also seen my abilities. Although I cannot use too many words due to your weak body, if it only helps you live a better life, it should be no problem."

"Word Spirit? Is this the ability you use to help Jukadu...Juka win?" Xizel asked curiously.

"I can't explain this to you right away. Just think of it as some kind of magic." Lu Mingfei said, "Like I said just now, I will help you improve your life, and all you have to do is tell me about the situation in this world. Anything is fine as long as it is related to this world."

Xizel asked in confusion: "What do you need these for?"

"I'm just looking for something." Lu Mingfei said, "Don't ask what it is. Before I find it, I probably don't know what it will look like."

The Zero that originally belonged to this world was brought to his world by an unknown existence, and something else also drifted to this world due to the struggle between the two worlds. Lu Mingfei didn't know what it was, but he knew that he would recognize it the moment he saw it.

"...But I am already very satisfied with my current life." said Cesar.

This time, because of Lu Mingfei's intrusion, he gained much more than he had imagined. After paying the tuition, he still had a lot of money, enough for him and his sister to live a good life for a while.

Lu Mingfei choked and continued: "But, I helped you win this, didn't I?"

Although he didn't know what César's original plan was, it was not easy to defeat the Dragon Slayer with the Black Warrior... the name of the armor César used in the underground fighting arena. The performance of the Black Warrior might be top-notch among those tattered armors, but it still couldn't escape the category of tattered armor.

Even though Xizel is an excellent mechanic and an excellent armor operator, it will still take a hard fight to defeat the modified armor like the Dragon Slayer.

Xizel was silent. He could not have imagined that he won so easily this time. No wonder the devil caused so many people to fall.

Although the being occupying his body keeps saying that he is not a devil, what is the difference between his abilities and what he does and those of a devil?
"Is this some kind of contract?" César asked softly.

Lu Mingfei shrugged: "If you think so, then so be it."

"Okay, I promise you." Xizel said softly.

……

Because of Lu Mingfei's intrusion, the events in the underground fighting arena ended so quickly that it was not even dark when they returned to the campus.

However, as time went by, the sky gradually darkened. A cold wind blew in through the open window, and the sound of raindrops was heard, and it seemed that it had begun to rain outside.

There were no lights on in the temporary dormitory. This warehouse was filled with many delicate machines that looked like teaching aids. Lu Mingfei knew when he came here that Xizel was the manager of these teaching aids while living here, which was why he was not popular in the academy.

Marston Royal Mechanical School, the name of this school. The students here are either rich or noble. Because it maintains its neutral status, it attracts nobles from Western countries to study here.

Minai, who came back with him before, was the son of a poor baron, but Xizel didn't know that when he was talking to Lu Mingfei just now, he didn't talk about his family situation. It was just that when Lu Mingfei walked through the school building, he seemed to hear someone saying that he was an illegitimate child.

Lu Mingfei was casually playing with a sophisticated mechanical structure. Even if he knew nothing about machinery, he understood how rare this thing was.

The structure of this world was similar to what he had imagined, with a clear opposition between the East and the West, and the technological differences were far more exaggerated than in his own world. However, about two hundred years ago, the differences between Easterners and Westerners were not as great as they are today, and it was the Easterners who had the advantage.

At that time, Rome was still the most powerful country in the West, and the Xia Kingdom in the East was its opposite. These two countries represented the East and the West respectively, and when they were in opposition to each other, they also maintained a delicate balance.

The religious organization that changed the Western camp was a Messianic Cult, which was very similar to what Lu Mingfei had remembered. They advocated peace and opposed war, and attracted more than 100,000 followers in a short period of time.

But such a religion would not be liked by Western monarchs, so the persecution of the Messianic sect began. They tied the believers of the sect to the cross and executed them. The great sect of 100,000 people collapsed so quickly.

Only a few priests desperately set out to sea, searching for the island of Avalon, which was called "God's last paradise on earth" in their scriptures.

More than a hundred years had passed, and probably no one in the West had remembered the Messianic Cult. But at this time, someone was surprised to find that on the wasteland in the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula, there stood a huge city powered by steam. Its name was Florence.

The country that established Florence called itself the Papal States. It was a country with a unified political and religious system, and the religion they believed in was the Messianic Church.

A hundred years ago, the desperate priests who went out to sea actually found Avalon. You know, the navigation technology a hundred years ago could not allow their wooden ships to cross the northern ice ocean.

But they found it there, and the priests discovered red mercury on the island. This blood-red liquid, like blood, has an almost miraculous effect. It is an extremely precious energy source, and it can also make the metals soaked in it exert powerful properties.

The production of mobile armor relies on this high-level alloy. As the foundation of the Papal States, it shocked the world after it was manufactured.

At that time, the emperor of the Roman Empire was Nero. He was very interested in the steam technology of the Papal States and believed that only in his hands could such technology change the world. He sent out the Black Knights, who were the most powerful among all countries in the West.

…It was later proved that the Scorching Knights, who almost completely destroyed the Black Knights, were the number one knightly order in the West.

The Blazing Iron Cavalry, as the name suggests, is a corps composed of seraph-type armor. The mechanical technology that almost surpassed the world's civilization by a hundred or even a thousand years allowed the Papal States to sweep across the Western world.

The gates of the Roman capital were breached by the Seraphim, and the tyrant Nero was burned on the cross. Half of the Roman Empire fell into the control of the Papal States, while the other half of the Roman Empire also submitted to the Papal States and called itself the New Roman Empire.

Marston is a country that became independent during the split of Rome.

"The Blazing Iron Cavalry, Red Mercury, Emerald..." Xizel mentioned these familiar things, and Lu Mingfei also had a simple understanding of the world behind this door.

He was not surprised by Xizel's cooperation. What he said was the basics of the basics. As long as Lu Mingfei spent a little time in the library, he could get more detailed information than this.

However, Lu Mingfei also found some small loopholes in Xizel's narration. For example, the maturity of a technology does not come from nothing, especially the existence of the Blazing Sky Cavalry, which would cause waves in his world.

But in Xizel's story, the Blazing Iron Cavalry suddenly appeared and swept across the western land. The same was true for the city of Emerald.

"What about Omega?" Lu Mingfei suddenly asked.

César replied with some confusion: "Omega? What is that?"

"…It's nothing, just a certain type of armor." Lu Mingfei said softly.

Obviously, Xizel didn't seem to know the existence of the Seraph prototype, Omega. And those things were one of the reasons why he came to the world behind the gate.

"You seem to be very curious about Florence." Xizel asked softly in his heart. Lu Mingfei had repeated Florence many times.

Lu Mingfei said quietly: "It's not curiosity, but obsession. Why is it Florence?"

Omega occupied the Roman Nibelung and transformed it into Florence. But in Cesare's story, Florence in this world was built only a hundred years ago. The war in ancient times was thousands of years ago.

Of course, this does not rule out the problem of unequal flow rates in the two worlds, which is common in science fiction works.

However, Lu Mingfei felt that, like the relationship between Omega and the Blazing Cavalry, Florence must also have a "prototype". Whether it was Florence transformed from the Roman Nibelungen or Florence established by the Messiah Holy Church in the world behind the gate, they could all be imitations of this "prototype".

Lu Mingfei suddenly stopped talking, and Xizel also fell silent in his heart. Silently raising his head, Lu Mingfei silently watched the skylight that was supposed to be closed being opened, and the cat-like girl poked her head out of the window.

(End of this chapter)