Wizard: My skills can be upgraded indefinitely.

At dawn, the church bells rang.

The gracious students in the advanced training course were arranged in three rows according to their rank, with Leonard standing at the very front.

Today he was dressed in a formal white robe with silver trim, the badge on his chest was polished to a gleaming shine, and he held a crystal ball the size of a fist in his hand, which was a "heart of devotion" used to test the level of divine magic.

"As is customary, a test is conducted at the beginning of each month. Place your hands on the crystal, concentrate on praying, and your sincerity will reveal the strength of your soul."

The group began to move slowly, and the first to step forward was the blond boy, Camus.

He took a deep breath and placed his right hand on the surface of the crystal ball. The golden liquid inside the ball began to ripple, and fine markings appeared on the surface.

It rises slowly from the bottom and eventually stops at the "25%" position.

Leonard nodded slightly: "Level 2 mid-stage, a 5% improvement from last month, not bad."

Camus wore a smug smile and glanced at Anson as he stepped aside.

The second was Nicole, a brown-haired girl. She clasped her hands together and prayed silently for a moment before carefully placing her hands on it.

The golden liquid rose and stopped at "24%".

"Also at the mid-level of level two." A hint of approval flashed in Leonard's eyes. "Solid theory, pure faith, keep it up."

Nicole blushed and silently retreated, twisting the hem of her clothes with her fingers.

Next came the black-haired youth, Kalai. He stepped forward with steady steps and his palm pressed down cleanly and efficiently.

The golden liquid fluctuated violently before finally settling at "29%".

"Peak of Level Two." Leonard rarely showed a smile. "Those who are good at practical combat definitely improve the fastest."

Kale nodded expressionlessly, and as he returned to the queue, his gaze swept over Anson with a hint of provocation.

The procession continued forward, with one gracious recipient after another stepping forward for testing.

Most people's soul strength fluctuates between 10% and 15%, with a few occasionally breaking through 20%, which always elicits a murmur.

When it was finally Anson's turn, the training ground suddenly fell silent, and all eyes were on him.

This ascetic, who was unknown just two months ago, is now the talk of the town in the advanced training class.

The news of the improved Holy Light Ball prayer method had already spread throughout the class and even the church. Some people were envious, some were jealous, and most were just watching.

Anson raised his right hand, his palm slowly touching the crystal ball.

Buzz! The golden liquid inside the crystal ball suddenly boiled.

Unlike the previous slow ascent, it was as if it was being violently stirred by an invisible hand, spinning wildly, surging, and gushing forth!

The numbers on the scale started jumping wildly: 20%...25%...30%!

The liquid flowed over one-third of the mark on the crystal ball without slowing down at all.

Gasps of astonishment filled the training ground.

Camus's eyes widened, his lips slightly parted, Nicole covered her mouth, her eyes widened, and Carly's pupils suddenly contracted, his fists bulging with veins.

Leonard's smile froze as he stared intently at the crystal ball, his eyes shifting from surprise to shock, and then from shock to disbelief.

The golden liquid, having reached nearly 40% capacity, finally began to slow down, but continued to rise slowly.

32%...35%...finally settled at "38%".

The training ground was completely silent.

Leonard stared at the number, his throat bobbing.

The threshold for a Level 3 High Priest is 30%, but this is not just barely crossing the threshold; it's approaching the level of a Level 4 High Priest.

Anson, before coming here, was an ascetic who couldn't even cast a level two divine spell smoothly.

"This is impossible..." Camus muttered to himself, his voice carrying clearly through the classroom.

"He's only been here a short time... how could his divine grace have improved so quickly?"

Nicole watched Anson's retreating figure with a complex expression, a mixture of envy, admiration, and a hint of disappointment.

Kale clenched his teeth and dug his nails into his palms. He appeared indifferent, but was actually extremely nervous inside.

What gives Anson the right?

Leonard finally came to his senses, took a deep breath, walked up to Anson, and looked at the young monk with a complicated expression.

"Anson, when...when did you break through?"

Anson withdrew his hand, and the golden liquid inside the crystal ball quickly receded, returning to calm.

He bowed slightly, his tone still humble: "Reporting to the mentor, ever since I improved the Holy Light Bullet, I feel my soul gradually strengthening every time I pray."

"And then, it just happened so naturally."

Leonard stared at him for a long time before finally uttering a slow sentence: "You don't need to call me your mentor anymore. I can no longer teach you."

"From today onwards, you are no longer a junior gracious recipient, but a third-level deacon of the Cathedral of Holy Light."

A level 3 Light Priest can unleash a wide-area blessing spell, capable of turning the tide of a small battle.

Overall strength is roughly equivalent to a level two wizard in the wizarding world.

The news of Anson's promotion to a third-level Priest of Light spread like wildfire throughout the entire church.

A previously unknown ascetic broke through three levels and was directly promoted to the position of Bright Deacon!

This is unprecedented in the history of the Cathedral of Holy Light.

Even those born into nobility and gifted with extraordinary talents, it takes at least ten years to go from apprentice to deacon.

Anson, on the other hand, only took three months.

In other worlds, Anson might be captured and interrogated by various forces to find out what earth-shattering secrets he might possess.

But this is the world of gods, and everything illogical can be explained by divine grace.

That afternoon, Anson was summoned to the bishop's office.

Bishop Thomas sat behind a large desk, stroking a silver holy emblem in his hand, his deep brown eyes sharp as an eagle's.

"Anson," Thomas said, his voice low, "Leonard said you broke through without any warning."

Anson stood before the desk, bowing slightly: "Yes, Your Excellency, last night during prayer, I suddenly felt the grace of my God."

Thomas remained silent for a moment, then put down the emblem, got up, and walked to the window.

Outside the window is the central square of the church, where the hundred-meter-tall statue of the God of Light shines brightly in the sunlight.

"Now that you have once again caught the attention of our God, you must proclaim this grace. Do you see the idols outside? From now on, you will be in charge of taking care of them yourself."

Anson's heart skipped a beat, and he bowed slightly: "Yes, Your Excellency."

"Do you know what it means to be entitled to wipe the idol once a month?"

Anson's face flushed with excitement: "It means... the favor of our Lord."

"No." Thomas turned around, his gaze fixed on Anson. "It signifies my lord's trust."

"The idol is the core node of the faith network. It is a symbol of our Lord on earth. Being able to touch the idol means that the believer's soul is the purest and their faith is the most devout."

He placed a key on the table; it was made entirely of pure silver, with an antique design and a sun pattern carved on the top.

"Starting next month, every morning, you will wipe the idol."

Thomas's voice suddenly turned serious.

"Remember, you can only use the special holy cloth made by the church, and only the holy water from the holy water pool."

"When wiping, one must do so with reverence and silently recite prayers; any act of blasphemy will invite divine punishment."

Anson took the keys with both hands, bowed his head, and said in a devout and firm voice, "I will not fail my lord's trust."

Back in his dorm, Anson placed the key on the table, sat on the edge of his bed, and let his consciousness sink into his mental sea.

The data on the panel flowed silently at the edge of my field of vision.

Special item detected: Key to the Holy Icon, a sixth-level divine artifact.

[Function: Activate the faith pool at the idol's base and monitor and maintain the protective runes]

[WARNING: The key contains tracking runes that will send a signal when used.]

Anson's lips curled into a slight smile. Tracking runes? To the panel, this level of encryption was like a child's scribbles.

With a slight thought, a wisp of his spiritual energy transformed into subconscious runes, silently seeping into the key.

The sunburst pattern on the key's surface briefly lit up before quickly dimming.

The tracking rune was temporarily blocked; he didn't destroy it directly, but simply put it into a dormant state.

It's like covering a surveillance camera with a cloth; once the cloth is removed, the camera will continue working, but it can't see anything during that time.

The next day, just as dawn was breaking.

As soon as the morning bells of the Cathedral of Holy Light rang for the first time, Anson, dressed in a brand-new white deacon's robe and holding a silver key, came to the foot of the statue.

A hundred-meter-tall statue stands in the center of the square, with twelve golden halos slowly rotating in the morning light.

He looked up and saw that the face of the statue was both compassionate and majestic, as if it were truly looking down upon all living beings.

"Hmph! You're really lucky to have me clean your idols."

Yesterday, when Thomas personally handed over the task of wiping the idol to him, all the clergy in the church were envious.

This is an honor that only the most devout believers favored by the gods can possess. Moreover, this duty comes with an access that only bishops can obtain: to inspect the faith pool beneath the statue.

Ansen looked at the luminous mark on the token, and probed it with his fingertip spiritual power. A golden light shot out and slid into the gap in the base.

With a soft "click," a half-person-high stone slab on the left side of the statue's base silently slid open, revealing stone steps leading underground.

A rich aura of holy light surged out from beneath the stone steps; this was the scent of an extremely strong power of faith.

Anson took a deep breath, suppressed the pounding in his heart, and stepped inside.

The underground space was even more spacious than he had imagined, about half the size of a football field. The dome arched and the walls were inlaid with holy crystals, illuminating the entire space in every detail.

In the very center of the space, a round stone platform about the height of a person supports a golden pool about ten feet wide. This is the core of the entire province's faith—the Faith Pool.

Anson's gaze was instantly drawn to the pool.

The pool was surrounded by countless fine, hair-like golden runes.

These runes seemed to come alive, slowly flowing along the pool wall. With each rotation, countless tiny specks of light surged from the void and poured into the pool.

The power of faith within the entire pool surged gently, like a boiling golden ocean.

This is the faith that tens of millions of believers in the entire province send over every day, and every drop of it is enough for ordinary cultivators to fight tooth and nail for.

"Is this the place where the entire province's faith is collected?"

Anson slowly approached and gently touched the runes on the pool wall with his fingertips.

The moment his fingertips touched the runes, the panel in his mind trembled slightly, and a line of pale gold text appeared.

[Level 6 Complex Divine Array Detected: Faith Gathering Divine Array]

[Level 6 Complex Divine Array Detected: Faith Gathering Divine Array]

[Function: Gathers the faith power of all believers within the region, filters out impurities, and transmits it to the Astral God Kingdom]

[Analysis progress: 1%...2%...]

A level six composite divine array! Anson's pupils contracted slightly.

Outside the statue, there is a huge faith-harvesting array that gathers faith here and then transmits it to the divine kingdom.

No wonder his little scrambles on the Sacred Stone Slab were so easy before. Compared to this, that little harvesting array before was just child's play.

This is very likely a level-six divine array left behind by the incarnation of the God of Light, the lifeline of the entire province's faith.

If anything goes wrong here, the God of Light in the Astral Realm will probably sense it immediately.

He dared not linger, but merely pretended to walk around the pool, reaching out to touch the wall to check for any signs of decay.

This is the church's prescribed inspection procedure, and he has to do it properly.

Just five minutes later, he turned around and strode up the stone steps, closing the hidden door again as if nothing had happened.

Once up there, Anson breathed a sigh of relief, raised his hand to cast a lightness spell on himself, and his body floated up lightly.

He picked up the holy water and holy cloth that had been prepared beforehand and began to wipe the hundred-meter-tall statue of the God of Light.

His movements were precise, his expression devout, and his lips moved silently as he recited the special prayer for wiping the idol.

Starting from the statue's feet, the holy cloth was used to gently wipe the dust from its head to the stone.

Early-rising cultivators who passed by and saw this scene couldn't help but show expressions of admiration and envy.

This benefactor was indeed the most devout.

No one knew that while Ansen was cleaning the statue, he was rapidly reviewing the array structure of the faith pool in his mind.

What he was going to do was to secretly insert a set of interception runes at the very bottom of that level six divine array, and secretly divert a portion of the faith flowing toward the God of Light.

This is practically like pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth. The slightest mistake could trigger the divine array's warning, and the entire high command of the Church of Light, and even the God of Light of the Astral Realm, would instantly discover his presence.

But he was full of confidence, relying on the rune knowledge that the wizarding civilization had developed over countless years, as well as the runes of the cosmic subconscious, he was sure he could succeed.

From that day on, Anson's life became a routine of going back and forth between three points, extremely regular.

By day, he was the most dazzling genius in the church, learning new divine spells such as [Holy Light Judgment] and [Divine Blessing] from the church's high-ranking priests.

He mastered divine spells that others took one or two months to learn, in just three or four days. He could even optimize the power of the spells, which amazed even the archbishop.

In the afternoon, he went to the confessional, sat behind a small cubicle, and listened to believers come in one by one to confess their sins, listen to their suffering, and record their emotional changes.

On the surface, it's to enlighten believers, but in reality, it's to collect emotional data about faith and refine the parameters of its interception runes.

As night fell and the entire church fell asleep, Anson would sneak out, take the token, open the secret door again, and slip into the underground pool of faith space.

Every time he went in, it felt like he was walking a tightrope.

The first thing he had to do each time was to use subconscious runes to gradually spread out a shielding force field, completely hiding his aura so that the detection mechanism of the level six divine array would not detect it.

This process cannot be rushed, otherwise it will leave traces.

Once the shielding is in place, that's the most dangerous part: recording and intercepting runes.

The array patterns in the Faith Pool are level six, extremely precise, with the position and angle of each rune requiring absolute accuracy.

Anson did not intend to destroy or tamper with the runes, but rather to parasitize the intercepted runes within the divine array, like vines entwining a tree, silently merging into it.

The proportion of faith that is intercepted should not be too high, otherwise it will attract attention.

10% is a delicate number; it won't affect the normal operation of the idol, yet it allows him to make a fortune.

More importantly, he also had to do a second thing: distort the fluctuations.

The panel has analyzed the fluctuation range of the divine array and generated a "simulation program" in reverse.

The program's function is to simultaneously simulate an equal amount of false fluctuations to fill the gap when the diversion rune intercepts faith.

It's like secretly scooping a ladle of water from a river and simultaneously pouring in another ladle of water that is exactly the same color, temperature, and flow rate.

The monitoring system always detects "normal river flow".

The whole process was difficult yet exciting.

His interception and simulation runes must be perfectly embedded in the gaps of the original array patterns, without damaging any of the original runes, otherwise the divine array will instantly trigger an alarm.

For each rune, Anson had to concentrate his mental energy to the extreme, painstakingly carving out the microscopic runes that only he could understand.

If even one engraving is wrong, all previous efforts will be wasted, and it may even expose one's identity.

On the first night, he spent a full hour carving only the three smallest basic runes before his mental energy was completely exhausted.

He dared not stay any longer, so he quickly closed the hidden door, slipped back to his room, lay on the bed, and closed his eyes to meditate and recover his energy.

He can only work for one hour a day, which is the maximum time the key can be used to open the door.

The passage will automatically close after one hour, and he must leave, so his progress each day is very limited.

On the first day, he only carved three runes; on the second day, five; on the third day, seven...

On one occasion, he was only halfway through carving when he suddenly heard the footsteps of patrolling guards outside, which startled Anson so much that he instantly held his breath and hid in the shadows behind the pool.

The guards simply circled the area and walked away. Anson noticed that the back of his clothes was soaked with sweat.

And so, time passed day by day.

Every day he would first wipe the idols, then learn new magic spells, and go to the confessional. Even the archbishop praised him for becoming more and more calm and devout.

His speed in inscribing runes also increased, and the interception array became more and more complete...

Late at night, one month later.

Anson slipped back into the underground space and gently placed the final stroke on the last spot on the pool wall.

After the last rune was engraved, the entire interception rune array lit up briefly, then disappeared instantly without leaving any trace.

Anson's heart skipped a beat, and he held his breath and waited.

A few seconds later, a complete line of information finally popped up on the panel in my mind.

[The interception rune array has been installed and perfectly integrated into the Faith Gathering Divine Array]

Current traffic diversion rate: 10%

[The array pattern fluctuation camouflage is complete and has been adjusted to its original frequency. No anomalies were detected by the target divine array.]

Anson stood before the pool of faith, his eyes gleaming.

It became.

He spent a month secretly transforming one-tenth of the faith in the entire province into nourishment for his own growth, right under the nose of the God of Light.

The lofty God of Light remains completely unaware of this, and the sense of accomplishment is indescribable.

Anson glanced at the churning golden pool and a slight smile played on his lips.

"God of Light, thank you. I will accept your faith without hesitation."

He carefully erased all traces, closed the hidden door, and quietly slipped back to his room.

Inside the dormitory, Ansen sat cross-legged on the stone bed, holding the colorless crystal in his palm.

Inside the crystal, the golden speck of light that was originally only the size of an egg has now expanded to the size of a fist.

The pulse of light was strong and powerful, like a real heart beating.

Panel data is refreshed in a timely manner:

[Faith power being received... Diversion rate: 10%]

Daily reception capacity: Approximately 33.3 standard units (equivalent to 10 devout believers praying throughout the day)

[Rune Disguise Status: Running normally, no anomalies detected]

Anson was overjoyed; 100,000 faiths a day would amount to 36 million a year.

This is just one node in one province; if we could connect all the nodes of the entire Divine Court…

He shook his head, suppressing the crazy idea.

One must eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time. For now, let's focus on absorbing what we have gained.

A golden thread appeared at Anson's fingertip, peeling away the layers of murky emotional impurities within the crystal, leaving only pure soul energy.

He opened his mouth and inhaled, and his mental sea instantly boiled, with various divine runes growing wildly.

Holy Light Bolt, Holy Light Shield, Touch of Light, Divine Blessing... these divine runes became increasingly clear.

Anson felt that his soul was improving at an alarming rate. At this rate, he would be able to break through to the fourth level of the Light Priest in less than three months.

It's already astonishing to go from trainee to level three in just two months. If he were to break through to level four at the same speed, he might really attract the attention of the God of Light.

"It's better to play it safe..." Anson murmured to himself.

[Faith Power Reserve: 6 Standard Units]

He looked out the window; the Cathedral of Holy Light appeared particularly cold and desolate under the moonlight in the night.

"We have enough faith, but how do we transform it into our own resources?"

This is the most crucial issue.

The core secret of the Divine Court: the specific method for converting faith into divine power, remains a mystery to him.

Anson slowly stood up, walked to the window, and the moonlight shone on his face, illuminating his deep eyes.

"If all else fails, I'll have to go out for a walk."

He needs a more advanced "sample," he needs to witness firsthand how the power of faith is transformed into divine power.

It might even require... dissecting a demigod, or an incarnation of a god.

"Hunting gods..."

A flicker of excitement crossed Anson's eyes: "That sounds... very interesting."

He definitely can't do it; ultimately, the main body has to take action.

More than four months have passed, and Ian has long since adapted to the rules of this world.

"Don't rush, let's go check out the church's library first."