Chapter 193: Tacit Approval

After Corleon entered the Clock Tower, the Great Church also opened to the public.

Without the will-dispelling effect he had been releasing on ordinary people, more and more came to the church for prayer, especially after last autumn’s harvest.

The commoners’ cellars were filled, leaving them without basic survival pressure. And without the control of the local gentry, they could move about more freely.

Among them, under the guidance of priests who were in frequent contact with the lower-class commoners, concepts such as the Church of the Sanctuary, the Lord’s Sanctuary, and the church’s holy grounds gradually spread. In their spare time, these commoners would come for worship as if making a pilgrimage.

Besides the commoners, there were also local gentry, officials, merchants, and free fighters—people detached from production.

Regardless of their identity, the moment they stepped into the Great Church, they all believed themselves to be the most devout believers.

The two nobles who still remained in York Town’s Senate had not visited yet. They only went to the monastery to read, chat with the scholars, and occasionally interact with the apprentices.

Compared to the First Batch of Apprentices, who were not considered core members of their families, the Second Batch was somewhat more outstanding.

After seeing what the First Batch of Apprentices had learned, the local gentry finally decided to send the core, eligible youths of their families to the church. The Second Batch of Apprentices was already double in number compared to the first.

These second-batch apprentices had received a certain level of cultivation from birth. Thus, when they came into contact with the powers available to monastery apprentices, they were excited, but compared to the First Batch—already deeply enmeshed in the whirlpool of power and greed—they were more restrained.

Moreover, elders in their families supplemented their knowledge with rules outside the monastery, preventing them from acting as if, holding the Holy Scriptures and laws, everyone must obey and follow their commands.

Furthermore, during the First Batch’s graduation ceremony, when Oscar directly expelled one apprentice and erased a year’s worth of his memories on the spot, the less power-tainted Second Batch was thoroughly sobered.

As for that expelled apprentice—he disappeared that very night after leaving the monastery.

According to rumors among the Second Batch, he tripped on flat ground while walking, shattering his limbs and head, which were then dragged by some stray dogs from Castlelot Market all the way to his family’s manor.

Thus, compared to the First Batch, whose lust for power had seeped into their bones, the Second Batch was far more normal.

It was now February 5th. After completing the admission ceremony for the Third Batch of Apprentices on February 1st, the Second Batch was sent out by the scholars to do practical work.

After the chaotic training of the First Batch, the scholars adjusted the teaching model for the Second Batch—focusing on one primary discipline, with the others as electives, and splitting the year between study and practice.

Apprentices in the history discipline were thrown into villages and towns to record the implementation and feedback of policies, to see the effects of previously enacted measures. This was why the history discipline had the most students.

After all, the families who sent them to the monastery ultimately aimed to preserve their own power, and power was the most intoxicating to these youths.

Apprentices in the biology discipline carried tools resembling torture devices to treat patients, often removing or stitching parts, and visiting military camps to observe soldiers’ training.

They studied the human body—from its structure to its physical limits—and how to push it to those limits. As for their tools, perhaps the death-row prisoners dragged in for thorough, inside-and-out examination felt “honored” to help develop a field of study.

Natural science apprentices went into fields, forests, and plains, investigating soil quality, adjusting farming schedules based on seasonal weather changes, and examining the ecological balance of wild animals.

After necromancers cleared the beasts from the northern York Territory last year, the disrupted ecosystem still hadn’t recovered. These apprentices’ task was to restore ecological balance in the next six months.

As for the mechanical discipline, newly created after the Second Batch’s recruitment and led by Oscar, its apprentices were handed to Cicero, who was told to take them to build houses with their current knowledge. Cicero initially refused, but after Corleon spoke, he had no choice.

On the third day, the apprentices produced a hoisting gear set that made lifting stone blocks easier. Cicero immediately placed an order with Oscar, as casually as buying lumber, asking for a hundred apprentices this year. Naturally, Oscar didn’t even glance at such a “request.”

Meanwhile, the abandoned but not yet officially canceled magic discipline had no apprentices—neither majors nor electives.

Although in Corleon’s view, these disciplines were still chaotic, for this era they were already a source of pride for the monastery’s scholars.

Corleon didn’t interfere in their development. Since last year, he had been guiding the monastery and church to keep their distance.

The monastery would grow increasingly complex, and such complexity was unsuitable within the church’s structure.

Just like York City’s situation—the church only controlled the topmost military force and the lowest commoner productivity, setting the lower and upper bounds of social order. The power vacuum in between was left for others to adapt to and exploit under the new rules.

Only when a faction overstepped would the church quietly remove them.

The Church Nation, founded by Zezel and Darks, was a theocratic state. But priests and bishops in the lower ranks, once holding power, degenerated at an astonishing speed, to the point where those outside the Church Nation’s Holy City had to be rotated every half month.

Even before Gluttony’s will was dispersed, seeds of Original Sin had already been sown there. And even with Gluttony gone, those seeds would sprout.

Due to the nature of faith and churches, the descent of Original Sin’s will was alarmingly fast.

Furthermore, because of the Church Nation’s theocratic system, its priests and bishops lacked pure faith, making it impossible for position-based commandments to descend.

If they did descend, regardless of good or evil, they would quickly end up like Nyx—either never using the power of the commandments again or being assimilated by them after only a few uses. In the end, the Church Nation would fall not to Original Sin believers but to its own faith.

It was only after George’s visit taught them how to properly harness faith that Corleon could finally bestow commandments upon them.

The Virtue Knights drew their power from virtues they personally upheld—a form of ascetic commandment.

With these knights, the Church Nation could truly expand beyond the Holy City, gaining farmland for cultivation.

Otherwise, relying only on the Patriarch, who was bound to the land through the earth vein, and the Three Sages—barely half a living person combined—the Church Nation would have starved to death within the Holy City.

Corleon had considered visiting to purge the Original Sin will there.

The price would be erasing the souls of hundreds of thousands, but that was better than allowing the current unchecked spread.

Yet while Holy Light fully countered Original Sin’s will, it wasn’t nearly as effective against the earth vein’s magic power. The Original Sin wills could wield more than just sin’s power.

Having existed for untold ages, they naturally knew how to use magic power—one of the world’s fundamental forces.

Unless all incarnations of Original Sin’s will gathered in one place for Corleon to purify instantly, even one extra breath would allow them to seal him.

Just as Corleon could use the Small Church and Clock Tower to shroud York Territory in his will, the Original Sin wills could shroud their domain through their own “small churches.”

Even the true Wolf God—whose will had been reawakened from a lingering tooth under Holy Light’s pressure after Corleon expelled Wrath—could quickly devise a way to dismantle the essence of Holy Light. Those Original Sin wills who had directly faced Corleon would, of course, also perceive its nature.

The Wolf God’s level as a racial deity was far below Corleon and the Original Sin wills. Corleon now saw that he had already fled back to the Northwind Mountains and would later hide in the Northern Kingdom.

Those Original Sins at Corleon’s level were beyond his Revelation—they couldn’t even be located, apart from Gluttony’s seal.

In Corleon’s eyes, the Church Nation was like ink drops on paper, spreading toward the Fishmen’s domain.

To the north, chaos in the Northern Kingdom worsened, and recently a black blot had appeared in his Revelation, obscuring vision.

Though unseen, Corleon guessed it was that fellow finally summoning a Lord of the Plane of Annihilation.

This was ill news—yet, in a sense, fortunate.

With a Lord of Annihilation’s will in the north, the Original Sin wills dared not expand there; such a lord was no weaker than them.

And with the Nation of Werewolves and York Territory as a buffer, the Original Sin wills were trapped between them, while the Church Nation stirred trouble in their hinterland, forcing them to press toward the Fishmen.

The southern nobles’ great wall isolating York Territory was also tacitly approved by Corleon.

This region now needed to become a place free from outside interference—a cradle for faith and social transformation.

Only when people realized they could never escape the church’s will would they adapt to the new rules.

Otherwise, with their noble status, if given the chance to flee, they would seek shelter with some powerful lord and continue enjoying noble privileges.

Once Corleon’s will blanketed York Territory via the Small Church and Clock Tower, the mages’ power that eroded and slew the earth vein was naturally blocked.

These mages, however, didn’t remain idle; like Oscar before them, they sought to deconstruct the nature of this power.

But in this time, Corleon saw at least seventeen wills of two mages erased and assimilated.

These mages were not in York Territory—they dared to use commoners’ wills as stand-ins, and the lords didn’t care about such population loss.

Under such isolation, the changes in York Territory, carefully nurtured by the church, were astonishing, frightening, and a source of pride even to long-term residents.

All the more so for the people brought by Leon and Vito.

They had either lived under the Nation of Werewolves’ dark rule for half a year, or in the Church Nation tormented by Original Sin’s will.

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