Chapter 267: The Cultist’s Miracles

The fireworks faded, and the night sky returned to its profound depth.

Lia felt her cheeks burning hot; Klein’s words—‘If you like it, I can bear to stay for a few days’—kept echoing in her mind.

This guy, can’t he just talk normally!

“Who… who said I liked it!” Lia retorted stubbornly, not daring to meet his eyes.

“I was just analyzing the energy structure and spectral characteristics of those elemental pyrotechnics! Yes, it was academic research!”

Seeing her duplicity, Klein didn’t tease her further, though the smile in his eyes deepened.

He took her hand and turned to leave the pier.

“Let’s head back; we have a journey to make tomorrow.”

Lia followed as he pulled her along, looking down at her held hand, her heart in a muddle.

This place… really didn’t seem so boring anymore.

The two of them walked along the coastal cobblestone road toward the inn, the festive noise gradually replaced by the sound of waves.

Just as they rounded a corner, a commotion broke out not far ahead, shattering the silence.

A crowd that had been singing and dancing on the street had formed a circle, and one could faintly hear arguments and shouting.

“What’s happening?” Lia poked her head out curiously.

A local merchant who had just squeezed out of the crowd wiped his sweat and grumbled unluckily.

“Who else could it be but those lunatics from the True God Religion again!”

“They keep insisting our harvest is a gift from their so-called ‘True God’ rather than our own hard work fishing at sea!”

Another passerby joined in: “Exactly! They come to cause trouble every year, specifically during festivals. It’s a real mood killer!”

Lia’s footsteps stopped.

She remembered the rumor Adèle had seen in the Capital Miscellany about the five-hundred-year-old Archmage Andreas.

“Is it that… sect from the Riley Kingdom?” Lia whispered to Klein.

“It looks like it.” Klein’s expression lost its leisure, becoming somewhat serious. “Come, let’s take a look.”

They pushed through the crowd and squeezed to the front.

In the center of the crowd, on a temporary platform built of wooden crates, stood a man wearing a plain grey hemp robe.

He looked to be in his thirties with an ordinary face, but his eyes glinted with fanaticism.

He wasn’t screaming; his voice wasn’t even loud, yet it reached everyone’s ears clearly.

“Friends of Lucerne Port! Are you truly happy? Can this brief revelry fill the emptiness in your hearts?”

“You pray to the ocean, you pray for harvest, but the object of your prayers is mere void nature! Magic is not a trick for your entertainment; it is a gift from the one and only True God, a ladder to eternity!”

His words carried a strange allure, and the impatience on the faces of some bystanders began to fade, replaced by confusion and thought.

Klein frowned slightly, his powerful spiritual sense sweeping over the preacher in an instant.

It was very strange.

This person’s mana fluctuation was only at the level of a Third-Circle mage, and his spiritual sense was unremarkable, showing no abnormalities.

Yet, Klein’s intuition sensed a hint of discord—a faint sense of decay hidden beneath the stable surface.

It was like a perfectly painted scroll having a single, invisible, rotting pixel.

He checked carefully again, but that sense of strangeness vanished in a flash, impossible to capture, as if it were just his imagination.

Seeing the crowd quiet down, the preacher on stage smiled.

“The secular Mage Association only teaches you how to manipulate elements like craftsmen, but they never tell you where the essence of the elements originates!”

“Today, I shall show you a miracle, so that you may witness the True God’s might with your own eyes!”

As he spoke, he took out a withered flower from his robes and held it high.

“God said, let there be life.”

Light glowed.

To the amazement of the crowd, the dry leaves and stem became plump and green at a visible speed.

The withered flower slowly bloomed into a vibrant red.

“Heavens! A miracle!”

“A withered flower… has actually come back to life!”

Exclamations erupted from the crowd, and many eyes now showed awe and fanaticism.

Lia watched from the side with a curl of her lip.

“Tch.” She whispered her critique to Klein. “What kind of miracle is that?”

“How so?” Klein asked with interest.

“He’s using a life-attribute spell, but the magic model is extremely crude.”

Lia lowered her voice, analyzing with a professional eye.

“This isn’t resurrection at all; he’s using mana to forcibly stimulate plant cells into chaotic division and proliferation, completely destroying its internal energy balance.”

“This flower will bloom for an hour at most before completely wilting, and the plant’s stem has basically overdrawn all its vitality—it won’t survive.”

The effect looked shocking, but in reality, it caused endless harm.

Klein nodded; Lia’s analysis matched what he saw.

This tactic was only good for deceiving laymen.

The preacher was very satisfied with the reaction. He then had someone bring over a bucket of muddy, turbid water.

“God said, let filth be purified.”

He reached his hand over the bucket, muttering an incantation.

The muddy water began to swirl, and a few seconds later, the surface returned to calm.

The entire bucket became as clear as pure spring water.

This time, even those who were originally skeptical were shaken.

“This… this is too miraculous!”

“I watched them fetch that water from the dock’s sewer with my own eyes!”

Lia practically couldn’t bear to watch, covering her forehead.

“Klein, let’s go. This is too stupid.”

“Let’s watch a bit more.” Klein remained patient.

Lia had no choice but to keep explaining to him.

“This one is even simpler. It’s a basic sedimentation spell to gather impurities and sink them to the bottom, then he covered it up with an entry-level illusion.”

“The filth in that water hasn’t decreased at all; anyone who drinks it will have diarrhea.”

In her eyes, these weren’t miracles at all, but two clumsy magic performances utilizing a knowledge gap.

Just as the preacher was preparing for his third ‘miracle,’ two guards in city defense uniforms squeezed in, one seemingly a squad leader.

“Alright! Break it up, break it up!”

The guard captain waved his hand impatiently.

“According to Federal Law, unauthorized proselytizing during public festivals is prohibited! You, yes you, get down from there immediately!”

Facing the guards, the preacher showed no panic or anger; instead, he wore a smile of compassionate pity.

“The seeds of truth have been sown; the God’s glory shall eventually shine upon all lost lambs.”

He stepped down gracefully from the wooden box, merged into the crowd, and soon disappeared.

The farce came to an end, but the onlookers were talking excitedly; clearly, many had been moved by his words.

Klein and Lia walked out of the crowd, the festive joy dampened considerably by this strange interlude.

“A liar, but a smart one,” Lia commented.

“He uses low-level spells, but the performance effect is good, specifically targeting ordinary people who don’t understand magical principles.”

“The problem isn’t his spells.” Klein’s brow remained furrowed.

“It’s the feeling he gave me… that fleeting scent of decay hidden very deep.”

“Decay?” Lia was a bit confused. “What do you mean?”

Klein shook his head. “Perhaps I was overthinking it.”

“But this True God Religion is likely not as simple as the rumors say.”

An ordinary preacher who could make even an Eighth-Circle Archmage feel something was wrong—the organization behind him would certainly be more than just a group of common scammers.

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