Imperial Crown.

Chapter 433: The Power of Law, Desolate Dead Fire

Many thanks to Qidian Dad [Hua Liudao] for the 500 reward!

……

In the blink of an eye, the entire room was covered with black ice.

"call……"

Raven exhaled a breath of white air, and a ball of fire suddenly leaped in his palm.

The flames changed from red to white, from white to blue, and then from blue to the azure blue representing the original wild fire.

When the Origin Wildfire appeared, the black ice that had already crawled to Raven's feet quietly stopped its erosion and stagnated.

Only then did Raven have the leisure to observe the stone statue.

It is this thing that radiates the chilling cold, but itself is not stained with a single bit of frost.

Under the pointed helmet was a square face covered with beard, he was wearing a thick leather robe and holding a short and thick battle axe on his leather gauntlets, a typical appearance of an ancient barbarian warrior.

The lines of the stone statue are rough, even appearing a bit childish.

But it is this childish brushstroke that vividly displays the brutality and ferocity of this warrior in a primitive way.

This statue has a history of at least 900 years, and may even be older than the existence of the empire!
A silver light flashed, and Raven activated the Eye of Truth, and saw a dark golden light inside the statue.

"It is true." Raven nodded, a hint of excitement in his eyes.

It was just a guess before, but now it has been confirmed that there is indeed a trace of the power of law hidden in this stone statue.

Laws are the fundamental rules that govern the operation of the world. Only those who understand them can be called strong.

As long as the power of law appears, anyone who can feel it will know its name at the first time.

The law contained in this stone statue is called "eternal freeze".

It can solidify everything, and it is said that even time can be frozen.

Of course, that requires a thorough understanding of this law.

What exists in the statue now is just a fragment of the law.

But even with this fragment, one must be at least a level 5, 10-star expert to try to absorb it into the body during a breakthrough.

"pity……"

Raven shook his head. He himself was only at level 4 now and still had a long way to go before reaching level 5.

Not to mention level 5, 10 stars, and breaking through to level 6.

"Don't you want to try to digest it?" The figure of the black cat Xikret appeared in the corner of the room, and there was no cold air around him that could corrode him. "You are about to enter the Orc Empire, so it would be good to have more self-protection ability."

Although Sikoret is Raven's magical pet, she has always been independent and rarely appears on her own unless Raven calls her.

But every suggestion made hits the mark.

It was with her reminder that Raven was able to master the Origin Wild Fire at the 3rd level.

"This is the power of law after all." Raven said, "Or do you have a way for me to contain it now?"

Sikoret wagged his tail, "It's not me who has it, it's you who has it."

"Your Eyes of Truth can help you understand this broken law; and the Origin Wildfire, although not the best container, is just enough to contain it."

Raven frowned and stared at Sikoret.

He had no doubt that Sikoret would lie to him. The relationship between a pet and a mage was so strong that it could even be said to be beyond blood ties. "Who are you...?"

"Your magical pet, Sikoret." The black cat stretched and jumped onto the windowsill:
"It is better to swallow this law first, otherwise Eagle City will be frozen."

As he spoke, his figure turned around and disappeared without a trace.

"Tsk..." Raven shook his head helplessly.

This black cat is always mysterious.

"Combine this law with the Origin Wild Fire..." Raven once again cast his gaze on the stone statue, and the silver light in his eyes turned into gold.

The Eye of Truth is running at full speed.

At this moment, the scenery in my eyes changed.

The dark golden light that was originally flowing in the stone statue froze at this moment, and then suddenly exploded into golden words all over the sky, smashing towards Raven's eyes without any explanation!
It was not the imperial language, nor was it the elven language that Raven was very familiar with, but hieroglyphics made up of blocks!

A hint of enlightenment arose in Raven's mind.

The Eyes of Truth analyzes this law into the knowledge that one can best understand!

It can even analyze laws! ?
No wonder it is called “truth”!
Immediately, Raven understood why only a strong person of at least level 6 could try to comprehend the laws.

Because the knowledge contained in the laws is so vast, even if it is just a small fragment, the information flow it transforms into brings tremendous pressure to Raven's soul.

It's like a piece of parchment that can only hold a thousand words, but has to be stuffed with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of words at a time!
The result is that the paper is either punctured or covered in a thick layer of black, and no useful information can be obtained.

So, Raven thought of the Origin Wildfire.

How this flame is constructed has long been engraved in Raven's soul.

So he no longer tried to understand the law of "eternal freeze", but instead instilled all the knowledge analyzed by the Eye of Truth into the mark of the Origin Wild Fire.

Letting this law itself sculpt the Origin Wild Fire is like putting a new mold on the Origin Wild Fire.

And just as Raven was digesting the law of permafrost, the black ice had already broken free from the walls and spread throughout Eagle City!
The soldiers guarding the door of the room were instantly frozen, the flames of the candlesticks burning on the wall became dead, and the flies flying in the air froze in place.

Petty, who was making the Oil of Light in the alchemy room, felt a chill and turned around, only to see a layer of solid ice squeezing in through the crack in the door!

Then the black ice rushed in like a flood!

"This is……!?"

Before Petty could even scream, she was covered in ice.

There was a brief interruption in consciousness.

When she came to her senses, Patty found that all the ice had disappeared, as if it was all just her illusion.

However, the sunlight coming through the window has changed from bright white to dim yellow.

Patty's heart tightened, she pushed open the door and rushed to Raven's meditation room. After thinking it over again and again, she took out the key, opened the door, pushed it open and rushed in!

"My Lord Count!"

She saw Raven standing in front of a broken stone sculpture.

Hearing Petty's call, Raven turned around, the golden light in his eyes gradually faded, and he smiled slightly: "There was a little trouble just now, but don't worry, it has all been resolved."

"I'd also like you to go outside and explain to them that I was just experimenting with magic, so they don't have to worry and can just do what they need to do."

Petty still didn't understand what had just happened, but he had to obey the Earl's orders:

"...Yes, I understand."

When Patty went out, she heard all kinds of panicked crying and complaining, and then she realized what had just happened.

Half of Eagle City was suddenly blocked by ice. Many people thought that Raven had met with an accident, and people were in a panic for a while.

What’s strange is that someone was clearly trapped in the ice before, but now he is unharmed.

If time had not passed, they would not have even known that they were frozen.

Meanwhile, in the meditation room.

There was a hint of expectation and hesitation on Raven's face. A few syllables came out of his mouth, and then a ball of fire jumped out of his palm.

It was not the azure blue of the original wildfire, but a touch of enchanting purple.

As the purple flame appeared, the same black ice that appeared when the stone statue appeared began to grow again under Raven's feet.

puff.

After extinguishing the flame, Raven called out its name:
"Desolate dead fire."

This is the fire that was born after the Origin Wild Fire digested the fragments of the "Eternal Freeze" law.

Once used, anything that is contaminated by it will be frozen in ice like the Eagle City just now.

However, although he learned the Desolate Dead Fire, Raven did not truly master this law.

就好像谁都知道1+1=2，但为什么1+1=2，就是另外一回事了。

Afterwards, Raven came out to calm everyone down and wrote a letter to tell Denise not to worry about what was happening here.

March passed in the blink of an eye.

On April 4, the second batch of support that Thomas had promised in advance arrived.

……

Chapter 438: Literacy Campaign

Compared to the grand fanfare when the Holy Knights arrived, this time the support was much more low-key. In addition to the promised birds of paradise, there were a total of 127 divine magicians.

Raven showed up and met with them, but due to his weak condition, he didn't say much.

The church in Xiongying Town was too small, so they were placed in the church in Xuefeng Town.

That evening, Bishop Herlind of Xuefeng Diocese arranged a sumptuous welcoming dinner for them and let them settle down and rest.

This would have been a good start.

But after gathering in the church the next morning, they had to face an unexpected fact -

From today on, until the end of the battle with the orcs, all of these priests must obey Lacus's command.

The priests did not object.

After all, although Lux has been expelled from the Church of Light, her hard power as a level 4 is still there, and she has participated in the war against the Hand of Death. She is by no means a vase.

But then, what Lux said made them lose their composure, and the quarreling almost became a mess.

Amid the chaos, a divine magician who looked to be in his 50s with meticulously combed hair stood up.

His voice was thick and muddy, as if he had taken a mouthful of mud filled with sand. "Ms. Lux, are you sure you are right? Do you really want us to impart the sacred knowledge bestowed by our Lord to those mortals?!"

"Yes." Lux nodded and emphasized again: "We still need to prepare for the war. We can't waste the next period of time."

"I think it shouldn't be difficult for you, who have received a full church school education, to teach the children in the territory to read and write, right?"

"Ms. Lux, this is not a question of whether it is difficult or not." Another divine magician stood up. He looked to be nearly 40 years old and had a wart on the tip of his nose:
"We are here this time to help Earl Raven conquer the orcs."

"We can heal the wounded, dispel the plague in the water, and lift the orcs' vicious curse."

"But teaching children to read is not part of our duty!"

These words immediately aroused unanimous agreement.

Seeing that Lux did not refute immediately, someone else stood up.

He looked less than 30 years old. I don't know if it was because of the long journey or it was just natural, but a layer of dead skin broke out on his lips. When he opened his mouth, blood oozed out:

"Besides, Ms. Lux, there's no point in doing this."

"Teaching serfs' children to read and write does not make them produce any more food when they farm."

“Just as the Lord said, farmers should focus on taking care of their crops.”

Lux listened to their words quietly and glanced at the priests: "Do you have anything else to add?"

For some reason, when the priests present saw her eyes, they felt nervous and some even dared not to look her in the eye.

"Well, Bishop Theodore, Priest Terino, and Father Matti, let me tell you what I think."

When their names were called, Theodore cleared his thick throat, Terino touched the wart on his nose, and Maddie licked her cracked lips.

Lux said slowly: "My Lord did say, 'Knowledge is sacred'; but the second half of the sentence is, 'It should not be passed on to evil criminals.'"

"I would like to ask you, Bishop Theodore, are children evil sinners?"

Theodore was speechless.

"Priest Terino, you said that teaching children is not within your duty." Lux looked at the second divine magician who spoke: "But the Lord once said, 'Children are treasures that should be protected, and you should fulfill their appropriate wishes.'"

"Does this request go beyond the scope of 'appropriate'?"

Without waiting for Terino's answer, Lux turned to the next target:
"Father Madi, you said there is no point in doing this; but if literacy is meaningless, why do you need to learn to read?"

"This..." Madi swallowed his saliva: "Because I want to spread the gospel of the Lord..."

Lux immediately said, "Then can't the sons of farmers and merchants spread the gospel of the Lord?"

"Are all of you here from noble families?"

After saying this, the priests could no longer refute it.

In the Nord Province, or in the entire Keynes Empire, very few nobles would choose to become priests.

Among the divine magicians present, only a small number were of noble birth, and another small number were illegitimate children of clergy. The majority were of free people or merchants.

Precisely because they know that knowledge is not easy to acquire, they do not want knowledge to be spread easily.

"Okay, since there are no problems, please prepare to leave." Lux clapped her hands, and someone brought up piles of parchment. "Each piece of parchment represents a village or town. Please fill in your name so that it will be convenient for you to perform your duties later."

The divine magicians reluctantly took the parchment and filled in their names.

Then, starting from the next day, these divine magicians had to leave the Snow Maple Town Church and go deep into the Griffith family's territory to start teaching children of school age to read.

Children as young as 5 or 6 years old and as old as 14 or 5 years old became their students.

The sound of reading began to float over the Griffith family's territory.

At the beginning, the divine magicians were still holding back their anger and were unwilling to teach seriously.

But the children's eager eyes are so touching.

The one who touched me the most was Madi, who said at the beginning that "farmers should focus on taking care of crops."

On the fifth day after the teaching began, the father of a child, a serf, came to him and brought him a basket of eggs.

Madi looked at the face that should be the same age as him, but was at least 20 years older than him, frowned and asked: "What are you doing...?"

"Father!" The serf smiled and said, "My child is naughty. I am sorry to trouble you!"

"That's not necessary." Madi pushed the basket away and couldn't help asking, "Why do you insist on teaching your child to read?"

The serf said, "I know he can't become a man like you, but if he could read, at least he could write his own name, and know how to count, so that he wouldn't be cheated by others!"

"Besides... I have been farming all my life, and I don't want my children to suffer the same hardships as I did. If they can learn to read, I can send them to work as apprentices in shops in the city..."

After hearing this, Madi let out a long sigh.

From the second day on, he taught more seriously and was no longer easily angry. Sometimes when a child who was supposed to come did not show up, he would take the initiative to find him and confirm the situation after class.

Similar scenes were repeated throughout the Griffith family's territory and were reported to Raven's desk one after another.

"It actually works?" Raven was a little surprised.

Lux had told him about this method, but Raven was not optimistic about the prospects at the time.

In Raven's opinion, the priests of the Church of Light live a life of luxury, enjoying better life than the nobles. It is almost impossible for them to teach children to read.

Unexpectedly, they could actually do it so steadily.

"It seems that I had too deep a stereotype before."

If it didn't have this ability to reach the grassroots, how could the Church of Light spread across the continent, so that wherever there are humans, there is faith in the Lord of Light?

"I have to find a chance to thank Lux properly..." Raven tapped the table with his fingers, a smile on his lips.

Literacy education may seem basic, but its role and effects are extremely long-term.

Leaving aside the Middles Continent, all the countries in the past that were able to prosper attached great importance to education.

That means a large number of qualified industrial workers and a large number of soldiers who can understand orders and obey.

Raven had long wanted to carry out literacy work in his territory, but there were too few literate people in that era, and there was a real lack of talent.

Now, carrying out this literacy campaign under the leadership of Lux is equivalent to cultivating a batch of seeds, which will be of great benefit to the future.

"Thank you! Thank you!" a sharp voice rang out.

Then there were a dozen equally sharp voices.

Raven couldn't help but cover his ears.

The ones who imitated his speech were the 11 birds of paradise that were currently staying in the study.

This kind of monster has little combat power, but it possesses the innate magic that can change the weather.

They look like parrots, but their bodies are more like owls. They are covered with golden feathers, have shell-white beaks as sharp as seagulls, and have long tail feathers that drag from the 1-meter-high rack to the ground, with peacock-like feathers on the tip of their tails.

Usually when facing a monster, Raven would always try to use the Eye of Truth to extract the essence of the corrupted soul in its body, making it more docile and obedient.

But there is not even a trace of the essence of corrupt souls in the bodies of these birds of paradise.

The reason why they were left in the study was to make it easier to take care of them. After all, these guys were extremely valuable, and Raven didn't dare to hand them over to a trainer who had only served the Wind King.

"My Lord Earl, urgent matter." The hyena knocked on the door.

"Come in." Raven said.

After respectfully placing the letter on Raven's desk, Hyena turned around and left.

Taking the letter in his hand, Raven was stunned when he saw the name on the wax:
"Heinrich?"

"Ganville Province!?"

……

(End of this chapter)