The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

What exactly is God?

As Lind waited, he fell into deep thought, gazing at the holy light in his hand.

Before this, Linde always believed that God was God, just as the game's setting described, that there really was a God in the secular sense in this world.

The power that God gives to believers is divine magic. God is equal to everyone, and the more devout your faith, the more powerful the divine magic will be.

However, although God is equal to everyone, everyone's talents are not equal. No matter how devout your faith is, if you don't know how to use magic or mobilize magical power, you still cannot use divine magic.

But now it has been proven on the territory that divine magic, at least the goddess's holy light magic, can be disassembled, copied like ordinary magic, and made into arcane magic circles.

Linde had been testing the waters, trying to figure out how ordinary people would react to the secret. But most people who hadn't seen it with their own eyes wouldn't believe it, and at most they would just take Linde's tests as a joke.

At this moment, Bernice hurriedly arrived at the drawing room, led by her maid.

"I'm late, but it's a pleasure to see you again, Your Excellency."

"It's alright, it was I who moved your appointments forward in the first place."

Upon hearing Lind's words, Bernice hurriedly waved her hand and said, "No, we are very happy that you can bring forward our appointment."

Bernice, as always, wore the nun's habit from The Lantern of Dreams to meet Lind. Although the nun's habit from The Lantern of Dreams was designed to be more daring, it somehow fit the current trend of the Northern Church. Moreover, Bernice was as dignified and elegant as an ordinary nun, just like a member of the church summoned by the governor. There was no sense of incongruity at all. She was neither a cultist nor a fanatic.

Compared to the past, Bernice's eyes were even more fervent. Although she knew that Lind could not possibly elevate Lantern Dream to a legitimate church, being summoned by a human lord from the Golden Age who was about to unify the North was definitely a good thing. Lantern Dream had always wanted to further cooperate with Lind and even planned to gradually transform itself so that Lantern Dream could return to the sunlight.

Although Linde felt that unless they changed their dogma of only worshipping Goddess, they had no chance, unless these guys could plow through the other churches.

The reason these guys are so fanatical about themselves, and even plan to transform, is probably because they think they have the ability to plow through the other churches.

"Your invention of the magic train may only be a drop in the ocean of the golden age, but it has great significance for us today."

"With this, humanity will no longer be divided into different territories, but can be connected into a whole. At that time, the world's beliefs will be more unified and more closely intertwined."

Bernice bowed to Lind with utmost respect, while Lind said helplessly, "This was invented by my wife."

Linde mainly provided ideas; the specific technical research was done by Lena and Lisha.

But Bernice gave a knowing look.

"Ok."

Linde had no choice but to stop dwelling on the matter and instead steer the conversation back to the main topic.

"The main reason I called you here is to ask you what you know about that demon god from the demon race."

Upon hearing this question, Bernice smiled somewhat mockingly and said to the shadows behind Lind, "Didn't your actors, I mean the bards, investigate? Or did they find nothing?"

The shadow behind Linde stirred slightly, but then quickly calmed down.

Linde pulled out a stack of documents and said, "I checked, but I didn't find anything useful. They're all just some religious texts and doctrines, and these texts and doctrines are almost all grafted onto other religions. Oh, they even grafted your texts onto them, saying that their demon god is the only true god, and other gods, including goddesses, are just false gods."

"what!"

Bernice slammed her hand on the table and stood up, her fanaticism turning into rage. The dignified nun instantly transformed into a fanatical believer: "Outrageous! We truly heard the voice of the Goddess! How dare these mere evil gods, who don't even have any canonical texts, question Her Majesty?"

Bernice paced back and forth in the conference room, muttering words like "holy war" and "purification," but after realizing she was talking to Lind, she quickly calmed down: "I'm sorry, Your Excellency, I really lost my composure."

Facing Bernice, who had sat down again, Linde reassured her, "It's alright, so could you tell me about the information you have about the Demon God?"

"In exchange, our investigation report will also be made public to you."

"No need."

Bernice refused, saying, "We will provide you with the information here free of charge, as for the information about the bards..."

Bernice glanced at the shadows behind Lind halfway through her sentence: "We'll figure it out ourselves."

Lin De could sense that the Lantern Dream seemed to dislike the bards very much. It wasn't so much hostility as a contempt stemming from differing ideologies.

"Before introducing this so-called demon god, Your Excellency, please allow me to ask you first: have you ever had any faith, and how much do you know about religious stories?"

Linde shook his head and said directly, "I don't believe in any gods. At most, I'm a shallow believer in the goddess. I don't know much about religions these days."

The so-called shallow believers won't lose anything by simply believing, especially since Linde can actually use holy light now and has created a lot of holy water. Believing in him is a way of repaying the goddess for the holy water she gave him, if the holy water really was given by the goddess.

Bernice wasn't surprised that Lind didn't believe in any gods, but she still took out her notebook and wrote it down, after all, it was important research material on gods and beliefs in the Golden Age.

But halfway through writing, Bernice keenly sensed something and asked, "You don't believe in any gods, does that mean you used to believe in something that wasn't a god?"

Linde paused for a moment, seemingly lost in memories, before replying, "I don't know if it can be considered faith; it's not the same as what we call faith now."

Bernice wanted to ask something more, but seeing that Lind was unwilling to continue, she had no choice but to regretfully put down her pen and paper and continue to introduce the so-called demon god of the demon race to Lind.

"We still need to remind you that the so-called demon god of the demon race is most likely just an evil god in the eternal frozen land whose followers have all died. However, since you asked, we still searched through the old records."

"In fact, similar deities are indeed recorded in the earliest church texts, but at that time even the old empire had not yet been established, so it is no wonder that your bards did not record them. The most special thing about this kind of deity is that He has no scriptures or doctrines. Just as your bards investigated, all His doctrines and teachings were copied from other religions by His followers."

Bernice couldn't help but slam her hand on the table again when this was mentioned.

"I just didn't expect that the demons would even copy our doctrines."

But Bernice quickly calmed down and began to explain to Lind, whom they considered an ancient person, "All gods, even those that only cultists worship and that symbolize nothingness and laziness, have a complete set of scriptures and doctrines."

Linde nodded. The gods in this world all have clear symbolic meanings; there are no clay gods with unclear duties that are simply worshipped by people.

"As for why a deity has neither scriptures nor doctrines, this is also noted in the earliest scriptures of the Goddess Cult: it is because this deity does not belong to this world, and his so-called doctrines do not exist in this world."

Bernice said the most explosive thing to Lind in the most casual tone.