"Calm down, calm down, I must calm down. This is just a wooden sculpture that I am dazzled by! This cannot be a holy elephant. No, this is definitely not a holy elephant!"
As a cardinal, recognized as the most devout believer, it would be a big problem if it were discovered that he failed to preserve the holy icon in front of him.
As he said this, he spread his hands with an indifferent look on his face and said:
"If this is a holy elephant, how could I be fine until now?! I am the cardinal of the goddess! If it is really a holy elephant, can I still shout?"
If this was really the King's holy image, then the goddess's divine punishment would have followed long ago. How could he have had time to scream
Bishop St. Marshall gradually accepted the 'fact' that this was not a holy image through constant self-hypnosis.
There would be no problem today. As for this room that he had no idea what it meant, it must have been specially set up by a former bishop to show his piety.
It is just that he or she has not been able to hone their carving skills to a high level until they left office, and as a cardinal they dare not destroy the holy image without authorization, so it has been shelved until now.
"Yes, it must be like this. This is just a mistake made by a predecessor, and this wood carving is definitely not a holy elephant. I must have been too nervous just now and saw it wrong! That kind of thing is not right, this level is not right either, anyway, it is like this! This is definitely not a holy elephant!"
After saying this, he bowed with a relaxed look on his face and closed the door.
Although he looked very relaxed, it was clear from the fact that he continued to seal the door of the room that he was definitely not calm inside.
But even so, he still found a good excuse for himself:
"This is to prevent someone from accidentally entering and slandering the holy image. Yes, I am definitely not guilty, I am just in case!"
After applying countless layers of seals, Cardinal Saint Marshall left here, looking back every few steps.
After all, he didn't even have the courage to close the wood carving to confirm the truth.
-
On the other side, Mozo and others finally set foot on the land of the Sea City.
After getting off the boat, Mozo rubbed the little guy's head and took out a dozen Duze gold coins, put them in a small bag and handed it to the boatman.
The other party took the bag with a smile at first, and became even happier after feeling the weight. He thought there must be a lot of copper coins or even silver coins in it.
Paper money is not popular in most areas of the Sea City. Although paper money is issued and guaranteed by the Iron Bank and the local government, few people like it. Therefore, their transactions are basically metal coins that have value in themselves.
This seemed to be the shadow and poison brought by the Ancient Dragon War and the War of the Four Gods. After all, in that era, paper money without its own value and countries that collapsed one after another were really disturbing.
I heard that the goddess of wealth has always been troubled by this. However, the Iron Bank has not taken any corresponding actions, so this should be just a rumor spread by mortals.
As a result, he was shocked when he opened it and handed it back to Mozo:
“You gave too much!”
Mozo looked at the little guy and said:
"It's a lot for you, but it's nothing for me so please accept it. It also helps to change the child into more comfortable clothes."
The middle-aged man then took it back hesitantly.
He had heard that some nobles did not care about the "huge sum of money" in their eyes, and it seemed that he had run into one today. It was just that he could not believe that such a good thing could happen to him.
"Well, if you want to go back, you can take my boat. I'll take you there for free!"
Mozo smiled and said:
"If there is a chance, I will. But now I have to take my leave."
After saying this, he bowed and left with the girls who had also performed the ceremony.
On the way, Audrey couldn't help but ask:
"Is it too much? I mean, this may not be a good thing for them."
Gold coins, especially the Duze gold coins which are the most hard currency at present, are not something that the lower classes should "hold in large quantities".
Mozo shook his head and said:
"No outsider can know how much is in the bag, and the security in the Sea City is not so disturbing."
The goddess just doesn't respond to prayers as much anymore, she's not gone away.
So on her land, although those guys from the church were mostly free-range, they were still led by a master with an invisible rope.
Even though they are greedy, they dare not bite people randomly. They will not let others bite those they cannot bite.
Mozo raised his head and looked at the huge ancient dragon's holy body in front of him and said:
"And they also told me a lot of valuable things. This is a reasonable exchange rather than just charity."
Audrey nodded to show that she understood, and then she looked in the direction Mozo was looking at, and then she said in admiration:
"No matter how many times you see it, such a huge creature is always an extremely dazzling presence."
Wei Er Dani also walked up to Audrey and said:
"I heard from the captain before that the church allows people to go to the Great Ancient Dragon for fun after paying a certain amount of money."
You can imagine that it is so majestic when viewed from a distance, so how amazing it would be to see the ancient dragon up close!
The Church of the Sea Goddess, which grasped this point, should have earned a lot of gold coins from this, right
Mozo was a little surprised and asked:
"Pay money? The church turned Granshanks into a business?"
This Mozo really doesn't know.
"Yes, the captain of the airship that brought us here told me that if we are interested and have enough money, we can even go to the head of the ancient dragon and tour it from the outside to the inside!"
But as she was talking, Wei Erdani said with some hesitation:
"Although it is the goddess' church, is it really okay to do this? After all, it's fine to look at it from below or beside it, but stepping on the holy remains and looking inside, isn't this a bit too blasphemous?"
The dragon race did lose the Ancient Dragon War and the War of the Four Gods, and even lost many Sanks in previous wars, but they are still a powerful ancient race!
After all, Yuanshi seemed to love dragons a little too much.
Mozo did not answer this, but turned his head and looked at the holy remains of Gransanks with a complicated expression. The dragons were very arrogant, but Mozo still respected them because although their pride was annoying, it was also worthy of applause.
Also, is this really the church of the goddess of the sea and not the church of the goddess of wealth
Could it be that the current thirteen cardinals were poached from the Iron Bank? Or did the goddess of wealth reach out to Hevis' church
Otherwise, aren’t these people a bit too outrageous
However, Mozo felt that it was not easy for him to tell them, because what he was going to do next was to directly "steal" the high-sequence seals of the church.
Although normally most of the people in the church did not consider this seal as part of their inventory, it was still the church's wealth after all.
I just don't know whether the people in the church have found this sealed object after so many years.
And it's not clear what's going on with Hevis either.
Oh, there are so many things to do!
Mozo rubbed his eyes, then pulled up his hood and said to the girls:
"Okay, let's stop talking about this and go into the city and find a place to stay."
The Sea Capital is Hevis's kingdom on earth. There must be statues of Hevis everywhere. Mozo wouldn't dare to wander around in there without wearing a hat.
But then something happened that surprised Mozo a little.
Mozo remembered that there were twelve city gates in the direction they chose, but when they arrived, only the outermost six gates were opened.
The six gates in the middle are completely closed.
And that's how it was. Among the six open gates, there were three that seemed to have traffic control and the flow of people was relatively sparse, and most of them were convoys.
The consequence of this is that the other three doors have extremely large traffic flows.
Normally, if the twelve doors are opened together, six can be used for entering and six for exiting, allowing for easy entry and exit even when there is a large flow of people.
This was Ophelia's design back then.
She even hand-carved names and reliefs on each door.
So what the hell is this now
Six of the twelve doors are open
When they got closer, Mozo and the girls didn't know how to start the conversation again.
It turns out that this was the situation many years ago.
The cardinal at that time thought it was too extravagant to open so many doors at the same time, so he closed the three doors in each direction. Later, when the genius who graduated from the Iron Bank became a cardinal, he suddenly felt that there was business to be done here.
So he openly closed many gates in the name of extravagance, leaving only three as the roads for believers and pedestrians. Then, when the three gates were completely unable to meet the huge flow of people, he suddenly stood up and announced that he could open three gates in all directions. However, he would need to charge a certain fee to maintain the loss of opening more gates.
The purpose is nothing more than to take the opportunity to collect a large amount of tolls. As for why there is no city entry tax, it is because when the Storm King was still in power, he had clearly ordered that there would be no city entry tax.
Anyone, any race, as long as you have no ill intentions, the City of the Sea welcomes you!
They didn't have the courage to change the king's decree, so they set up this toll as a trick.
During this period, they have gradually modified the number of doors opened, but found that if more doors were opened, less tolls would be collected, while if fewer doors were opened, less money would be collected in other aspects due to traffic congestion.
After constant twists and turns, three doors became free and three doors were charged.
In this regard, the other directions are also similar.
After learning this, the three girls couldn't help but say:
"Are we really not in the Iron Bank?!"
"Even in Florence, there are no such people who know how to have fun!"
"You need money just to walk?!"
Mozo covered his face with a complicated expression.
These people...
Well, at least they haven't come up with the tithing thing yet.
Wait, it seems like tithing is a very reasonable thing in this world
Mozo suddenly discovered that with the existence of gods and blessings, the tithe that used to be completely unjustifiable and unreasonable seemed to be very reasonable in this world?!
At least in those areas where the gods really help to increase production, it is extremely reasonable. After all, without the blessing of the gods, their production would definitely not be so high.
For example, if the fields of the people of light in the Eternal City were not blessed by the gods, it would be impossible for them to produce huge yields every year, which goes against common sense.
No no no, what the hell am I thinking about.
The current issue is not whether tithing is reasonable in this world, but the fact that these people actually turned something that was originally free into something that was charged!
What has changed is still related to people’s livelihood!
After thinking about this, Mozo began to stroke his chin and wondered if he should find an opportunity to knock it down.
But what should I do? Is there any safe and effective way
I'm going to get a will unearthed from the Shang and Zhou dynasties that was actually written in the Zhou dynasty
Before Mozo could continue thinking, he saw a priest suddenly come up to them and said to them:
"Welcome, four lost lambs!"
Audrey glanced at Mozo who was still thinking, then turned to him and said with a smile:
"Hello, respected priest!"
The other party also bowed slightly respectfully and looked behind him at the four people and said:
"Are you all followers of His Majesty?"
Audrey shook her head slightly. She didn't believe in any god, or rather, she believed in gods depending on the situation.
For example, when she was in that terrible underground ruins, she was a true believer of the Sun King, but she was no longer like that after she left.
But Verdani and Miss Knight both nodded and said:
"We are followers of Her Majesty Hevis!"
One of them is the path of thunder and lightning, and the other is the path of storm, both of which are within the jurisdiction of the goddess of the sea. So both of them are believers of Haiweisi and the Storm King.
Hearing this, the priest said with even greater joy:
“That’s great.”
The priest turned around and pointed to a huge box placed at the city gate and guarded by many knights and said:
"I wonder if you two have seen that?"