Chapter 100 - The History of Religion and the Motive Power Trigger (2/2)

“What if the gods are telling us to have a fight with the heretics? In any case, that’s what I believe. This has absolutely nothing to do with me consuming too much dream herb before praying…” — A considerable number of people thought this way.

But no matter what, the Sacred Alliance did have that little bit more authority than the alliance treaties between human kingdoms (it was written in the name of the gods after all). Even if the conflict between the sects intensified in private, at least on the surface, everyone maintained a win-win situation. At least with the churches in large towns, for the priests of various sects to meet each other frequently was still very normal. — Of course, priests turning to the side to spit after greeting one another and returning home to prick voodoo dolls were also very common.

However, no one would speak about such situations in the open, especially the high priests of every sect. They would not make comments of ‘though there are many gods, my boss is more impressive than all of you’ in public.

Yet Veronica did.

Gawain did not know whether that Saint Princess was giving an intentional hint or that hidden under her pure and intelligent outward appearance was a heart that spoke without thinking. In any case, he was very concerned about this matter. Moreover, the high priest who appeared with Veronica and resembled a light form had his heart full of doubts. In such a situation, he did not dare accept anything that the other party was tossing over without careful consideration.

As for whether the camp would be constructing cathedrals and bringing in the church in the future, he wasn’t too conflicted about that. After all, gods really do exist in this world; theurgies were also certainly a part of people’s day-to-day lives. As a pragmatic person, even if he was an atheist himself, he would not stop others from believing. — Since he had arrived in such a bizarre world, if he still hung so forcefully onto atheism, it would be too idealistic.

However, by that time, he would definitely strengthen supervision over the church and ensure that everything was under his control. It was true that theurgies were real; it was also true that theocracy would affect political power. He wasn’t willing to trip and fall in this aspect.

Just like for every qualified transmigrator, theurgies, in Gawain’s opinion, were to be used as a means of production.

Of course, it was too far away to be planning these things now. In the circumstances where the camp could not even construct a small cathedral, it would be more practical to think of how to manage capital construction instead of wondering how to control religion on his land. Hence, Gawain decided to make use of this period of time where foreign aggression was temporarily nonexistent to build up the camp’s foundation.

The news regarding the eastern border that Veronica and company had brought had given him a reminder. In his not-too-peaceful world, the dangers were much more complicated than the Dark Wave in the Gondor Wasteland. This continent had enjoyed 700 years of peace. There were too many people restless and eager to make trouble under the appearance of peace. If one wanted to live an easy life in such a situation, one would have to become nervous first.

Gawain returned to his own tent — speaking of which, more and more tents were turning into wooden houses or even houses that were more resilient and warmer. It was time this tent of his was upgraded too. He woke Betty, who was curled up on the cushion, fast asleep, and drooling all over. He had the girl bring over all the blueprints that he had accumulated some time ago.

He spread out those blueprints one by one and then weeded out the unrealistic items (but he did not plan on destroying them; what if they came in handy in the future?). Finally, he found those that he wanted. It was a certain simplified machine — metal wheels, connecting rods, and cylinder blocks were ingeniously assembled together. There were the split-up and detailed explanations of these mechanisms and structures on the blueprints. However, at the bottom of the main blueprint was a line of striking red words, “Initial motive power could not be resolved, temporarily shelved”.

“Go get Rebecca and Heidi.” Gawain looked towards the little maidservant who stood in a daze beside the desk. “Just say I have something… Never mind, just remember to get them here.”

Betty jogged out in a dash, leaving Gawain in thought as he faced the sheets of semi-finished blueprints. Amber’s voice suddenly sounded behind him. “What are you drawing here? Why can’t I understand it?”

“A certain motive power trigger,” Gawain said without lifting his head. At the same time, he slapped the half-elf bandit’s claw from his silver stamp with ease. “In theory, this is something that only needs to consume energy to operate continuously by itself and drive other mechanisms and structure, but the design is not completed yet.”

Amber’s whole body left the shadows. She bowed her head and studied those blueprints on the desk curiously. “Oh? You’re referring to those magic puppets powered using elemental cores?”

Gawain shook his head. “No, not the same thing at all. This is an equipment that is more universal and basic, but its value far exceeds those magic puppets… Regrettably, it still lacks the most important part.”

Yes, the part that could not boil water…