Chapter 357: Pure Light Bestowed by You!

Under the lead of a six-winged great angel, even arriving at the City of Light wouldn't necessarily mean anyone dared to block them, let alone here, which was still Dai Sen's territory.

Previously they had leveraged the Pope's decree to force some wavering fellows to pick a side, but now that a great angel had appeared, the legitimacy of the Pope's decree became open to question.

How to question it was a matter for the leadership; ordinary holy knights, soldiers, and priests had no such complicated thoughts in their hearts and simply dropped to their knees on the spot.

One six-winged great angel, two four-winged angels, eighty second-rank two-winged angels — the main plane hadn't seen this many angels in years. They flew into the sky, blotting out the heavens, and headed straight for the place with the strongest energy reaction.

"So this is a magic crystal cannon? Let me see, let me see — Seeing Ange, get closer." Lord Nai Ge Li Si said.

Seeing Ange walked right over, pressed one palm onto the magic crystal cannon, and stuffed it into his spatial storage.

Well now — all three small magic crystal cannons had been confiscated. The gunners looked at each other and realized they were unemployed.

Lord Nai Ge Li Si circled around a few times, but noticed Duroken come over for a glance and immediately lose interest. He couldn't help asking: "You're an alchemist — aren't you interested in magic crystal cannons?"

Duroken said: "Not interested. Same as the old magic crystal cannons — I can build them myself. The firing rate is too slow, the energy consumption is enormous, the waste is severe, and they can only hit fixed targets."

Magic crystal cannons had been invented many years ago, but they had never been able to spread widely. Besides the manufacturing difficulty, too many drawbacks were also a major reason.

Hitting fixed targets didn't require magic crystal cannons — mages were far more practical.

"Back in my day I also thought about using magic crystal cannons as the defense for the world transit station, but found they were useless. In the end I switched to constructs," Duroken said.

"So that's how it is." Lord Nai Ge Li Si instantly lost interest.

"What now? Kill our way to the City of Light? Tie that Pope to a pyre?"

As the only normal human being, Luther had personally experienced the entire affair. Watching enemies submit one after another wherever Seeing Ange and Anthony passed, he felt an indescribable thrill and couldn't help saying so.

His sword hadn't even had time to be drawn again.

"Of course not — keep on with the disaster relief," Anthony said.

The refugee camps Anthony had set up at the border had greatly eased the famine in the west, but it was still far from enough. Even with the harvest season arriving, the famine might not be eased, because in many places starving people had already gnawed clean the tree bark, grass roots, and green shoots.

It was foreseeable that for the next few years, the west would remain in continuous turmoil because of this famine's effects.

But it didn't matter — Anthony had come, the Holy Pope had come, the mercy of the gods had come.

Sanglied took the lead, charging in with full bard companies into the western diocese. Every two bards were paired with forty holy knights for protection, five second-rank angels, and a grain transport convoy of two hundred men following along.

"Ladies and gentlemen, listen to me now — Guli that Anni was lewd and cruel, watched his people die and let the famine spread. Sendazhu Sect saw the light at last, called in the Holy Pope Anthony. Six-winged angels showed their might. Our lord An, Bu gave divine oracle — devout believers led the way…"

This brand-new style of singing instantly attracted dense crowds of onlookers, and the story being sung spread like a storm.

The gist of the story was: Guli Anni was lewd and cruel, watched his people die, sat by as the famine spread. Sendazhu Sect simply couldn't stand it any longer and called in the Holy Pope Anthony to uphold justice.

The Holy Pope Anthony not only came himself, he also brought a six-winged great angel and the ascetic An. The ascetic An laid down a divine oracle on the spot and had grain transported in for the starving.

At this point the bard waved his hand, and the grain carts along the road collectively threw off their felt covers, revealing the gleaming white grain underneath.

Good heavens — the people who had been only half-believing the bards' story instantly became completely convinced, just like that time when Seeing Ange had flung a sack of grain in front of a minotaur auntie and asked her, "Believe it or not?"

Besides the various relief teams, Anthony also borrowed a wyvern-rider unit — uh, borrowed from Seeing Ange.

A full hundred-plus living wyvern riders, at top speed, raided every lord, landlord, noble, and royal who had been noted down in Anthony's little book — those hoarding and cornering goods, forcing buy and sell, illegally annexing land, blocking trade routes, obstructing refugee transfers, and "causing large numbers of refugees to die within their territory."

In the past they could only post bounties, and there were bound to be plenty who didn't believe in evil, so Anthony could only note them down in his little book, unable to do anything about them for the time being.

Now that there was a chance, of course the first priority was to settle accounts. The grain and money seized from the raids could also be used for nearby disaster relief — otherwise transporting large quantities of grain from the east would cause enormous losses, and the less they had to haul the better.

The whole process went smoothly. The only problem was that Seeing Ange couldn't personally go to the scene to harvest faith, which made Anthony feel quite guilty: "my lord, there's no time — there are too many places that need relief. Once things stabilize a bit, we'll go harvest."

Seeing Ange shook his head indifferently and revealed the Planting Divine Spark: "It's growing."

Seeing Ange had discovered a pattern — every time the grain he planted was distributed on a large scale, the Planting Divine Spark would experience a substantial surge in growth.

So even without going to the scene, the faith he could harvest was actually not small — he just couldn't harvest the faith network.

Anthony had vaguely known about the Planting Divine Spark's ability before; now it was confirmed once more. Seeing this, he couldn't help asking: "That amazing? Is this kind of growth a one-time thing? Or once it happens, can the Planting Divine Spark keep growing?"

"One time," Seeing Ange replied.

Anthony said: "In other words, we have to keep supplying grain continuously, right? Can we supply seed grain instead?"

Lord Nai Ge Li Si, projected onto Seeing Ange, gave a start and couldn't help shouting: "Kuabada, what are you trying to do?!"

Lord Nai Ge Li Si had vaguely guessed what Anthony was trying to do, which was why he had shouted without thinking, while inwardly slapping himself hard — why hadn't he been the first to think of such a brilliant idea.

Sure enough, Anthony said: "If my lord provides the seed grain, I'll have all the church district's land switched to the new seed grain. By next harvest season, all the grain will be grown from the seeds my lord provided."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si couldn't help sighing: "By then, every person on the plane who takes a bite of rice will have to dedicate power to him. Even if it's less than an ordinary believer's, three meals a day adds up. Seeing Ange, your Planting Divine Spark might really be the strongest."

Seeing Ange's eyes lit up: "Good."

"Pfft! Right up your alley, isn't it? You must like the Planting Divine Spark the most." Lord Nai Ge Li Si said grumpily, picking a fight out of unwillingness:

"How do you get farmers to willingly switch to his grain? Switching seed varieties is very risky. Farmers' ability to bear risk is too weak — unless forced, they won't casually switch to a new crop. The risk is too great."

Anthony smiled slightly: "A seed grain competition, free provision, the Church as guarantor."

The seed grain competition was famous across the plane — if there was a new champion seed variety, which farmer would be unwilling to use it?

Not to mention the champion variety — even the third place, runner-up, or anything past tenth, as long as it could beat what they were currently planting, plenty of people would be willing to grow it.

So why couldn't it be promoted? Because it's expensive. At the last seed grain competition, a new variety yielding a thousand catties per mu required one gold coin per mu just for the seed.

Even with a thousand-catty yield per mu, selling the whole harvest might not earn back one gold coin — wouldn't switching to the new grain be a loss?

If it could be provided for free, even a yield of just five hundred catties per mu would have plenty of farmers willing to switch.

But the cleverest part was still the Church as guarantor. Even the highest-yielding seed grain still carries risk — unsuitable climate, improper care, poor fertilizer application, insufficient soil fertility, and so on. What if there's a total crop failure?

With the Church as guarantor, there's nothing to fear — even a total failure won't mean starvation.

"Brilliant! And the guarantor arrangement even has benefits. If next year's yield increase is large, the guaranteed land, if it does increase, can be charged a ten or twenty percent production-increase tax on the surplus. We don't lose, and the farmers don't lose either."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si finished laying out what he thought was a clever idea, only to be laughed at by Anthony: "Where are you going to find so many people to measure whether there's an increase? If you really collect a production-increase tax, without a comprehensive monitoring system, just wait for the farmers to hide their output."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si's old face reddened, and he said defiantly: "Seeing Ange can measure it — he just sweeps a glance and knows."

Duroken, who had been listening on the side, couldn't help laughing out loud: "Alright, alright — you want Seeing Ange to run back and forth across the entire plane to measure yields? Anthony's right, Nai Ge — you understand knowledge, but Anthony understands people's hearts."

Lord Nai Ge Li Si quickly took the out and instead picked a fight: "Then what if just the seed grain alone can't grow the Planting Divine Spark?"

"There's still the western diocese, isn't there." Anthony turned to Seeing Ange and said: "my lord, I'll hand over all the unowned land in the western diocese to you for planting. How about it?"

How about it? Can't you see Seeing Ange's head bobbing like a pecking chick?

The moment Lord Nai Ge heard "farming," he knew they were done for. Hearing about planting fields, even if the Gods of Light popped out now, Seeing Ange could beat them back.

The matter was thus happily decided — first, enter the Grain Seed Competition and aim for the championship. Even if they couldn't win first place, it didn't matter; third or second would do.

Don't look at how the champion seed of the Grain Seed Competition has already broken a thousand jin per mu, but what the farmers currently plant is generally under five hundred jin per mu.

So as long as the yield reaches seven or eight hundred jin, with free supply and the Church backing it, there will definitely be plenty of people willing to plant it.

Seeing Ange already has seven or eight hundred jin of salt-water rice, the magic rice breaks a thousand jin, and in the simulation formation it even broke fourteen hundred jin. As long as he shows up at the Grain Seed Competition, whether or not he places, he can attract a crowd.

Then, rent out all the unowned land in the western diocese to Seeing Ange — even the owned land would do.

As long as someone is willing to plant the new grain, Seeing Ange goes over to sow and sprout it, then lets the original owner manage it.

The grain from the Light Sea Plane and Fallen Longhu was grown this way too.

After saying all this, Lord Nai Ge felt more and more that something was off: "Wait, what's in it for Seeing Ange this way? We put out the seeds and the labor, what's in it for us?"

"All the grain will be purchased by the Silver Light Chamber of Commerce — exclusive distribution rights," Anthony said.

"Kuwabata, what's the use of that?" Lord Nai Ge cursed.

Anthony said helplessly: "Lord Nai Ge, have you never had a merchant as your follower before? Why don't you ask Silver Coin what exclusive distribution rights are good for?"

Lord Nai Ge's old face reddened: "Merchants are too cunning. If they wanted to be my followers, I wouldn't even be willing."

To prevent Anthony from tricking it, Lord Nai Ge contacted Silver Coin. The moment it heard about exclusive grain distribution rights, Silver Coin shouted on the spot: "We're rich!"

Lord Nai Ge asked, troubled: "How do we get rich?"

Silver Coin immediately spent a hundred-thousand-word passage explaining the function of exclusive distribution rights, then spent another hundred-thousand-word passage introducing the value and destructive power of grain as a strategic resource.

"Monopoly, rigid demand, irreplaceability — control the grain supply of the entire plane, and I can easily earn several times the profit of the grain itself. Just do this, then do that, then do this again, then do that again, and you can lie back and collect money."

Lord Nai Ge listened until his head was spinning — a dignified God of Knowledge, and yet there came a day when he was dizzied by knowledge itself.

In the end, Silver Coin urged repeatedly: "You must secure the exclusive grain distribution rights. The grain in the Sinking Lands has also had a bumper harvest — when the time comes, hedge against it and fleece Harvey and the Great Sage for a wave first."

"They don't have money either. What can you earn from them?" Lord Nai Ge asked irritably.

"Soul crystals! After fighting wars for over a thousand years, Harvey and the Great Sage have accumulated a lot of soul crystals. With so much money and nowhere to spend it, I really worry for them," Silver Coin said.

Lord Nai Ge rolled his eyes: "I think it's you who can't earn the money and are the one worried."

Cutting the connection, Lord Nai Ge agreed helplessly. In fact, even without the returns, he would have agreed — because faith itself is the greatest return.

Being able to strengthen the Planting Divine Spark means it must be done even without profit. He didn't know what tricks Silver Coin could play with exclusive distribution rights, but several times the profit of grain itself would surely be worth more than the grain.

"Let's go, let's go, first back to Fallen Longhu to see how the competition grain is growing. The Grain Seed Competition is only a few days away — let's go back and prepare," Lord Nai Ge called out to everyone.

The moment his words fell, he saw someone peeking around outside the door — a fellow entirely clad in a black Angel's Holy Armor, the whole body covered in armor, not even showing his face.

In the entire Church of Light, only one person would dress like that.

Lord Nai Ge shouted irritably: "What are you sneaking around for again? Smelled something again? There are no outsiders here."

The black Angel's Holy Armor dragged a holy burial cloth sack, trotted inside in a hurry, and only lifted the visor in front of Seeing Ange, revealing Shamara's face: "Greetings, my lord, greetings, Lord Anthony."

For some reason, Seeing Ange suddenly felt like patting her head, so he raised his hand and patted her on the head.

After the pat, a ring of holy light rose from the top of Shamara's head.

Shamara was stunned. After realizing what had happened, her eyes suddenly reddened: "Pure Light! My lord, you bestowed it upon me? Pure Light!"