Witch Troupe and the Undead

"So, Master Roch, what are we doing here?" As a guard, Alessina had to follow closely behind the two of them. This was the Holy Lord's church district, and not the Redemption faction. Those guys weren't very friendly to beastmen.

With the double debuff of being both a foreign race and a heretic, coupled with the hostile relationship between the Orcish Alliance and the Empire, the fact that they weren't driven out was already a favor to the two spellcasters.

Of course, the way the guards and church members were looking at her was less like they were looking at a person and more like they were looking at some kind of precious humanoid pet kept by a spellcaster. This made Alessina involuntarily grin, revealing her sharp teeth. For a beast-human, this kind of gaze was particularly sensitive and uncomfortable.

"They were discussing the matter of the mobile sanctuary, and the church was also ordering railway carriages. They seemed to realize that the railway was also a very good missionary medium for pilgrimages."

"They don't have entry permits, do they?"

"So, it's the carriage, not the locomotive." Roach shrugged. The carriage could be registered under the Royal Railway Company's name or under the United Merchants' name. Perhaps they thought they had a good relationship with the princess, so they wouldn't be held hostage.

"However, they have some special requirements for the carriages, and the academy is too busy to provide them because Princess Freya has placed another order for an iron castle with additional requirements."

Iron Castle is the official code name for those hovercraft or mobile castles. The professors at the academy also thought the name was very impressive. In actual use, it was completely different from the armored forces that Roach had imagined. It was more like a command vehicle or mobile command post.

Its speed is only about 9 to 10 kilometers per hour. Most of the time, it can only keep up with the troop movement by being transported by rail. However, due to its suspended chassis, it will not slow down significantly in mountainous and rugged terrain. Therefore, it is very suitable for being transported by rail to the area near the battlefield and then entering the battlefield by its own power.

To adapt to this slow speed, the military developed a very simple method called "Horse-drawn Iron Fortress". Due to the suspended chassis, a row of heavy draft horses in front can increase the speed. After entering the combat zone, this speed does not affect its operation and use.

In field battles, it serves as a mobile command post and the core of the fortified position. During sieges, it acts as a heavy firepower point to bombard fixed castles. In peacetime, it is a command vehicle suitable for commanders to observe the overall situation—it can raise its hovering height to a maximum of 15 meters, which, combined with the height of the vehicle itself, is equivalent to the height of a watchtower on the battlefield.

"Oh~" Livia wasn't very interested in this. She didn't have much feeling about the church or faith. She could be said to be the same type as Roach who "doesn't believe in anything".

“Well…” Alessina looked at Livia, then at Roach, “You…” “For safety’s sake, you know, there’s been a lot of commotion lately about the Inquisition. What if there’s an attack by fanatics…” At the very least, Livia is a powerful fighter, especially when it comes to magical combat.

"Hmm!" The little witch puffed out her chest seriously, patted Roach and Alessina's arms, her face full of a confident "leave it to me" expression. Alessina glanced at her staff and nodded slightly. If they were fighting outside attackers in a church, a facility with its own fortifications and defenses, then the little witch's combat prowess was indeed reliable.

She's like the Air Force; with and without air superiority, she's a completely different person. With air superiority, she can blow everything up; without air superiority, she can be blown up by everything, or at least be so scared that she has to crouch down and cover her head in fear.

Roach is like the navy; he spends the most money and it seems to be of little use, but he can either evaporate the fate of the enemy or the fate of his own country in an afternoon. Grand Duke Fresso probably really felt this way—a spinning flamethrower tank evaporated the fate of the Grand Duke's army in less than an hour.

Meanwhile, Grand Duke Carol, who was being brutally beaten in Rye Valley, probably felt it even more deeply. Master Roach's Iron Castle was evaporating his family's wealth, power, and national fortune at an extremely high rate every second.

"Master Roach and Princess Livia~" The person in charge of receiving them was a middle-aged priest, who was warm but reserved. Priests may vary greatly in their personal character, but their acting skills are definitely superb, especially the priests in the chapel area.

"Please follow me, His Holiness the Bishop has been waiting for a long time." The priest led the group through a dense hedge to a small chapel at the back of the church district. This chapel was not open to the public and was the church's own prayer and activity area. The first floor of the chapel was the main hall, but Roach and his group went to a small reception room on the second floor on the side, where servants had already prepared herbal tea and desserts.

"Nice to meet you, I am Ronse." The elderly man in casual clothes stood up to greet the two and invite them to sit down.

"Well, I'm curious, Your Excellency, it's just a matter of a carriage. You didn't need to invite me here specifically, or even bother the academy." That's exactly what Roach was curious about. Normally, a project like a mobile church carriage could be done in any workshop in the capital. The locomotive, being a magical machine, had to be manufactured by the academy, but there were plenty of factories and workshops in the capital that could make carriages.

"But you still came, which means you already have a general idea in mind, right?"

"Well, this means that what you're doing isn't just decorating a carriage like a church, but something more complex, or even something that can't be made public."

“Yes…” The bishop picked up his teacup and took a sip of tea. Livia also became particularly curious about this herbal tea and stirred the orange tea with a spoon.

"The herbs are cultivated with blessed water, a specialty of the church, and you can't buy them outside." The tea leaves are just ordinary tea leaves, but the slender white leaves mixed in are unfamiliar, exuding a kind of holy aura, but it's just an aura, and doesn't seem to have any special function or effect.

"Let's get straight to the point. What the church needs is not an ordinary carriage, but a carriage of consecration. Not all priests and pastors have the power of divine grace, so they largely need to rely on the resonance of a sanctuary building like a church to unleash the corresponding holy magic."

The idea that "this is indeed a reason" is not unfamiliar knowledge to superhumans, especially spellcasters, but it is different for ordinary people.

"Therefore, what we need is not a carriage decorated like a church, but a carriage that can truly function as a church. In other words, the entire carriage needs to be consecrated and can truly resonate."

The older the church building, the stronger this atmosphere becomes. In such a place, the chaotic beliefs and spiritual forces will gradually transform into divine power that can be utilized. For priests who do not have divine grace or blessings, they can borrow this power through specific sacred rituals.

For example, it can create holy water, soothe the soul, provide protection, and ward off evil spirits. The older the church and the more people there are, the more obvious these effects become. This is why most churches are keen to build large temple buildings. It's not just about spiritual and religious effects; it actually has real supernatural effects.

“This involves the secrets of the Church, so it cannot be entrusted to the workshop to complete. At the very least, the crucial parts cannot be done this way,” the bishop said. Because as long as the procedures of the sacred ritual are followed, anyone can use this sacred power, even if it can only be done in a sacred place like a church.

"Is divine power so casual?" Roach frowned. From the bishop's explanation, individual miracles require divine grace to activate, but group miracles do not require divine grace. As long as the process of the sacred ritual is followed, they can be completed. Of course, the core logic of this phenomenon is not difficult to understand.

Even if a mortal is just a grain of sand, when there are enough grains of sand, it is enough to attract the attention of the gods. Moreover, religious activities and places themselves have mystical significance.

"No, that's not true. While sacred rituals can certainly reduce the difficulty of casting spells and allow clergy without divine favor to borrow divine power, this borrowing is very limited. I'm sorry I can't tell you the specifics, but I can tell you that such sacred rituals and venues can only produce effects that do not involve specific objects, and the range of miracles that can be performed is inversely proportional to the content."

"For example, believers entering the church feel a sense of peace, which is a continuous and sacred ritual of a perpetual nature. This is the basis for our design requirements. I don't know if mobile carriages and simple furnishings can achieve the same effect. This requires experimentation, but the church currently lacks the manpower and space to conduct such tests. Most importantly..."

"This matter must not be known to ordinary people" because if ordinary workshop owners and workers knew how to set up a proper church sanctuary, then they would not go to church to worship.

Most people don't need real miraculous effects—if setting up a sacred ritual space at home can achieve the most basic effects of warding off evil and calming the mind, who would go to church?

The inability to organize believers for collective activities means that the church has lost most of its voice. Today's church is no longer a simple religious organization, but a political group. Losing public voice is an unacceptable outcome for them.

“Hmm, I’ll make time to finish this part.” Roach thought for a moment and decided to take on the commission, because he was also very curious about miracles and divine power. Moreover, compared to other alchemists, he had one major advantage—he had actually seen a god and possessed a genuine divine artifact.

If magic doesn't work, perhaps I could try the path of holy magic and divine power? Livia, who was standing to the side, finally finished the plate of desserts. She looked like she had come specifically for afternoon tea, but she also showed some interest when she heard about the design of the mobile sanctuary.

After reaching a consensus, the bishop personally escorted the two high-level spellcasters out the door. As for Alessina, who was standing next to them, she felt that the other party did not pay attention to her at all, or rather, deliberately ignored her, as if she were just a potted plant.

"Tsk~" The beast-human girl made a very displeased sound. Even so, the bishop and even the busy people in the church did not look at her, as if she did not exist, or as if they would be contaminated by something indescribable if they looked at her even once.

"That's why I hate these charlatans in human kingdoms!"

"So you beastmen of Alessinia wouldn't do that? I mean, the sacred ritual?" "Ah, you mean the ritual of the spirits, right?" Alessina shrugged. "We believe in the spirits, which is why these human nations are always hostile to us." Among these spirits are benevolent holy spirits, and naturally, there are also evil spirits infected by savage magic that almost all pantheons would attack.

Of course, for orc shamans, appeasing the holy spirits and borrowing the power of the spirits to expel evil spirits is also a daily task. However, due to the influence of tradition and objective environment, most of the time, as long as the cost is not too high, they will compromise with these evil spirits.

“The land of the beastmen is covered with high mountains and dense forests. The savage magic is almost impossible to eradicate. Countless souls have been infected by the power of savage chaos. If we were to exterminate every evil spirit like humans do, they would not be able to live.” Livia said softly, then gently stood on tiptoe and patted Alessina’s head.

"I see. So, you all actually know how to set up a sacred ceremony?"

“Yes, actually there’s not much difference… Of course, there are still differences in the details.” Alessina glanced at the majestic church. “Our blessing ceremonies mostly don’t require such elaborate buildings; they only need to fulfill the basic symbolic elements, but…”

The spirits are not gods after all. They do not have high requirements for rituals, nor can they give much power. For the beastmen, these rituals are only used on specific holidays and when absolutely necessary.

"Basically, qualified beast-demon warriors, at least at the captain level, can perform the Spirit Ritual. I've seen it a few times; it's mainly used after battles to soothe the soul and prevent it from becoming an undead creature and rising up on beast-demon lands..."

“There are a lot of undead,” Livia said, then emphasized again, “a lot.”

“Yes, just like the young lady said, there are a lot of undead creatures where we are. Some of the souls that have regained their memories of their previous lives even attach themselves to totems and live with the living,” Alessina said. “In addition, we also have a belief in gods, but… neither the Earth Goddess nor the Three Gods of Death are as…” She was trying to find a word to describe the difference between them.

"Pretentious?" "Yes, um, no, it should be that there is no emphasis on rituals and details, nor is there any deliberate concealment from everyone." The sacred rituals of the Earth Goddess are public.

Although no one considers it a sacred ceremony—every year, regardless of country or ethnicity, people spontaneously hold such a large-scale sacred ceremony on a certain day in spring to receive the blessing of the goddess and ensure a good harvest for the year, even in pioneering villages and remote villages.

However, due to the lack of a fixed sanctuary to restrain and collect divine power, the effect of this ritual... can only be described as slightly better than psychological comfort. It can only alleviate some minor impacts on the harvest—if you really don't take good care of your crops all year, you will still have no harvest when autumn comes.

As for the Grim Reaper, the Grim Reaper's sacred ritual is a funeral ceremony, which each person only needs to use once in their lifetime. And normal people would not want to hold the Grim Reaper's sacred ritual when they have nothing to do. The greatest miraculous effect of the Grim Reaper's sacred ritual is to make people completely dead.

Therefore, the sacred rituals of the two deities mentioned above are basically public and semi-public. Of course, their priests are not worried about no one coming to the church to worship. The church of the Earth Goddess is a sealed place. Anyone who knows this inside story will not let you go to see it, and you should be worried instead.

The church or sanctuary of death is the cemetery and the resting place of gravediggers. Rest assured, you'll have to go at least once in your life, no matter what—from long-lived dragons to short-lived dwarfs, there's no escaping it. If you have many family members who died young, you might go more times than some devout believers.

Why is Chapter 250 called a "Table of Contents"?

“Your Excellency, why are we doing this? I mean, the leak of the consecration ceremony is very damaging to the Church…”

“We have to do this. Our struggle with those heretics is now completely inevitable. These pilgrimage groups need these consecration carriages.” The bishop finished the last of his vanilla tea. “And there’s another reason…” His expression twitched, but he still said it. “We’ve lost a lot of real estate and church assets. We don’t have enough funds and land to build real churches anymore. The royal family won’t let the church control more real estate.”

"It seems that the original doctrine of prohibiting priests and believers from gambling is correct..." People used to disagree, but now they all feel that this is definitely a lesson learned from the mistakes of their predecessors, but later generations have gradually forgotten the painful lessons.

The construction of mobile churches was partly driven by the needs of the pilgrimage groups, and partly by the church's uncertainty about the empire's attitude. In case the empire were to reclaim the real estate and churches, these mobile churches would be a good alternative, and would also be less susceptible to imperial sanctions—priests can run away, but churches can not; now churches can run away too, let's see what you do!

Imperial Academy, Testing Grounds.

"The Mobile Church? Professor Roach, why did you choose such a strange name? Catalogue?"

“Just picked them randomly.” Roach shrugged, then distributed the materials he had taken from the church to his companions. Livia was already reading the thick document on the sacred ritual, many parts of which were blacked out, which greatly increased the difficulty for Roach and his team in deciphering the sacred ritual.

The little witch unfolded the ancient parchment scrolls one by one, her fair fingertips gently caressing the black parts. The black ink automatically rolled upwards, and the deliberately obscured words crawled out from the torn gaps, like a swarm of black worms twisting and crawling on the paper.

The words leaped off the paper and landed on another prepared sheet of white paper, squeezing in among the other words. "All done~" Livia handed over the "transcribed" information.

"Oh, that makes things much simpler. Hmm? Why is there only so little content?"

"Perhaps the sacred rituals can only go this far~" Here are five basic sacred rituals. The "Sacred Breath" ritual, used for the entire sanctuary, uses the aura of the gods to envelop the entire building and the area around it, suppressing the erosion of savage magic. This is also why not only the Church of Death, but almost all churches have the function of managing cemeteries.

However, compared to the Church of Death's permanent solution, this divine breath is merely a shield, preventing the invasion of chaotic magic from the outside world and turning corpses into undead. If the church is abandoned or the ritual is destroyed, the church that originally granted peace to the dead will instead become a nest of various undead creatures and twisted monsters.

“No wonder, in many adventure stories, there are a lot of monsters in these abandoned churches. I thought it was just the artistic embellishment of bards~” Roach flipped through the data collection in his hand. The ritual of the Holy Breath is not difficult. Even if you are not a spellcaster, you can set it up. It’s just that the cost may be beyond the affordability of most families.

“Pure silver and pure crystal can be substituted,” Livia said as she read the contents of the ritual. The little witch looked puzzled. Why not use cheaper materials when they could be substituted?

"Because it's unnecessary. Churches can afford pure silver, and if ordinary materials were used instead, ordinary people could easily set up such sacred ceremonies."

"However, ordinary people probably wouldn't be interested in using such a ritual, would they?" People living in cities generally don't have to worry about the erosion of savage magic, while those living outside the city simply don't have the funds or ability to set it up. Even using the cheapest materials would exceed the limits that an average farming family can afford.

"Even if you replace pure silver with mixed silver, it's still silver." A tube of mixed silver powder, or rather, scraps of inferior silver ore, is at least the weight of two or three copper coins. A bottle of ink used to draw sacred runes requires not only silver powder but also a small amount of crystal powder, and is mixed with monster blood.

One bottle of ink is just enough to draw all the sacred symbols. If you make a mistake, you may need to buy a second bottle. For the average farmer and craftsman, if you make three mistakes on these more than one hundred symbols, the cost of this stuff will start to increase rapidly.

"Since it doesn't involve any individual's extraordinary subjective manipulation, we can consider direct photomask printing." The printing method in this world is completely different from that on Earth. Roach had originally been thinking about whether he could improve the printing technique, but after the visit, he gave up on that idea.

Because printed materials contain genuine supernatural power, if engraving is used, then the engraving itself becomes a supernatural rune plate. Although an unactivated and unenchanted rune plate will not be effective...

However, given the magical tides in the world's background, it's quite normal for accidental touches to occur—so it's not uncommon for a printing press to accidentally turn into a giant fireball while printing magical materials.

Therefore, in the printing of extraordinary content, this world uses mask printing, which simply means breaking down the rune structure into several layers of hollow mask, and using a focusing crystal to irradiate it, similar to chip manufacturing on Earth, to imprint complex rune structures onto thick artificial parchment.

Because they are printed in layers, the three-dimensional structure of these runes is discrete in nature and does not form a magic circuit. Then, just in case, these indentations are filled with ink with a resistive effect to ensure that the words do not suddenly catch fire in the library, or cause irreversible damage to the reader's mind and body due to forming some kind of incomplete spell.

However, the cost and operating expenses of this device are very high. Only the Imperial Academy can use this method to mass-print exam papers and textbooks. Most mages outside still honestly copy books.

Most spellbooks are stable spells in themselves, and the text inside is just a ritual component of the spell and has no meaning in itself. A true spellbook is the culmination of a mage's lifetime of work.

Therefore, the mages who copied the texts needed to first analyze the contents, converting the spells composed of words into standard characters and rune sets that could be analyzed, and then rearrange these into readable and researchable content and transcribe them into their own notebooks.

To avoid triggering certain deadly unknown spells during this process, they usually don't write the text completely, but instead use metaphors or codes at key points.

Thus, the study and deciphering of sorcerers' notes and spellbooks made most sorcerers half "cryptographers" and half "folklorists".

Some highly complex spellbooks are so difficult that you can't read or understand them at all without referring to the corresponding notes. Conversely, if you obtain a note from an ancient archmage but don't know which spellbook it transcribed, you'll be completely confused.

Of course, if it's a witch like Livia who can physically silence these "noisy words," then it won't have much of an impact.

"Will the academy be able to sell sacred runes in bulk in the future?"

"Let's not. Although Ms. Elena isn't afraid of trouble from the Church, neither we nor the students of the academy can stay here forever." We'll definitely be targeted and retaliated against. Besides, the academy isn't short of gold coins; there's no need to cause such a big problem.

"However, Professor Roach, it's fine if you want to keep it for yourselves. I don't think the church will make things difficult for you." After all, neither high-level alchemists nor witches are afraid of ordinary evil spirits.

They had no need for the church's services, and the church wasn't worried about them mass-producing and distributing them everywhere—logically speaking, the craftsmanship fees for witches and high-level alchemists, calculated at market prices, were higher than the cost of building a typical chapel.

"Let's deal with this sacred breath ritual field first. Hopefully, it won't fail due to the movement of the supporting substrate." A female archmage thought that no matter what, it would be better to give it a try first, since the academy happened to have such a high-precision "printing device".

In just a few minutes, the printing of these more than one hundred unfamiliar sacred symbols can be completed. Then, the printed parts are assembled, filled with sacred ink, installed on an ordinary carriage, and then the effect of moving around is tested.

The process didn't take too much time or effort. "There wasn't a big problem. The effect of Divine Breath weakened a bit when moving at low speeds, but overall it was acceptable."

“And it seems to be a good thing for trains and railways…” Professor Wilder observed the supernatural marks on the tracks. “The entire ritual site is essentially a special kind of magic that constantly mixes the condensed faith and spiritual magic into a kind of divine power and releases it out, like some kind of smoke, enveloping the buildings and facilities.”

"So, once it starts moving, it'll be like a chimney on the front of a train?" Roach understood why it was considered a good thing for trains and railways.

"Yes, it's like some kind of incense burner. This section of the rails is imbued with divine energy, which is very beneficial to the lifespan of the rails." This is because it will resist the erosion of chaotic magic, preventing the rails from corroding faster when the usage rate is low, and it can also further strengthen the magical structure of order along the railway line.

"But this requires faith and prayer. There won't be many believers inside when the train carriages are moving..." During the test, students who believe in the Holy Lord prayed inside to simulate the effect. The generated divine breath effect was very weak, but for the experimental group, it was enough as long as it could be observed.

The remaining four sacred rituals are the ritual of consecrating holy water, the ritual of making a sacred covenant, the ritual of soothing the soul, and the ritual of soothing the soul with sacred objects.

Considering the cost of the materials used in making the holy water, it wasn't very useful to the academy or Roach. However, the little witch was quite interested in it because, in her view, the holy water was just a special kind of magic potion.

Different deities' "holy water" has its own function. For example, the holy water produced by the Church of the Earth Goddess is not much different from fertilizer, and it also has the effect of purifying chaotic magic. The holy water of the Church of the Dark Night is a true "purification potion" in the true sense, not the kind that can only temporarily suppress, but a potion that literally washes away sins.

It is generally used by unfortunate people who have been released from prison, or by those who have died from torture, to prevent the sinful magic from completely corrupting their souls, signifying that they have redeemed all their sins.

As for the Holy Water of the Holy Lord Church, it has the widest range of uses. Its uses are healing and purification. It can purify the effects of magical corruption and dispel evil spirits. Most importantly, it has a healing effect. Although the effect is much weaker than that of real healing potions, it is also much cheaper.

Holy covenants are mediums used by clergy to enhance divine grace spells. They belong to the church system as "magical tools" and "enchanted equipment." However, instead of magic power, they are infused with faith and divine grace. This is the type of equipment the church is least worried about leaking out—after all, it is similar to the enchanted equipment of alchemists, requiring a large amount of magical materials and rare metals to manufacture. The infusion of faith power is actually the most insignificant part of it.

The ritual of appeasing sacred objects is actually a resurrection and replenishment ceremony, corresponding to the Holy Covenant. In this environment, the Holy Covenant and sacred objects used by the Church can reduce the loss of divine power and can even replenish divine power in reverse. Therefore, the longer an ancient sacred object has been worshipped, the more powerful it is.

"This sacred ritual to soothe the soul..." Ms. Elena and Livia both looked at the ritual materials, their brows furrowed, then they exchanged a glance. "It's an imitation of spiritual rituals, using divine power to mimic the workings of magic... a method."

"So, this isn't part of holy magic, but rather a way to forcibly simulate the effects of magic using holy magic?" "Hmm, this is probably the secret the church least wants to spread..." If that's the case, then every spiritual ritualist can easily create a temple ritual with the same effect, at most just adding a layer of holy aura with external objects like holy water.

This effect, which is different from the obvious sense of incongruity and forced calming of normal mental calming rituals, is also very beneficial to the study of magic. It is evident that the monks of the church have spent a lot of time and energy in the past to improve the effect of this ritual.

"Through psychological suggestion, religious buildings, the additional effects of divine breath, and subtle adjustments to the ritual, a kind of subtle effect, different from being forcibly calmed by magic, is created. Hmm... you guys better keep your mouths shut about this."

This likely involves some less-than-open methods used by the church to develop its followers. The only effect of this subtle influence, at present, is to make people feel at peace, as if they have been influenced by the doctrines and the ancient church.

However, this is only a basic sacred ritual. To be precise, only four are sacred rituals, relying on divine power and grace, making it difficult to tamper with them. The fifth one is actually an imitation of spiritual rituals, meaning that it can be used like magical rituals by adjusting the ritual field and process, adding more steps, and further guiding the magical effect.

"The subtle influence, besides soothing the soul, can also assimilate people's spirits, especially in religious activities. Through the spiritual field formed by precepts, communal life and social interaction, there are many things that can be done. Perhaps many of the 'fanatics' we know are not self-generated, but intentionally catalyzed by the church."

Elena felt this was getting a bit tricky. This kind of thing was probably no longer just a problem of the Holy Lord Church. It was possible that all church organizations had used similar methods to catalyze and create fanatics to some extent.

As for the purpose, sometimes it is for proselytizing. A fanatical believer can greatly influence the emotions of those around them, and with the added effect of this ritual, a spiritual resonance field can be formed more quickly.

Sometimes it's for special purposes, such as when pioneering the wilderness. Without a fervent spirit to support them, most people would find it difficult to maintain their courage and fighting spirit for long when facing twisted black forests and lands full of poisonous thorns.

However, sometimes, they resort to dark practices, such as inciting fanatics to oppose secular regimes and other hostile church organizations, and even organizing heretical trials.

“If we can’t load this onto the carriage, we’ll say we’ve already tried it and it’s not feasible,” Elena said resolutely.