บท 10: The star in the endless void
In expectant breath, Jacob opened up the chest to see it empty with nothing but an old book. Despite this Jacob was ecstatic.
This is a skill book, an item crated by a high grade figure that wishes to pass down their skills to another person. The skills can include some bloodline skills and even skills related to talents; skills that are extremely difficult to learn on their own.
[Skill book: Inspect]
[A skill book that can teach you the skill inspect]
[requirements: Intelligence 2, Perception 5]
A gleeful smile spread across Jacobs face as he learnt the skill. Although inspect isn't a rare skill, its usefulness makes it a must have. In the Catalan kingdom the royal family holds a monopoly over the inspect skill, so the only ways to get hold of it is to work under the city lords, become a royal vassal or in his case; be rewarded by a high ranking official.
Of course the skill wasn't omnipotent, the skill can be sensed and blocked, however its extremely powerful to low level adventurers.
After a brief speech about the greatness of the kingdom, Jacob promised that if he plans to sell his work it will be to the city lord.
What? He has to thank them for the 'gift' that's more of a buisness deal.
Just as they planned to head back inside, they heard a commotion. The city lords attendant had bumped into a priest of the church of Arsenia.
what surprised the Flicks was the look the attendant gave; one of pure superiority and mockery.
When the observers thought a fight was about to brew both the priest and the attendant walked away, one with a grin and the other with a scowl.
The priest stopped in front of the Flicks and exclaimed in a theatrical voice, "Young master Jacob Flick, we the church of Arsenia, congratulate you for your outstanding advancement task pass.
On behalf of the church, we would like to gracefully invite you to attend the church prayer study, and we also gratefully invite you to carve a new sculptor of our benevolent goddess Arsenia."
The priest gave an over-the-top bow with many hand gestures. This is the churches ultimate plan to get Jacob to convert, by offering him a job in a way that he can't refuse.
Before coming here the church had purposely made a racket attracting many of nobles attention and sure enough hiding around the estate are many eyes watching him. If Jacob refuses, he could be seen as against the church by the nobles and by extension, the city lord which can be seen as un-patriotic.
Although Jacob has been given many gifts due to him being a once in a century genius, he still is just a kid, who knows if he'll fall from grace? Will the nobles sacrifice their relationship with the Andersons just to impress a child?
No, it would not be wise to do that, it would be best to keep a distance and shower him with many cheap gifts.
As such the priest wished to send the boy over to their prayer room, where they can slowly reintroduce the greatness of Arsenia to Jacob. The redone sculptor would just be an added bonus as the church hasn't changed the main sculptures of the gods in centuries.
Jacobs father obviously saw through the trick and knowing his sons perception talent believed Jacob had already seen it. Well he hoped so!
Things are just starting to turn around for him at work, as his colleagues are starting to listen to him about his management proposals on the streets of Plymouth. Although slowly he might be able to pass an act to help clean up the slums and make the city a better place, for everyone.
But if his son refuses all his work may go down the drain as he can already hear the rumours spread about how much his family doesn't care about the kingdom. Greater nobles don't have to worry about the church as they have the backing of the royal family, but the flicks do not have that much power.
But to the relief of Paul, Jacob had already caught onto the priests plan, he knows he will have to accept it but it may be a chance to get crow formally recognised by the pantheon.
Although Arsenia is the main goddess of Catalan, there are other lesser gods and deities residing inside Catalans borders, as a way to manage the local religions, the city and town churches are allowed to place idols of other deities in the church. Of course the idol has to be off at least two grades lower than the statue of Arsenia and if the god is a lesser god, special requirements need to be met, before the idol is allowed to be placed in the church.
Jacob himself wanted people to recognise the kindness of crow and what better way to show crow to the city than to place a small statue of Crow near the Catalan pantheon.
So Jacob agreed much to the pleasure of the priest. However this had also sparked the attention of an observing winged figure.
Who is none other than the middle ranked deity Crow, of course. Crow was struggling to contain his curiosity about the church as he has never met another god before, maybe there was another god residing over the church.
'What if it's Arsenia herself? A main god coming to greet me a common little deity!'
As Crow becomes more and more disillusioned to reality as he changes into a bright red tight dress for this 'possible' meeting with a main god, a small change was happening in the environment around him.
A small spark could be seen in the endless void of blackness far out from the borders of Crows divine kingdom. A faint star that was growing nearer and nearer to the divine kingdom of an 'oblivious' Crow.
Little did Crow know how close he was to having his current dream come true. This small star was the distant divine kingdom of another god and it has seen him.
The divine realm of Alderney has a much larger scale to Alderney itself. It's said that a distance of 1 metre on the mortal plane, is equal to 100 meters for the gods.
and as such although the star is over a thousand kilometres away, at the west city entrance, an old wooden wagon pulled by a tired old bull, sat a group of farmers coming in from the nearby village of Antionette.
Antionette village is one of the newest villages surrounding Plymouth that was recently created under the rule of the old earl of Anderson, Lady Charlotte. Antoinette is a small mountain village of a couple hundred that has had a relatively easy life under the Earls protection.
Their main export to Plymouth is wool made by the mountain sheep that the village herds around the hills. Lady Charlotte created her own outfits using the wool and silk from another village she had created, starting her own trends in Plymouth that were popular throughout her life.
But after her demise, was the fall of Antionette, the nobles who only followed the wool and silk trend in hopes to gain the earls grace, gave up on the clothing. Furthermore with the new earl Anderson living Plymouth for 10 years, Antionette lost its major buyers and guards the late lady Charlotte sent.
As such the village was soon struck with a serious of problems; low funds, beast attacks and bandits threatened the lives of its residents.
Many villages created by the Andersons lost their funding and security resulting in the destruction of the villages and the lives of many. The survivors flooded into the slums of Plymouth as homeless refugees, Antionette was soon to follow.
But just before the residents were about to be eaten by beasts in their sleep, a miracle happened, a mountain rockslide occurred and squashed a pack of wolves, waiting to pounce on the village.
Soon more miracles slowly followed, with the sick sheep suddenly recovering, and the wool became much thicker.
The villagers restless nights started to calm down, as that is when they attributed this strange miracles to a deity that is protecting them.
Well this is true for some of the miracles, the Deity now known as the god Anton was prayed to and worshiped before he was even born.
The mountain rockslide that started it all was just a coincidence caused by heavy rain the nights before, the rain also made many of the wet cold goats sick but once they dried, warmed up and rested their small cold that was exaggerated by the frightened villagers, cleared up.
So the villagers were worshiping a god that didn't exist for years.
but after 8 years of constant worship to a god that none of them would say didn't exist, a true miracle occurred and Anton truly did start to exist.
This itself is a miracle as you can't just start worshiping a make belief god and expect it to be born, there are other unknown factors involved that not even the Greater gods know, not to mention the mortals of a small village, to a backward city.
But the impossible happened and the deity Anton was born with his own followers of his own. Over the years he has started to make a name of himself and now most of the villagers recognise him as the village guardian deity.
Over 40 years he has used the little divinity he has to perform small miracles to help these mountain villagers as they are his life-force. And his efforts have started to pay off, as his village has managed to give birth to a young priestess named Mariana. Using her pure faith, he has managed to secure a large amount of divinity and knows he will soon advance to the next realm, the major deity.
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