Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability

Lumian recalled the faith-related materials provided by the Tarot Club and carefully said, 'This should be the mystical manifestation of faith anchors, and the result of chanting your honorific name.'

'Oh, oh, oh, I'm receiving their prayers…' Franca suddenly understood.

She immediately continued, 'Fortunately, we're now unified both inside and outside the mirror, with our consciousness existing both within and without. This allows our mirror self to handle matters related to believers without affecting our daily life and combat state. Otherwise, if we were suddenly hit with prayers during intense combat, it would be easy to get distracted and have accidents.

'However, I think some pathways' Sequence 3 should be able to effectively use these prayers to temporarily strengthen themselves, like the Sun pathway?'

'War Bishop,' Lumian smiled. 'Within a certain range, the more anchors, the stronger a War Bishop becomes. His soldiers are all his anchors.'

Franca nodded, browsing the points of light with interest and listening to the illusory voices to understand what the believers were praying for.

'Continued good health…

'Family being safe and sound…

'Business success…

'No dangers during sea adventures…
'Stay away from chaos and war…

'These are all generic prayers, I can't respond or help—they're too vague,' Franca muttered to herself.

She glanced at Lumian.

'Your fate domain powers could actually be useful here—there's nothing that good luck and fortune-turning can't solve.

'Why isn't anyone praying to curse their enemies?'

At this point, Franca paused. 'There's one prayer asking for their illness to be cured…

'I'm professional at making people sick, but healing isn't within a Demoness's authority…'

Jenna thought for a moment and said, 'Don't you still have some of those healing agents left from Mr. Moon?' Jenna thought for a moment and said.

Lumian had 11 bottles in his Traveler's Bag, while Franca, Jenna, and Anthony each had two bottles.

'You're right, nobody said a patron saint can't use external help,' Franca immediately took out a potion from the Traveler's Bag.

While recalling the mystical materials provided by the Tarot Club, she imitated their contents along with knowledge from pre-crossing textbooks, magnified the corresponding prayer light point, and extended her Demoness spider silk—so fine it was invisible—into it, quietly inserting it into that believer's nostrils and reaching their stomach.

During this process, she used her Petrification powers to make the flesh touched by the spider silk enter a paralyzed state, preventing the prayer from noticing anything unusual.

Then, Franca unscrewed the healing agent's cap and let the liquid flow along the spider silk to its destination.

After completing all this, she withdrew the spider silk and removed the paralysis.

That plainly dressed believer with many patches suddenly felt their stomach become slightly heavier, as if they had unknowingly drunk a glass of water.

They didn't pay it much attention and finished their prayer, continuing to listen until the half-giant bishop completed the sermon and began distributing communion.

Just then, that believer let out a surprised sound. 'Huh…'

Seeing people around looking at them, he said with both confusion and joy, 'My spirit feels better, my body feels lighter…

'My illness is cured!'

They finally realized what had happened and told the fellow believers watching them with some fanaticism.

'I just prayed to Saint Franca for healing from illness!

'She blessed me!

'Praise you, Keeper of Diseases and Plagues, Great Franca Roland!'

Hearing this from her corner, Franca felt both embarrassed and secretly delighted.

Helping others feels pretty good!

Getting sincere praise from others feels nice too!

After this batch of believers left Saint Franca Cathedral, Franca lowered her voice and said to Lumian and Jenna, 'We can't rely on healing agents every time, right? Since my honorific name includes Keeper of Diseases and Plagues, future prayers will definitely include plenty of such requests.'

Without waiting for her companions to respond, Franca muttered to herself, 'Actually, at Sequence 4, one can create their own unique plague varieties or mystical pathogens. I want to invent a mystical pathogen whose characteristic is devouring other pathogens, while its effect on humans is just causing drowsiness, fatigue, or laziness for a period of time. This could cure most diseases in ordinary people except for their own physical mutations…'

'If you succeed, this could also be used in battles with other Demonesses,' Lumian was quite looking forward to the mystical pathogen Franca described.

Of course, this was just a concept, and whether it could actually be created remained unknown.

Franca thought seriously for a while, then suddenly smiled. 'There's another illness that Demonesses can cure.'

'What?' Jenna asked curiously.

'Functional disorders in that matter.' Franca clicked her tongue both self-mockingly and with feeling. 'Just throw a Charm at them and it works for a certain time, though it can't be permanently cured. Damn, what kind of thing is this…'

Lumian and Jenna fell silent for a moment.

Franca thought for a bit and continued, 'When I advanced the other day, I felt there were anchor points besides you two, some others seemed to come from the market district…'

'The dancers and streetwalkers you helped before? Especially those who changed their lives through learning theater performance?' Jenna realized.

'That's another kind of anchor…' Franca sighed. 'No good deed goes unrewarded. However, with the Savoie Mob gone and us being forced to leave the market district, their situation must have worsened again, so they miss the past. I'll return to the market district later, find the people currently in charge of related matters, 'persuade' them, and control them. It's a pity this is Trier, and we can't completely solve these problems. If we don't have to stay in Trier in the future, I want to find a place to build a new society!'

Acting on her words, Franca and Jenna quickly left the cathedral for the market district.

Lumian didn't follow them, worried that doing so would split Franca and Jenna's anchors.

He chose to take a carriage to the outskirts to look at Saint Lumian Cathedral.

On the way, fifteen to twenty points of light suddenly appeared before his eyes, and illusory prayer voices echoed in his ears.

The preaching about me has begun too… Lumian nodded imperceptibly and browsed through the different believers' prayers.

As Franca had said earlier, the vast majority were vague, difficult to achieve, everyday requests, and Lumian temporarily had no intention of using his fate domain powers to help turn their luck around.

While browsing, he discovered a relatively special request.

This wasn't actually a request, but rather an elderly woman telling the patron saint about her regret.

When she was young, her family was poor and couldn't afford photographs. By the time their circumstances improved, she had aged and could no longer capture her youth, leaving that part of her life unrecorded.

I also regret not cherishing those early years in Cordu properly… After pondering for a moment, Lumian decided to respond to this request.

He magnified the corresponding light point and saw the old lady with obvious wrinkles wearing a conservative black dress.

Layers of mirror worlds then appeared in Lumian's eyes, reflecting the old lady's different stages of life—her as a child, her innocent self, her youthful and simple self, her mature and steady self, and her kind and benevolent self…

Sitting in the carriage, Lumian quickly chose the mirror trace of her at seventeen or eighteen years old.

The wrinkles on the praying old lady's face visibly contracted, and her skin quickly gained luster.

This was an application of the Unaging characteristic, but when used on others, it could only last for a very short time, no more than half an hour, since the mystical connection was only established with the illusory trace in the mirror—not real and not stable.

In Lumian's view, this was half temporary rejuvenation, half mirror illusion.

After the old lady returned to her seventeen or eighteen-year-old appearance, Lumian transmitted a message in a female voice, 'Hurry.'

The old lady immediately broke from her prayer state, not knowing where that somewhat cold and deep but pleasant female voice came from.

'You, you…' Those around her all widened their eyes.

'What about me?' the old lady asked these fellow believers in confusion.

The next second, she discovered her voice had become quite sweet, just like when she was young.

'You, you, you…' The nearby believers still couldn't form proper sentences, but someone handed over a mirror.

The old lady looked in the mirror and froze in her seat.

This, isn't this me when I was young?

What's going on?

Have I regained my youth?

Did my prayer to Saint Lumian receive a response?

As thoughts raced through her mind, the old lady recalled the female voice she had just heard. 'Hurry.'

She suddenly understood, abruptly stood up, and said to the surrounding believers with a smile, 'I'm going to get my photograph taken!'

She quickly squeezed out of that area and walked briskly toward the cathedral door.

As she walked, she lifted her skirt and began to run, getting faster and faster, just like when she was seventeen or eighteen and ran desperately for a job opportunity.

She ran to the nearest photo studio and sat in front of the backdrop.

Click, a flash of light captured a youthful and radiant smile.

In the moving carriage.

Having responded to the prayer, Lumian seriously considered a Demoness's faith anchor issue.

War Bishop is actually simpler—recruit soldiers, cultivate a team, and that's it…

Most of a Demoness's abilities tend toward disaster, making it difficult to use them positively to develop believers… Those Demonesses of Unaging in the Demoness Sect probably rely on seduction, charm, and fear from disasters…

In the early stages of faith, making people fear is also a method of developing believers, the most standard method…

But since we're affiliated with the Church of The Fool, we can't do that…

Fear…

Lumian suddenly thought of a sect that deliberately spread fear of disease.

The Sick Church!

His eyes, like highland lakes, immediately brightened.

Is it possible to take over the Sick Church, eliminate all the Blessed and those corrupted by evil gods, then steal the faith directed at evil gods and make certain alterations?

This is somewhat similar to that section about the Sea God Church in scripture… This could also weaken the corresponding evil gods' influence on the real world…