The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

The middle-aged man hurried out of the bank, boarded a carriage parked at the entrance of the bank, and ordered the driver to go to the old tower, but he stopped the driver halfway, and after a moment of contemplation, ordered again: : "Go to the House of Prayer."

So the carriage turned around in a crossroad square and drove in the opposite direction to the old tower.

At the same time, at the square where the carriage turned around, Leo, who was dressed in the costumes of ordinary local rich people, and Sylvia, who was dressed as a noble lady with a veil, watched the carriage leave without continuing to follow.

"What a smart guy, he was able to guess that he was being followed." Sylvia couldn't help approving as she watched the carriage disappear around a corner.

Leo and Sylvia had followed Hairessa the moment she left the Beloved, although Hairessa did not do anything to conceal her destination or mislead potential followers before meeting with the handover person. His behavior made them feel a little surprised, but after thinking about it, it is not difficult to understand Hailesa's thoughts. His task is only to deliver things to the handover person. As for what happens after the handover person has nothing to do with him, so The most important thing for him now is not to do those unnecessary things, but to hand over the things as soon as possible, remove himself from this matter, and get the remaining part of the money.

Afterwards, what Heressa and the middle-aged man did in the bank were under the supervision of Leo's spiritual network. Although the inside and outside of the bank were full of guarding powers arranged by different churches, they obviously did not expect that there would be someone If you really have the guts to spy on the bank, all the guardian spells and powers are used for combat, which makes Leo able to easily grasp all the movements in the bank without even using some extra means.

When the middle-aged man checked the box, he found the marks he deliberately left on the box as Leo thought, and Leo did this to make the middle-aged man worry about whether the box had been opened, and then Take the box for a while and find someone who can open the box and know what is inside the box.

But the subsequent development surprised him a bit. When the middle-aged man learned that Qiao An was also on the Beloved and came to Yuan Dalu, he immediately forgot the question on the box and turned his attention directly to Qiao An. Obviously, in his mind, Joan was more important than the box, which made his actions after leaving the bank focus on Joan.

Leo knew the middle-aged man's behavior well, so the middle-aged man's change of destination did not affect his judgment. After hearing Sylvia's words, he turned his head and looked at the old man in the Cape of the West. In the direction of the tower, he said: "However, it doesn't matter, we already know his original destination."

"The next step is how to find the person who joined him in the old tower?" Sylvia also looked at the old tower that was not too eye-catching.

"This is not difficult." Leo said confidently. The reason why he said this was not aimless, but that he really found some clues that could be used as markers.

Afterwards, the two stopped a carriage by the side of the road and told the driver to go to the old tower.

Although the Old World was a society controlled by gods, churches, and secular feudal aristocrats, this does not mean that no advanced scientific knowledge could be learned in this society. Human beings will shake the church and the rule of the powerful, and other various disciplines, including some physics and chemistry that may deny the existence of gods, have been studied in the Old World far more deeply than in the New World.

In those large cities in the Old Continent, they basically have their own colleges. Although these colleges are under the management of the church, the learning of various knowledge has not been affected too much, and even the churches will continue Some church members are regularly sent to the academy to study, so it is not surprising to see a person wearing a senior clergyman's costume reading and studying a book explaining basic physics knowledge in the academy. There is a stark contrast to the almost opposite existence of colleges and churches in the New World.

Cape West Port has undergone four expansions, each expansion will build a new city lighthouse, and the old lighthouse will be demolished the moment the new lighthouse is built and opened, but one old tower has been preserved. The old tower is an earthen tower built when Cape West Port was still a fishing village, which represents the past of Cape West Port.

The area around the tower was originally built as a park, but when the Chamber of Commerce of Cape West Harbor offered to finance the construction of a city college, the land was immediately assigned to the college by the city council.

The reason why the municipal council made such a decision so quickly was mainly because the relationship between the Cape Westman and the port management was already at a critical moment, and the old tower representing the original Cape Westman became the source of dissatisfaction among those who were dissatisfied. Therefore, the management hopes that when the college is built, the old tower will be demolished, taking the opportunity to hit the morale of the Cape West people.

However, the chamber of commerce organization that took over the construction of the college is not a fool. Naturally, they will not follow the ideas of the municipal council. Not only did they not demolish the old tower, but they rebuilt the old tower that was crumbling due to disrepair and strengthened it. , and then with the old tower as the center, build Cape Ziwangyang College.

The current Cape Ziwangyang College can be said to be one of the most famous colleges in the southern part of the old continent. It is famous not because of its amazing academic achievements, or because of the size of the college, but mainly because Cape Ziwango College gathers more than half of the sociologists, thinkers, and philosophers of the entire Old World, and therefore at least half of the people studying in this college are members of anti-power organizations like the Barefoot Party, so other countries It also refers to Cape West College as the Rebellious College.

The reason why such an academy, which is so hostile to the powerful forces of the entire Old Continent, still exists is mainly because it has two important sponsors, and these two sponsors have blocked the pressure from the outside world for the academy.

A sponsor is a real sponsor. They are all chambers of commerce who are dissatisfied with all kinds of exorbitant taxes and the status quo of the noble class. Most of these chambers of commerce have money, but they do not have the power corresponding to their wealth, because Those powers are firmly in the hands of the nobles, so the wealth they hold cannot guarantee their safety. The nobles can take away the wealth from them at any time for various reasons, so they hope for a revolution from the bottom up, Completely smash the noble class that has been solidified for countless years so that they can replace it.

Therefore, all kinds of anti-power organizations in the old continent are the targets of their use. They secretly fund these organizations to engage in various anti-power movements and armed uprisings. Later, sometimes this anti-power fire will burn on themselves, but They still have no intention of giving up, and they still secretly fund low-level organizations like the Barefoot Party, which are equally hostile to the rich and powerful.

Nearly 90% of the funds of the Cape of the West Ocean College come from anonymous donations, and these funds ensure that the Cape of the West Point College can operate normally even if it does not have any tuition income or other additional income, and will not be interrupted due to funding problems. discontinued.

Financial protection is one aspect, while another aspect is actual protection, and this protector is a special church organization, the Holy Prayer House.

Simply put, the Holy Prayer House is a joint theological college that all churches in the Old World participate in. It gathers the theological knowledge of all the Churches of True God in the Old World and provides corresponding clergy for each church.

The people who study in the House of Prayer are not ordinary people who actively want to join the church. Those people have already had their own objects of faith, and they only need to accept the ceremony to become believers in their respective churches. The people who study here Both came from the orphanages that the House of Prayers built in town.

Those who become orphans due to different reasons will live in the orphanage to a certain age, and then go to the Holy Prayer House for relevant theological studies until they complete their studies in adulthood and join the corresponding church according to the gods they believe in.

For the church, this kind of orphan who has been raised by the church since childhood and has no worries is the most powerful force of the church. Therefore, the position of the Holy Prayer House in various churches in the Old World is also very important, and it can be appointed as a local Holy Prayer The dean of the dean must be at least at the level of a bishop of a certain church, and must be a moderate without any prejudice, while the Holy Prayer House of an important port city like Cape West Harbor must be at the level of an archbishop. Only characters can act.

After the establishment of the Cape of the West Ocean College, except that the first-generation dean was served by a very famous earl in the Cape of the West Ocean at that time, the subsequent deans of the college were all the deans of the Holy Prayer Academy. Well, there is such a special big man who is also the dean, no matter how hostile the dignitaries are to the Cape of the West Ocean College, they dare not do anything out of the ordinary.

Interestingly, as the representative of the church, the dean of the Holy Prayer House should have banned the college from teaching various sociology, political science, and philosophical thoughts, but in fact they did not stop it at all, but let it go, even when the nobles were against some scholars of the college. When the accusation of treason is raised, it will also take the initiative to defend it.

Under the effect of this kind of behavior, no matter what kind of thoughts those people studying in Cape Xiwangyang had before they came to study, after they studied, they would more or less have a good impression of the church, and then returned to their respective schools. In organizations, goodwill will also subtly affect certain decisions of these organizations, which may be the purpose of these abnormal supportive behaviors by the church.

No matter whether the church’s support has a special purpose or not, the benefits of the support have actually been implemented in Cape Ziwangyang College, which is also a good thing for those who study in Cape Ziwangyang.

There is a special tradition in Xiwangyangjiao College, that is, there will be open classes for ordinary people every day. Anyone can attend the class, including beggars on the street.

In order to make it easier for ordinary people to attend classes, the gate of the college has been removed decades ago, so anyone can easily enter and exit the college, because the church knights of the Holy Prayer House are in charge of guarding the college, so there will be no There are too many security issues.

In the academy, the academic importance of a scholar is directly proportional to the popularity of the scholar's public lectures, so the public lectures given by some lesser-known scholars may only be attended by dozens of people, and most of them are electives. There are students of the course, and those famous scholars are crowded with people, and the amphitheater of the college needs to be used to accommodate them.

When Leo and Sylvia came to the entrance of Cape West Ocean College, they happened to meet a very famous scholar who was about to give an open class. In addition, today was a rest day, so many idle people in the city came here Attending lectures here, the carriage was stopped far away from the entrance of the college, because there were too many people, the carriage could not go any further.

"Why don't we go to the lectures too?" Sylvia suggested to Leo after seeing the crowds flocking to the academy.

Leo nodded, he was equally interested in what the scholar said.

The scholar who opened the class this time is named Ranco Byronville, an aristocrat who was already a well-known thinker before he came to Cape West Ocean College. He once explained anger and anger to people at a noble gathering. Because of his behavior, he slapped a crown prince, but instead of going to prison, he convinced the crown prince to become his student because of his knowledge.

Although he came from aristocratic background, Ranco Byronville himself has no malice towards anti-magnate organizations such as the Barefoot Party, nor does he have any good impressions. His openness to philosophy, theology, and sociology allowed him to conduct unrestricted academic research that would otherwise be considered heresy.

Leo and Sylvia didn't just heard the name of Ronco Byronville just now. In fact, they already knew about this person and read his works when they were in the Outer Federation, but they didn't expect What is surprising is that this scholar turned out to be teaching at Cape West College.

The book they have read is called "Man, God, and Life", and most of the content is about the differences in thoughts and life forms between humans and gods. In their opinion, the content of this book is not to mention the old The mainland, even in the New World, is definitely a banned book severely cracked down by various churches. If it is found, it will be destroyed as soon as it is found. Only countries with a small church influence like the Otter Federation will keep the collection.

Therefore, they also thought that the author who wrote this book might have encountered an accident, but what they didn't expect was that Ronco Byronville was still alive and well, and he was even able to teach his academic thoughts publicly, which really surprised them , This is also the main reason why they will be interested in attending classes.

Of course, there was another reason that Leo suspected that Ranko Byronville had spiritual powers.