Chapter 81: Time to Cultivate

Chapter 81: Time to Cultivate

Early the following morning, Wood, accompanied by his wife Elena and daughter Camilla, saw Madam Jenny, Karen, and their party onto the cargo ship.

As the ship departed the harbor and Karen prepared to return to his cabin, Madam Jenny deliberately walked up to him and asked,

"I heard you and Wood were drinking together last night?"

Karen replied, "I was drinking orange juice."

"Wood is a very straightforward man. He doesn’t really harbor any malice, at least not toward his own people."

"Yes, I felt that. Mr. Wood is a very good man."

"And what about Camilla?" Madam Jenny suddenly inquired.

"Camilla? Who is that?"

"Wood's daughter."

"Oh, so that is her name."

Madam Jenny stared intently at Karen;

Karen, however, maintained a face of genuine bewilderment.

After a brief moment,

A faint smile graced the corner of Madam Jenny’s lips as she said, "When we boarded the ship just now to say goodbye, I noticed the way Elena and Camilla looked at you was a little peculiar."

"Is that so? I didn't notice."

Madam Jenny tapped her own nose. "Camilla even took out her nose ring, and didn’t you notice the clothes she wore today were a bit too demure, even if she isn't accustomed to such attire yet?"

"Madam, I believe staring at other young ladies is rather discourteous behavior."

Madam Jenny leaned forward, bringing her mouth close to Karen's ear;

Karen caught the scent of her warm perfume.

"You must always remember that you are engaged to Eunice, a match settled by both of your grandfathers."

"I always remember, Madam."

"Good." Madam Jenny stepped back slightly and continued, "Very good."

Madam Jenny turned to return to her room. Eunice stepped forward to help her mother carry her coat, but Madam Jenny pushed her hand away.

"Go help your man carry his!"

Eunice paused where she stood, offering Karen an apologetic smile.

Nearby, Purr, who was sprawled atop the golden retriever, batted the dog's ear twice with her paw and whispered,

"As soon as someone comes to fight for the food bowl, the meal suddenly tastes much better."

Eunice accompanied Karen into his room and began helping him make the bed. Once finished, she said to him, "Don't take my mother's words to heart."

"I won't." Karen shook his head. "In fact, I quite enjoyed hearing them."

This was likely a matter of differing perspectives. From a male standpoint, a future mother-in-law telling you to stay away from her daughter versus telling her own daughter to keep a tight leash on you;

The latter was undoubtedly much more pleasant to hear.

Eunice stepped forward and took the initiative to embrace Karen.

Purr, who had just entered while riding on the dog's back, witnessed this and slapped the golden retriever's other ear, causing the miserable dog to droop both ears in resignation.

"Splendid, everyone has a strong sense of competition."

They embraced for a long while before Eunice finally left the room.

Karen sat down on the adjacent chair. Purr leaped onto the freshly made bed, and when the golden retriever whimpered and tried to clamber up, Purr glared at it.

"Do you honestly think you belong on the bed?"

"Whimper~"

The golden retriever reluctantly slunk over to the corner and lay down.

Purr lay sideways on the bed, batting her paws in the air,

And said,

"All the way home, I have felt the sheer stupidity of my family."

If they weren't stupid, they couldn't have managed the family into such a state.

"Yet, I feel a bit fortunate, and even hope they can all be as foolish as Wood. After all, stupidity isn't terrifying, as long as it's charmingly stupid."

Wood's personality, strictly speaking, truly did not fit the standard of a direct descendant of a prominent family. He was too impulsive, and far too emotional;

While such a temperament made for a wonderful friend, it made it difficult to accomplish great things, let much less restore the family to its former glory.

If you want to be willful, fine;

If you want to follow your whims, that is also fine;

But the prerequisite is that you must at least possess Dis's strength. After provoking the Church of Order, he could still shelter his family so they could continue living a peaceful and stable life.

The rise of a family undoubtedly requires a great number of people to hack through thorns and make personal sacrifices, but similarly, maintaining a family's status requires various forms of dedication.

Wood did not meet this criteria; the highest achievement of his life would merely be a smuggling boss on an island.

But his performance left Purr very satisfied. If she weren't currently a cat, Purr really wanted to pat him on the shoulder and tell him he was a lovely descendant of his old ancestor.

"Karen, the ship will reach the port of York City tomorrow morning, and then by carriage, we'll arrive at the Allen Estate around mid-to-late afternoon. I hope those folks at home are also this charmingly foolish type.

You know, in this world, what is most feared is neither the truly clever nor the truly foolish, but those who think they are clever when they are actually fools."

"Have your expectations for your family fallen this low?" Karen teased.

"Because I have placed the hope of family revival upon you." Purr stated as if it were a matter of course. "Didn't I say it before? You are no longer an evil god."

"But I did inexplicably snatch a body prepared by an evil god."

"That is far too high above for me to see. Humans... no, cats are like this too: fearing the immediate darkness, yet yearning for the boundless starry sky.

Plus, I think you're a good person, Karen, really, you're a good person;

Though you are a refined egoist, you have always maintained a baseline."

"Are you praising me?"

"Of course."

"I think we can save some words on these matters for now."

"As long as one drinks water and eats food, words won't run dry." Purr said, "I haven't spoken as much in the past ten years as I have with you these past few months. Dis was fine when he was young, but as he grew older, he didn't like talking to me anymore.

Of course, it might also be because the height Dis stood at and the things he looked upon were already somewhat beyond my understanding."

Karen spread open his notebook, set down his fountain pen, and turned to face Purr who was lying on the bed.

Influenced by Karen's solemn demeanor, Purr naturally sat up straight as well.

Karen spoke, "We are about to arrive in Wien. Actually, we are already considered to be in Wien now."

"Indeed."

"So, there is an important matter that I believe we can start preparing for now."

"Such as?"

"My induction as a divine servant."

Pu'er nodded. "Of course, naturally. How could I ever bear to see you neglect your cultivation? Tell me then, have you decided which path of the system you wish to walk?"

"Dis never spoke to me of such things," Karen said.

"Dis told me that if I ever secretly purified you, he would cast me into the sea."

"It is permitted now."

"Indeed it is."

The man and the cat sat facing each other.

Some three minutes drifted by in silence.

"Do not tell me," Karen murmured, "that you have never once considered how to guide my cultivation?"

Pu'er let out a sharp cry. "Why in the world should I have spent my time pondering how Dis's grandson ought to cultivate!"

"So you are entirely unprepared?"

"Well... improvising on the spot is perfectly fine, isn't it?"

"From what I have read and witnessed, I possess a fleeting knowledge. Let me ask you now: how many divisions of these systems truly exist?"

"Many," Pu'er answered with gravity. "In this world, it is not merely the orthodox ecclesiastical systems. Though, to be sure, the church systems are undoubtedly the sturdiest; their foundations run deep, their trunks are thick, their branches dense, and their heights towering."

Pu'er began to pace across the bed.

"Thus, the church systems are universally recognized as the most stable and superior paths in existence.

Yet, even within them, churches differ.

The system of a great church is bound to surpass that of a minor one, though this is no absolute rule.

For some smaller churches possess paths that are arduous to tread, yet those who ascend them become fearsomely potent.

And there are great churches whose arts are perhaps not suited for combat, or whose original, primal trunk was simply never born for strife—such as the Church of Principles to which Mr. Hoffen belonged.

Furthermore, depending on the region, the environment, and the precise necessity, it becomes rather difficult to discern which is truly superior and which is flawed."

"And the Church of Order?"

"The Church of Order is, among all ecclesiastical systems, the absolute finest at waging war!" Pu'er brandished a fleshy paw. "If your fists are not hard enough, who would ever willingly submit to the order you decree?"

"Very well, I understand. What then lies beyond the church systems?"

"Those are vast and varied. Take the familial systems, for instance. Each family possesses its own inherited lineage of cultivation. Like that fellow Wood you met yesterday—when you shook his hand, did it not feel as though your palm were burning?"

"Yes."

"The Allen family's system is intimately bound to fire and water. Walking this path of belief allows a practitioner to heighten their command over both elements.

Take myself, back when I was still human; I was most adept at dealing with flame.

In those days, Azeroth’s favorite pastime was to find a deserted beach, lie stretched upon the sand, and have me use my fire to help roast away the barnacles clinging to its body."

"What is the difference between such a familial system and an ecclesiastical one? Or is it merely that a system not grand enough is dubbed a family, while a family sufficiently vast, with enough branches, becomes a church?"

"No, no, no, you cannot generalize based on scale alone. For within the familial system lies a fundamental truth, and that is... bloodline."

"Bloodline?"

"Precisely. A familial system can serve as a branch of a church system, an internal supplement to it, but a family can never transform into a church.

Take your own Inmerles family. It is an Inquisitor family under the banner of the Church of Order, capable of producing members of Inquisitor rank or higher generation after generation. This proves that a certain inheritance flows through the Inmerles blood.

But can such an inheritance ever branch out into a church of its own? Impossible.

For you cannot absorb outside members, unless you dedicate your entire existence to frantically breeding children.

The Church of Principles once studied this very subject: the more descendants a familial system produces, the more diluted the concentration of its inheritance becomes. It is like dropping a sugar cube into a coffee cup; you can taste the sweetness. But if you cast it into a swimming pool and drink, you will taste nothing at all.

Once you reach that stage, there is no longer any purpose in pursuing a familial system; it is far better to walk the path of a church. For a church system is inherently tailored for the masses; it demands only the spirituality within you, and your ascent thereafter depends entirely on your own comprehension."

"I see. Then how does a familial system come to be?"

"Much the same as a church system. Dis held the view that mankind must possess faith before a deity can manifest to carry that faith.

The first ancestor of a familial system might have been a man of the church, or perhaps he discerned something from the wider world that profoundly altered his own physical bloodline.

Then, this faith of his... or let us call it a conviction, becomes capable of passing down through the blood from generation to generation.

Thus, the church systems worship gods, while the familial systems worship ancestors.

Believers pray to a god and receive power from that god; family members pray to their ancestors, or to the conviction their ancestors forged and left behind, and receive a blessing.

The sources differ, but the process in between is remarkably similar."

"Aside from these two, what other systems remain?"

"Far too many to count, an endless multitude. Some bizarre faiths are simply unsuited for proselytizing or are far too extreme, and so they remain unaccepted by the common folk—like the totems of primitive tribes, for instance.

Why, one could worship a stone, worship a bone, worship a copper coin, and it would suffice; such primitive adoration can also birth a corresponding system.

It may fail to gather many believers, and it may lack a universally grand path, yet one can never be certain that in some era, some period, a genius might not suddenly emerge to ascend to heights unimaginable.

These miscellaneous systems would take three days and nights to recount without end.

However, there is one among them that deserves to be spoken of separately: the system of the Heretic Gods."

"The Heretic Gods?"

In the corner, the golden retriever pricked up its ears.

"A Heretic God is a peculiar sort of existence. Do you know why a Heretic God is branded as such?"

"It likely has no direct relation to the god itself."

"Correct.

A god that is defeated, judged, and cognitively denied by a True God is called a Heretic God.

Of course, there are also instances where the deities themselves were simply bizarre, their methods so ruthless that they ultimately provoked universal wrath.

And then there are those like Rielsa. Originally, the Church of the Wall Goddess was a minuscule affair, and she herself was a minor deity. Yet she insisted on painting a mural foretelling the end of the God of Order precisely when his reign was at its absolute zenith.

Consequently, she was suppressed by the God of Order, branded a 'Heretic God,' and so a Heretic God she became.

There is another rule: generally, when a deity is branded a 'Heretic God,' its earthly church system is inevitably annihilated as well.

This is easy enough to comprehend; once you have no believers left in the mortal realm, there is no one left to speak for you. If others say you are a heretic, then a heretic you are."

"Understood. Then this system..."

"Yet no matter how fallen a Heretic God might be, it remains a deity after all. Furthermore, when a crowd of people is fighting to eat from a single table of exquisite delicacies, compared to a Heretic God offering you food from a broken bowl, it is likely the latter that allows you to gorge yourself more fully.

Therefore, the inheritance of a Heretic God's system is generally tiny in scale, yet universally high in quality.

Naturally, it is not entirely without precedent for a Heretic God to make a comeback, rebuild its church, and wash away the stain of its heresy, but the probability of such an event is exceedingly low.

Take Linda, for example, who presumed to summon Rielsa using a divine descent ritual that defied all regulations. There was not even any need for the God of Order to strike; elders like Xiti could have casually slapped Rielsa right back down. Even if the descent had truly succeeded, the world would in all likelihood have hunted it down immediately and strangled it before it could recover!"

In the corner, the golden retriever, who had been listening with ears strained, swallowed hard.

"But the evil god system is fascinating. The radio goblin was probably banking on that with you from the start.

Well, meaning, if you want to walk the path of the evil god system, look..."

Purr glanced at the golden retriever in the corner.

"Kneel directly before it, pray to it devoutly—'Great Dog of the Evil God,' or 'Great Evil Dog God,' or call upon its true name—and once it responds to you, you can embark on this path.

Though... saying it out loud might be rather embarrassing.

For instance, someone else says 'I believe in the God of the Abyss,' 'I believe in the God of Principles,' 'I believe in the God of Nature,' and you chime in with: 'I believe in a dog, haha meow!'"

Purr laughed so hard it rolled around on the bed;

The golden retriever frowned, its canine expression utterly solemn.

"Then which system do you think is suitable for me?"

Purr stopped laughing,

Images of Karen in the basement workshop of the Mink Street house, awakening the deceased time after time, surfaced in its mind.

Ultimately,

It spoke:

"The Orthodoxy of the God of Order system."

But quickly, Purr added:

"Only, towards the very end, Diss seemed to find it a dead end. Though Diss's level belongs to the very, very late and very, very high stages, I feel you have the chance to reach that height as well.

Besides,

Your family heritage,

Your familiarity,

And the ability you displayed to make the dead dance,

I feel that,

The one that fits you best is the Orthodoxy of the God of Order system."

"Then let's go with the Orthodoxy of the God of Order system."

"Aren't you worried?"

"Because Diss didn't tell me that I couldn't walk the path of the Orthodoxy of the God of Order system."

"You make a very good point. There must be something different about you, so Diss felt you could avoid his mistake."

"Specifically?" Karen asked, "How do I do it?"

"The more orthodox method: after reaching York City, find a grassroots organization of the Orthodoxy of the God of Order, become one of their ordinary believers, and then through years and months of prayer, one day your soul and body will suddenly begin purification."

"And the unorthodox way? I recall it requires a sacred artifact?"

"Yes. The former method casts a wide net, which can discover truly good fingerlings, but it takes too long and is too slow. So normally, those with the means will choose to use a sacred artifact as an aid.

The aura of a sacred artifact can help you better complete the purification, and the grade of the sacred artifact can also influence the degree of purification. The steadier and firmer your first step is, the more your future path can benefit from it, just like laying a foundation."

"You can help me purify, I recall."

"Of course." Purr raised its head high, "Though it feels weird to describe myself this way, I am indeed a very high-grade... an artifact so high it can't even be measured by grades.

When preparing the purification ritual,

Place a copy of 'The Light of Order' in front of you. If you can recite it, you don't even need to place it.

I will press my paw against your forehead. While you recite the tenets of the Orthodoxy of the God of Order, you will simultaneously call upon the God of Order in your heart.

Once you receive a response, your body will undergo some subtle changes. I will seize upon these changes, helping you catalyze and accelerate them, making it more thorough and more perfect.

Once this ritual is completed, you will be a servant of God.

You can even use the fake identity of a 'wild' servant of the Orthodoxy

"Think deeply and reflect with great care, and in the end, let your true heart guide your answer."

Karen straightened his posture slightly and gave Puer a nod.

In a voice of profound solemnity, Puer asked:

"This is a path destined for solitude,

This is a path of no return,

This is a path shrouded in bewilderment,

And so,

Are you truly prepared to tread upon it?"

Karen closed his eyes, lost in thought, and spoke slowly:

"In truth, I am not prepared."

Before Karen's mind's eye rose the cavernous maw of Madame Molly, the weeping of Monsieur Mousse, the little girl who had danced her final steps before him, and the Siso family who, when confronted by their enemy, chose not vengeance but a final embrace. There too was Mandira, leaving him with a parting kiss...

At last, the vision that lingered in Karen's mind was of the family gathered around him from the very moment he first opened his eyes, and most of all... Dis.

"Because,

From the very instant I first opened my eyes to this world,

I was, in fact, already,

Standing upon the path."

———

Please vote with your monthly tickets; if you have any in your accounts, please cast them for us!