The Lost Sun Revamped - Ch. 2 : Church Activities
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The next day Sun lazily woke up from his slumber. Without Adair or anyone else to wake him up, he slept far longer than he usually did. With a loud yawn, he rubbed his eyes with his hand and got out of his bed.
With a slight rumbling in his stomach, he decided to go and find some breakfast. However, seeing as it was rather late already, it would probably be lunch instead. The lot he was at the other night was once again filled with various paladins eating their lunch. Today there was roast meat being served and the sight of the sizzling meat on the fire intensified his hunger even further.
“So I see that you’ve finally awoken!” a familiar face called out to him. The priest he had met last night, Calvin, was cooking the food for the church once again. “Come over here and get something to eat.”
He gestured over to Sun to get him to come over for some food. After giving him a plate of roast meat, Calvin handed the cooking position to another member of the church and then got his own meal as well. The two of them took their lunch and headed over to some empty seats.
“This is going to be your first day as a cleric of the Order of Freya.” Calvin struck up a conversation. “If you have any questions or if you want to know about your duties in the church then feel free to ask me anytime.”
There were a lot of things that he wanted to ask. However, given the bizarre situation and the incomprehensible things that have happened since his arrival, he chose not say anything about the strange presence that he saw in the beginning or the transparent windows that he can see as to not draw any unnecessary attention. Calvin had told him the other day that he didn’t know about the God of Light, so asking him about it wouldn’t help much.
“What exactly am I supposed to do here?” Sun asked Calvin inquisitively. In his mind, it wouldn’t make sense for a member of a clergy to leech off of the church without doing anything.
“I’m glad that you asked that.” Calvin began to explain the various jobs around the church that needed to be done. “You can see that this church hold a great influence over this city.”
Calvin pointed out the various townspeople visiting the church. “Most of the work consists of maintaining the church’s services and activities. There’s a lot a different things that are done around here and I can’t list them all right now but I’ll tell you as they come up.”
A bell started to ring from the church’s main building. This bell was used on several occasions to announce the start of the church’s services. After having set up in the morning, the church was now ready to handle its various visitors. Calvin had Sun tag along with him since he was the only other cleric at the church. Then they came to their first duty of the Freya church, the preparation of the [Holy Water]. [Holy Water] was a powerful substance that is commonly used against the undead. Because of its various added effects aside from vanquishing evil, it was a highly desired item to have.
Calvin began to explain how to prepare the [Holy Water]. “There are various steps to purifying and blessing the water. In the past, there was a holy grail which could generate an endless supply of holy water but it was lost long ago. So the method we are using can only generate a small amount of [Holy Water].”
He walked over to a small basin of water and pulled out a basket filled with various different materials. He gestured for Sun to do the same.
“First, coat your hands with a thin layer of holy energy. This is so that you do not harm any of the materials that we will be using and for the purification of the waters as well. To place holy energy over your hands, simply focus on your hands and imagine the holy energy becoming solid.”
Following Calvin’s instructions, Sun covered his hands with a layer of holy energy.
“Good, you’re catching on quicker than I thought you would. Now reach into the basket and get the angel root. Place it in the center of the water. Next, get the light crystal powder and sprinkle it over the surface of the water. Lay the holy pearls in a circle around the angel root.”
Calvin looked over to see if Sun had completed all the tasks correctly. Satisfied with what he saw, he moved on to the next step.
“Now this is the truly difficult part. Dip your hands into the water and strongly focus the holy energy into the water. While doing this, move your hands clockwise across the surface of the water. Once the angel root and the light crystal powder have dissolved, remove the pearls from the water.”
Sun could feel the mana rapidly draining from his body as he pours the holy light into the water. Slowly, but surely, the root and the powder began to dissolve. The water soon started to glow with a soft light and then fade back into the water. He removed the pearls from the water and after putting them away, sat down in exhaustion.
“Great job!” Calvin congratulated him. “It’s amazing that you were able to make over a gallon of [Holy Water] on your first try. You must have a great understanding of the holy arts.”
After setting aside the [Holy Water], Calvin told him that it was now time to bless the adventurers that sought to use the protection of the Goddess Freya. However this service wasn’t free and had a small cost to it.
“Even if we’re a church, we’re not running a charity here.” Calvin explained his reasoning.
“Makes sense, even the Holy Temple doesn’t necessarily do thing for free either.” Sun thought to himself about the practices of his own church. “The Pope loves money so much; he would probably sell his position in the church if he could.”
“Now that we have the [Holy Water], the next part of work is use the Holy Water on those that seek the Goddess’s protection.” Calvin explained moving on to the main section of the church. “To use the [Holy Water]’s blessing, simply sprinkle it over the person’s body while reciting the prayer of the Goddess Freya. Before giving anyone the blessing, you must charge them ten silvers for the blessing.”
He finished up the rest of the explanation with some minor details and then he left Sun in order to do some other clerical work.
“Good luck with the blessings!” Calvin said as he walked away.
Sun sat behind a desk in a little wooden chair, wondering what he was supposed to do. At the time, there wasn’t anybody seeking the blessings so the room was rather empty. However, in about ten minutes, the large metal doors of the church swung open and a large number of peculiarly dressed people came into the church. From the looks of it, many of them were adventurer teams composed of warriors, swordsmen, rouges, and archers. Contrary to the large mob rush he was expecting, the church was designed in such a way that the crowd had to line up single file to receive the blessings. The first customer was a sword using adventurer.
“I would like to receive the blessing.” The adventurer asked.
“In order to receive the blessing, a charge of ten silvers is needed.” Sun explained to him.
“Ten silvers? Isn’t that kind of expensive?” he protested the price of the blessing. Obviously this fellow was receiving the blessing for the first time and was unaware of the standard fee. Given the state of his equipment, the person was relatively low level and ten silvers was a large expense to him. However, Sun was not aware of this concept known as ‘levels’ and thought that this guy was just being stingy.
“Customer, the price is the same for all that wish to receive the blessing. It would be unfair to decrease the cost because you feel that it is too much. This revenue is essential to the upkeep of this church and its followers. If you do not wish to receive the blessing, then please leave because you are holding up the rest whom wish to receive the god’s blessing.” However this was not what he truly believed. The truth behind his sudden devotion and charisma to his work was what Calvin had brought up before he left.
“Most of the money goes to paying for the church’s upkeep as well as for our meals. As an added bonus, you get to keep 5% of the money from selling the blessings.” Sun recalled Calvin’s words from earlier. His meals, as well as his income, depended on the sale of the blessing and 5% meant fifty coppers per blessing. He wasn’t going to let some punk come in trying to cut him short.
The people waiting in line voiced their approval at Sun’s words. Since the line was relatively long, most hated having to wait any longer than needed. The time that was used to bless an individual was rather long since the clerics or paladins usually recited the entire verse of the Goddess of Freya, which took pages of text.
The adventurer was conflicted over his situation. The ten silvers was a large expense to him but the benefits of the buff were, as he heard from a friend, quite significant. Since decent hunting parties were hard to come by, and hunting solo was far too difficult for him, he decided to rely on the church’s buff to hunt.
He finally came to a decision. “I’ll pay the fee.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out ten silvers as payment. He felt that having a slightly lower monetary gain from hunting was better than not being able to hunt at all. If he tried to recklessly hunt along, he might die causing him to drop a few levels and lose some skill proficiency. Worst of all, he might even lose some of his gear.
The adventurer stood by and waited to be blessed.
“So what do I do now?” Sun thought to himself. From Calvin’s explanation, he had to recite the Goddess of Freya’s prayer in order for the blessing to work. The problem was that he didn’t know it.
He decided to wing it and say the thing that he has been saying for the past few years.
“May the benevolence of the God of Light be with you in your journey and protect you from evil. Thus the will of the God of Light bestows upon you its blessings and grant you the power to redeem the souls of the wicked.” Sun said some random nonsense, put some [Holy Water] in his hand, and sprinkled it over the adventurer. Instead of soaking the man as he thought it would, the Holy Water turned into sparkles and attached itself to the adventurer. The small bits of light then disappeared and a window popped up again.
Successfully applied the Blessing of the Goddess.
You learn Divine Blessing Skill.
Since he didn’t know what this skill was, Sun tried touching the window that appeared. Surprisingly enough, something happened. The text on the window changed to something else.
Divine Blessing [1]
Allows the caster to increase a target’s stats for a period of time without the use of holy water. The use of Holy Water in the spell will prolong and enhance the effects of the blessing. The use of Holy Water will not consume mana. Holy Water increases duration by 300% and increases the effectiveness by 100%.
Mana Consumption: 100 mana
Effects: Life +10%, Mana +10%, All Stat +5%, additional 5% increase in Faith. Health and Mana regeneration increased by 20%. Lasts for 4 hours.
“Wow, I didn’t think that it would actually work.” Sun said to himself. “How was I able to touch those window things though? They’re transparent.”
The adventurer was surprised that the blessing was done so quickly. In fact, he started to think that it wasn’t done correctly. However, after looking at his stats, there was a considerable increase in all of his stats. Delighted, he left the church to go hunt in the fields. The rest of the line was amazed at the speed at which the blessing was applied and began clamoring forward.
Sun continued to bless the players with his skills. Every now and then, a window would pop up stating that his skill level in the Divine Blessing skill has increased. By the end of the day, he managed to sell more than hundred blessings. Taking his share of the revenue, he managed to make about sixty silvers. His skill managed to reach level 4 from repeatedly casting the spell and Holy Mastery rose up to level 3. It was thanks to the [Holy Water] that he was able to elevate his skill levels so quickly; as it would appear that its use elevated the skill far more rapidly than if it was used alone. It appear that using the [Holy Water] to activate the skill didn’t require him to use any mana so he could cast it infinitely as long as there was [Holy Water]. It was akin to using higher tier materials on lower tier skills to raise the skill proficiency quicker.
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Sun continued to work at the blessing station afterwards. Each following day there were increasingly larger amounts of people that were trying to get the blessing. Thankfully, with the increase in the level of the Divine Blessing skill, he was capable of producing more [Holy Water] and was able to meet the demand. A few days later, he was told that he had another job to do and that another member of the church will handle blessing. Calvin explained to him casually about today’s job.
“Today is the time where we hold the congregation. So I need you to help me set up the materials.”
Calvin took out a number of religious items: candles, books, paintings, goblets, and other holy artifacts. The plain hall of worship was rapidly being adorned with the various items that the two of them held.
“I find it hard to believe that this is still the same room that I saw half an hour ago.” Sun marveled at the majesty of the room. He was correct in doing so. Earlier the room simply had a symbol of the Church of Freya and several pews for people to sit in. Now, the room was elaborately decorated with painting of historical battles, statues of the Goddess Freya, holy artifacts from a long ago war, and keepsakes from famous leaders from the past.
However, that was simply around the pews. The front of the room had a table with white petals scattered ceremoniously around the table. Several candles were lit and placed in intricately designed vessels and were arranged in the shape of the symbol of the Order of Freya. In the middle of the table was the Holy Book of the church, and around it were several jewels that represented an aspect of the Goddess Freya: rubies for the goddess’s protection, jade for fertility, topaz to give strength, and aquamarine for courage.
It was surely a sight to behold.
“Well, now that we’re done with that, let’s begin the congregation.” Calvin clapped his hands as he finished setting up the last of the materials.
“Wait, what am I supposed to do?” Sun didn’t have any knowledge about this religion’s customs or beliefs so he wouldn’t be able to help much.
“After it starts, I will start by leading the audience in prayer. Then I will state the various events that have occurred that is relevant to the Order and its people. Once we’re all done, then the mission assignments for the paladins are announced. If I need you to do something, I will tell you. Otherwise, just stand next to me at the podium.”
Sun nodded to show he understood and then it began. A couple thousand people entered the church and the pews were packed.
“Will everyone please rise for the prayer of the Goddess Freya.” Calvin spoke to the congregation.
The audience stood up and listened as Calvin and the paladins recited the prayer. Sun joined in the prayer but, since he didn’t know the words, he simply closed his eyes and put a benevolent expression on his face while contemplating in his mind about the beautiful women in the crowd.
+1 Faith for participating in the religious ceremony.
After the prayer, Calvin brought up various points about the armies of darkness were gathering and that the church was waiting for a hero to retrieve the lost Grail. Then the topic moved to the recently growing activity of malicious necromancers and their opposition to the church as well as the necromancers’ connections to the Embinyu denominations.
“I would like to introduce a recent addition to the Order. This is Sun, a cleric that joined the church. Though he is very inexperienced, he shows a lot of future potential. I would like everyone to welcome Sun.”
After Calvin had introduced him, the crowd began to applaud him for having joined the Order.
“Since our new member is relatively new to the church, be sure to help him out.”
Sun felt extremely grateful that Calvin had thought that far ahead for him.
“Now since he’s already up here, let’s have him sing us a song!”
Maybe a little less grateful now…
Due to the urging of the crowd, Sun was compelled to sing a song. Given his current level of mana, he wasn’t able to do anything impressive like the ‘Hymn of the God of Light’ he did a few months back in his world. So he chose a significantly shorter but popular song, ‘The God of Light’s Benevolence’. Since he felt that a simple song wouldn’t be impressive enough, he chose to use his holy energy to make it a holy hymn as the holy knights did back in the Holy Temple.
“What is this pleasant presence?” a relaxed elderly man asked.
While others bathed in the holy light that Sun was radiating, some enjoyed the clear melody of his voice and the compassionate expression on his beautiful face. After he finished the song, the crowd erupted in cheer and applause.
“Now that was a wonderful performance by our very own Sun. Next up is the assignment of the missions to the paladin. First off, Paladin Jacob will be assigned to the Nejar region to help the residents set up a church and assist in agricultural advances, Paladin Haison wil be assigned to…” Calvin began listing off all of the missions for the paladins of the order.
A certain topic spread like a wildfire and became known amongst many townspeople and players. A new cleric was in the town’s Church of Freya. The townsfolk were quite pleased with the sudden development because the shortage of clerics in the monastery was causing great concern over the current state of the kingdom. The players had a different view about him.
“Have you visited the new cleric at the Church of Freya lately?” the party leader of a group of mid-level players said to his team mates.
“Not recently. Why do you ask?” the archer asked back to the knight.
“The blessing service is amazing. There’s this one cleric there that’s been doing an amazing job.”
“But the line for that is horribly long. I would be better off hunting with the time I spend waiting in that line.” The warrior of the party complained.
“That’s the thing though!” the knight with fervor evident in his voice. “This new guy blesses everyone so quickly. It’s amazing. Usually it takes about five minutes for them to bless someone but this guy does it in like thirty seconds.”
“I hear that he’s a pretty good singer as well.” The mage added in his opinion. “I hear that during his performances, the audience feels invigorated and the atmosphere is heavenly.”
The female cleric chimed in. “You must mean that beautiful guy with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin! I could look at him forever. Too bad he’s an NPC though, such a waste of beauty.”
In his own world, Sun was incapable of getting women to approach him because of a simple reason. The Sun Knight of the Church of the God of Light loved only God and not women. Now for a completely different reason he was being subject to the same fate.
The men believed that the cleric was an NPC as well, as players were usually unable to join the Order unless they have some remarkable achievement. If fact, they were glad that the cleric was an NPC. The world would be such a cruel place if a man as handsome as that actually existed.
Well at least the men in this world didn't hate him, sadly for the same reason women don't like him.
Sun sneezed in the middle of his meal.
“I must be coming down with a cold.” He said wiping his nose with a tissue. “I don’t feel sick though.”
He has been working at the church for over three weeks now. In a few more days he will be able to leave the city and look for clues. Due to his various duties around the church, he had made amazing progress for the first month of gameplay compared to other players.
His current amount of money was thirty-ish gold, earned from the sale of the blessings from the past few weeks. He managed to elevate his Divine Blessing to Intermediate level 1 and his Holy Mastery to Beginner level 8. His public service points in the community and the Church of Freya were quite high. Due to the time spent praying and doing other clerical work, his Faith stat increased by 30 over the course of his stay. His advancement in reaching Intermediate in Divine Blessing gave him 10 bonus stats in Faith, Intelligence, and Wisdom for having a class relating to the skill. From completing the various jobs around the church he managed to level up twice. Following the suggestion from one of the windows, he decided to invest the points equally in Intelligence and Wisdom.
However his time was not solely spent in the pursuit of monetary gain. In his free time, he sought out various books about the history of the continent and tried to find something that could help him find his way back.
“The more I read, the stranger this place feels to the place I came from.” Sun voiced his frustration over his complete lack of clues about his world.
However, not all was completely unknown. He has managed to confirm a few things from his research so far. The fact that he was able to use holy magic in the name of the God of Light meant one thing. There is some connection between the Goddess Freya and his religion; though not explicitly stated anywhere, there had to be connection.
The other discovery that he made was another thing that further strengthened his belief that his world is out there. The world that is known isn’t the entirety of the world and undiscovered frontier exists at the edges of the known world.
Then the day came when he had finished the one month restriction on new players and he could finally exit the city. In the middle of collecting his belongings, Calvin came into the room.
“Sun, it is time for the ceremony.” Calvin said in a much for serious tone that usual.
“What ceremony?” Sun asked. He wasn’t aware that there was going to be any church services today.
“Just come with me.” Calvin replied walking out of the room.
The two of them entered the main chamber of the church. Usually the room was empty, but today there were paladins lined up on both sides of the walls. Each of the paladins had their swords and shield in their hands, standing imposingly. A wide pathway led up to a podium where Calvin walked over and stood behind.
“Cleric Sun, it has been one month since you have arrived at our church. In that time, you have become an important part of our faith and I believe it is time.” Calvin reached below and picked up a long-sword and walked over to Sun.
“Wait, what is he planning to do with that?” Sun quickly looked around the room to see if there was anywhere he could run to. However, paladins were scattered all around the room and there was only one exit that was at the other end of the hall.
“Sun, kneel down.” Calvin commanded him.
Seeing no other choice, Sun put a knee down on the floor and lowered his head.
“In the name of the Goddess Freya; I, Calvin Adalus Sanci, hereby proclaim that the cleric Sun has completed the trial and will receive the blessings of the goddess. Do you, Sun, accept the Goddess’s blessing?”
“So that’s what he was doing.” Sun thought to himself. He had been worried that they were going to do something horrible to him.
“I do.” He answered Calvin.
“Then from this day forth, you are an official member of the Church of Freya. All is according to the will of the Goddess.”
Class Change
Class: Cleric has been changed to the Class: Holy Priest.
Name: Sun Type: Neutral
Level: 3 Class: Holy Priest
Title: Order of Freya Fame: 0
Life: 140 Mana: 250
Str: 10+20 Dex: 10+20 Vit: 10+20
Wis: 25+50 Int: 25+50 Faith: 40+50
Leadership: 0+20 Luck: 0+20
Resistance to magic: Holy
+All stats are added 20 points.
+Wisdom, Intelligence, and Faith stat are added extra 30 points.
+Enables you to equip certain items specialized for the class.
+Holy Mastery has been generated.
+All holy effects are increased by 50%.