Chapter 317: The Red King's Reward

This incident, caused by a stack of various coincidences, made Luo De's blood pressure spike briefly before it dropped again.

It caused him to fall into thought again.

It is no longer the source of this faith power.

But rather, what is Apep up to? This guy has been missing for a long time.

Or is it the kind of disappearance that nobody can find? As a result, hearing news of her again, it turns out this guy specially erected a statue for himself.

Suspicious! Even without others saying so, Luo De muttered to himself in his heart.

Or rather.

He was simply certain.

This Apep definitely harbors some strange idea.

Otherwise, why would she idle away and erect a statue that can absorb faith power for no reason? That said.

Although the faith power born in A Ru Cun is small in amount, it truly has a solid effect on my improvement and change.

This doesn't even need Leiying and Lei Dian Zhen to explain.

Luo De can feel it himself.

The elemental energy system of Teyvat itself, after the alteration by the Primordial Person, has become a completely new mortal force; it complements human vow power, and when stacked together it yields an effect far greater than one plus one.

Moreover, the feeling that faith power gives Luo De is especially familiar.

As for where this familiarity comes from.

Luo De remembers it very clearly.

It was during the battle in Inazuma's One Heart Pure Land against Leiying.

"The sensation of vow power embracing the body."

That fleeting feeling of becoming a god left an impression on Luo De that is simply unforgettable.

The vow power boost brought by the Inazuma populace gave Luo De an incomparable sense of ease and confidence-filled strength.

And at that time he truly used vow power to raise his combat strength to a level where he could contend with Leiying.

Know that in the One Heart Pure Land, Leiying has no physical form, but that is merely a space of consciousness; she can fully exert her consciousness power to the utmost, unleashing a terrifying combat strength not inferior to that in the outside world.

That is how powerful Leiying is.

Yet Luo De could match her, and indeed ended up wounding her, letting her witness the might of vow power.

"Still not enough."

After Luo De calmed his mind and contemplated for a day, he lightly clenched his fist.

The three of them temporarily stayed at Kantisi's home.

He wasn't in a rush to take Leiying out, nor to return to Hope City; instead he found a quiet room and calmly experienced the changes faith power brought him.

Just as he had said earlier.

The faith power condensed in A Ru Cun is still a bit weak; it can give him a new boost, but it's still somewhat insufficient, leaving a considerable gap from the results Luo De imagined.

But he also knows.

He cannot ask for too much.

As Kantisi said.

Apep erected that statue two months ago, meaning the faith power began to coalesce at that point.

And Luo De, after all, is not yet a god; he is merely a Red King's Divine Envoy who spreads the faith spontaneously relying on Kantisi and the villagers of A Ru Cun.

With such weak and inadequate promotional effort, being able to condense this amount of faith power is already no small feat.

"This can let the village continue gathering faith power for you."

"You also need not worry too much about whether these faith powers will cause problems."

"We, the executives, had already begun researching this when we seized the divine throne."

Leidian Zhen paused slightly, then continued: "After discussion among us executives, we all agree that faith power is a special force that Heavenly Principle uses to maintain its seven-elemental system; though it appears to belong to us, it actually still belongs to the Vision network, and essentially for us, aside from binding us to the thrones of the seven worldly executives, it has no particular drawbacks."

That sums it up.

In short, Luo De lacks the throne's restraint, so using faith power entails no other negative effects for him.

With her explanation.

The faint unease in Luo De's heart also dissipated along with it.

Indeed so.

Without a throne, without a Vision, before the network that Heavenly Principle creates using Visions, Luo De is an unselectable target; to the gods this may still count as a binding faith power, but for him it leaves only the benefit of vow power amplification.

Not considering the possible strange ideas Apep might have.

Luo De's current mood can be described as very good.

According to the agreement with Leiying, after comprehending the marvelous uses of faith power, Luo De set out with a single-minded dream.

This time.

He specially brought a straw hat.

This item is actually more popular in Inazuma.

But with the lifting of Inazuma's isolation, many merchants from Sumeru brought back plenty of these cheap and practical sun hats.

Speaking of sunlight.

Sumeru's sunlight can be far more harsh than Inazuma's.

Not only is the duration of sunlight longer, but the temperature is also far beyond what Inazuma can match.

Thus, after these straw hats were brought to Sumeru, this simple, cheap hat quickly became popular in the desert.

The only drawback.

It is that the material for weaving these hats is lacking in Sumeru, and if this item is not included in the Academy's plans, the Academy will not specially produce substitutes.

This caused merchants who specialized in importing straw hats from Inazuma to make a fortune, and they also placed additional urgent orders to Inazuma, fiercely opening a new market for Inazuma's appearance.

Look, just this little thing can bring very good profits to both countries.

While walking, Luo De didn't forget to expand Leidian Ying's thinking.

His focus was on such insignificant little things that locals looked down on, yet they could shine brilliantly in unexpected places.

You've seen the things I wrote before, right?

Luo De asked Leidian Zhen.

The day before leaving Inazuma, he deliberately went to the outlying island's market and took a tour, carefully recording many points that could be used for communication and trade between Inazuma and Sumeru.

Leidian Zhen's consciousness was clear at that time.

Naturally, she also read through everything Luo De had written, and even recorded all the things Luo De and Ying later said about Qinglai Island.

Hmm, I've let Ying look over all the things you wrote.

Leidian Zhen answered very straightforwardly.

In the space of consciousness, it's still easy to recite some of the things Luo De wrote.

However, she had just finished saying that.

Luo De shook his head and said: "Just forget it; the things I wrote were based on my own impressions, but after I returned to Sumeru I discovered a problem: at that time, what I wrote down had many omissions. Specifically, I could only see from what I wrote about the things Inazuma lacked that Sumeru had useful for Inazuma, but it was still incomplete. If we rely entirely on that, many more suitable things that were omitted will be missed."

This is the truth. Luo De also didn't expect that during his absence, Sumeru would undergo such a great change.

Especially in A Ru Cun.

As one of the earliest desert villages invested in construction.

A Ru Cun, which originally guarded a key transportation route, received substantial aid from the Academy; not only were the farmland and forest expanded once again, but the newly built areas adopted Sumeru's latest mana obelisks combined with mana circuit technology, plus the new machines developed by the Miaolun School—all inspired by some of Luo De's items—and Luo De even saw desert folk beginning to use the Void Terminal for study.

All these examples before our eyes prove that Luo De previously underestimated Sumeru's changes.

And as a visitor, Leidian Ying.

Although she cannot leave the One Heart of Dreams, she can still focus her consciousness and gaze on the surrounding environment.

For her,

the most shocking thing is

obviously the buildings whose architectural style is completely different from that of Teyvat.

Such as the new school that developed from continual expansion of the original school building; at a glance it is no longer Ka Wei's style, and should have been designed and overseen by the Miaolun School architects who later came to A Ru Cun.

Compared to Ka Wei's style of combining art and utility.

This new architect's style is more plain and unadorned, emphasizing only utility, saving any useless visual waste, but Luo De's earlier designed children's entertainment facilities are all retained, and even a large playground was built, putting into practice the running and ball games Luo De had decided on.

This is also the place Luo De brought Leidian Ying to focus on visiting.

Schools are a nation's most important infrastructure.

If the learning environment is poor, a nation's talent will suffer discontinuity and loss, thereby continuing to affect all aspects; it will not only cut off the commoners' path of advancement, but also breed educational monopoly and a situation of entrenched aristocratic clans.

Luo De's mention of entrenched aristocratic clans does not refer to Inazuma, but to early Sumeru.

Even though, from today's perspective, that period's Sumeru cannot really be considered to have aristocratic clans; at most it could be called an educational monopoly.

According to Luo De's view,

At that time, Sumeru, due to the Academy's monopoly over education resource merchants, resulted in the Academy's power far surpassing other forces; if we view it that way, the Academy would be a unique super aristocratic clan of Sumeru, and if not for Nadixa escaping imprisonment, no one could dare to oppose that colossal Academy.

These words also caused Leidian Zhen and Leidian Ying to involuntarily reflect on Inazuma's system.

Indeed.

Sumeru has an aristocratic clan system; how could Inazuma be any different?

Moreover, the policies Leidian Ying implemented during her tenure were beneficial to the proliferation of aristocratic clans; judging solely by education, Inazuma has not yet seen the kind of aristocratic clan monopoly over educational resources that Luo De described, but it has also seen aristocratic clans controlling all advancement channels, making it hard for ordinary people to advance, a fact that leaves them unable to change their fate for life.

Just as they were speaking,

The end-of-class bell rang, and laughter and playful noises filled the school.

Just in the blink of an eye.

Just moments ago the empty playground was now filled with children; even the equipment that no one had used before was now occupied, and everyone was happily playing and laughing there.

Luo De hadn't seen such a scene for a long time.

So he stopped speaking with Leidian Ying and Leidian Zhen, quietly sitting under a tree's shade, smiling as he watched the children play.

Once upon a time.

In A Ru Cun, Kantisi had to beg a fake scholar like herself to teach the children to read; in order to find a scholar willing to teach the kids, the village's guardian even went so far as to humbly plead with others.

Now then.

Luo De didn't know how to express his current feelings.

But that lingering sense of achievement still made him unable to suppress the upward turn of his lips.

Excuse me, are you Luo De?

The sudden voice caused Luo De to startle.

The visitor had no hostility, merely offering a greeting.

Thus neither Luo De nor Leidian Ying and her sisters had any warning about that voice.

He turned his head to look.

It was a woman holding a book, with slightly dark skin, who looked very familiar.

But after gazing at that face for a while, Luo De suddenly couldn't recall who the person was.

You don't remember me?

I am Saitara.

The woman who greeted Luo De looked a bit disappointed, yet she still gave a proper self-introduction.

Saitara.

It's you.

This was Luo De's first time being so embarrassed; he couldn't help but blush and scratch his head, saying: "Sorry, I haven't returned to Xu Mi for a long time, my mind is a bit slow right now."

The former Great Sage's assistant before my eyes was thoroughly tricked by me into being smug, and finally resolutely decided to betray the Great Sage, helping Luo De successfully capture the Great Sage.

Afterward.

All Luo De knew was that she brought a group of scholars back to her hometown to launch educational support, and after that she never returned to the Academy.

I never expected to run into her here today.

And then I actually didn't even recognize her, which is really embarrassing.

You're not the same as before now; it's normal not to recognize me.

Regarding Luo De forgetting this matter, Saitalei smiled, didn't continue to dwell on it, but sat beside Luo De, her expression turning serious as she said: "Thank you."

Huh?

Thank me for what?

Luo De asked, completely bewildered.

He saw that Saitalei's guilt wasn't just because he forgot her; another reason was that back when he deceived her, he had told her that participating in building the desert would earn the Red King's favor.

Back then, Saitalei believed this without doubt.

Luo De was still pondering how to explain this later, but unexpectedly Saitalei went up and first said thanks.

This left him full of doubts.

Thank you, of course, because of these children, because of the desert.

Saitalei no longer had the gloom and hypocrisy she had in Xu Mi Cheng before.

After letting go of her guilt toward her hometown.

She was obviously much more cheerful than before, and her smile was much more frequent.

Her thanks to Luo De were also sincere.

Thus this also made Luo De feel even more guilty; he hemmed and hawed for a while before finally deciding, sighing: "Actually, back then I told you that the Red King would reward every person who contributed."

I also want to thank you for this.

Saitalei smiled again: "Thank you, letting me, a sinner of the desert, also receive the Red King's grace."

?!

Now it was Luo De's turn to be stunned.

(End of chapter)