The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

"Misery, what a perfect soil for faith!" Standing on the edge of the hotel balcony, Sylvia could not help muttering to herself as she looked down at the various weird buildings and chaotic streets in the low-lying area not far from the front. .

When Sylvia said this sentence, she used French, and Joan and Petunia around her did not understand it, but from the change in tone, she felt that this might be a poem.

These people didn’t guess wrong. Sylvia’s sentence was indeed a poem, and it was a very famous poem. The most famous line of the first verse.

Although there are two worlds, this line of poem is also very suitable for the black city of Port Sainte-Pelia, where it is full of suffering from life and spiritual confusion, and only the power of the church can help them out. It's the same in any church.

Before actually contacting the Port of Sainte-Pelia, both Sylvia and Leo believed that the black area of ​​the Port of Sainte-Pelia is similar to the slums of other cities. In addition to the messy living area, there are also gangs rampant and law and order. Very bad, precarious, but in fact it is completely different.

Although the Heicheng District is dirty and messy, there are no organized gangs. There are only some street gangsters that are not weather-friendly. This is mainly because the various churches in the city spare no effort in fighting the gangs in the Heicheng District and do not care about the consequences.

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

As a result, on the day it was just formed, this gang force was wiped out by several churches in the city, and the big figure in Baicheng was also wiped out by the supporters of the church that day.

Although this incident caused dissatisfaction among other chambers of commerce in the city council, these dissatisfaction quickly dissipated after the church showed its strong attitude to initiate religious cleansing. Afterwards, the church took the initiative to surrender the city in order to quell the chamber’s grievances. A few seats in the parliament and a few important positions in the management, this matter will not stop.

However, from now on, the big figures in the Baicheng District knew that the people in the Heicheng District were forbidden by the church, and no other forces were allowed to approach them.

This also makes the people in Port Sainte-Pelia wonder why the church attaches so much importance to the Black City, but they are unwilling to spend a lot of effort to rectify and improve the living environment in the Black City.

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

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

"It's a terrible world!" Sylvia couldn't help muttering after sighing with Simon's poem.

Leo on the side nodded in agreement.

In fact, in the previous Principality controlled by the Church of Purification Fire, Leo and Sylvia felt a little weird about the development of this world church, but Purification Fire and other churches in the interior of the New World were absorbing believers, etc. There are still some concealments in other aspects, and they haven't performed too much, but now the several churches in Port Saint-Pelia have completely revealed everything naked, without any concealment.

From the situation in Heicheng District, it is not difficult to see that the church has begun to use artificial cultivation to train its own believers in batches and steadily. Although it is still a prototype, it is not difficult to infer that as long as the effect is good enough, the prototype will be There will be further improvements and expansions. By then, people in this world will be bred and harvested by the church and the gods behind it, just like livestock in captivity. By then, the world will fall completely and there is no hope. In any case, it is even better to fall directly into the abyss.

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

Leo looked at Sylvia in surprise, and then smiled and asked, "Are you going to do something?"

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

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

After nightfall, Joan and Petunia both ended the training arranged by Leo and went back to their rooms. The couple also sent the ferry tickets. The sailing time is tomorrow noon, and the cabin is not the first class promised before. , But the second-class warehouse.

Leo had a misunderstanding. The couple also explained that the regional patriarchs of several churches in Port Sainte-Pelia had to go back to the church’s main chapel in the old continent to receive the sacrament ceremony once every ten years. The church is particularly important, so a lot of people travel, the entire first-class cabin is covered by them, and other people including the shipowner’s relatives and friends can only use the second-class cabin.

Leo didn’t know much about the sacrificial rituals of the churches in this world, or said that there was very little related information. He just mentioned that each church would have its own sacrificial rituals, with different scales and methods, but what he didn’t expect was these. The sacrament ceremony of the church seems to be held on the same day, which is obviously a bit unusual, and there must be something special in it.

At this moment, 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 fact is somewhat coincidental, as if it was made by fate. The sacrament ceremony is undoubtedly very important to the churches in Port Sainte-Pelia, so they should take away the best talents from their churches to participate in the Old World. , And this round and round, plus the time required for the holy sacrifice itself, at least two months or so, the church in Port Sainte-Pelia is in a period of weakness.

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 last one or two months, and then face the black city. I am afraid that the church in Port Sainte-Pelia will not have strong enough staff 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 tell from the smile on her face that her affairs were going well.

Leo did not ask for the relevant details, but only told Sylvia that the senior members of several churches in the port of Saint-Pelia went to the Old World to participate in the holy sacrificial ceremony. With a smile similar to Leo's, it was obvious that she and Leo wanted to go together.

"Huh?" Leo sensed something at this time and smiled: "Someone picked up the things I threw out."

In the garbage dump near the incinerator in Heicheng District, trucks of garbage pulled from Baicheng District were dumped nearby, and soon a garbage mountain was formed. While the garbage was dumped, a group of children living nearby rushed up and started. Looking for valuable things in the trash, the oldest of these children is only fifteen years old, and the youngest is three or four years old.

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

For example, someone once found a box of high-end silk handkerchiefs in the trash. Many of these handkerchiefs were unused, and I don’t know why they were discarded. To the person who picked up this box of handkerchiefs, he was no different. After picking up a huge amount of wealth, he eventually sold these handkerchiefs to the black market for a large sum of money, which allowed him and his family to live a good life for several years.

Although the people in the entire Heicheng District are well aware of the amazing wealth hidden in the garbage waiting to be incinerated, no one dares to take it as their own, because the church in Baicheng District has very clear arrangements for this garbage.

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

Secondly, the entire Heicheng District is divided into different small districts according to the streets, and each small district can monopolize the garbage for two months, and when the time is up, it will be the next small district.

Finally, there are two sales channels for all sorts of valuable garbage. One is the recycling point set up by the church in the incinerator area, and the other is a black market recycling merchant designated by the Chamber of Commerce. It is not allowed to sell to third parties, but you can keep it yourself. .

Compared with the price collected by the church, the recycling price of the black market merchants is more attractive, but some capable people mostly keep it for themselves, and wait for a period of time to sell to other people in need in the black city. This does not violate the church. Provisions.

Sam is fifteen years old this year. He is from Smelly Street. He has been picking up trash for twelve years. He is considered to be the most senior garbage man on Smelly Street. This year is his last year of picking up trash. He hopes to end. Before this career, pick up a big guy so that he can have enough tuition to go to the church school in Heicheng District.

Although learning knowledge in a church school is free, it requires a fee to participate in the training of the church's armed forces, and all kinds of equipment need to be prepared by yourself, which requires a lot of money.

In the past twelve years, except for a part of Sam’s harvest from picking up **** and handing it to the family, he has saved a small part of it. The accumulation is now considered a huge sum of money, but he feels that it is not enough, because he I don’t want to go to the church’s armed combat course with a rusty tatter like other kids in the black city, but I want to buy a brand new iron sword and a set of standard armor, so that he can pay back the money he saved. It's a little too close.

Sam quickly picked out valuable **** from the **** pile and put it aside, and when the conditions were available, he explained to the other stinky water street kids around him what value the **** picked out by him is valuable, how to clean it up, and how to clean it up. Who should be sold to.

As the oldest and most experienced **** guy in this group of people, he has the responsibility to tell the other children in Smelly Street what he has learned. This is their tradition, and he also learns how to pick out good **** in this way.

Sam has been picking **** for twelve years. He thinks he has seen all kinds of rubbish. Many times when **** is dropped from the car, he can know which **** in the **** pile is valuable and which **** is not. It takes time.

It's just that there are exceptions to everything, just like a piece of trash he just found out of the trash pile, feeling a little puzzled, and can't think of an answer for a long time.

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

If it were a few years ago, Sam might have regarded this square stone as an ornament that a wealthy man had thrown away. But since that happened two years ago, he has realized that these things with weird patterns are probably They all contain power that ordinary people can't imagine.

Two years ago, a child picking up **** picked up a pendant engraved with a mysterious symbol. At that time, the child just took the pendant as an ordinary accessory, so he wore it on his body and waited a few days to sell it on the black market. Lose.

However, the child was accidentally injured, and the blood from the wound flowed to the jewelry. The jewelry immediately turned into a light in front of everyone's eyes and merged into the child's body. The child's injury quickly recovered and his strength was much greater than before. .

Later, this matter was known by the War Temple Church. 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 War Temple in the Old World. The main church has been trained by a holy warrior.

It is precisely because of this precedent that after seeing the stone with a mysterious pattern on the surface, Sam thought of the child's necklace for the first time in his mind.

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

But in the end, there was no response, which left him disappointed and confused.

And Sam’s movements were naturally seen by other children. They also heard the story of the child who became a backup paladin, and immediately realized that the stone in Sam’s hand might be something similar to the pendant in the story. Only seeing Sam smearing blood on the block stone did not provoke any reaction, and also showed a little disappointment, and looked at Sam with a strange look in his eyes, as if mocking Sam for being whimsical.

Sam also felt the mocking gaze of the people around him. He was a little embarrassed and wanted to throw away the stone covered with his blood, but in the end he was not willing, and instead put the stone in his precious garbage. In his pocket, even if this thing cannot empower him as he wishes, it can still be placed at home as a souvenir.

However, he did not notice that after the stone was put in the pocket, it emits a faint light without the light, and the light penetrated the pocket and clothing, directly shining on his body, as if into his body. What is injected usually penetrates through the pores of the skin.