“Lord Governor?”
Isha looked at Lind, who appeared as if he had seen a ghost after the prayer ended, and cautiously asked.
At that moment, Lind turned to Isha and recalled Isha’s earlier unusual Divine Revelation.
He had taken it for granted that that Divine Revelation was one sentence.
It was indeed one sentence, but it was a sentence composed of three different languages, and he had treated the three sentences as a single whole, which is why he hadn’t noticed Isha’s somewhat awkward Mandarin.
“Lord Governor, did you also hear the voice of the Goddess?”
Just by looking at Lind’s expression, Isha had guessed that Lind had definitely heard the voice of the Goddess, but Lind’s reaction was even more exaggerated than she had imagined.
Instead of answering directly, Lind asked, “Isha, what do you think the Goddess truly is? Or rather, what are the deities?”
“Lord Governor, isn’t that question a bit…”
Originally, Isha could discuss such questions logically with Lind, but now that the Goddess had truly started to respond to her followers again, Isha had to start being devout, wondering if the Lord Governor’s actions to create Holy Water from the Goddess’s grace had been discovered by the Goddess.
Seeing Isha’s hesitation, Lind did not say anything more but prayed again, this time using Chinese directly in his mind.
“Goddess, querying the restart requires time.”
That cold, mechanical voice resonated again in Lind’s mind: “Request received, system self-checking, restart will require approximately fourteen natural days.”
Two weeks, this time frame was surprisingly close to Lind’s expectations, and two weeks later, this system referred to as the Goddess could be restarted.
Lind had actually suspected something similar when he heard Lantern Dream say that the Goddess could automatically respond to her followers even while asleep, but he had thought that the Goddess was a product of this worldview, something akin to an artificial intelligence being, or that the Goddess had created something similar to artificial intelligence while in a sleeping state.
But Lind didn’t expect that the Goddess could indeed be an artificial intelligence system, and even the default languages were Chinese, English, and Russian.
This immediately moved Lind from a magical worldview to a science fiction one, no, it was the Golden Age mixed in.
Then Lind continued to ask the Goddess a few questions in a prayerful state: “Goddess, what position are you currently in?”
Even omitting honorifics, the mechanical voice in his mind still responded: “System restarting, please try again later.”
The answers to the following questions were similarly lackluster; it seemed that until the Goddess fully rebooted, Lind couldn’t obtain more information.
After getting up, Lind looked up at the ceiling of the prayer room. If the Goddess was an artificial intelligence system, what about the other deities?
“Isha, do you know how to pray to other deities?”
Upon hearing this question, Isha, familiar with Lind’s faith perspective, immediately understood what Lind had discovered during his prayer, and began to teach him the prayer methods of other religions that she knew.
After Lind tried them one by one, he found there was no response.
Was it perhaps because he had deemed himself a mere shallow follower of the Goddess, rather than a follower of other deities?
Could the other deities, like the Goddess, also respond to the three languages of Chinese, English, and Russian?
Lind turned to Isha and instructed, “Let the Church inquire with the Central Church if there has been a new Divine Revelation from the Goddess, to see what the situation is over there.”
Once Isha left, Lind spoke to the shadows: “Monitor all public opinion regarding the Goddess, especially from the Central Church. Report any new discoveries immediately, then have Lantern Dream come over again.”
“Spread the news we received from the Goddess’s Divine Revelation from our Northern Border Church along with the content of the revelation.”
The so-called content was, of course, just simple syllables. After confirming the pronunciation, Lucanus bowed and left the shadows.
Lind then hurried back to his office.
Seeing Lind rush towards him, Tia, still eating chips and reading a book, curiously asked, “What’s wrong?”
Noticing Lind’s completely different expression and how he kept approaching her, Tia immediately sat up straight, nervously asking, “What do you want to do? I warn you, I have a lot of restrictions on me. If you act rashly…”
Though she said that, Tia made no move to get away, allowing Lind to hold her shoulders.
Lind seriously said, “Tia, you’re a devout follower of the Nature God, aren’t you?”
Not fully understanding the situation, Tia could only nod blankly.
“How does that compare to my faith in the Goddess?”
Hearing this question, Tia found it somewhat amusing and slightly infuriating. Anyone who knew Lind would realize he probably didn’t even count as a shallow follower, and his greatest devotion to the Goddess was likely just the guilt he felt from constantly making Holy Water.
“What about you? Can you let go of my hands first?”
Only then did Lind realize he had gotten a bit too excited. After releasing her, he returned to his desk and wrote down a few syllables on paper; if Lilith were present, she would have recognized them as the approximate pronunciations of the Divine Revelation in the common language.
However, Lind’s hand stopped again. If Tia didn’t know the meanings of these syllables herself, would they be of any use?
So, Lind turned to Tia, who still looked confused, and said, “Come here, let me teach you a new language.”
“Not interested.”
Tia patted her shoulders and tried to lie back on the sofa.
“This relates to the Nature God; it’s very important!”
But Tia just shot a glance at Lind and lay back down again.
“If you don’t get up, I’ll send you back.”
Upon hearing this, Tia immediately sprang up like a fish jumping, standing straight.
It seemed that the Nature God wasn’t as compelling to Tia as Aivelia, which made Lind a bit concerned. Was Tia really devout enough? Nonetheless, as long as she was more devout than him, that would suffice.
Next, Lind simply taught Tia a few Mandarin pronunciations but did not explain their meanings. Tia stared at the makeshift materials Lind had written, scratching her head. Lind only taught the meanings of the characters and didn’t even teach the pronunciations. Although Tia knew how to pronounce the characters, she had no idea what they meant.
But that was enough; Lind then asked Tia to pray to the Nature God using this language. Seeing Lind’s consistently serious expression, Tia ultimately complied.
In her prayer, Tia silently recited in Mandarin, “Great Nature God, your devoted follower requests to query your current state.”
Then Tia followed the complete process to pray again. After getting up, she looked at Lind with an expectant gaze and said, “There was no response.”
“Then next I will tell you the meaning of what you just said, and you can try praying again.”
After that, Lind explained to Tia what that phrase meant and even taught her some basic meanings of the syllables.
Completely unaware of what she was learning or the significance of this later, Tia shook her head again during the second prayer, saying, “Still no response.”
“Not a single response?”
Lind lowered his head in thought.
But Tia shrugged, complaining, “Isn’t that expected? The Nature God wouldn’t casually respond to His followers, especially not in a language He has never heard before.”
“No.”
Lind quietly said, “Perhaps the Nature God and the Goddess fundamentally aren’t the same kind of beings.”
Tia rolled her eyes. What happened to Lind? Had he been infected by that group of cultists at Lantern Dream?
