Chapter 354: Section 141: Faith is the Transformation of the Soul
“Oh Great Mei Lan Deity, my Lord, Your Divine Power is like endless waves that can pour down from the heavens and cloak the earth. Your Divine Power is the endless sea breeze…”
Cang Xu knelt on the ground, his hands clasped together, praying wholeheartedly before the statue of the Mei Lan Goddess.
Divine Power manifested within him in some unfathomable way, bit by bit.
After praying over and over again, when the time ended, there was the equivalent of half a bowl’s amount of Divine Power accumulated within Cang Xu.
No more Divine Power would appear even if he continued to pray.
The Mei Lan doctrines recorded the best times for prayer, specifically at dawn and dusk, each period lasting about twenty-five minutes.
During these times, the Divine Power one could gain from prayer was the most plentiful.
Praying outside of these windows greatly reduced the efficiency of gaining Divine Power.
Generally speaking, the stronger the deity and the broader the Divine Office, the more formidable the Divine Authority, the longer the best prayer time. For example, for the Holy Emperor, the entire day was the best time for believers to pray to Him.
Cang Xu prayed continuously, and though the optimal prayer time had long ended, he still did not stop.
He only reluctantly ceased when the appearance of Divine Power grew scarce, until not even a drop increased in ten minutes.
He slowly stood up and walked to the altar table beneath the statue.
On the table laid a large seashell, precisely the Mermaid’s Fairy Tale.
“As long as I keep channeling my Divine Power, forming a Pearl Bubble, I can offer my most beloved Goddess great assistance.”
This thought filled Cang Xu’s mind.
As to why this thought arose, he did not scrutinize.
He placed his hands over the seashell, pouring all his Divine Power into it while constantly berating himself.
“Why?”
“Why am I only at the level of a general believer? I clearly only worship the great Mei Lan Goddess!”
Cang Xu’s heart was filled with guilt.
After a dozen seconds, he had not a trace of Divine Power left.
A tremendous sense of fatigue came over him.
“I must rest now.”
“Before resting, I need to have a full meal.”
“Only by replenishing enough spirit and physical strength can I continue to pray.”
Another thought dominated his mind.
Cang Xu moved almost subconsciously; he walked to the cabin door.
Ssst.
A hissing sound, and the door slid aside.
Cang Xu stepped out of the cabin, and the door closed beside him.
The next moment, he saw the Fishman youth and Zi Di.
“Who are you?” Cang Xu was stunned, as both the Fishman youth and Zi Di were strangers to him.
“How did two strangers appear on my ship?” Cang Xu immediately became tense.
And at that moment, as the cabin door behind him closed, the action acted like a switch, sharply triggering something hidden deep within Cang Xu’s soul.
Suddenly, like the opening of a floodgate, countless memories surged forth, threatening to drown his very mind.
Cang Xu reached to clutch his head, his body violently shaking, then he collapsed onto the ground.
Zi Di and the Fishman youth made no move to help him, instead watching him with wary eyes.
Cang Xu’s face was ashen, he gasped for air, his eyes rolling back, his body trembling non-stop as if he had been electrocuted.
After about a minute, Cang Xu suddenly let out a violent cough, and his eyes rolled back to normal.
He curled up on the ground, kneeling like a lobster, retching continuously.
“Cang Xu?” the Fishman youth tentatively asked.
Cang Xu hastily gestured with his hand and coughed a few more times: “I’m fine, my memory has all come back, huh huh! My goodness, this feeling is quite awful.”
Zi Di was quite composed: “You should answer a few questions for us first.”
Cang Xu lay back half reclined, leaning against the metal wall. His physical ability was actually not diminished, but with his spirit damaged and his soul in turmoil, he still felt a strong sensation of dizziness.
He looked at the boy and girl: “I know that to ensure there were no problems with me, we had agreed on a dozen or so questions before the experiment, to preliminarily verify my state.”
“These questions are…”
Cang Xu then spoke at length, questioning and answering himself, and his mental state gradually stabilized.
With such conduct, Cang Xu earned the trust of the Fishman youth and Zi Di.
“Drink some potions quickly,” the Fishman youth reminded.
Cang Xu was allowed, and only then did he dare take out the potions. The potions were not on him, but in a hidden storage compartment in the corner of the wall.
The switch to the compartment also involved an Alchemy Array, containing the Undead faction’s method of discernment.
Cang Xu smoothly opened the compartment, took out the potions, and channeled them into his system.
This action proved that his soul had not undergone any distortion or significant changes.
“So, you succeeded?” Zi Di asked with joy in her voice.
Cang Xu drank a vial of potion, the dizziness quickly subsiding, but he still couldn’t stand up on his own and remained sitting on the ground.
Faced with Zi Di’s question, he first nodded, then slightly shook his head.
This response left both the youth and the young lady somewhat confused.
Cang Xu then explained, “Long before charging into the Sky Pillar, I had already successfully transformed the memory. But at that time, I was not certain about praying to the Goddess Mei Lan.”
“After the Sky Pillar Sea Eye battle, thanks to Miss Zi Di’s help, I obtained the cultivation records of the ship ghost. It contained insights of the ship ghost becoming a Desecration Priest, which greatly increased my chances of deceiving the deities. It also had a wealth of memory transformation techniques, the most important of which was the Memory Concealment Skill.”
“It can condense all of our past memories into a single point, hidden deep within the soul. It can also design a switch so that when we touch this switch, the memories can be restored in an extremely short period of time.”
“Now, you have both witnessed with your own eyes that I succeeded. I deceived the Goddess, and all the Divine Power obtained from this prayer has been channeled into the Mermaid’s Fairy Tale. The experiment with the Memory Concealment Skill was also quite successful.”
The Fishman youth nodded.
He recalled that before the rise of the Sea Eye Sky Pillar, Cang Xu had invited him to assist with the Memory Crystal to help restore his memory.
The two of them had also speculated that the ship ghost alone must have a way to restore memories by himself.
Now, they had their answer: the Memory Concealment Skill.
The youth was puzzled, “Won’t condensing one’s own memories alert the deities?”
Cang Xu answered, “That’s right, even deities can’t completely penetrate all the mysteries of a soul. Unless there’s a special Divine Office, deities can only penetrate the souls of most devout believers, thoroughly scrutinizing the souls of fanatics.”
“Even for the deities, when it comes to an ordinary believer, and even general believers, their souls lack powerful scrutiny.”
At this point, Cang Xu hesitated for a moment, glanced at the two in front of him, and then said, “From this perspective, faith in the deities is actually a transformation of the believers’ souls, allowing the power of deities to continuously infiltrate the bodies and souls of the believers, until the transformation is complete, making them the property of the deities.”
The young man and woman immediately exhibited extremely shaken expressions.
Cang Xu’s words were too sinful, too blasphemous!
For anyone with religious beliefs, this was a bolt from the blue, an utter heresy, an unforgivable transgression!
From this point of view, all deities were conspirators who deliberately harvested the souls of believers!!
Seeing the two speechless from shock, Cang Xu continued with difficulty, “The souls of intelligent beings are an important resource. This is true for deities, and within the Abyss, devils or inter-dimensional merchants trade with souls as currency. Especially the devils, who have an unending demand for souls. They often use cunning tricks of deception, or contracts and the like, to extract the souls of Contractors.”
The young man and woman were silent for a long time.
Cang Xu’s words were like a huge hammer, pounding against the fortress of faith in their hearts.
Before long, the youth exhaled deeply and looked intently at Cang Xu, “Perhaps it is precisely because you have perceived this secret that Undead Mages are wanted by all deities?”
The youth accepted this truth faster than the young lady did.
Because on Mysterious Monster Island, he had once mistook himself for Zhenjin, filled with faith in the Holy Emperor. But when the truth came to light, so too did his faith collapse.
After leaving the island, the youth’s heart was filled with confusion, unsure of which deity to believe in, and he went through a phase of having no faith.
He instinctively became wary of the practice of faith in a deity. Later, he had refused the recruitment by Bishop Hao Fu of life, and secretly, this was part of the reason.
However, to make it more convenient to lead the Justice Pirate Group, he usually pretended to pray, to soothe people’s hearts.
Later, during the battle at the Sky Pillar Sea Eye, the youth was forced to use the Goddess Mei Lan as a weapon. This unique experience diminished his reverence for deities to the lowest point. Deep down, he understood that although deities were exalted, they were also just some powerful life beings. It was just that this power was so overstated that the vast majority of people could not fathom it.
The youth’s castle of faith was already in ruins, so it was easier for him to accept Cang Xu’s words.
“Alright,” Zi Di said with a pale face, holding her chest as she felt herself waver, “Just because of what you said, I feel my faith has been violently shaken.”
Cang Xu smiled bitterly, “In fact, I have now become a general believer of the Dark Lord. Soon, I may not even count as a general believer.”
“It is at this moment that I understand why Undead Mages do not believe in gods and why most Undead Mages also serve as Desecration Priests.”
Zi Di took a deep breath, “Old Scholar, it’s better to say less of such things in the future. I consider myself a companion who has shared both life and misfortune with you, having gone through so much together, but just now, I couldn’t help but feel hatred towards you.”
Cang Xu sighed, “Thank you both for understanding me. Of course, I am aware of the cost of saying such words. But just now, I truly did not want to conceal anything from you. Even if you both might grow to hate me.”
This statement touched the hearts of the young man and woman once again.
Zi Di glanced at the youth, took a deep breath, and then said, “There are some things I should have told you long ago.”