The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

The dream dissipated, and Bishop Levian of the Dark Night Holy Court was finally able to leave. However, unlike when he invaded the dream, Levian was now a loyal follower of the Goddess and His Majesty the Emperor, and it was time for him to return to the Dark Night Holy Court as an undercover agent to make amends.

Upon waking the next day, the Grey Robe immediately sought out Bernice to discuss the matter. The reason was simple: the information obtained from the Dark Night Holy Court was of paramount importance to Castile.

At this moment, Bernice was still thinking about the information she had received last night about how the Dark Night Holy Court invaded her dreams when she heard the gray-robed man knocking on the door with Rosalind.

"We need to speed things up!"

The grey-robed man said urgently, "The Dark Night Holy Court has already secretly controlled many nobles, including many of His Majesty González VI's children. If what that man said last night is true, Castile will become their testing ground in the future!"

Rosalyn, who was still half asleep, immediately perked up when she heard what the gray-robed man said. The little princess had been pulled out of bed early in the morning by the gray-robed man and had no idea what had happened.

Seeing the little princess, who had perked up but still looked confused, Bernice explained, "We had a guest last night who gave us some important information."

Bernice seemed to be considering how to explain to the little princess, but after thinking about it, she felt obligated to let the little princess know what was going on in Castile, so she said directly: "A cult that was transformed from the orthodox Church of the Morning Star - the Dark Night Holy Court - is using the power of dreams to secretly control many Castilian nobles, including your brothers and sisters. Now, about three out of the seven Castiles are completely controlled by the Dark Night Holy Court."

"Including your second brother in Cartier."

Upon hearing this news, Princess Rosalin immediately exclaimed excitedly, "So, Second Brother really was controlled by a cult, that's why he became like that! We must hurry and save him!"

Neither Grey Robe nor Bernice replied. At this moment, Rosalind realized something and sat down again. Sure enough, brotherly love, paternal love, and filial piety were just Rosalind's wishful thinking.

"The Dark Night Holy Court acquired the Brain Servant Technology by chance and used it to begin its research on dreams."

Bernice subtly reminded them, "However, their technology is very backward. Not only do they require a large number of brain servants, but their computing efficiency is also extremely slow. It is impossible for them to completely control dreams. Only if the person originally had this idea can the Dark Night Holy Court use dreams to make suggestions."

In other words, Garcia had this idea first, which is why he was targeted by the Dark Night Holy Court.

Rosalind nodded silently. Since returning to the continent of Solon, there had been almost no good news, which left Rosalind feeling lost for a while.

Bernice didn't stop after explaining, but continued, "They went down the wrong path just like we did, or even worse."

If Lantern Dream had continued to develop recklessly, it would have followed the example of the Dark Night Holy Court and begun to use its power to influence the political situation on the continent. In fact, Lantern Dream was already doing just that, while the Dark Night Holy Court was weaker, but Lantern Dream had indeed become a behind-the-scenes force on the continent.

They planned to turn Castile into their testing ground and conduct their own brain servant experiments. In Bernice's view, these brain servant experiments were quite primitive, and the computing power they extracted might not even be as high as that of the earliest Lantern Dream. Not only that, but because of constant suppression, the doctrines of the Morning Star Church gradually became distorted. In order to maintain their violent rule, the Dark Night Holy Court in the shadows would even carry out bloody human sacrifice rituals.

The Dark Night Holy Court was an organization that stumbled upon the technology trees of consciousness and dreams, but because the supporting technology couldn't keep up, and unlike the Lantern Dream, it didn't have a divine lantern to guide it, it ran wildly in the wrong direction.

For example, the Dark Night Holy Court had no idea that dreams were supported by the computing power of the human brain, but simply believed that they were formed by human magic. When in doubt, they would throw all their problems to magic. Those brain servants were not so much providing computing power as being exploited for magic power, or rather, they were being exploited for something similar to magic power. The Dark Night Holy Court mistakenly regarded the computing power exploited by the human brain as a kind of undetectable magic power.

In any case, when in doubt, just throw it to magic. After all, based on their experimental results, the dreams squeezed out by spellcasters are indeed more realistic than those of ordinary brain servants. They mistakenly believe that this is because the spellcaster's magic is more potent, but in reality, it is because the spellcaster's mental processing power is stronger.

However, the Dark Night Holy Court's technology is not without its merits. Although their computing power is used inefficiently, they have a lot of redundant computing power and magic power. Under such circumstances, their dream network coverage is much wider than that of the original Lantern Dream, although the signal is also very poor.

This is mainly because the situation on the continent of Soren is far more chaotic than that on the continent of Mu. Besides the Avars' alliance against other nations, other countries are constantly at war. While Mu also frequently experiences conflict, as long as the two major kingdoms don't formally clash, other regions don't fight as fiercely. Soren, however, is different. Lacking a truly dominant superpower, coupled with the chaos caused by the misuse of super-level magic, many small and medium-sized countries are either at war or on their way to war. These countries, along with the mini-nations that establish kingdoms by occupying villages, provide fertile ground for cults.

Seeing the little princess's dejected state, the gray-robed man comforted her, saying, "Your Highness, we still have a chance."

Almost all of González VI's sons had supporters, and some of those supported by powerful nobles even went so far as to establish their own kingdoms. There was no reason why Rosalyn couldn't do the same.

Rosalyn seemed to understand what the gray-robed man meant, but shook her head and said, "But Grand Preceptor, my brothers and sisters all have the support of nobles. Not only were I hated by those nobles before, but now I don't even have a piece of land and can only live on the Empire's ship."

Who said no one supports you?

The man in the grey robe pulled a contract from his robes and said, "Your Highness, our supporters are far more powerful than all those nobles combined."

Rosalind looked at the contract and became more and more shocked. It was a hidden contract, stamped with the imperial emperor's seal. As long as Rosalind signed her name, this merchant fleet would help her restore her country.

This contract was far more radical than the one Rosalind had signed before her departure. In addition to the previous merchants and weapons, once signed, the Empire would recognize Rosalind as Queen of Castile. This legal basis was not important, as Rosalind already had a claim to Castile, but it was also important because it meant that Rosalind would not only gain the support of the fleet and the Church, but also receive a great deal of assistance from the Empire in the future.

It was clear that the emperor was not a prophet, but judging from the weapons brought by the caravan and the hidden Lars Knights and nuns in the fleet, the emperor had indeed made some special preparations.

The grey-robed man handed Rosalind an exquisite quill pen, saying that even if the empire were to annex it in the future, it would be better than being taken over by a cult.

"Sign it, and you will be the Queen of New Castile."