Things got spiced up couple months later. One day the old man from the library came in Alex’s room with a large stack of empty parchments. He quietly kept cursing to himself while putting everything down on the table, but then forcefully recovered his somber demeanor.

“For some reason the Lord has punished us.” He said with a sigh, “The College of Evangelism asked us to copy bunch of their materials and … well … I don’t have time for this.”

“The College of Evangelism?” Alex repeated in confusion.

This was his first time hearing about such institution and it sounded too fancy for a medieval world like this.

“Yes, yes. The college.” The old man sighed again, “They have hundreds of chosen there, but we have to do their dirty work! Look! Not only we need to copy their prayer books, we need to waste our own parchments and ink!”

Alex glanced at the parchment in the old man’s hand and immediately understood what he meant with a ‘waste’ – the whole thing had only a single sentence written on it and the letters were so big one could think that it was written for a small child to practice reading. With the ink spent one could easily write twenty times the amount of information on the same parchment.

“Do they have problems with their eyes?” Alex asked.

“They have problems with their heads!” The old librarian angrily snorted, “Of course, chosen are the Lord’s children and have the inborn ability to wield the holy power, but many are SO stupid! When they are brought to the college most don’t even know how to read! I thank the Lord you didn’t become chosen! If I had such a stupid assistant I wouldn’t know what to do …”

“The chosen?” Alex asked in confusion.

He was pretty certain he also counted as one, but he was also clear he didn’t really come here to become the old man’s assistant.

“Yes, the infants who show signs of holy power. But you don’t have to think about that – you have a wonderful life here while they will go and spread the Lord’s teachings around the world, potentially dying in the process.” The old man explained, “Enough with the chit chat. Copy these. Twenty each. Call me when you’re done.”

He immediately left, leaving Alex deep in thoughts.

‘So that’s probably the place my ‘mentor’ should’ve sent me to. He probably forgot or chose to ignore to spite the pope. Let’s see what the kids are taught these days.’

With a wide grin Alex began to go through the stack of parchments only to freeze after he read the first few.

‘The Lord created this world with the Holy power.’ Was written on the first parchment.

‘Everything in this world consists of the Lord’s Holy power.’ Was written on the second.

‘He who feels it early, becomes the chosen one.’ Was written on the third.

‘Pray to the Lord to wield His Holy power!’ Was written on the fourth.

What shocked Alex was that in the next parchments was described the method of practicing the holy power which was very similar to the way he currently cultivated the force of nature!

‘So it’s the same sh*t after all!’ Alex already had this suspicion and now finally got the confirmation, ‘And currently I’m holding a ‘beginner’s manual’ designed for the local prodigies, except they call these things ‘prayer books’.’

The only difference between the cultivation methods were that the chosen had to chant specific prayers while guiding the holy power within them while Alex concentrated on particular spots like between his eyebrows or below navel, depending on the technique he used.

His curiosity was triggered and he gladly began to copy the ‘prayer books’. For a change his job was not as dull and tedious as usual.

Within few hours he finished the twenty copies and decided to go out for a rare walk. Of course, he wouldn’t tell the old man the job was finished for at least three or four more days since it would set a bad precedent and inevitably increase his own workload. Thus currently he walked laps around the Saint Theodor’s cathedral while thinking about the implications of cultivation style in this world.

First of all he already knew that there were people here who had inhuman abilities, like the pope or cardinals. But since this ‘holy power’ could be cultivated there had to be others as well.

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‘Right! The holy warriors!’ Alex remembered.

The guards before the ritual gossiped about one of the cardinals dying on expedition along with dozens of chosen AND hundreds of holy warriors. Obviously those all were the people who practiced the force of nature and chosen where those with an innate talent while others who practiced became holy warriors.

More importantly, if Holy empire’s expedition suffered such losses, there were definitely other powerful people in this world who had similar cultivation techniques. And if at least few were as educated as the headmaster in the beastworld, Alex had to grow up quickly and go meet those people! Staying in a place filled with religious fanatics would never lead to anything good.

“Ouch!” Alex bumped in someone and fell on his butt.

“I’m sorry!, I’m sorry!” Person in a dirty robe rushed to help the child up while apologizing, “I didn’t notice you, your honor! My apologies!”

“It’s fine.” Alex waved him off.

Despite him being a small child, he wore neat priest robes and common people had to address him the proper way. He glanced at the bearded middle aged man, who stank like he just crawled out from a pig stall, and froze.

“Gilbert?” Alex involuntarily blurted out.

Indeed, the dirty and stinky man he ran into was Gilbert, the priest’s help from the Stone village. But while Alex immediately recognized him, Gilbert didn’t know how to react when an unfamiliar priest, well, child in priest’s robes, knew his name.

“I’m Alfons, remember?” Alex forcefully smiled while swallowing the bitter taste that overwhelmed him after saying his official ugly name, “You escorted me to Serenity three years ago.”

It took few minutes and all his brainpower for Gilbert to regain ability to speak and, after opening and closing his mouth several times, he finally stuttered, “Y … young master! Wh … why are you in priest’s attire? Weren’t you a …”

“It’s just a clothing.” Alex immediately guessed what the man meant, “This way I don’t attract any unnecessary attention. Even you bumped into me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You better tell me – why are you here?”

“Priest Daniel sent me to the capital with a message to bishop Jorge Maria. I …” Gilbert said.

“Bishop Jorge Maria?” Alex furrowed his little brows. Needless to say he currently looked especially adorable, “Isn’t his church on the opposite side of the city center?”

Hearing this Gilbert blushed all over and began to stutter again, “I … I … g … got lost.”

“Why don’t you just ask the guards for directions? You are the messenger of the Lord after all!” Alex encouraged him, but took a step back. The man really smelled badly, “How is everyone? How is my family?”

While he wasn’t particularly close to anyone in the village and, after she was ‘blessed’ in front of him, even despised his own mother, for some reason he was curious.

“Oh?!” Gilbert’s eyes lit up. Apparently finally he could speak about the subject he was competent in, “Everyone is great! This year the hunt has been particularly successful and even … oh, right, your father got injured two years ago, but don’t worry, he can still walk a little. And the little Bill began to go hunting in his stead this year, so everything is great!”

‘How the hell is ‘everything great’? My father got crippled and the elder brother who probably is barely ten or twelve at best has to go hunt! What the f*ck is wrong with you?’ Alex silently swallowed curses.

Even though they weren’t close, it was his ‘this life’s family’. If he was a bit older, he could find ways to support them, but for now he had no money and no means to ‘acquire’ it as well. Suddenly he got an idea.

“Gilbert, stand here and don’t move.” Alex said, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

He ran back to the basilica and quickly returned to his room. There he made another copy of the holy power cultivation manual or – ‘prayer book’ how the old librarian called it, the only difference being – he neatly fit all of it on one page. Afterwards he carefully folded it and hid in his robes.

Even though Alex was gone only for about half an hour, it was quite the torture for Gilbert to wait for him. Not only he was thirsty and hungry, passersby threw ridiculing looks at him and in the end even a squad of guards came over to shoo him away.

But before they managed to do it, they got interrupted hearing a squeaky voice, “He’s with me!”

While Gilbert heaved sigh of relief, guards witnessed a small child in a gray robe running over.

“He’s with me!” Alex repeated when he was already few meters away, “Don’t look down on the messenger of the Lord from the western wilderness. He carries important intelligence to the bishop Jorge Maria, but first needed to come to the Saint Theodor’s basilica first, for obvious reasons.”

While both Gilbert and the guards were confused from what they heard, Alex continued, “I’ll need you to escort him to the Saint Jorge Maria church so he doesn’t get lost.”

Before they left, Alex passed Gilbert a small package wrapped in cloth with a message, “Here is some water and food. Also, there is a very important letter you have to give to my brother. When you’ll pass it over, tell him: ‘it is very important to learn how to read himself’ so he could practice everything that is written there. And you can’t tell anyone about this, understood? You are the messenger of the Lord from the western wilderness after all!”

It didn’t take long for Alex to forget about the encounter. There was no guarantee Gilbert would survive the trip back or maybe he would loose the letter somewhere. Be as it may – Alex did something to help his relatives and that was enough for him.

Few days later when he brought the old man in the library copied ‘prayer books’ for the college, he was tasked to do more similar work. This continued for several months straight, but meanwhile Alex leisurely learned everything the chosen did while at the same time analyzing their techniques and absorbing some parts into his own cultivation.

Unfortunately all the teaching materials were about improving physical prowess, but, while Alex didn’t intend to grow up as a weakling, currently he was interested in gaining more general information about this world. But besides the teaching materials he was only tasked to copy only boring religious texts. It almost seemed that the old man intentionally did his best to prevent Alex from learning anything useful apart from few new calligraphy techniques.

It was the middle of winter when he was finally presented with an opportunity.

After receiving another task, on his way out from the library Alex spotted one of the priests motionlessly lying on the floor between bookshelves and without wasting a second, he ran over, verified the man was dead and gathered the few scattered parchments on the floor near the body. Then he grabbed few more random ones from the closest shelves and casually put all of those under the stack of parchments he was already carrying as if those were also a part of the task he was given earlier.

Afterwards he screamed out loud immediately gathering attention of everyone in the library and left unnoticed while the old men were mourning their dead colleague.