Just became an evil god and was summoned by the saint

Since we've already participated, let's give it our best.

"I heard that Miss Celia went on another commission. She's really diligent. I wonder how well she fared this time."

As a candidate, Benovia was forbidden from inquiring about other candidates, but some gossip still managed to reach her ears.

At this moment, she was kneeling on a straw mat, looking at the idol in front of her.

The image of the deity is indistinct and blurry.

Even Benovia didn't know whose idol it was.

She only knew that the people who gave away the idols were mysterious, but what they did had nothing to do with paganism.

Regardless of which deity it is, they are all righteous gods, and there's no harm in making offerings to them.

Looking at the statue, Benovia suddenly laughed: "Hehe, as a Holy Maiden of the Holy Court, I am offering prayers to other gods. I wonder what the Holy Lord and Father would say if they knew?"

She shook her head: "But no one will know."

"Not always."

A voice suddenly came.

"Who?"

Benovia immediately turned around and flicked her wrist, summoning the puppet from her ring.

"Hello, Princess Benovia, a passing puppet."

Ross leaned against the wall, looking at the girl in front of him.

Benovia is a year younger than Celia, and among all the candidates for sainthood, she is probably the most low-key. In fact, no one knows that she is the daughter of the Ishtar royal emperor.

Even Doris, who loves to dance, didn't know, but the mysterious person in front of them, who only allows puppets to appear, did.

Upon hearing Ross directly identify her, Benovia retracted her puppet and cautiously asked, "Hello, may I ask who you are?"

Aside from the royal family and the high-ranking officials of the Holy Court, only one other place knows her identity.

Ross's demeanor was completely unlike that of someone from the royal family or the Holy Court, so there was only one possibility...

"Who I am is not important; I'm here to tell you something."

Ross looked at the statue inside the house.

This house was specifically built by Benovia to house the statue of this non-sacred deity.

Coincidentally, this place was so close to the Holy Magic Academy that every time Ross scanned the surrounding environment, he could feel a faint power of faith emanating from the statue, and that's when he noticed the girl.

Even more coincidentally, this girl is a candidate for Saintess, and even has a hidden identity. She is the young princess of the Ishtar Empire, the empire where the Holy Court is located, and she came to participate in the Saintess election in secret.

The idol she bathed and changed clothes to worship every day showed that her faith did not converge on the Holy See at all.

This indicates that it is not any of the deities worshipped within the Holy See.

It may not be any particular deity, but rather a vessel for her thoughts, which is why a trace of faith is gathered on the statue.

This is interesting.

A candidate for sainthood who doesn't believe in the gods of the Holy Court but secretly sets up a room to worship an unknown deity is comparable to the foolish saintess, Celia, who summoned an evil god.

No wonder the Holy Court fell into decline and split into four great empires.

Even the Holy Maiden doesn't believe in God, so what about the others?

So Ross approached Benovia.

He planned to use Benovia to test whether she could summon him and establish a mental connection with him like Celia did.

In order to be as accurate as possible, the candidate Ross was strictly limited to being a "saintly candidate".

However, none of the other candidates for sainthood have been at the Holy Magic Academy recently; only this princess has been there.

No, she's not here either; she's slacking off outside the school.

Hilarious, they never go to class.

As he pondered, Ross looked at the statue inside the house and slowly said, "About another use for this idol."

Benovia's expression shifted. "So you really are a member of the Hiro Society."

So this statue was made by the Herodians, no wonder.

Ross understood.

Hero would like to give people statues without telling them which god the statue represents.

Rose likes this kind of thing.

He can attach his mental energy to the statue and then trick Benovia into replicating Celia's actions.

And that's what he did.

Ross neither denied nor admitted to being a member of the Hiro Society; he simply recited Celia's instructions mechanically.

Benovia didn't hesitate and followed Ross's method directly, standing on tiptoe and touching the statue's forehead with her index finger—this statue was very large, almost a life-size figure of an adult, unlike the palm-sized ones in Bea Village.

Holy light spread across her and the statue, while Ross had already quietly projected his mental energy onto the statue.

In an instant, he immediately sensed the girl's thoughts.

"I wish to sit on the throne in place of my father. I wish everyone could have bread and meat at every meal. I wish to realize the legendary bliss of a thousand years ago. I wish..."

Uh……

Rose was a little embarrassed.

The first thought might be filial piety, but if other thoughts are added, then it makes sense.

Are all saintly women this simple and unassuming?

If I remember correctly, Ross discovered that Celia's initial wish was to eliminate the nobility and hope for equality for all.

However, this initial thought was fleeting, and she changed her mind, ultimately choosing the "lowest cost" option: helping her create a magic puppet to fulfill her wish for passing the final exam.

Ross thought of Celia, then put it out of his mind, focusing on sensing Benovia's beliefs and trying to establish a mental connection with her.

A short while later, Benovia released her grip, opened her eyes, and muttered to herself in confusion, "I feel like I've connected with something?"

Ross didn't speak because he had established a connection with him, but it was very weak. It was not as easy as Celia directly communicating or even releasing her mental energy to perceive her surroundings.

Moreover, this faint sensation was the result of his efforts to communicate.

Within the sealed land, Ross stopped attacking the sealing array, shook his head, and sighed.

"This slight connection was created by me forcibly breaking through the seal. It's nothing compared to what happened with Celia. In other words, attacking the magic circle is useless."

I feel a little regretful, but also a little unwilling to give up.

Ross unleashed all his mental energy onto the sealing array, causing the entire sealed area to shake violently and shatter the earth.

The sealing array was teetering on the brink of collapse, yet remained incredibly sturdy. In the end, he could only forcibly widen the spiritual channel by a tiny bit.

"It's still a long way from being able to descend into the spiritual space."

Ross sighed.

Just then, Benovia's words reached his ears through the puppet.

“I feel it, that connection… Is this a deity of the Hiro Order? Good! From now on, I will do this every day until the day my wish is fulfilled!”

If all goes well, it will be available on Sunday.

Chapter 62 The Magical Numbers

As usual, Celia went to class, finished class, ate meals, and returned to her dormitory.

She habitually picked up her fishing rod, then suddenly remembered Ross saying she didn't need to go fishing anymore.

"That's enough... any more fishing and the fish in the lake will disappear."

The girl put down her fishing rod.

"I feel like something's missing today..."

She looked around the dormitory, pondered for a moment, and suddenly heard the sound of the door lock being opened.

Turning my head, I saw the puppet walk in from outside.

"Mr. Ross's rant is missing."

Celia became curious and wanted to know what Ross had done with his puppet that day.

But after hesitating for a long time, she still didn't ask.

Let's pretend we don't know.

The girl thought.

Ross ignored Celia's little schemes. After entering and finding Celia there, he casually tossed the puppet aside.

"I'll go to Lake Bea this weekend to check on the progress of the summoning circle."

As he spoke, he directed Celia's gaze toward the kitchen.

"I've written a list of materials. Prepare them according to the list. These are the things you need to defeat the White Whale without fighting. Some of them should be a bit more expensive, but the rest are common magical materials."

"After confirming the summoning progress, we will decide on the priority of obtaining these materials, but in the end, we will need to gather them all."

Celia picked up the list and glanced at it, then her vision went black and she almost fainted.

"There are way too many!!"

"If you can reach Tier 2 before the white whale appears, the materials required can be halved," Ross said calmly.

"Let's try to collect these materials."

Celia looked at the list of 108 different materials with a pained expression.

As Ross said, most of the materials are common magical materials that are available at the school and can be obtained upon application.

Of the twelve materials specifically marked, half of them were completely unknown to Hilia, while the other half were learned about in materials class. Their prices were extremely high for Hilia at this stage.

"I can get most of these materials from the school, but these twelve precious medicinal herbs are hard to come by. However, some schools have them, so I can borrow some during materials class. But I've never heard of Golden Heart, Dragon Scale Stone, High-Grade Magic Crystal, Ghost Fruit... What should I do?"

"They're all basic materials; you can find them easily."

“…” Celia was silent for a moment, then pointed to the name of the material on it: “Is the Heart of Gold made by extracting magic from gold?”

"The Heart of Gold is just a name, not the essence of gold. It is a kind of ink for engraving runes. It is called the Heart of Gold because its color is like gold and its magical power is a hundred times that of gold."

"Dragon scale stone is not a stone formed from dragon scales. It is a gemstone with extremely high hardness. It got its name because dragons liked to use it to bathe."

Ross gave a brief explanation, and then said, "Circle the materials you don't recognize or find difficult."

Celia circled the twelve rare materials, thought for a moment, and then crossed out three of them. "These three can be purchased from the Sorcerer's Guild. I have just enough money right now."

As she spoke, Celia couldn't help but complain, "Why is it always the number twelve? Twelve main gods, twelve heretics, twelve archbishops, twelve kinds of materials... even the courses are twelve. I feel like I'm trapped by the number twelve."

"I don't know, maybe you've discovered the essence of the world."

Ross remained calm. He had complained about this setting when playing games before, as many things were related to the number twelve. For example, a mission would require you to go to three places and find three items... until the number twelve was met before it ended.

It can only be understood as a quirk of the planner, or a special quirk of the creator god.

Fortunately, the game didn't actually require that many materials; it only mentioned that over a hundred types were needed. However, the quest NPCs had already collected most of them, so Ross only needed to get the twelve rare ones.

Like now, there's a whole bunch of materials listed, most of which are common materials, such as white velvet, the sweat of a first-tier mage...

"Of the remaining nine materials, you can apply to your principal for three of them. You've done him a great favor, so there shouldn't be any problem applying for them for research. The other three can be obtained from the Temple of Shining Ashes. They just took inventory of High Priest Dylan's stolen goods, and they were among them."

Ross crossed out the six materials, highlighting the Heart of Gold, Dragon Scale Stone, and Ghost Fruit. "Of these three materials, the Heart of Gold is easy to find. Benovia, another candidate for saintess, has some. Go ask her for some."

"Huh? Ask Benovia for it? There's no way she'd give it to you."

"That's usually how it is, but there are exceptions. In that case, you only need to say three words, and she will give it to you."

"Which three words?" Celia asked curiously.

Ross didn't answer, but looked at the other two materials. "Dragonscale Stone and Ghost Fruit are more difficult to deal with. One is distributed in the areas where dragons live, and the other only grows in places where there are many dead people."

“There are quite a few dead…” Celia pondered for a moment, “There’s a heretical cult that likes to sacrifice believers in exchange for divine favor. Could that heretical cult’s strongholds be expanding?”

"What teaching?"

"The Twilight Cult, which believes in a god of death who can bring twilight to the gods, is most fond of gathering people for sacrifices and is the heresy most hated by the Holy Court."