Collapse Iron: As the Balance Envoy, I've joined the chat group

Zhong Heng turned around and sat down again, pouring a cup of tea for the three of them.

"In short, change is the best equilibrium."

March 7th nodded, seemingly understanding, "Oh~ I see!"

Taking a sip of tea, Zhong Heng smiled and said, "Let me tell you a story, about the immortal ship we're on..."

A hero joined forces with the Fire Emperor to fire a beam of light that destroyed the Winged Creator's dome.

After that, the hero disappeared without a trace until he was promoted to "Emperor Bow Master" and returned to protect the celestial ship to this day.

From a later perspective, this event seems quite bizarre: for the Xianzhou people, whose average lifespan is as high as eight hundred years, this war was only a matter of four generations ago, and could even be called "modern history".

However, the myth of "transformation into a god from fire," which has no empirical evidence, has still become the most mainstream historical view among the people of the Immortal Ship.

To explain this matter clearly, we must begin with a crisis of faith that occurred between 3400 and 4000 astrological years.

First, it must be made clear that the title "Emperor Bow Master" was created long before "Hunter" officially appeared as a star god.

After that hero destroyed Qiongsang together with Suihuang, "Digong Siming" became His title, while His original name was avoided and not found in any documents.

Shortly after the hero's "sacrifice," the chaos of the Sky Raid broke out.

The demonic body completely shook the remaining faith that the people of the Immortal Ship held in the "Abundant" Pharmacist.

At that time, a very real problem was facing the people of the Immortal Ship: after abandoning the Star God they once believed in, whose fate should the people of the Immortal Ship follow?

The Interstellar Peace Corporation made contact with the Alliance during the first millennium of the Alliance's voyage, and their belief in "preservation" also had a subtle influence on the Immortal Ship people.

The way the Celestial Boatmen address the Star God reveals that "Heaven-Mending Fate Master" is the only "Fate Master" besides "Emperor Bow Fate Master".

Therefore, after the "Compassionate Medicine King" became the "Ancestor of Longevity Plague", a large number of people from the Immortal Ship naturally chose to embark on the path of the God of Heaven, Kripper, and they were called the "Heaven-Mending Faction".

During the more than 600 years of the crisis of faith, the God of Heaven's Fate once became the mainstream belief of the Immortal Boat Alliance.

Although the religious life of the people of the Immortal Ship has changed significantly, many place names and building names from the era of the Heaven-Mending Master still bear the imprint of that era on the Immortal Ship.

For example, Yaoqing's "Amber Street", Luofu's "Tianyuan Cave", and Zhuming's "Palace of Mending the Sky", etc.

The two most magnificent buildings are the "Palace of Patching the Sky" built by the company in Zhuming and the "Amber Palace" in Cangcheng.

The former is now the site of the Zhu Ming Gongzao Si's affiliated academy, while the latter has vanished along with Cangcheng into the long river of history, leaving only a few photographic records and a short poem of unknown authorship:

"Leaning on the railing, I gaze upon the distant celestial palace; with a single step, I can ride the clouds over the azure cave. Looking afar at the towering cliffs that mended the heavens, the celestial walls stand apart from the surrounding peaks."

Although the belief in the God of Heaven and the God of Destiny once became the mainstream belief among intellectuals and businessmen, the God of Heaven and the God of Destiny was a star god who did not care much about mortals. In fact, he did not conform to the pragmatic spirit of most ordinary people in the Immortal Ship.

Therefore, among the common people, the choices of faith have presented a magnificent scene of diverse expressions.

A significant number of people went against the tide and persisted in their belief in pharmacists.

They firmly believed that the actions of the people of Fengrao did not conform to the will of the Medicine Master, and that the existence of the Demonic Yin Body was only because the Medicine Master's will had not been properly implemented.

These people call themselves "the secrets of the Medicine King".

For a long period of history, the "Old Medicine King's Secret Teachings" was not a notorious organization.

They embraced skepticism with an open attitude and opened numerous clinics to help the poor.

For most of the Immortal Ship people who had long abandoned the belief in pharmacists, the behavior of these pharmacist remnants was both pitiful and laughable, but not particularly hateful.

It is worth mentioning that although the people of Xianzhou try their best to downplay this point in textbooks, the "Hanquan Sect," which emerged on the historical stage thousands of years after the crisis of faith and changed the entire medical system of Xianzhou, was originally the "Old Medicine King's Secret Transmission," which had been secretly passed down for thousands of years.

Even in recent years, when a group of sorcerers usurped the title of "Secret Transmission of the Medicine King" and caused chaos everywhere, the "Cold Spring Sect" was forced to issue a statement under pressure, publicly stating that the group "has completely abandoned its erroneous belief in the ancestor of the plague."

Many intellectuals chose to completely abandon the old path and instead convert to the Omniscient Lord, embarking on the path of "intellectualism," and were known as the "Omniscient School."

At that time, most members of the Omniscient School had little interest in worldly affairs and instead focused on their studies within the ivory tower.

This also resulted in their low profile during an era of diverse religious beliefs and a crisis of faith. (They even continued to use the term "Celestial Ruler," largely because they believed that honorific titles for star gods were of no importance.)

Despite its low profile and limited number of followers, the Omniscient sect has successfully survived.

Located in the Jade Palace, the "Universal Wisdom Academy" has a history of about 5000 years. It has continuously supplied high-level technical personnel who believe in Universal Wisdom Heavenly Lord to various departments of the Immortal Ships. No Immortal Ship people who do not believe in Emperor Bow and Fate have ever raised any objections to this.

After all, for the vast majority of clear-headed and pragmatic people of the Immortal Ship, "hunting" is a path to be followed, not a shackle to bind the people. As long as you step on this great path, believing in any star god is just a means to achieve the ultimate goal.

Besides those who believed in the Star God, there were others who chose to believe in beings that were not Star Gods—namely, the "Returning Voyage Faction" who believed in the ancient emperor, the "Suihuang Faction" who believed in Suihuang, and the "Digong Faction" who believed in the Emperor's Bow (at that time, the Emperor's Bow had not yet ascended to godhood).

This sounds like another strange thing: in an advanced civilization that already has a clear understanding of the Star God, there are people who believe in an existence that is not the Star God.

Historical documents concerning these two groups of believers have become important resources in religious psychology, and many monographs are studying the psychological mechanisms behind this belief.

But this goes far beyond what this short article can contain, so we will leave that aside for now and only discuss the most superficial motivations of these believers.

For the returnees, their "faith" and "loyalty" to the ancient emperors were, to a large extent, just a banner.

What prompted them to choose their faith was not some philosophical speculation, but a choice on a political path.

This is actually easy to understand. Even though the people of Xianzhou at that time never set foot on their "homeland", this "homesickness" always flowed in the veins of every Xianzhou person.

So these homesick people declared: "We should not continue our solitary journey, but should answer the call of our emperor, find a way, and return to our homeland."

After the fox people joined the Immortal Boat Alliance, a large portion of the fox people who longed to rebuild their homeland, the "Qingqiu Faction," merged with the Returning Voyage Faction, and to this day they remain a political force to be reckoned with.

This seemingly irrelevant convergence also reveals the underlying issues for both the Returning Voyage faction and the Qingqiu faction...

Faith is nothing but a slogan.

They just want to go home...

......

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