The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

"Suffering, what a perfect soil for faith!" Standing on the edge of the balcony of the hotel, Sylvia couldn't help muttering to herself while overlooking the various weird buildings and chaotic streets in the low-lying area not far ahead. .

When Sylvia said this, she used French. Joan and Petunia couldn't understand it, but they could tell from the change in tone that it might be a line of poetry.

These people did not guess wrong. Sylvia’s sentence was indeed a poem, and it was a very famous poem. It was a poem recited by Simon, the great teacher of the World Enlightenment Movement in Vinlen, when he was burned to death by the church in the name of heresy. The most famous line of the poem.

Although there are two worlds, this poem is very suitable for the current black city of St. Paulia Port, where it is full of suffering from life and confusion in the soul, and only the power of the church can help them get out. Any church is the same.

Before they really came into contact with San Poliya Port, both Sylvia and Leo believed that the black city area of ​​San Poliya Port was similar to the slum areas of other cities. Apart from the dirty and messy living areas, there were also gangsters running rampant, and the law and order Terrible, precarious, but actually quite different.

Although the black city is dirty and messy, there are no organized gangsters, only some shady street gangsters. This is mainly because the churches in the city spare no effort to fight against the gangs in the black city, and do not care about the consequences.

In the past, there was a big man who lived in Baicheng District. He wanted to intervene in the Black District and take advantage of the chaos in the Black District to cultivate his own power, so he secretly entangled a large number of street gangsters and formed a gang force.

As a result, on the very day it was formed, this gang was wiped out by several churches in the city, and the big man in Baicheng District was also wiped out by people supported by the church that day.

Although this incident aroused dissatisfaction among other members of the Chamber of Commerce in the City Council, these dissatisfaction quickly dissipated after the church expressed its tough attitude of launching religious cleansing. With a few seats in parliament and a few important positions in management, the matter is gone.

However, from now on, those big shots in Baicheng District know that the people in Heicheng District are the church's taboo, and no other forces are allowed to approach.

This also makes the people in St. Paulia Port very curious why the church attaches so much importance to the Heicheng District, but they are unwilling to spend a lot of effort to improve the living environment in the Heicheng District.

However, in the eyes of Leo and Sylvia, two outsiders who came to St. Paulia Port for the first time, the answer to this question is so obvious. There is no doubt that the residents of the Black City have become a fixed The production base of the church's devout believers.

As long as the current state is maintained, the Heicheng District will be able to continuously provide high-quality, pious believers for several churches in this city. You must know that in this world where there are many churches and the competition for belief resources is so fierce, there is a church that can produce stable output. How precious is the land of the pious.

"What a terrifying world!" Sylvia couldn't help muttering after sighing in Simon's poem.

Leo on the side nodded in agreement.

In fact, in the Duchy controlled by the Purifying Fire Church before, Leo and Sylvia felt a little weird about the development of the World Church, but the Purifying Fire and other churches in the interior of the New World were absorbing believers There are still some cover-ups in other aspects, and they haven't shown too much, but now several churches in St. Paulia Port completely show everything naked without any cover-up.

From the situation in Heicheng District, it is not difficult to see that the church has begun to use artificial cultivation methods to cultivate its believers in batches and stably. There will be further improvements and expansions. At that time, people in this world will be like livestock in captivity. They will be specially bred and harvested by the church and the gods behind them. At that time, this world will completely fall and there is no hope. It can be said that it is not even as good as directly falling into the abyss.

"I don't like this kind of world." Sylvia suddenly said seriously.

Hearing this, Leo looked at Sylvia in surprise, and then asked with a smile, "Are you planning to do something?"

Sylvia didn't answer, but just told Leo that she was going out for a while and would come back later, and walked out of the room.

Leo knew what Sylvia wanted to do when he went out, but he didn't stop him. Instead, he took out some gadgets he made before from the storage space, and threw them towards Heicheng District seemingly at random. He didn't think about who would pick it up and what role it would play, but left everything to fate to decide.

After nightfall, both Joan and Penny finished the training arranged by Leo and went back to their respective rooms. The couple also delivered the tickets. The sailing time is at noon tomorrow, and the cabin is not the first-class cabin that was promised earlier. , but a secondary position.

Leo might have misunderstood, and the couple also explained that the regional patriarchs of several churches in St. Paulia Port would go back to the main churches of their churches in the old continent to accept the sacrificial ceremony once every ten years. The church is especially important, so there are many more people traveling, and the entire first-class cabin is booked by them. Others, including the relatives and friends of the ship owner, can only use the second-class cabin.

Leo didn't know much about the Holy Sacrifice Ceremony of the World Church, or in other words, there was very little relevant information. He just mentioned that each church would have its own Holy Sacrifice Ceremony, with different scales and methods, but what he didn't expect was that these The Eucharist of the church seems to be held on the same day, which is obviously unusual, and there must be something special about it.

At this time, Leo suddenly thought of something, turned his head and looked in the direction of Heicheng District, with an inexplicable smile on his face.

I have to say that this incident is a bit of a coincidence, as if it was made by fate. The sacrament ceremony is undoubtedly very important to the church in St. Paulia Port, so they should have taken the best talents from their respective churches to participate in the Old Continent. , and this back and forth, plus the time required for the sacrificial ceremony itself, at least about two months, the church in St. Paulia Port is in a weak period.

At this time, he randomly dropped some interesting gadgets into the Black City. Sylvia should also do something in the Black City. These things should be fermented in the next month or two. According to the news, the Church of St. Paulia Port may not have enough strong manpower to solve these problems, so things will become interesting.

When it was completely dark outside, Sylvia returned to the hotel room, and it was not difficult to see from the smile on her face that her affairs were going smoothly.

Leo didn't ask about the details, but just told Sylvia that the high-level members of several churches in St. Paulia Port went to the Old Continent to participate in the Holy Sacrifice Ceremony. She showed a smile similar to Leo's, obviously she and Leo wanted to go together.

"Huh?" Leo sensed something at this moment, and said with a smile, "Someone picked up the things I threw out."

In the garbage dump near the incinerator in Heicheng District, a truckload of garbage pulled from Baicheng District was dumped nearby, and soon formed a garbage mountain. Rummaging through the trash for valuables, the oldest of these children was only fifteen years old, and the youngest was three or four years old.

For the people in the Baicheng District, the garbage that was transported to be burned was useless, but for the Heicheng District, the garbage contained wealth that others could not imagine.

For example, someone once found a box of high-end silk handkerchiefs in these rubbish. Many of these handkerchiefs were unused, and they were discarded for some unknown reason. Picking up a huge fortune, he eventually sold the handkerchiefs on the black market for a fortune that has allowed him and his family to live well for several years.

Although people in the entire Black City area are well aware of the astonishing wealth contained in the garbage waiting to be incinerated, no one dares to take it all for themselves, because the church in the White City area has very clear arrangements for these garbage.

Adults are not allowed to pick garbage first, and only children under the age of 15 are allowed to enter the incinerator area to pick garbage.

Secondly, the entire black city is divided into different small towns according to the streets, and each small town can monopolize the garbage for two months, and when the time is up, it will be the turn of the next small town.

Finally, there are two channels for selling all the valuable garbage that has been picked out. One is the recycling point set up by the church in the incinerator area, and the other is the black market recycling dealer designated by the chamber of commerce. It is not allowed to sell to third parties, but you can keep it yourself .

Compared with the church's recycling price, the recycling price of the black market merchants is more attractive, but most of the capable people will keep it for themselves and sell it to other people in need in the black city area after a while. Doing so does not violate the church Provisions.

Sam is fifteen years old this year. He is from Stinky Water Street. He has been picking up trash for twelve years. Before this career, pick up a big guy so that he can have enough tuition to go to the church school in the black city.

Although it is free to learn knowledge in church schools, there is a fee to participate in the training of church armed forces, and all kinds of equipment need to be prepared by themselves, which requires a lot of money.

In the past twelve years, except for a part of Sam’s harvest from picking up garbage, he has saved the rest of it. Now it is a huge sum of money, but he thinks it is not enough, because he He didn't want to take a rusty rag like other kids in the Black City to take the church's armed combat lessons, but wanted to buy a brand new iron sword and a set of standard armor, so that the money he saved would be returned to him. A little short.

Sam quickly picked out the valuable rubbish from the rubbish dump and put it aside, and explained to the other Smelly Water Street children who were with him what the value of the rubbish he picked out and how to clean it up. Who should sell it to.

As the oldest and most experienced garbage guy in the group, he had the responsibility to tell the other kids on Smelly Street what he had learned. This was their tradition, and that's how he learned how to pick out good garbage.

Sam has been picking garbage for twelve years, and he thinks he has seen all kinds of garbage. Most of the time, as long as the garbage is dumped from the car, he can know which garbage in the garbage dump is valuable and which garbage is not. It takes time.

It's just that there are exceptions to everything, just like the piece of garbage he just found out from the garbage dump, he felt a little confused and couldn't think of an answer for a long time.

The reason why he was confused was because the piece of garbage in his hand was very strange, a square stone with some strange-looking patterns engraved on the surface of the stone.

If it was a few years ago, Sam might have regarded this square stone as a decoration discarded by a rich man, but since that happened two years ago, he has realized that these things with strange patterns may be They all contain power that ordinary people can't imagine.

Two years ago, a child picking up trash picked up a pendant engraved with mysterious symbols. At that time, the child just used this pendant as a general ornament, so he wore it on his body and sold it on the black market in a few days Lose.

However, then the child was accidentally injured, and the blood from the wound flowed onto the jewelry. The jewelry immediately turned into a ray of light and merged into the child's body in front of everyone's eyes. .

Later, this matter was known by the Church of the Temple of War. They sent someone to see the child. After some tests, they took the child away. Recently, it was heard that the child had been sent to the Temple of War in the Old Continent. The General Sanctuary is being trained by the jihadists.

It was precisely because of such a precedent that after seeing the stone with mysterious patterns on the surface, Sam immediately thought of the child's necklace in his mind.

So, when he found something, he directly tried to smear his blood on the square stone to see if he could use this method to unleash the power that might be contained in the stone.

But in the end, there was no response, which made him feel confused while being disappointed.

And Sam's actions were naturally seen by other children. They had also heard the story of the child who became a backup paladin, and immediately realized that the block stone in Sam's hand might be similar to the pendant in the story. They all showed a little disappointment when they saw Sam smear blood on the square stone but did not elicit any reaction, and looked at Sam with a strange look in their eyes, as if laughing at Sam's whimsy.

Sam also felt the mocking eyes of the people around him. He was a little embarrassed at first, and wanted to throw away the stone stained with his blood, but in the end he was not willing, but put the stone into the box he used to hold valuable garbage. In his pocket, even if this thing cannot give him the power he wished, it can still be placed at home as a souvenir.

However, he didn't notice that after the stone was put into his pocket, it emitted a faint light without the light, and the light penetrated the pocket and clothes, and directly shone on his body, as if entering his body. What is injected generally penetrates through the pores of the skin.