3: Return with a full load

The junior acolyte looked left and right, then lowered his voice and said, “That’s the Church’s beautified version.”

“Actually, according to historical records and what the officiating priest said, before this temple was built, the Mother Earth only had a small shrine here.”

“Upon seeing the dilapidated temple, Saint John vowed to build a magnificent hall for the Goddess.”

“He borrowed the scepter from the Goddess statue in the temple to use as a hiking staff and embarked on a journey of wandering and fundraising.”

“It took him a full sixty years to gather enough funds and return to build this temple. It was because of this piety that he was canonized as a saint after his death.”

Arthur couldn't help but laugh after hearing it. The phrase “borrowed” was truly ingenious.

He stroked his chin and muttered, “If that’s the case, this scepter shouldn’t be returned to the statue in the main hall, but to the original one…”

“What did you say, Your Excellency?”

“Child, tell me, where is the oldest statue in the temple?”

The junior acolyte pondered for a moment and replied, “It should be the one in the side hall.”

“The officiating priest always reminds us to be careful when cleaning it, saying it’s too old and can’t withstand rough handling.”

“Very well, then take me to that side hall,” Arthur said.

“But Father Vitas said…”

“Father Vitas isn’t here.” Arthur grinned and pulled out a silver Tael. “He won’t know. Take me to the side hall, and this silver coin is yours.”

The junior acolyte stared at the silver coin, his eyes wide. If he used this silver coin to buy candy, it would last him a month.

Seeing the junior acolyte tempted, Arthur suddenly put the silver coin away and urged, “Time waits for no one, child, make a decision quickly.”

“This… this way, honorable Sir!” The junior acolyte quickly said, turning and running towards the side hall.

---

In the dilapidated side hall, only an elderly deacon was on duty.

After Arthur explained his intentions, the old deacon didn’t make things difficult for him, only reminding him to be careful.

Inside the hall, the Mother Earth statue was just over a person’s height, carved with the likeness of Shanteya, the Goddess of Grain.

Unlike the magnificent statue in the main hall, this statue’s right hand was empty; the scepter made of corn stalks, wheat ears, and potato leaves that it should have held was gone.

Arthur compared the wooden staff to the statue and thought, 'This must be it!'

Moreover, the remaining time wouldn't allow him to try anything else.

Then, under the astonished gazes of the junior acolyte and the old deacon, he jumped directly onto the altar and inserted the wooden stick into the Goddess’s right hand.

The moment the wooden stick returned to its place, the mottled statue suddenly sprang to life.

Vines burst from the cracks, wheat ears and corn stalks grew wildly like a fountain, and greenery instantly covered the entire side hall.

Arthur, who didn't have time to let go, felt a strange energy flow into his body through the wooden stick.

The surging life force washed over his body, like the warm sun of spring, gently enveloping every inch of his skin.

The old deacon, witnessing all this, stood dumbfounded, and the junior acolyte’s eyes widened even further, his face full of disbelief.

The plants growing from the statue had now merged into a giant plant, breaking through the roof and still growing upwards.

Thick roots plunged into the ground, and the entire floor of the side hall rose with them.

And Arthur glowed with a sacred light, as if an angel had descended.

“A miracle! This is a miracle!” The old deacon came to his senses, knelt down excitedly, and prayed incessantly.

The junior acolyte also exclaimed, “A saint! A saint has descended!”

By the time the bishop, accompanied by a group of priests, arrived after hearing the news, everything had returned to calm.

Arthur sat cross-legged on a large leaf, his eyes slightly closed.

The unassuming wooden stick, now covered with tender sprouts, rested quietly on his lap.

You have gained the favor of Goddess Shanteya. The number of daily intelligence acquisitions +1.

As the prompt appeared in his mind, Arthur could barely contain his inner ecstasy.

It turned out that these mysterious intelligence reports were true and reliable, and now he could obtain four pieces of information every day.

This was undoubtedly a lifeline in a desperate situation, greatly increasing his chances of survival in Qingfeng Valley.

Even more surprisingly, the divine power of Mother Earth Shanteya had also awakened his magical potential.

Bringing obscure and difficult-to-understand knowledge of life magic into his mind.

To actually become a priest of the Mother Earth… Arthur marveled inwardly.

With a thought, he checked the spells he had mastered.

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, spells are categorized by spell level.

The lowest level 0-level spells are also called cantrips.

Arthur currently possessed 4 cantrips: Light, Prestidigitation, Sacred Flame, and Mending.

In addition to cantrips, he also knew four 1st-level spells: Bless, Guiding Bolt, Cure Wounds, and Ceremony.

Unlike cantrips, which can be cast frequently without limit, spells of 1st level and above require spell slots to be cast.

Spell slots can be simply understood as magic points, and Arthur can currently only cast two 1st-level spells per day.

Although he couldn't choose his own magic like in a game, the ability to cast divine spells already made him surpass most people in this world.

One must know that throughout the entire Amn region, divine spell-casting clergy were extremely rare, usually only individuals of bishop level and above possessed this ability.

The local Church’s Bishop Gutierrez could indeed cast divine spells, but it required the cooperation of other clergy and elaborate preparatory rituals.

In other words, once recognized by the Church, Arthur's clerical rank would be at least equivalent to a bishop, theoretically allowing him to oversee a diocese.

Then he turned his attention to the newly added intelligence:

[White Intelligence] The castle blacksmith Honi will sell his niece Vanka to a brothel tonight for 10 silver coins.

Although the value of this information was still unclear, from its content, it didn’t seem like a difficult problem to solve.

After organizing his thoughts, Arthur began to focus on the bishop and the priests.

The miracle caused by the Goddess scepter had divided the priests present into two factions.

One faction believed that Arthur was a saint chosen by the Mother Earth, and they should extensively publicize this event, as it would bring considerable influence to the Church.

The other faction, however, declared that a dissolute young man like Arthur could not possibly be chosen by the Goddess; if he were a saint, it would only cause catastrophic effects on the Church.

The two sides argued fiercely over this, and Bishop Gutierrez was trying hard to calm them down, but with little success.

A white-haired priest pointed at the giant plant that had broken through the roof, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Look at all this! Are you all blind?”

“What else could such a miracle be if not the advent of a saint?”

Another young priest sneered in rebuttal, “Oh, come on, you Old Hutu.”

“Don’t forget how many nuns he’s defiled! How could the Goddess choose such a scoundrel?”

Bishop Gutierrez, flustered, tried to quell the argument, but to little avail.

Just then, the junior acolyte noticed Arthur had awakened and quickly whispered a few words to the bishop.

The bishop glanced over, then pushed through the crowd and walked towards Arthur with a complex expression.

In Amn, true miracles had not been seen for many years, but there was an endless stream of people using the guise of miracles to swindle money every year.

This person who could cause miracles was both a talent the Church needed to win over and a variable to be wary of.

What’s more, this person was Arthur.

Why Arthur? Gutierrez was at a loss.

When he arrived, the young noble jested, “They know I’m still here, right?”

At this moment, the opposition was slandering him with all sorts of sarcastic and venomous words.

Looking at his endlessly bickering colleagues behind him, the bishop awkwardly said, “Don’t mind them, Sir Arthur, it’s just academic discussion.”

“I think there must be some misunderstanding, we…”

“Misunderstanding?” Arthur looked at the giant plant. “Are you trying to deny the miracle created by the Mother Earth?”

The bishop quickly shook his head, “Of… of course not, I mean there have been too many things happening in the temple recently.”

“The New Temple is about to be completed, and we also need to receive high-ranking clergy from Esputa. We simply don’t have enough manpower to handle your affairs.”

“Then what do you mean, esteemed Bishop?”

“You see, Arthur, perhaps we can reach a solution that benefits both of us.”

“Let’s keep this matter quiet for now, and after the New Temple’s inauguration ceremony, we can discuss it again, how does that sound?”

The bishop cautiously offered his suggestion.

Arthur’s brain began to churn rapidly, and he quickly guessed the other party’s intention.

Clearly, Gutierrez wanted to be the main character of the inauguration ceremony, after all, he had put a lot of effort into the New Temple.

And Arthur, appearing out of nowhere, would undoubtedly steal his thunder, which was not something he wanted to see.

Arthur smiled and said, “So you want me to keep quiet? That doesn’t sound like it benefits me.”

Gutierrez gritted his teeth and offered a condition: “100 gold Dant. After the ceremony, I guarantee you’ll receive Church recognition.”

“By then, you’ll be a bishop. You’ll just need some further study, and then you can go manage a diocese.”

In the bishop’s eyes, a hundred gold coins were not much for an Earl’s son, but his subsequent proposal was a truly great favor.

Evil Wolf Earl had five children, all boys, and as the youngest, Arthur’s right of inheritance was virtually a piece of scrap paper.

Individuals like him either left their families to make their own way or entered the Churches of various deities to become clergy.

Of course, they could also serve as government officials in the political centers of various regions, but Arthur had personally ruined that path.

So he was confident that with such generous terms, the Earl’s youngest son would surely agree.

Arthur pondered for a moment and said, “The position of bishop is too heavy, and I don’t want the Mother Earth Church to be divided because of me.”

“I only need the status of an ordinary priest recognized by the Church. Furthermore, I heard, Bishop, that you recently acquired a new four-wheeled carriage and two good horses?”

The bishop’s face froze. He never expected this young man to give up such a promising future and ask for money!

What he didn’t know was that Arthur would be heading to Qingfeng Valley to take up his post after the ceremony, with no time to wait for these clergy to debate his status, let alone become a bishop.

For Arthur, a hundred gold Dant was a tangible good thing, equivalent to a year’s income for an upper-class yeoman family.

The so-called upper-class yeomen were similar to wealthy landlords in Arthur’s previous world; an annual income of over a hundred gold coins was enough for them to maintain a prosperous life.

He was also confident that this was not the bishop’s bottom line; the Mother Earth Church’s local income was quite substantial, and a hundred gold coins were mere pocket change.

After Arthur finished speaking, the bishop quickly calculated in his mind. The carriage alone cost him a full fifty-seven gold coins.

And those two fine horses, carefully selected from the Bull Family’s noble stud farm, each cost eighty-five gold coins.

Adding the previous hundred gold coins, this young man wanted over three hundred gold coins as hush money.

How shameless! He was practically setting his own price, a lion’s maw!

But compared to helping him gain Church recognition, three hundred gold coins were really not much.

Because smoothing out relations through all the layers would cost at least seven hundred gold coins, though that would be spending the Church's money.

But those three hundred gold coins were all his own money, painstakingly embezzled… accumulated.

Realizing this, the bishop secretly cursed Arthur in his heart as a short-sighted fool, while also calculating how to bargain.

He whispered, “This is blackmail!”

Upon hearing this, Arthur softly chanted a spell, casting the cantrip Light, and the scepter in his hand suddenly burst forth with dazzling light.

The two factions, still arguing, were quickly drawn to this sudden light.

This was just a simple cantrip, but it was enough to shock mortals unfamiliar with magic.

“Stop!” the bishop hissed, gritting his teeth. “You’ll only exacerbate the chaos…”

“Mother Earth above!” The elderly priest from before shouted again, “Open your eyes and look, look at what this is!”

“Evil magic! The devil’s tricks!” the opposition shrieked.

“Esteemed Bishop, I was thinking of using this little trick to perform at the inauguration ceremony, what do you think?” Arthur asked amiably.

Gutierrez’s face turned from green to white, and seeing the situation about to spiral out of control, he had no choice but to compromise, “Alright, alright, you can have the carriage.”

“And the two horses and the priest’s certificate,” Arthur emphasized.

“Fine, fine, the horses, the certificate, take them, take them!” The bishop finally waved his hand as if collapsing.

Half an hour later, two tall, magnificent horses pulling a beautifully decorated carriage left the temple.

Arthur leaned back on the soft velvet cushion, clutching the priest’s certificate personally signed by the bishop, and listening to the jingle of gold coins in his money bag, a smile involuntarily played on his lips.

---

Meanwhile, in the Evil Wolf Castle study.

The castle steward, Bump, entered briskly, unable to hide his joy: “My Lord! Black Mane successfully gave birth to three cubs, two males and one female, all very robust!”

“Three?” Earl William’s quill in his hand suddenly paused. “Didn’t they say she was only carrying two before?”

Dire wolves already had a low reproduction rate, and giving birth to three cubs at once was considered an auspicious sign.

He immediately frowned and pressed, “How is the mother wolf?”

“The veterinarian said she’ll recover with two or three months of rest,” Bump said, hesitating.

At the Earl’s prompting, he stammered, “Uh, it’s… it’s related to Young Master Arthur.”

“What trouble has that scoundrel gotten into now?” As soon as he heard Arthur’s name, the Earl’s temples throbbed. “I knew he wouldn’t accept the appointment obediently!”

Seeing the Earl’s anger, the steward quickly explained, “The stable master said that the Young Master had previously warned that Black Mane’s fetal position was abnormal and insisted on a thorough examination.”

“As a result, the veterinarian discovered triplets and arranged for an induced labor in time. If it weren’t for the Young Master’s warning, Black Mane would likely have been in grave danger.”

The Earl’s furrowed brow almost twisted into a knot; he suspected he had misheard.

“Are you serious, Bump? Arthur? The Arthur who only knows how to spend his days in brothels and casinos? My youngest, most good-for-nothing son?”

“My Lord, how dare I lie to you? This is absolutely true, everyone in the stables heard it. The animal trainers at the time… at the time…”

“At the time what?”

“At the time, they even laughed at the Young Master.”

William exhaled heavily, then said in a deep voice, “Reward the stable master and the veterinarian fifty silver coins each. As for those animal trainers who mocked him, give each of them three lashes—teach them how to respect a noble.”

He paused, then added, “Send Arthur to see me.”