Alien Knights

After being expelled from the visiting group, Father Paul returned to Silver Ring City and plunged headlong into the place of duty before the visit—the third Inquisition. No one knew or cared what he was doing there, only two things were known.

1. He was originally a popular candidate for the next bishop, but was completely alienated by Bishop Fabian.

Second, the colleagues who visited with him gave him a very bad evaluation.

But today, to everyone's surprise, the bishop agreed to his request and was willing to have a ten-minute interview with him alone, which gave the church staff a new idea.

Paul, who walked into the Bible Interpretation Hall, looked thinner, his jaws sunken deeply, his whole body, only his eyes were still amazingly bright.

The bishop glanced at the priest and motioned him to sit across from him.

In the impression of the old man, Paul is a very talented person, but this talent is limited to thinking ability and action ability. The other party's terrible level in handling interpersonal relationships has caused Fabian headaches again and again.

But having said that, Paul's disdain for party formation is also what Fabian admires most about him. After all, in this world, there is no shortage of capable people, but there are only a handful of loyal and reliable people.

Even if Paul didn't tell him the reason for this visit, Fabian could guess the general idea. The original meaning of the latter was to allow the former to rest for a while and calm down. But judging from the flame of revenge burning in the opponent's eyes, the priest still couldn't pass this hurdle in his heart after all.

"Paul, you've disappointed me..."

Bishop Fabian's words made the person concerned grit his teeth, lowered his head, and said bitterly, "I made a serious mistake about the visiting group."

Knowing the shame and then being brave is another place where the bishop appreciates this man.

The old man leaned his body against the back of the chair and said slowly, "Tell me, let me hear what you found."

The priest took out a large pile of cloth bags and several notes from his pocket, and spread them on the table.

This inexplicable move made Fabian confused.

"At first, I faced Brother Todd, thinking that he was just a hypocrite whose soul was dominated by greed. But I was mistaken, and the evil he hides is more terrifying than I imagined." Paul took out a piece of paper, which recorded dense notes and drew a model of a refining furnace.

Fabian took a look, raised his head and looked at the opposite person, waiting for his further explanation.

A bit of cold wind blew the room along the gap of the window. The priest shrank his body, put his hands into his sleeves, and said in a low voice: "After I was dismissed as the head of the visiting group, I spent a day in the camp and began to sort out some strange places."

Putting one hand down and putting it on the paper, Paul continued: "First of all, it is the silver refining field at the foot of the monastery mountain. The things on this paper are the information I bought from a craftsman at a high price. It records the silver refining process, which is so complicated and delicate that ordinary people can't imagine. According to him, all these things came from Todd's hands."

Bishop Fabian touched the top of his head: "It's nothing, that kid named Todd has a master monk, maybe he learned it."

"Maybe..." The priest took out a second piece of paper, which contained many time and notes.

"I found the person who managed the monk's dormitory in the monastery and entrusted him to give me Todd's daily schedule and letters. I compared the records of almost ten days and found a strange coincidence." Swiping his finger to each record and each time point, Paul said: "From 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm, nine out of ten days, Todd disappeared. He was not in any place in the dormitory, library, church, meditation hall, or teaching room. .”

The old man shook his head: "Maybe he walked out of the monastery and went down the mountain or somewhere."

The priest immediately denied this hypothesis: "The gatekeeper of the monastery also confirmed that Todd was rarely seen going out in the afternoon."

"And one last thing..." Paul carefully opened the small paper bags on the table. Some contained powders of different colors, some contained crystal blocks of different sizes, and some contained some strange metals.

Putting on the crystal glasses, the old man observed carefully, his face full of puzzlement.

The priest began to explain one by one: "The yellow powder is sulfur, the white crystal is saline, and the black metal is heavy iron (ferric oxide). I asked many people about the other contents in the paper bag, but they didn't know. But they only confirmed one thing. Only a master-level alchemist can extract such a high purity and variety of alchemical materials."

The bishop raised his head in surprise when he heard a familiar word: "Alchemy?"

In the Church of the Heavenly Father, alchemy is regarded as a scourge, and it is considered to be one of the "arts of the devil". Tracing back to the source, the most important reason is the pressure brought to the church by the alchemist Sutherland thousands of years ago.

The priest carefully wrapped the paper bags one by one, and asked towards the opposite side, "My lord, do you know these things, and where can I find them?"

"where?"

"The cemetery of the monastery. Someone buried them in the ground as waste and covered them with soil. Unfortunately, they forgot that the color of the newly covered soil is too different from the one next to it. If you look closely, you will find the difference. According to the testimony of the cemetery, these things have never appeared in the past few years, and they have only been buried there in the past two months."

Paul supported the table with his hands, faced Fabian, and said in a low voice, "A fifteen-year-old boy, born in a peasant family, has no education, and his aptitude is mediocre and ordinary since he was a child. After entering the monastery, he learned teaching scriptures in a short period of time, created complex silver refining techniques, survived the fire, sailed northward and returned safely, and may be a master alchemist... If all of this is explained by coincidence, it is really too far-fetched."

Bishop Fabian rubbed his forehead and asked the other party: "Then what do you mean...?"

"There is a demon living in Todd's body, a demon from the depths of hell! I propose that he should be tried for heresy immediately!"

After sending off Father Paul, Bishop Fabian sat on a chair, looking at the sunlight pouring in from the window, but he was undecided and swayed from side to side.

In his opinion, it doesn't matter whether Todd did those things; it doesn't matter whether Todd is a demon. The important thing is the monk, is it useful? How useful is it? Can it be used by oneself? That's the key.

The knock on the door interrupted Fabian's train of thought. Without waiting for the bishop's permission, the deacon ran into the room abnormally, with an urgent expression on his face: "My lord bishop! Your majesty is here!"