Goddess Kaleidoscope

Using this story, Rudd changed Shanes from "Goddess of Desire" to "Goddess of Love and Lust." Although it is only a one-word difference, the concept of the divine position has undergone a significant change.

In the original version by the old astrologer Perseus, Shanes represented human desires, because the old man knew very well that mortal desires were endless. They were the simplest and purest, yet also the most intense and comprehensive, but overall somewhat negative.

After Ludwig's modifications, desire was specified as love and lust, and the goddess was given a dual nature.

When the goddess encounters mortal couples who are truly in love, she appears in her beautiful female form, wishing them a happy ending and many children. However, when she encounters scumbags who start relationships and then abandon them, she transforms into a giant and indescribable tentacle monster, causing them to have nightmares as punishment for their evil deeds.

The reason for this design is to ensure sufficient commonality between the two versions, so as not to make too many changes and directly create another new god. Moreover, Rud does not think that the appearance of a monster is necessarily a flaw; the key is how you interpret it.

It's normal for ordinary people to be afraid of monsters, but if you tell them that the monster isn't actually a bad person, but rather an incarnation of a goddess used to punish bad people, and that as long as you don't do bad things, the goddess won't use this terrifying image to scare you, people will be more likely to accept this premise.

It took Lude nearly two hours to write the story, and then he revised and polished some of the plots before finally completing the final draft.

He has written many similar stories, all of which are carefully recorded and stored in a wooden box. He plans to compile them into a book and try to promote them as a missionary text once a certain number have been collected.

Hume stayed by Lude's side the whole time, watching her make up the story. She had to admit that the story was indeed very interesting, with a lot of twists and turns. In particular, when the rich, blond scoundrel went to beg the goddess to help change the girl's mind with a big bag of gold coins, the money bag placed in front of the statue disappeared in a burst of golden light. It really made people break out in a cold sweat, fearing that the story would take a tragic turn of "never going back".

Fortunately, the ending was a happy one. The god of love and desire did not help the scumbag get what he wanted, but instead blessed the true lover. Then, in the scumbag's dream, the god transformed into a terrible monster and used its sticky tentacles to stuff the bag of gold coins that the scumbag had previously received back into the scumbag's "new ass" intact.

While this part of the description is slightly unsettling, it also conveys a sense of cathartic vengeance and carries a hint of warning.

But Hume was still somewhat skeptical. Could using storytelling instead of reading doctrine really have the unexpected and miraculous effects that Ludd claimed?

End of this chapter

Before the villagers arrived, Lud, having finished writing the story, prepared to clean the temple thoroughly before opening it to the public.

Hume, who was standing nearby, saw that Ludwig had been busy non-stop since he opened his eyes in the morning. He was just thinking to himself that this kid was really a capable and hardworking person when he saw Ludwig get up and shout loudly at the door.

"Aina, let's get to work!"

"Here you are, Master."

"..."

Under Hume's bewildered gaze, Aina came running over, carrying a full bucket of water in one hand and a broom and mop in the other. Behind her, Shanis and Fallen Leaf stared at the rags Aina had just handed them with utter confusion.

Hume thought that blasphemers like Perseus were already outrageous enough, but he never expected that his apprentice would be even worse.

In any other religious sect, Rudd's actions would be blasphemous, treating their own goddess like a servant. And judging from Aina's practiced manner, she had clearly done this many times before.

With many people working together, the temple, which was not dirty to begin with, was quickly cleaned up. Rude even opened a few windows for ventilation.

At this moment, Hume noticed that snowflakes were falling again from the gloomy sky outside, and the cold wind was making the windows rattle.

In such terrible weather, Hume didn't think many villagers would be willing to brave the wind and snow to go to the temple to listen to any mythological stories. But just a few hours later, the villagers, who filled almost two-thirds of the hall, proved Hume wrong.

"Kid, you really didn't use any drugs?"

"I'm more curious, why do you have this question?"

Ludwig glanced at Hume, then walked up to the minaret as usual. Aina quickly moved her chair aside and helped Ludwig sit down. She and Shanes stood on either side of Ludwig behind him.

The villagers who had braved the heavy snow to hear the story spontaneously burst into applause. Hume, mingling in the crowd, was quite surprised to see that as soon as Ludwig appeared, before he even began to speak, more than half of the villagers were already emitting rays of faith. These orbs of light all converged into Aina's body, and the little nun couldn't help but smile slightly, while Shanis beside her wore a very envious expression.

As usual, Lud would first lead the villagers present in praying to the goddess, and then chat with everyone casually, asking about the health of some of the elderly and children.

The whole scene was harmonious and joyful, more like a senior citizens' activity center exchanging health tips than a religious gathering.

However, this initial segment didn't last very long, and soon, amidst the villagers' eager anticipation, Lud began the main topic of the day.

"Today we're going to tell a story about love. Once upon a time, there was a village..."

Lu De wasn't from Tianjin in his previous life, but when he went to police academy, the school put him in a Tianjin-style dormitory. There were eight people in his room, and everyone except him was from Tianjin. After graduation, their accents all changed!

So although Lu De had never studied at Deyun Club, the art of speaking, imitating, teasing, and singing seemed to have been ingrained in his genes along with his off-key accent. It was a comedic charm that accompanied his speaking style. Although the villagers didn't know what crosstalk was, they just loved listening to the priest speak.

Knowing the story beforehand, Hume, who was also listening, felt less of a sense of novelty than the others, and could focus more on observing the changes in the villagers.

She noticed that from the moment Rudd began telling the story, the villagers in the hall quickly quieted down, all listening intently and unwilling to reveal even a single detail. This complete immersion allowed Rudd to fully engage their emotions.

As the story unfolds, faith begins to surge rapidly under the influence of emotions, especially when the men and women in the story suffer hardships, the audience will generally subconsciously pray for the goddess's help in their minds.

In Hume's eyes, these phenomena were the continuous generation of faith light, most of which was given to Aina. However, as Shanis herself officially appeared in the story, transforming into a monster and using her tentacles to "punish" the blond scumbag, a considerable number of believers began to generate deep blue faith and then quickly flew towards Shanis.

This indicates that some believers have already accepted Shanis as the incarnation of the Goddess of Love and Desire in their consciousness, and have developed a sense of worship. This worship has not conflicted with their status as followers of the God of Medicine; it has simply increased the output of Shanis.

Suddenly receiving faith, Shanis, who had been listless, widened her eyes and looked at Lud with surprise. She hadn't received true faith in a long time. Although she could use lustful energy, it was absolutely incomparable to true faith.

It took more than an hour for Rude to finally finish telling the story. The villagers present all showed satisfied expressions. Although they wanted to hear another one, they felt a little sorry for the elderly priest who was already hoarse and coughing incessantly.

Then Lude suggested that everyone sing a "hymn" together, dedicating the song to the benevolent Goddess of Medicine and the other loving deities who, like her, protect humanity, and praying for continued good weather and abundant harvests in the coming year.

So Lu De started it, and the more than two hundred villagers in the hall began to hum softly without any accompaniment. The song was melodious and soothing, a classic "old people's song" that Lu De had brought from the other side of the world—"Sunset Glow"—with lyrics that Lu De had adapted for the local audience.

After a hymn was sung, the church was filled with a sacred atmosphere, and Hume, who had watched the whole thing, was now completely impressed by Ludd's talent.

Although his small sect has few followers, only a little over four hundred in this one village, its output of faith is astonishingly high, even surpassing many town temples with thousands of followers.

It's no wonder that Aina's growth rate is astonishing. With a capable priest like Ludr helping her manage the sect, there's no way she'll ever go hungry.

While the primordial fire certainly played a role, Lud's own strength was undeniable! Although this kid had no reverence for the gods, he was a rare missionary genius. He seemed to possess the ability to see through people's hearts, and his control over the emotions of his believers was unparalleled.

Such outstanding talents, regardless of which religious deity discovers them, will become the object of the other party's great efforts to win them over.

Thinking of this, Hume couldn't help but smile. She had been unlucky for three hundred years, but now her luck had finally turned around and she had found a treasure!

End of this chapter

Having observed Ludd's missionary work firsthand during the day, Hume was extremely satisfied with, and even pleasantly surprised by, Ludd's abilities!

With only a village of over four hundred people, and without resorting to psychedelic drugs like the old astrologers, Lu Deguang has achieved his current success through his silver tongue and some seemingly conventional methods.

Hume could hardly imagine what kind of powerful gods Ludd would be able to cultivate if he were given a city or a parish in the future!

So that very night, Hume extended an olive branch to Rudd once again. His extensive experience of traveling among the mortals and mingling in the lower and middle classes over the years made him more knowledgeable about human relationships than most gods, and thus he was adept at adapting to changing circumstances.

Instead of arrogantly demanding that Ludd convert to her religion and join her fold, she proactively offered to "bring her own resources" and join the pantheon envisioned by Ludd.

To be frank, Hume actually had quite a few followers, after all, there will always be thieves in the world, no matter the era. Therefore, in terms of the number of followers alone, Hume may have more than some major religious sects.

Despite having such a large following, even at the height of her fame, Hume's influence was not enough to place her among the top tier. She was only in the lower middle of the second tier, occupying an awkward position.

Hume believed that the reason his situation was so bad was mainly because the goddess of thieves could not establish an open cult. Other gods built temples, which were religious sites; if she built a temple, it would be a den of thieves, and who would dare to approach such a place?

Therefore, Hume's followers always maintained a loose state of disorganization and lack of discipline. Even when some followers built underground altars, they only dared to secretly carry out some sacrificial activities, for fear of being discovered by the authorities.

It was this awkward situation that led Hume to beg for food despite having mountains of gold and silver, because he simply couldn't collect the vast majority of faith. Moreover, many thieves weren't devout enough; at best, they could only be considered "general believers."

Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, Lude held a small internal meeting after dinner, calling over the three goddesses and one divine messenger, intending to share some of the experiences and knowledge he had gained through trial and error.

“Generally speaking, I usually divide believers into three types. One type is the general believer, who only verbally believes in a certain god, and may even believe in multiple gods at the same time. Their loyalty is very low, and they are very easy to convert or abandon their faith. I quantify the faith that this type of believer can generate, and set the value as 1 point.”

As Ludwig spoke, he drew a small, expressionless round face on the blackboard he usually used for lecturing, representing the general believers, and wrote the number 1 behind it.

Ludwig then introduced two other types: devout believers and fanatics.

The former are very steadfast in their faith, respect their deity, consciously follow religious rules in daily life, and actively spread their faith to relatives and friends, but they do not pester or force others to believe; whether or not one believes is up to fate. Ludwig represented this type of believer with a smiley face, and they are capable of generating 5 to 10 levels of faith, several times more than the average believer.

The last type of fanatics has extreme respect for their god. The god is everything to them. They will obey the god's command to die without hesitation. They will preach to everyone they come into contact with. If the other party is unwilling to believe or speaks disrespectfully to their god, they will even fight and use force to defend their faith.

For this type of believer, Ludwig drew a small, angry, round face with upturned eyes and a snarling grin, and the faith they could offer was represented by ">10".

After introducing these three types of believers, Rudd asked the goddesses a question.

"If you were to manage the sect, how would you deal with these three types of believers? Who are the core users? Who should you actively recruit? And which type should you actively restrain? I'll give you five minutes to think it through before you answer."

After Luther finished speaking, he glanced down at his wrist, which wasn't wearing a Rolex, and silently counted to three hundred. The responses from the others present were largely the same: they believed the fanatics were the core of the cult, actively recruiting devout followers while simultaneously restraining the general believers, encouraging them to strengthen their faith in their own god.

After listening, Lu De smiled and commented on the goddesses' answers.

"If you were to manage this sect, you'd be doomed!"

"Why? Did we say something wrong?"

“You lot! You’re so naive! Even two people over three hundred years old can’t figure it out. When I was explaining the classification of believers to you just now, I didn’t tell you a key piece of information. My intention was to let you use your own brains to make the deductions, but you just ignored it.”

"What information?"

“The base number! Or rather, the number of each of these three types of believers. The general believers have an absolute numerical advantage. They are more than the other two types of believers combined, and many times more, accounting for 70% to 80%, or even more than 90%, of the total number of believers.”

This research data is the result of Lude's continuous observation over the past year since his escape. While not entirely accurate or rigorous, it is at least close to the truth.

As for how to deal with these three types of believers, Ludwig's answer is to focus on devout believers, actively win over general believers, and at the same time restrain fanatics to prevent their extreme behavior from bringing discredit to the entire sect.

“There used to be a fanatic in Pine Tree Village, a boy who was only a teenager named Baal. You should have seen him this afternoon. He had a boil on his bottom, which I cured. The brat, wanting to repay me, used his fists to force other children in the village to convert. This caused the bullied children to hate Baal, and consequently, to hate me for curing him, leading them to psychologically resist believing in the Medicine God. It's true! Fanatics can provide a high amount of faith points, but not by much compared to devout believers. However, some of their extreme behaviors can damage the sect's image and cause them to lose a considerable number of other believers, ultimately resulting in a loss. Hopefully, this explanation makes sense to you.”

Several goddesses nodded, especially Hume and Fallen Leaf, who had more social experience. They had seen similar situations many times, but they had never analyzed and thought about them like Lude had.

"Looking beyond appearances to the essence, evangelism is like marketing, and believers are our users. Only by conducting user research beforehand can we prepare corresponding strategies for different user groups. This is how we can evangelize more efficiently and achieve twice the result with half the effort. You all need to learn another one!"

End of this chapter

Regarding the establishment of a pantheon, Lu De believed it was best to proceed cautiously and steadily. The Medicine God Cult had already reached a bottleneck in its development; if the cult wanted to grow and expand further, it needed to extend beyond Pine Tree Village and increase the number of its followers.

However, opening a branch base was not an easy task. Ludwig was also stretched thin, and neither of the two nuns disguised as goddesses were suitable to be sent out as missionaries. He himself was not up to the task.

The ideal solution is undoubtedly to develop Pine Tree Village itself, find ways to attract more migrants to join, and gradually upgrade the village into a town. This would also maximize the benefits brought by the Primal Fire.

However, based on what Lu De knew, if they simply relied on settlers migrating from the mainland, the village's annual increase in outsiders would probably not exceed fifty people.

Because the land reclamation order was controlled by the kingdom's high command, the king only wanted to transfer the surplus population in the central region to the border, but at the same time he had to prevent too much population outflow from affecting the tax revenue of the royal domains. Therefore, he had to strictly control the number of people involved.

In other words, not just anyone can become a legitimate settler. Village chief Rom once frankly told Lud that he had spent money to bribe officials and people to get a set of settler slots.

Another type of illegal migrant was the scattered vagrants like the blacksmith Bank. Legally, they were not regular settlers holding a pioneering order and therefore did not enjoy the five-year tax exemption policy. Fortunately, the checks were not strict, and they always managed to slip through the cracks.

It should be noted that Songshu Village has been established for three years, and no officials have ever come to inspect it. It's as if they've been forgotten by the higher-ups.

The next morning, Hume and Fallen Leaf, who had rested for two nights, were summoned by the village chief to officially begin training the village militia.

The current permanent population of Songshu Village has reached 451, of which 173 are adult males aged 15 to 45. Based on the principle of "the more the better", the village chief plans to bring out all the men who are not missing any limbs to practice.

The training ground was chosen on an open space between the village entrance and the temple. The terrain here is relatively flat, and there is no problem at all for more than a hundred people to stand in.

Regarding the village's militia training plan, Lud initially did not interfere with Rom, but he always felt that if the hired mercenaries simply taught the villagers how to use weapons and casually practiced a few moves, the village's self-defense capabilities would certainly not improve significantly. Ideally, the village militia's physical fitness and organization should be improved using the modern military training methods he had in mind.