Volume 9, Chapter 28 – The Ostracized Priests and Elemental Baptism

After finishing the healing magic and coming out of the room, Yisi was immediately met by the two waiting outside. Lin’s beautiful face was etched with anxiety.

“Didn’t you say three minutes? It’s already been a quarter of an hour.”

Although the [Miracle of Reversal] Yisi used could only restore 70% of health, these young men and women were of such low levels that if Yisi hadn’t noticed in time, the spell would have fully healed everyone. To avoid looking too powerful, Yisi deliberately stayed in the room for an extra fifteen minutes. However, for a Vampire Princess, staying in a room reeking of blood was sheer torture, especially since she had forgotten to replenish her blood at breakfast. To stop herself from sucking on the blood-soaked bandages, Yisi could only take out her reserves from storage and hold them in her mouth.

Deliberately waving the short staff symbolizing a Cardinal’s authority, Yisi gave Lin a reassuring smile.

“Their lives are saved for now, but they’ve lost a lot of blood and need proper care. I don’t know what they went through, but it’s probably best not to assign them similar tasks anytime soon.”

“I’ll be careful, I’ll be careful! Thank you so much!”

The man standing beside Lin, the one Yisi had kicked against the wall earlier, clutched his stomach and nodded repeatedly in thanks, his face showing no resentment towards Yisi.

This man must be the head of the academy, or at least a teacher, Yisi guessed.

After Lin and the man checked the steady breathing of the injured, they both let out sighs of relief and quietly closed the door.

“Lady Hero, please leave the rest to me. I will send people to handle the follow-up matters. Please escort this guest to the upper level; someone there will receive you and this lady.”

“Cough, cough cough… I’ll leave this to you.”

“Please don’t push yourself.”

“What’s wrong? You look pale, Lin.”

Lin had only been in the room for less than two minutes, but she came out looking pale and coughing intermittently, like a patient recovering from a serious illness.

“…The life force and holy power in the room are too dense; it makes me a little uncomfortable.” Lin wiped the sweat from her forehead, straightened up again, and forced a smile. “Besides that, I have to thank you, Yisi. If you hadn’t been here, I would have had no choice but to turn them into undead.”

“It was nothing. Even if I didn’t know them, seeing people disappear before my eyes would make me uncomfortable all day, let alone the fact that they’re just children.”

Reαⅾ οո ΚαtReаdіոgСаfe

It would give me a guilty conscience.

“Children?” Yisi’s statement made Lin look puzzled. “Are you very old now, Yisi? You look about the same age as them.”

“Well…”

My mental age is probably several years older.

Yisi glossed over it with the excuse that she was a vampire and only looked young. However, Lin’s curiosity was far from satisfied.

“Even the best healers in the kingdom couldn’t save their lives. How did you do it, Yisi? And that life force in the room, comparable to the roots of the World Tree, and the holy power so abundant it made me dizzy—those aren’t things the Blood Clan should be able to control. Aren’t you supposed to only use dark magic? I remember in history, only Alvier VI used light magic, and that was just basic Tier 1. How can you wield such high-level holy magic? Do you have a bloodline even higher than the Vampire Queen’s?”

“Eh.”

If Lin saw her Third Form Awakening, she probably wouldn’t have any doubts. But she absolutely couldn’t reveal her Third Form in this situation. Exposing that she could transform was a minor issue, but if the girl-hearted Lin became fixated on it, that would be terrible. Setting aside the fact that girls seemed to like fluffy things, this Lin was someone who could brazenly wear fox-ear ornaments on her head. That alone showed her love for fluffiness. Even for the sake of her own tail and ear fur, she shouldn’t casually show them off.

Averting her gaze from Lin’s curious expression, Yisi managed a vague explanation.

“I am a Cardinal of the Ymir Church. If I couldn’t use healing magic, there’s no way I could have attained this position.”

“Hmm… That’s true. But you still haven’t explained why you can use holy magic. The concentration in that room was enough to grant newborns an affinity for holy magic. Wait, speaking of which, perhaps I should have the dean bring the younger children over to receive a baptism of holy element. No, I should go right now.”

Is that really necessary? The injured are still lying in there, hey!

While Yisi was complaining internally, Lin had already run off somewhere. In her place, a group of elderly priests crowded around Yisi.

An old woman with few teeth opened her mouth wide, looking at Yisi’s right hand with an exaggerated expression.

“This… this is the Cardinal’s scepter! The last time I saw it was when I was young! You… could you be a Cardinal sent from the Holy City? Has the Holy City finally decided to save this barren land?”

Following closely behind the old woman, another man, not quite as old and with wisdom in his eyes, threw open his arms and shouted, “Status doesn’t matter! Look, the holy power overflowing from that room! Even just the little bit leaking out, I can feel it! Such pure holy power, without a trace of impurity! Only the Goddess, only the Goddess herself could emit such radiance! Did you see it? Did you see it when the door opened just now? Those cloud-like golden streams of light! That’s the holy element becoming so dense it materialized! This is the Goddess herself visiting!”

Rеαⅾ οո КαtRеaԁіոgСаfe

“Old Jett, you’re too excited.” Pushing the frantic old man aside, a kind-faced elder came before Yisi, his smile full of ingratiation. “Forgive me, Your Eminence the Cardinal, my companion was rude. May I ask if you have come to the Duchy of Chloe to establish a temple here? If so, we are willing to disband immediately and join your service.”

The information overload was so great that Yisi couldn’t react for a moment. By the time she came to her senses, all the elders were staring at her with expectant eyes. Not only that, but because of the commotion, Yisi felt gazes coming from around the training ground—those were the academy students living on the middle floors of the spire.

This has suddenly become troublesome.

This was exactly why she didn’t like using magic casually; otherwise, this kind of situation would arise.

The elders’ meaning was clear. They mistook her for a Cardinal sent by Evelyn to the duchy, thinking she was here to build a Ymir temple, and thus wanted to join the church. But she wasn’t charged with such a mission and couldn’t give them a satisfactory answer.

Yisi secretly glanced at the elders’ expressions again—the hope in their eyes had deepened. They jostled forward, eager not to be left out.

With expressions like these, how can I refuse…

If there was one thing she was worst at, number one would definitely be a girl’s tears, and number two would be refusing someone who genuinely requested her help.

“Ahem.” Adopting the haughtiness expected of a Cardinal, Yisi cleared her throat pretentiously. “Before asking me questions, shouldn’t you introduce yourselves?”

“Ah, er, understood. We were originally part of the Ymir Church, but due to various problems, we were ostracized by the church members. Unable to bear it, we ran off to this remote place. It’s been over thirty years.”

According to the elder, in their youth, they had joined the Ymir Church with universal ideals, only to find the church already hopelessly corrupt. To change the situation, they wrote letters reporting to the upper echelons, but their individual power was too small; they couldn’t even make ripples. They were expelled from their local temple. Later, hearing about the frequent wars between the small countries nestled between the Hels Kingdom and the Norta Empire, they came here one after another to save people, establishing a temple called the Ymir Temple, though it wasn’t under the church’s jurisdiction. They had been charging money to save people and then using that money for relief efforts ever since.

“Although none of us regret our youthful decision, there has always been one regret in our hearts. We can tell outsiders that we are members of the Ymir Church, but only we know in our hearts that our names are no longer on the church roster. The road to the Holy City is too far, and there are only us old bones here in the church. If we were to leave and someone got injured, there would be no one to save them. So, all these years, we’ve been contacting the Holy City, hoping they would send an envoy to establish a temple in the Duchy of Chloe. Even if they didn’t assign us personnel or other resources, just giving us a title would have been enough…”

Unfortunately, even this small wish could not be fulfilled.

While listening to these words, Yisi noticed some elders standing at the back of the group quietly wiping away tears.

How can I just stand by and watch this?

I’m not that heartless.

Reаԁ оո ΚаtRеαdіnɡСаfе

Resting her right fist on her chin, Yisi let out a soft hum.

“I understand. However, I did not come here to establish a temple, but to handle other matters. Although I sympathize with your plight, I have only recently become a Cardinal and am unsure of the extent of my authority, so I cannot give you an immediate answer.” As Yisi said this, the elders’ expressions clearly dimmed. “However, I will write a letter detailing your situation to Her Holiness the Pope. The current Pope is Evelyn Anna Ymir Shalu. Her Eminence Evelyn despises those followers who hold power but do nothing practical. So you need not worry about not receiving a response. I will have Her Eminence Evelyn assign personnel to you.”

As for how to establish a Ymir Church temple on Divine Religion territory, Yisi planned to negotiate directly with Atwood. As long as the temple consisted entirely of people like these elders, who only cared about the lives of the injured and didn’t pry into the Divine Religion’s secrets, there shouldn’t be much resistance. The fact that these elders could appear openly in the spire indicated that the Divine Religion desperately needed people with healing abilities.

This is how the Ymir Church should be.

Sighing inwardly, Yisi continued discussing related matters with the elders. Only after understanding the entire situation and writing it down on paper in front of them did Lin return to the training ground, bringing a large group of four and five-year-old children with her.

“Thank you, Your Eminence the Cardinal! Thank you!”

“We finally have a home!”

“To be able to return under the Goddess’s name, I can die without regrets!”

As the scene turned into a group of elders kneeling and weeping in gratitude, an uninformed Lin raised her eyebrows at a strange angle and quietly approached Yisi.

“What did you do to them?”

“…Wrote a letter for them?”

“That shouldn’t make them act like this. I know you’re a Cardinal and seeing this group calling themselves Ymir Church priests might make you uncomfortable, but nine out of ten children here have been cared for by them. Don’t be too harsh on them.”

“No, that’s not what I meant at all. I didn’t want it to turn out like this either…”

She had repeatedly asked the elders to rise, but they insisted on thanking her. Perhaps decades of grievances were finally being vented, making them unable to control their emotions. Yisi could only try to prevent them from performing the kowtowing ritual, which she truly couldn’t accept.

By the way, Lin really did take the academy children to the room.

Looking back at Lin, who looked like a kindergarten teacher, Yisi didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was the first time she had heard that undergoing a baptism of concentrated elements in childhood could increase one’s affinity for magic later on.

Rеаԁ оո ΚаtReаԁiոɡСafе

As for the fact that elemental baptism was difficult to achieve artificially, usually requiring people to go to volcanoes, the seabed, or deep within ley lines—Yisi only learned this later. The level of holy element that had appeared in the room… if the location were made public, even royalty would try every means to send their children there. In human kingdoms, affinity for holy magic held symbolic significance far outweighing its practical value, especially for royalty. A royal family member capable of using holy magic was often considered chosen by the Goddess, possessing qualities of kindness, justice, and diligence, making it easier to win the people’s hearts.

It wasn’t until noon that Yisi finally saw off the elders, who were still crying and thanking her. She let out a long sigh.

“I feel like Lin tricked me into doing hard labor.”

Having handled everything, Lin stood beside Yisi and gave a wry smile, a hint of apology in her expression.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t expect so many things to happen… Would you like to have lunch together? It’s not time for the academy’s meal distribution yet, but I made some before I came.”

“Can I consider that my payment for the work?”

“If we’re talking payment, even giving you Purple and Red wouldn’t be enough. Those two brazenly said that even combined, they couldn’t sell for three gem coins.”

As she spoke, Lin took out two lunch boxes from her storage magic. The aroma of food wafting over made Yisi’s nose twitch—a salty smell of seaweed, mixed with a hint of something fried. Instantly thinking of rice balls and tempura, Yisi’s hungry stomach began to command her brain.

“Umm, I have no intention of engaging in human trafficking. This lunch is payment enough. But why did you make two servings?”

“Uh,” like a child caught sneaking candy, Lin froze, still holding the lunch boxes, her cheeks gradually turning red. “Well… c-can you not tell anyone? I have dragon blood, so I eat more than the average person…”

Although Lin looked shy, Yisi didn’t understand at all. In her view, eating a lot wasn’t something to be embarrassed about, even for a beautiful girl. If anything, it was rather cute.

The world is truly full of incomprehensible customs.

This is where I need to step in and correct this misunderstanding, just like when I corrected Cynthia, who always felt it was strange not to have abs.

Suddenly filled with a sense of justice, Yisi patted her unremarkable chest and replied nonchalantly, “I understand. But before that, let’s find a convenient place to eat lunch.”

“Okay.”