A Guide to Becoming a God Starting from a Monastery

"Well, I think there's a high probability that I'll never come back," Thomas said. "Don't worry, teacher, I wasn't forced to make this long journey."

Giuliano stared at Thomas's face, and in those two gentle yet firm eyes, he saw the persistence of his former student.

"I see..." Giuliano sighed. "You want to find that limit too!"

"limit?"

"I know, and I understand. If I were thirty, oh, twenty, younger, I might have the same impulse!"

"What?" Thomas looked at Giuliano in confusion.

"Don't bother, I understand!" Giuliano walked over and patted Thomas on the shoulder. "People pursue different things. Some seek fame and fortune, which is perfectly normal. Some pursue their original aspirations, justice, and fairness, which is also perfectly normal. Of course, pursuing personal transcendence isn't wrong either. Thomas, you should pursue that. You have a great talent. I've taught many students, and you're the best among them. You truly have the potential to become a protector of the nation!"

"Ah?" Become a protector of the country?

"I remember telling you back then that there were no Protectors of the Nation." Recalling the past, Giuliano lamented. "Now it seems that's not the case. The Protectors of the Nation have always existed. People are constantly and quietly becoming Protectors. It's just that they all keep their identities secret... The fact that five Protectors of the Nation have appeared in the Knights of Rhodes Island at once is truly surprising..."

His eyes turned to Thomas.

"Honestly, if you can become the Goku, I can brag about being the Goku's teacher for the rest of my life!"

Thomas smiled.

Just misunderstand.

"Stay in Sela City for a while and make final preparations for your journey. You can buy travel supplies here, and you can also find information about the Buyid Dynasty. If there's anything I can help you with, just let me know. Also, do you have enough money?"

"That's enough!" Thomas was not asking Giuliano for money.

"That's no problem!" said Giuliano.

"Teacher Giuliano, what brings you here?" Thomas asked. "Since we last parted..."

"It was probably due to some accidental reasons," Giuliano laughed. "After we parted ways, I spent a short time in Italy as a mercenary. When I felt I had gained enough strength, I came here under the name of 'Jihad'. I found this opportunity!"

Giuliano was quite proud of this.

"According to the rules of the Holy Land, you can capture Saracen land and take it for yourself! As long as you succeed, everything will be fine."

"But this city..."

"It's hard to conquer, isn't it? It wasn't like this in the beginning. It took me three years to build it into what it is now," Giuliano said. "As for the siege..."

"Sir," a voice suddenly came from outside, interrupting their conversation.

They both turned their heads, and Thomas saw a familiar face outside the door.

It's that magician!

Chapter 4: Old Friends in a Small Town

Thomas still remembered the magician's face.

A slightly pale face, with facial features completely without any characteristics except for the pale skin color.

At that time, when the monastery where Giuliano was defending was captured and flames rose into the sky, it was this magician who suddenly appeared and told Thomas that Giuliano was safe.

Moreover, he also controls a remnant of the old days, called the ground catfish.

This person left a deep impression on Thomas, so he naturally remembered the other person's face.

The magician also stopped and looked Thomas up and down.

His memory was not as good as Thomas's. Thomas recognized it at a glance, but he looked it up and down carefully several times before he seemed to remember something.

"Aren't you... aren't you that... student of Giuliano? Your name is Thomas. Yes, Thomas!" The magician was surprised. "The one with the same name as the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes Island!"

The issue of having the same name... is less common in China, but it is too common in Europe.

People here often have grandfather, father, and grandson, three generations all with the same name, so outsiders have to add titles like "old", "big", and "small" to their names in order to distinguish them.

Giuliano must have heard about the new Grand Master of the Knights Templar, but he certainly did not believe that this was his student.

There is no way, after all, in Giuliano's concept, Thomas was sent to Kiev by him!

But Thomas didn't want to correct this.

Thomas knew very well that this was most likely the last time he met Giuliano.

But then again, Thomas didn't know how Giuliano occupied this place before, but now he understood when he saw the magician.

Giuliano had evacuated the monastery by digging a tunnel with a catfish...

Then he would definitely be able to dig a tunnel into the city in the same way.

Moreover, the speed at which these remnants of the old times dug the tunnel was no less than that of the Turkish artillery that attacked Smyrna. They probably started digging the tunnel as soon as they arrived at the city and dug it in within an hour.

In this way, the city is not only not an effective support for the defender, but instead becomes a helper for the attacker.

"What's the matter?" Giuliano asked.

"Rostislav..." The magician made a gesture, indicating that the other party should go out and talk with him.

Although Thomas was Giuliano's disciple, he was now considered an outsider. Some things were clearly inappropriate to talk about with outsiders.

The two of them went out and whispered something at a distance.

After saying this, Giuliano came back.

"Do you have a place to stay in the city, Thomas?"

"Yes, I found a decent hotel here," Thomas said. "Teacher Giuliano, I just heard... Coach Rostislav is still with you?"

"He's my deputy now," Giuliano said. "But he seems to be in trouble."

"trouble?"

"Rostislav is missing."

"Is it... the Star-Moon Cult? Are they trying to resist?"

"Probably not," Giuliano said. "In Sela... the religious conflict is relatively mild. It's not as serious as this."

"That is?"

"Thomas, you shouldn't be involved in this matter." Giuliano sighed. "I'll find a way to solve it."

"Teacher Giuliano, if I didn't know, it would be fine. But since I know some things, there is no reason for me to stand by and watch." Thomas said.

Giuliano looked at Thomas's face with emotion.

Thomas is no longer the student who knew nothing about martial arts and needed him to teach him carefully from scratch.

Last time, I could come back from Ross and help me a lot!

Now that he has embarked on the long road of cultivation, he wants to challenge the natural barriers and move from the elite to the protector of the country...

That in itself showed that he had reached the pinnacle of elite status.

If he fights alone, no one in the entire Sela City would be his match.

But we can no longer look at Thomas with the eyes of the past, especially the eyes of an elder looking at a younger generation, but we must regard him as a knight-errant swordsman.

A ranger swordsman with extraordinary strength!

"Okay!" he said in a deep voice.

"Sir..." The magician next to him wanted to say something, but was stopped by Giuliano with a gesture.

"However, I need to know the whole cause and effect of this matter," Thomas said.

Even with just a few words, he realized that Rostislav's disappearance was not a simple matter.

This is by no means a simple conflict between ordinary Christians and Crescent Moon believers.

"Well, in the eyes of many people, Sela is a strange place," Giuliano said. "Although it's located on the edge of the Holy Land... neither the Star-Moon Cultists nor the Christians are willing to use force here. You should have experienced this on your journey here, right?"

Thomas nodded.

Indeed, in terms of the current tensions between the two religions, Sera is definitely an outlier.

This anomaly not only refers to the religious atmosphere, but also the military atmosphere.

This city actually had the energy to build a bastion even when the Christians were at a disadvantage...it was located on the border!

The city of Smyrna was built because the Sultan at that time focused most of his energy on fighting the Buyid Dynasty, which provided a time window for the Knights to build the bastion.

The Knights' own combat power (two artifacts) is indeed very strong, and a small number of troops cannot destroy the city.

And here... while you're building a castle, people can come and crush you to death.

A half-built city, or a city that is not yet completed, has no defensive value and is easily destroyed.

Not only that, I can feel that there are not many soldiers here!

As he had been the commander-in-chief for a long time, his vision for military strategy naturally improved.

He speculated that Giuliano's men were probably around a thousand people, with some error, but not too big.

It would be difficult to defend an army of a thousand men without the support of a castle.

"One of the reasons for this is... there's something strange about this place!" Giuliano said. "There's a place nearby called 'The Plague Land.'"

"Ah? Plague land?"

"That's also the ruins of an ancient city, occupied by a group of guys who came from nowhere. Their leader is called 'Witch'."

"It is said that the witch has the ability to control the plague."

"If you mess with her, she'll spread the plague and cause great damage to the surrounding area."

"Plague?" Thomas was slightly puzzled. But then he remembered that the abilities of elite warriors were completely random, so even if one of them could control a plague, it seemed normal.

"So, both the Star-Moon Cultists and the Christians deliberately avoided this place. I didn't know about it at first, but when I found out, I felt like this seemed like a good opportunity."

Thomas began to understand.

Giuliano made full use of this special favorable condition, knowing that the Crescent Moon believers did not dare to attack with a large army, so he could firmly rule the city of Sela!

Chapter 5: Old Friends in a Small Town

Otherwise, Giuliano is just an ordinary mercenary leader with only a few hundred men under him...

He couldn't take Sela.

In other words, even if he could rely on the remnants of the old times to dig a hole and launch a sneak attack, he would definitely not be able to hold on.

It is even more impossible for him to be canonized as a noble by the Holy Land and occupy such a city openly without fear of revenge from the Star-Moon Cultists.

"We've always maintained peace with the witches. Specifically, we try to keep our distance. But recently, there's been a bit of a conflict... Some outsiders, unaware of the situation here, have been wandering around and seem to have intruded into the plague area!"

"Most of them didn't escape, but a few did. They all became seriously ill. But in the end, the quarantine kept the disease contained. We used fire and lime, at least temporarily, to solve the problem."

"The next step is how to deal with the witch group."

"Most of us think it's best to stay away, but Rostislav thinks this might be an opportunity. We can communicate with the witches and see what their attitude is."

"However, Rostislav's support is limited. Everyone is worried that the witch is manipulating the plague."

"That's why Rostislav disappeared. He most likely went there..." Giuliano sighed. "He was a little impulsive."

"That group of witches you mentioned, how many are there?"

"Not many, only a dozen or so, maybe twenty or thirty at most!" Giuliano replied. "They've taken over the ruins of an ancient city. I don't know the original name of the ruins, but it's at least a thousand years old. Of course, now everyone calls it the Plagueland."

Twenty or thirty people at most?

A very small group, Thomas thought.

Generally speaking, a small population means elitism.

"How long have they occupied that place?"

"It's been like this for at least ten years, even before I arrived," Giuliano said. "The pagan lord who once ruled Sera... seemed to have tried to deal with them. But after trying once, he never dared to come again."

“What about their food, drink, and daily necessities?” Thomas asked again.

"There are several Saracen villages over there," Giuliano said. "Those Saracens revere the witch and her companions as gods, and dare not disobey them in the slightest. They must be the ones providing them with their daily necessities of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation."

"Saracen villages? How many villages? How many people?"

"Those three villages are all quite large, with a combined population of over 1,200 people," Giuliano said. "Those villages are nominally part of Sela City's territory, but in reality, I never send anyone there. Not only me, but even the locals rarely dare to go there. In fact, let alone go... when people from those villages come out to shop, everyone is very cautious and doesn't dare to provoke them."

"Shopping? Will people from those villages also come to Sela City to sell and buy items?"