I, the wizard, the foolish Buddha.

Chapter 209: The Bound Angel, the Path of Truth

It is called a church, but it is actually a manor.

Most churches grow some cash crops, and many fine wines come from churches.

Where a church is located, there are usually mills and ovens. Therefore, the church not only meets the spiritual needs of the surrounding villagers, but also meets their daily needs.

Therefore, the 'shepherd' of the church is the local lord.

After Roland met up with Catalina, the three of them headed towards the church.

Catalina told Roland that he could stroll around here without worry.

Roland thought to himself, "She must have come here to do something, so it's inconvenient for me to see what she's doing."

Roland didn't know why Catalina had asked him to come here.

In terms of route, if you are heading to the Blood Castle, you will take a detour here.

Shaking his head secretly, Roland observed the environment around the church as if he were visiting.

The environment here is indeed quite special.

There are no cash crops or even farmland here.

Where there should have been farmland, there were tombstones.

Some people in gray robes, holding hoes and pickaxes, were busy in the cemetery with a group of farmers.

Judging from their magic power and some of their behaviors, these gray-robed men are all wizard apprentices.

To be precise, it's an apprentice of the necromancer.

Of course, these Heracles apprentices call themselves "Head Sheep" and call their mentor the Shepherd.

Roland suddenly realized that he had some cognitive misunderstandings.

This is the location of the Twilight Council and a concentration camp for cultists.

The church here is different from the church in Valeria.

It seems that those tombstones are the economic crops planted in the "fields".

Soon, the three of them walked into the church.

This church is actually quite nice. You can tell that the shepherd who was responsible for building it put a lot of thought into it.

When Elena entered the door, she was slightly shocked.

Katarina also showed some appreciation.

But ever since Roland saw the straw church, he felt that these churches were not presentable.

The church in Straw Town was the source of chaos that destroyed the entire kingdom's economy and morale. When its architects built it, they saw many inspirations from the underworld within the mystery.

When the church was completed, everyone involved went crazy; its artistry was unparalleled.

Therefore, even the goddess Heraka couldn't help but take another look when she found that she had such a church.

Later, based on this, the little Rolands went crazy for another eight years and modified the church to be closer to the style of Heraclea.

Therefore, although the church in front of him was very nice, it could not be compared with the church in Roland's pocket.

However, the builder here is remarkable, possibly the owner of the tower, who described Heraclea from another perspective.

Roland had an inexplicable feeling. He felt that the Heraca Church was very strange. He felt that this place was not Heraca enough.

In other words, this is the other side of Heraclea.

The orthodox Heracari in the East is in Twilight, and they have been studying Heracari for many years.

But they may only be describing the tip of the iceberg of Heraclea.

Roland believed that there was something here, but it was completely different from anything he had ever seen.

The church is not big, but there are quite a few people inside.

Just as Catalina said, Roland could visit at will - the shepherd was an official wizard, he glanced at the three of them and ignored them.

Roland was shocked to find that there was no funeral going on in the church, but a baptism.

It’s just that Heraka’s teachings may be a little special, so he mistakenly regarded this ceremony as baptism.

There were eight people in total who were baptized, all of them were little girls.

They were ignorant and had no idea how sacred this baptism was, but they knew how important it was.

Their parents and relatives were present and everyone was very excited.

Everyone was chanting Helaka's poems, and many people were crying with excitement.

It seems that the process of Heraka's baptism is the same as the normal baptism process. The chief shepherd of the church is a mid-level first-level monk and is quite professional.

The ceremony didn't seem to be anything special, and Roland got bored after watching it for a while.

He couldn't help but look at the statue of Heraclea in the church again.

At first glance, you will see that it is a statue of a holy angel bound in shackles and bathed in holy water.

If you look closely, you will find that this is an evil god.

Its wings are not feathers, but tiny bony spines. Its limbs appear graceful, but a closer look reveals that the joints of its arms and legs are reversed.

Its limbs were broken and twisted at a specific angle.

The water droplets flowing from the body of this holy angel after bathing must not be water, but blood coming out of its body.

At first, Roland thought the restraints carved on its body were chains, but upon closer inspection, he discovered that they were carved with countless wriggling maggots.

Roland was a master sculptor, and he could see that the statue could take on many different postures from different angles.

He left his seat, looked around, and a guess came to his mind.

Soon, the baptism was over and the people in the church gradually left. Roland couldn't help but walk to the altar and look up at the statue of Heraclea.

Suddenly, Roland realized that this was not a holy angel at all.

This is a big flying fly!
Catalina had been waiting for Roland in her seat inside the church. Roland walked back and asked, "You brought me here, didn't you, to see the artwork here?"

Katarina didn't answer but asked, "Do you think the Twilight wizards' research on Helaka is professional?"

Roland frowned for a long time, then after carefully considering his tone, he said, "Heraka is invisible, and every sculptor has a different understanding of His image.

The person who built this statue is a true master, a grandmaster!
He has captured some aspects of the goddess Heraclea very well, but I still feel a little strange about it.

It's not that they don't resemble her, but that she's too holy. I always feel that Heracles is more than just a god of the underworld who controls decay and death. This church lacks some madness."

Katarina looked at Roland, nodded deeply, and said, "Roland, I find you're incredibly arrogant. The Twilight Council has been 'describing' Heraka for hundreds of years, but you've only met Her a few times, and yet you dare to make such a guess?"

Roland sighed and said, "Indeed, I think the Twilight Wizards should see things more clearly than I do regarding the matter of the Goddess Heraka."

Catalina looked at the statue in the distance, shook her head and said, "No, you may not be wrong."

Roland: “?”

Katarina said, "I feel the same way as you. That's why I insisted on going to the Blood Castle instead of the Temple of Heraclea."

Roland frowned and said, "Your Highness Catalina, what exactly brings you here?"

Catalina said, "Roland, the wizard's path is the path to godhood. In order to reach the realm of the gods, we need to build a ladder and pass through the gates of truth.

There are nine gates to truth. After entering the fourth gate, you can ignite the divine fire and begin to enter the realm of God.

Long ago, many wizards on the continent entered a higher realm. These sages led wizards and mortals to expel the so-called gods who once ruled the world.

But in that war, they destroyed the laws that once existed. From then on, the ladder leading to the gate of truth lost its anchor. All roads collapsed.

In the past three thousand years, there have been almost no sixth-level wizards on the continent.

In the past thousand years, only three wizards in the East have entered the Fourth Gate of Truth. One of them entered the Fifth Gate, but she was not considered to have entered that gate in this world.

Currently, there are two fourth-level wizards in the East Territory, but they are on the wrong path and entered the wrong door.

We had to find a new path.”

Roland had his own understanding of what Catalina said—the avenue of this world had been destroyed.

A fourth-level or fifth-level wizard is the pinnacle of this world.

He thought to himself: 'No wonder there are so many mysteries here, no wonder so many people can become immortals directly here!
This world is originally a fairyland!

The people here could originally overcome the tribulation and become immortals!

But after the Great Dao was destroyed, there were fewer old monsters who could cultivate to the third level of Nascent Soul stage, and there were only a few who could cultivate to the level of Divine Transformation within a thousand years.

The leader of the Twilight Council is about to die, and the White Queen's life is also coming to an end.

From now on, third-level wizards will be the masters here.'

Katarina said: "The last three 4th-level wizards to appear in the East were the Witch of the Black Abyss (Alexandra's Witch), the White Queen, and the Thousand-Eyed King.

The White Queen's path is the safest, but ultimately wrong and has side effects. While reaching the third level is fine, once you reach the fourth level, you become like a god, practically losing your freedom. Furthermore, you gradually lose your humanity and personality.

Alexandra once touched the Sun Throne (Level 5), but her path to truth belonged partly to the Thousand-Eyed King, partly to the White Queen, and partly to herself.
Unless the two parliaments are completely unified, her path will be difficult to replicate.

Her younger brother 'Yig', the first dean of the Black Abyss, spent his entire life trying to understand his sister's path, but only created a path to the third gate of truth.

Moreover, this road is extremely difficult to walk on. Whether you can touch the third gate depends entirely on luck.

Even if you reach the third level, it will be difficult to make further progress.

Twilight's 'Thousand-Eyed King' was the most remarkable. We once believed that his path was the best and that he could leave a legacy for future generations. But after he entered the fourth level, no one in the Twilight School dared to touch this door anymore.

No one even dares to take this road anymore.

For nearly two hundred years, the Twilight Council, the Abyss, has been in the Twilight Council. To explore new paths, the Council has taken a different approach—they attempt to find a new path to truth by peering into and describing the power of the Abyss.

Roland suddenly noticed two words and muttered, "By peeping and describing gods or mysteries, can we touch the truth?"

I don’t know what he suddenly thought of, but he got goosebumps all over his body.

He shook his head suddenly, throwing away the random guesses in his mind.

Catalina continued, "That's right, spying and describing. The path to truth has been sealed by the gods. The only way to find the door is to follow the footsteps of the gods."
Currently, it is known that meditation methods that can reach the second level and above are all developed through peeping and describing gods or mysteries."

Roland began to understand. Wizards had always sought a path to immortality. Each major school had its own path, and all known meditation methods were created based on these paths.

The wizards of the school regard those self-taught wizards in the secular world as wild wizards.

And in the eyes of the gods, aren't these school wizards also "wild gods"?

Katarina said, "Originally, there was only one mainstream school among Twilight wizards, the School of the Eye. But after the Thousand-Eyed King entered the Fourth Gate, no one followed this path anymore.

No one knows what is behind that door.

But a second mainstream school emerged.

This school is dedicated to describing the mysteries related to 'Lady Heracca'.

We all thought that the Path of Heraclea was much easier and gentler to walk than the Path of the Abyss, and indeed it was.

Ever since Helaka's knowledge spread from the West, Twilight Wizards, Black Abyss Wizards, and even White Wizards have been trying to describe this god.

But the East Territory's research on Ms. Helaka stopped at the second gate.

To further explore this path, the White Queen even offered refuge to Joan's family, allowing them to dig them over from the Westerlands and establish an anchor in the 'End of the Land.'"

Katarina looked at Roland and said, "The forbidden area doesn't exist for growing potions, but for studying Heracles."

Roland's pupils suddenly shrank.

Many things that happened before were vaguely connected.

Katarina said, "The White Council intentionally had the Twilight Council plant prison seeds in the forbidden area. Those three prison seeds allowed the Twilight wizards to verify many of their own hypotheses, and we have also deduced a lot based on our research into the forbidden area."

But your mentor Usak, your fiancée, and I think there is something wrong with this path.

We suspect that taking this path to enter the second stage will leave huge hidden dangers.

In any case, this is a new path that gives us a new choice.

But to take this path, one needs prisoners.

The Prisoner is the map to the door of truth."

Roland suddenly understood the significance of their mission.

Roland asked, "So, we're heading to the Withered Blood Castle just to steal the Prisoner Seed?"

At the mention of Bleeding Castle, Katarina's eyes lit up. "Yes, but to be exact, they will give us Prisoners. Some bad Prisoners, but there are also real Prisoners there, and lots of them."

In the Twilight Council, there are three large families that specialize in studying Helaka.

The Blood Wizard is one of them.

Roland had seen those apprentices during the trial in the forbidden area.

Katarina said, “This time, in order to reach the Blood Castle, the Council secretly made elaborate arrangements at a great cost.

The Withered Blood Wizards didn't follow the path of Heraca, so in addition to the Heraca Prisoner Seed, they also have a Withered Blood Prisoner Seed. We must obtain both of these Prisoner Seeds."

Catalina told Roland that the Withered Blood lineage was originally a group of wizards from the southern world.

Therefore, they not only have the Heraka prisoner species in their hands, but also the method of making a prisoner species called "withered blood".

The path in the hands of the Blood Wizard has two huge disadvantages.

One is that the prison species they developed can only allow people to enter the second level.

One is that the lifespan of a Blood-Withered Wizard is very short, far shorter than that of a normal second-level wizard. Moreover, after reaching the second level, they often die suddenly and inexplicably.

But the Path of Withered Blood is extremely powerful, or in other words, it has almost no bottleneck, and it can be cultivated very quickly.

Many withered blood wizards can advance from apprentice to the second level in just a few decades!
Therefore, although this path can only lead to the second level and has great disadvantages, many wizards want to take this path.

After all, many wizard apprentices find it difficult to become formal wizards in their entire lives.

There are very few Black Abyss wizards now. The bottleneck of orthodox Black Abyss wizards is very large, and they are on the path of killing, so their numbers will become smaller and smaller.

But once the Bloody Road is acquired, the Black Abyss School will be able to build a new Bloody Tower. After that, the wizards of the Bloody Tower will be able to jointly support the Black Abyss lineage with the wizards of the Snake Tower.

The Black Abyss wizards originally came from the Twilight Council. The apprentices used the Withered Blood Meditation and the Withered Blood Prisoner to study the magic of the Black Abyss. This is a perfect match.

For the Black Abyss wizards, this is a way to make use of the useless apprentices.

But for the rubbish apprentices, this is a godsend, a chance to step into the door of truth and even become a second-level wizard.

Therefore, even if there is no further progress after entering the gate, even if this road is a dead end with disadvantages such as sudden death, everyone is willing to do it.

Therefore, the Black Abyss Wizard is eager for this path.

(End of this chapter)