Chapter 605 (2/2)

Careless believers still counted as believers, but their belief wasn’t steady, and at least half of them would worship multiple gods at the same time. They’d choose different gods to pray to depending on the circumstance, and they would hope for those gods’ blessings in return.

This was like the people in the east back on Earth, who believed in the sky, different gods and in their ancestors. In short, whoever was willing to bless him, they were willing to believe in.

Many westerners felt that the belief of those in the east was hypocritical and that they’d turned religion into a business. They thought that belief should be given to one subject alone, and as for a god’s blessing, that was something to consider after you’d paid your share. They even thought that, regardless of whether or not you received any blessings, that shouldn’t affect your investment.

On this basis, they developed the ideology, “Everyone should worship our god and non-believers deserve to be taken out and hacked to death.” This ideology then developed into, “All believers should follow our school’s method of worshipping and understanding God, or else you’ll be branded heretics and hacked to death.”

Eastern people generally just chuckled at this, while inwardly lamenting, “There’s something wrong with their heads.”

That kind of belief system naturally existed in this world as well. Believing in investment without asking for anything in return was called reverent belief, and thinking that those who didn’t believe in your own god were committing a crime was called mad belief.

In addition, there was another type of person whose life philosophy agreed with a god’s doctrines on a fundamental level, to the point that their every action was basically in accordance with the doctrine. This type was the rarest and was called upright belief.

Those believers between reverent belief and careless belief only followed one god, but if this god didn’t bless them, then they couldn’t be expected to stay loyal. If necessary, they would just switch religions. These kinds were called true believers.

False belief, careless belief, true belief, and reverent belief were the four most common types of religious belief. Aside from fake belief being at the lowest level, the other three all needed to have a certain level of acknowledgment of the god’s doctrines in order to be attained.

The Mifata Federation was a country of casters, and modern mages often discussed things using culture as their foundation. Therefore, even old farmers who couldn’t recognize their letters knew to respect the culture in this country. The God of Knowledge’s doctrine very quickly gained everyone’s acknowledgment, making the missionary work incredibly easy.

As for the other gods, they naturally didn’t have this sort of advantage, so their missionary efficiency couldn’t even compare to the Church of the God of Knowledge.

Moreover, the Church of the God of Knowledge had another big advantage as well: They had money, and lots of it too!

Having come across this once in a blue moon chance, Sui Xiong definitely didn’t worry about such an insignificant thing as money. He rationalized that spending it was also promoting societal progress. Have you not heard of GDP, my lord? Earning money and spending it are both GDP, you know!

Therefore, he gave out the order and spent an ocean of money as if it were flowing water. You could even say that he was paving the way with gold.

Earning money wasn’t easy, but anyone could spend it!

With adequate funding to back them, the Church of the God of Knowledge’s missionaries truly didn’t pay any attention to the costs. The missionaries in some areas even shouted the catchphrase, “We wish to promote the entire country’s education.”

This left other gods’ churches green with envy, but none of them had any money to use, so envying was all they could do.

In barely four or five days’ time, the Church of the God of Knowledge had expanded without restraint within the Mifata Federation, or at least, they had gained a few hundred thousand believers. On top of that, they were still growing. Even the rulers of cities, as well as high-level mages sitting at the peak of the mages’ tower, all chose to believe in him.

Accompanying this great increase in believers was the rapid promotion of Wall’s Divine Power, and before he knew it, he’d reached the standing of a mid-level Divine Power.