Upon entering his favorite watering hole, Grant was shocked by the scene before him.
Instead of men gathered around tables with dice while they drank and wagered a few pennies, the vast majority of men at that moment were sitting at tables with books in their hands!
To confirm this, Grant even left the pub and looked back at the entrance to make sure he was in the right place, then walked back in and was shocked to see friends of his holding books!
All of their books had black covers with a red heart design, while the outline of the design was delicately drawn with very elegant little patterns, showing just how expensive these books were.
As Grant approached the table where his friends were sitting, he saw one of his friends with a big smile on his face as he looked between the book he was holding and the other four people at the table.
"You're screwed with my hand, I'll bet 5 chips." Eliot said as he rubbed his finger on something in the book and laughed as he looked around at his friends.
And that was what confused Grant the most, because he knew Eliot very well, even to the point of knowing that Eliot couldn't read.
So why was Eliot holding a book?
"Hey guys, where did you get such a flimsy book?" Grant couldn't resist asking after greeting them.
Looking in the direction of the voice, the men looked at the newly arrived Grant and greeted him back.
"Wait until the game is over Grant and I'll explain." One of his friends said as he went back to concentrating on his book.
Hearing this, Grant became even more curious and went to sit next to this friend, wanting to see what was in this book that was making everyone act so strangely, even the illiterate!
When he looked into the book, Grant was shocked to see that there were glowing things inside!
Is this a magic book?! Grant wondered in shock.
Knowing how expensive magic books were, he knew there was no way his friends could afford books like this, but almost everyone in the pub was holding books just like this.
Out of curiosity, Grant walked over to another friend and saw that his friend's book also had shiny things in it, and even more surprisingly, the things in this book were different from the things he saw in the other book!
But they were so focused on this "game" that no one stopped to explain to Grant what was going on.
Until finally Eliot won the other men's chips and the hand was over, allowing them to take a break while they began to explain to Grant what was going on and invited him over to play as well!
Hearing the explanation that this book was actually a divine artifact that the God of the Internet, the God of old Father Robert's church, made available to believers who prayed to him, shocked Grant.
Even more so after his friend showed him all the things he could do on the Internet, which made Grant even more excited to the point that he even prayed and saw the beautiful book floating in front of him.
The friend who invited him got excited when he saw the 10 Internet Coins that had just been added to his account, and quickly deposited 2 more Internet Coins into [CardMasters], adding them to the 7 Coins he had left after losing 3 Coins to Eliot, for a total of 27 Coins in his account.
He hadn't even bought any books after going online, he just directly deposited the Internet Coin he had for checking in today after learning that he would get 2 more Internet Coins for free tomorrow.
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In a few minutes of adjustment and tutorial, Grant quickly learned how to play and also joined them to play poker.
While there were a few people at other tables playing Blackjack, or even people playing Solitaire, almost everyone was using the Internet at the moment.
- Adrian's POV ---
It was hard not to smile when I looked at the number of believers using the Internet right now.
From the 60 believers I had at the beginning of the day, that number has quadrupled to 240 believers tonight after the [CardMasters] launch!
The amount of Divine Power points I received every hour was almost 100 points, considering that not all users were online at the time, but that number was staggering!
When the Internet update arrived, Father Robert's reaction was priceless, even more so when he realized that I had commented on card games with him before the game was released, he imagined that I was just checking the world's information for the Internet God and felt very honored to be consulted.
I just pretended that was really the case and spent some more time helping him plan things for school and went out to see how the players were responding to the new app.
But before I left, I gave Father Robert a tip.
When he heard my tip, he quickly opened [Carrier Pigeon] and made a post just as I suggested.
[The Church of Internet God is offering classes for those who want to learn to read and write to use the Internet! Tell your friends and family who can't read to come to the Church of the Internet God to learn to read and write under Father Robert! Don't let this opportunity pass you by!]
As soon as this post was made, dozens of replies came in and several users liked the priest's post.
Seeing his reaction as he received notifications from people who liked and commented on his post thanking him, the smile on the priest's face became gigantic.
[This is great! My son is dying to use the Internet, but he can't read yet...]
[My friends who can't read are very excited about this, they're going to church tomorrow!]
[Thank you Father Robert for this idea!]
[How much are the lessons, Father Robert?]
Seeing the people asking how much the lessons would cost, the priest was surprised and turned to look for Athenos, but seeing only a lifeless white statue, he became worried as he thought about a fair price.
I didn't want to interfere with the price he wanted to charge, since he was helping me get the faithful to use the Internet even more, what was wrong with letting the man make money?
It's not like money would do me any good, especially a few pennies like that.
After much thought, Father Robert finally came up with a figure and replied.
[The classes cost two copper coins a week to help maintain the church].
He replied, worried that this amount would be considered too high.
A day's work for a commoner earned an average of 7 to 14 copper coins a day, or an average of 63 copper coins a week.
If he hired 30 students, he would earn 60 coins a week, which would be enough to live on and also give some coins to Amber to thank her for her help.
But he was afraid that Athenos would be angry with him for receiving this money while helping the god.
Fortunately, the reaction of the people was very good, because 2 copper coins weren't much to spend a week learning to read.
At the end of the day, I looked at my amount of Divine Power with a big smile.
=========================
| Character Status
=========================
| Name: Adrian Innovashine
| Titles: God of Creativity, God of the Internet,
| Level: Embryonic Divinity Rank 1
|------------------------
| Divine Power: 1,310 / 10,000 -> 1,910 / 10,000 (+600)
=========================
I had received a total of 600 Divine Power points from all the believers today, considering that many of them hadn't used the Internet for such a long time.
And considering that when the men went home, they told their families about the Internet, either to show how amazing it was, or just to get the 10 Internet Coins they received for the invitations, this meant that I received even more believers at the end of the night, even though these believers didn't use the Internet for a long time before they went to sleep.
When all the believers were asleep and there were no new arrivals, I felt the number of believers and had a big smile when I realized that 290 people had used the Internet so far.
At the rate the Internet is spreading, I don't doubt that soon the capital of the Arcantor Kingdom will be completely conquered by me!
The next day, Father Robert's surprise was huge when he realized that more than 100 people wanted to sign up to learn to read and write!
In fact, he was so confused about whether to accept these people and receive the 200 copper coins that he desperately prayed to me again for advice.
But while I was taking control of the statue in the church and going to help Father Robert, an emergency meeting was being held at the Arcantor School of Magic, the largest magic school in the kingdom.
And the purpose of this meeting was a certain book that one of the students was reading during one of the school's classes.
The cover of the book read: "Mortal Magic: Apprentice".
The book itself was very good, but that wasn't the reason for an emergency meeting of the school's administration.
The real reason was who was behind this book... the new god of Arcantor.