A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 385 "Three Feet Above One's Head" - Rorschach

Within the realm, the believers had entered a state of forgetting Rorschach's existence; they chanted and sang, and spontaneously began to embrace each other and weep bitterly.

Perhaps it's because they've experienced too many grievances and hardships along the way.

But at that moment, Rorschach thought of a somewhat unethical experiment, and he silently prayed to the Lord of Order: I was just curious, please forgive my rudeness.

Then the believers suddenly noticed that the sunlight was exceptionally bright, and a beam of light far exceeding the winter sun pierced through the clouds and shone on them.

If that were all, it would be fine; all those who were illuminated also felt warm all over, and their pain disappeared.

"A miracle! A miracle has occurred!" someone shouted, and others joined in, praying and weeping: "The Lord has approved of us! This is the Lord's promise to us! Coming here was the right thing to do; the Lord has guided us in our hearts."

Have you all forgotten that I am a mage? Rorschach felt out of place among the excited believers; he simply sensed that the power of faith emanating from them was even more surging, practically boiling over within the enveloped domain!

They gathered in an open space in the new city. The warmth and healing effects were provided by Luo Xia, and "the sun opens the sky and shines on everyone" was an illusion he created.

Create clouds, then use ten focused light spheres to form a lighting matrix that simulates parallel sunlight.

Then, outside the area, passing workers saw a group of people kneeling on the ground, crying and laughing without making a sound, and were so frightened that they took a detour.

"My lord, you have witnessed the miracle!" The old man cried, tears streaming down his face. "I beg you to allow us to build a church on this land bathed in holy light!"

"Great, I can sponsor the land and building materials."

Those who heard Rorschach's promise immediately cheered, "Thank you! Praise be to you, great Lord!"

"Damn it, I'm the one who put in the money and effort, and you're not thanking me but thanking God?" That's why Rorschach dislikes these people. However, he's still quite satisfied with the power of faith he feels. Anyway, in Istani, he was an agent of the Lord of Order, so surely He won't mind if he works as a contractor now?

For those from the Holy Kingdom, the church was completed in its simplest form, consisting only of a chapel, confessional, library (currently empty), small storeroom, and restrooms. The chapel contained no large musical instruments, just a piano discarded from the theater. The remaining elements consisted only of the pulpit, the baptismal font, and rows of long benches.

There are no religious paintings composed of stained glass windows, nor are there any grand oil paintings or icons. Even the symbolic "emblem" is simplified. There are no masters among the refugees who are well-known for their religious studies and fine arts to paint these, so it is better to keep everything simple.

Very well, now the power of faith generated will never reach the Church and the Lord of Order!

Everyone was very simple and honest. Even after the disaster, they were still penniless. So even with Rorschach's sponsorship, this building, whose main structure was not much different from a chicken coop on a farm, was the best they could do.

The chapel also lacks spires and bell towers, but these standard chapel features actually serve a practical purpose—many of the Lord of Order's powerful spells are activated by the ringing of bells.

The chime of the clock is a kind of "rule" for the whole city. When the bell rings, it conveys the order of time. All personal clocks must be calibrated according to it. It is an omnipresent link in the reproduction of the ruling relationship and a link that is easily sanctified.

However, these people simply do not understand that the only clock tower in Kempson New Town is the tower in the center of the new steel plant.

The new church differs from the churches managed by the church administration; it does not venerate a patron saint or use the names of saints. The chapel is called "Sunlit Chapel" in honor of the "miracle."

The old man was chosen as the "chapel keeper." He had neither been appointed by the church nor received any divine favor; his only responsibilities were to open the church doors, arrange (simplified) worship services, and recite prayers for everyone.

On a ten-day weekend, the old man and other volunteers shared small, unleavened round cakes as part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Rorschach and Andrei were also watching. Andrei couldn't help but use [Communication] to quietly ask his bold master, "Teacher, is it really okay for you to collect faith power like this?"

Rorschach became the financier of the church and rightfully intervened in the design. The ceiling of the church has a dark pattern made of different cuts of wood, which at first glance is just a geometric decorative pattern. However, if you look closely, you will find that it contains Rorschach's symbols.

Some of the timbers are inlaid with mithril wire loops, and the main beams of the entire building also have magic array loops.

Andrei, being from the Holy Kingdom, considered Rorschach's blasphemous act as "stealing tribute."

"First of all, look at that simplified emblem. It has no loops and is not constructed with the correct materials. It cannot point to the divine, nor can it allow the church to collect and utilize the 'power of faith' to anoint sacred objects, etc."

"Secondly, these so-called 'power of faith' are nothing more than a magical phenomenon caused by believers. It certainly has its own unique characteristics, but it cannot be immediately fed back to God. It doesn't matter if we retain a portion of it."

"I don't directly utilize the aforementioned 'power of will' either. As mentioned before, the 'power of faith' generated by believers is a product of changes in magic. When these are gathered by the magic array within the building's framework, these alien substances alter the field within the building, giving it a tendency towards sanctification."

"This will allow me to establish better connections and set up a Tarling port with lower latency here."

Rorschach did not reveal the existence of the "spell cloud" for the time being, so he told Andrei that the magic circle placed on the church ceiling was the tower spirit's connection port.

Rorschach looked at the church and added, "One last thing, we're mages!"

Fields rich in magical energy and faith, such as mage towers and churches, slide and ascend from the material world to the symbolic world. If we approximate the space between the two worlds as a two-dimensional plane, then these fields are protrusions toward the symbolic world, causing the concept of "distance" in the material world to fold in the symbolic world.

The direct manifestation of "distance folding" is that it can enhance the throughput of teleportation arrays, break through the limit distance, and create a suitable location for Rorschach to deploy a new port for "spell cloud" like this.

Moreover, due to the nature of religion, it is more suitable for the arrival and spread of will than the field constructed by magic nodes, making the current solution more advantageous than the old method.

In a proper church, Rorschach wouldn't dare to do this, but in the Hall of Radiant Light, even though everyone had developed faith power, the specialization of that faith power wasn't thorough enough due to the lack of proper rituals, sacred objects, and guidance from clergy.

To use an imperfect analogy: the willpower these people generate is like "gold," but without a church organization to collect it and mint it into "gold coins" bearing the mark of the Lord of Order, Rorschach wouldn't have gotten away with it.

Of course, he once thought of donating a statue of the crucified Son to the church—a 1:1 scale replica of the Son, modified from his own earthen doppelganger, to more ruthlessly plunder the power of faith and use it as a humanoid antenna for the "magic cloud".

But Rorschach thought about it and gave up on his suicidal act. It wouldn't be fun if the God of Order, Hong Wen, really punished him.

(End of this chapter)