Goddess Kaleidoscope

In reality, the various potions in his medicine box were essentially Goddess Tears diluted to a large extent, then placed in different containers. Some had vegetable juice added, some had berries added, and some were made into pills by mixing them with flour.

So in reality, Rudd, who was only a third-rate barefoot doctor, didn't need to pretend to treat patients like this. He could have just taken out his divine medicine and forced it down their throats. He would have even gained more faith from the cured villagers by genuinely demonstrating miracles. But Rudd didn't do this to save trouble.

He continued to see each patient one by one, carefully inquiring about their physical condition and recording their medical records in the most detailed possible way.

These continuously collected cases will help Lud analyze the health status of the local people, understand which diseases they are prone to, and then make targeted improvements to the local people's hygiene habits to minimize their chances of getting sick.

Lud has collected nearly a thousand such cases, all of which are stored in the temple's basement and sorted and categorized by the ghost secretary, Elijah.

After nightfall, the group stayed overnight in the village. The militiamen were arranged to stay in the village barn, while Lud and Aina stayed at the village chief's house and were warmly received by the village chief and his wife.

At dinner, Ludd once again asked the village chief if he could recruit children from Owl Village to attend his school. Besides treating patients and preaching, another important goal of Ludd's medical rounds was to promote education.

Today, the development of Ludd's sect can no longer rely solely on attracting people to settle in Pine Village; it must now reach out to the outside world. However, to spread the gospel of the goddess, they need a considerable number of missionaries. These missionaries not only need to be devout but also need to be well-educated. These individuals are not readily available; Ludd must train them himself.

Compared to adults whose values ​​are already formed, these young men and women in their prime are more valuable for... nurturing.

End of this chapter

Given Lu's current reputation in the surrounding area, he took the initiative to offer to recruit apprentices, without considering qualifications or charging tuition. Many villagers were actually quite interested and wanted to send their children to Songshu Village to study.

Lude's plan was to enroll all school-age children from each village, aged six to fourteen, regardless of gender, in his school.

He repeatedly emphasized to the villagers that he was not taking in the traditional kind of indentured servitude, and that he had no intention of taking their flesh and blood away from them.

These students come to Songshu Village to study, and the school provides them with food and lodging. The children attend classes five and a half days a week, and on Saturday afternoons, the self-defense group sends "school buses" to take these students from other villages back to their respective villages to reunite with their families. In addition, they do not need to come to school during December and June of each year, which are the winter and summer vacations.

Lude believed that the conditions he had offered were very generous, and he intended to raise these children as his own, so he was willing to invest heavily in their education.

It should be noted that in the current Pine Tree Village, a brand new school is under construction. The building materials that the Ural Bishop of the God of War gave him as a gift were not used by Lud for the renovation of the temple. Instead, he invested another sum of money to build the school directly with these materials.

The school is expected to accommodate 500 students, and Lud believes that when it is completed, it will be the most magnificent building in the entire Pine Village! What he needs to do now is to expand the student body and try to fill the school he built with his own hands as much as possible before the official start of school on July 1st.

However, in reality, Lude's school is not only short of students, but also severely lacking in teachers, having gathered all the village's educated people along with those who were swindled and cheated.

Given the existing conditions, Lu De knew that he could not directly establish a modern school of Earth-level standards, so at least in the early stages, his school was essentially still a large literacy class, and many things had to be simplified as much as possible.

In Lud's plan, the new school would simply divide all students into three levels: junior high, middle, and senior high, based on their academic level. Children from other villages would be assigned to the junior high class because their foundation would be almost zero, unlike the children from Pine Tree Village, who had already been taught by Lud for more than half a year.

The children in this village will take a unified diagnostic test before the official start of school, and the top fifty will be promoted to the advanced class.

The curriculum for the beginner class is very simple, mainly consisting of four subjects: literacy, mathematics, home economics, and physical education. The graduation standard is to master 300 commonly used characters and be able to perform addition and subtraction of numbers up to three digits.

The curriculum for the middle class is more comprehensive, with the addition of four new subjects: nature, etiquette, art, and music. Physical education has also been upgraded to martial arts, teaching children some fighting skills that can strengthen their bodies and be used for self-defense.

The science course was a hodgepodge, basically integrating basic physics, chemistry, and biology knowledge. Lu De wanted to teach some more advanced knowledge, but unfortunately, this veteran cop, who had graduated from police academy almost ten years ago, had already mastered what his junior and senior high school teachers taught him.

As for etiquette, fine arts, and music, Ludwig mainly wanted to cultivate the sentiments of his students. If he could discover one or two promising talents with artistic flair, that would be excellent.

After graduating from the intermediate class, students entering the advanced class will face "career choice" for the first time, choosing a professional course based on their strengths and interests for targeted study.

Normally, children who start school at age six, unless they are exceptionally slow-witted, can advance to the advanced class around age ten. In China, on the other side of the world, at that age, they wouldn't even have graduated from elementary school yet; it would be a carefree age where they could comfortably be pampered by their parents.

However, in this world, many children from impoverished families already bear the burdens of life at a very young age.

Just like Lud's childhood, he had to work in the fields with his parents and other brothers and sisters before he was even five years old. Later, when there was a famine, his family could not support so many people. His parents preferred to keep the laying hens and sell Lud, who was only eight years old at the time, and his two other sisters for money.

In the memories left to Lud, little Lud clearly remembers the cold and numb looks in his biological parents' eyes when he was forcibly dragged away by human traffickers.

Given the profound impact this memory had on Ludwig, he decided to do what he could to empower these children to change their own destinies.

However, the villagers generally didn't think as much as Lude did. They simply felt that there was something to gain. Their children could go to school with room and board provided, and they could also learn a skill to make a living. It seemed more worthwhile than signing a contract to become an apprentice.

Moreover, the priest Rudd had an excellent reputation in the area and was a highly praised philanthropist, so people would feel at ease entrusting their children to him.

The only ones with concerns about this are the village chiefs. They are mainly worried that the younger generations of their villages have all gone to the larger Pine Tree Village and might stay there and never come back. If this continues, their villages will become dwindling and might eventually be swallowed up by the increasingly powerful Pine Tree Village.

Ludwig understood the village chiefs' concerns, but he also clearly pointed out that Pine Village had effectively replaced Riverwood as the new center of the northern frontier, so population concentration was inevitable. However, Owl Village, as a neighboring village, would not disappear and could even enjoy the development benefits brought by Pine Village.

The village chief was skeptical of Lud's rosy description of the future, but he couldn't refute it. After much thought, he concluded that with Owl Village's current strength, it was indeed unqualified to challenge the well-equipped Pine Village, so he simply accepted his fate.

After a pleasant conversation with the village chief, Lude returned to his room.

Based on common sense, the village chief arranged for Lude and Aina to share a room. After all, Aina's public identity was Lude's disciple, and it was only natural for a disciple to take care of his master's daily life. In many ways, they were like servants. When traveling, it was natural for Aina to share a room with her master so that she could serve him at any time.

Earlier, when Lud and the villagers were chatting after dinner, Aina left the living room first, saying she was going back to make her bed. Lud didn't suspect anything; on the contrary, he felt very gratified that his silly girl had been so ladylike all day.

After a busy day, Lud was a bit tired and just wanted to crawl into bed and get some sleep. However, when he returned to his room and casually pushed open the door while yawning, the scene that appeared before him made the already tired Lud suddenly feel wide awake.

End of this chapter

In the dimly lit room, the silver-haired beauty was holding up her skirt with one hand and fanning herself with a small wooden board in the other.

Beneath the very conservative and simple nun's habit, her long, shapely legs were clad in white stockings with suspenders that would make any normal man's blood boil. The two styles of the clothes created a strong contrast and subtly revealed a forbidden allure.

In an instant, Lud felt an overwhelming "sexual assault" that seemed to reach almost the very depths of his soul.

“Aina, you…”

"master!?"

When Aina suddenly saw Lude standing at the door, she was enjoying the cool breeze that came out of nowhere. She was stunned for a moment, and then, like a startled little rabbit, she hurriedly put down her skirt, her whole face turning as red as if it were about to bleed.

Despite her seemingly carefree and mature appearance, which often leads to silly mistakes that leave Ludl bewildered, Aina is gradually developing a sense of female identity and shame as she gains more life experience.

Lude, with a stern face, went into the room, closed the door, and then casually cast a soundproofing spell.

"What happened? I don't remember ever raising you into such a dissolute and unruly child!"

"master……"

After being scolded by Lude, Aina lowered her head uneasily, standing there like a schoolchild who had done something wrong, looking completely lost.

But Lud's heart was not at peace. Although he had been with her for a long time and had indeed been raising Aina as his daughter, the shocking scene just now made Lud realize once again a fact that he had been deliberately ignoring.

Aina's figure and appearance were sculpted entirely according to his own preferences, and had a special effect on him, a "Chinese man"!

This made Lude somewhat relieved that Shanis, who feeds on desire, wasn't here at this moment; otherwise, she would have already rushed over like a shark smelling blood.

Just a moment ago, Lu De had indeed felt a surge of heat rushing through his arteries and converging rapidly in a certain area. This instinctive male physiological reaction left him feeling both embarrassed and strangely guilty.

To cover his embarrassment, Lu De had to pretend to be a passing headmaster, sitting on the edge of the bed and sternly reprimanding Aina. But all he could do was give her a verbal lecture. Lu De thought to himself, he couldn't very well order Aina to take off her white stockings right now and hand them over to him for safekeeping, could he?

Even so, Aina still felt wronged. She thought she just wanted to wear the clothes she liked, and no one else had noticed, so why was her master being so mean to her? Therefore, she couldn't help but pout.

Seeing her defiant expression, clearly indicating she hadn't listened, Lu De's anger flared, and he unconsciously raised his voice.

"Alas! You child, you have no idea how serious this matter is! The divine robe is no ordinary object. If someone with ulterior motives sees it, it would be the least of our worries if they misunderstood that there was an improper relationship between us. They might even discover your true identity."

"It hasn't been discovered yet!"

"It will be too late once it's discovered! Better safe than sorry, I've told you this many times before..."

"Tch, Master is so long-winded..."

Aina muttered to herself, but since the two were less than a meter apart, Lud still heard her complaint.

"What did you just say?!"

"N-nothing!"

"Are you pretending I didn't hear you?"

Completely out of habit, Lu De slammed his hand on the table.

Ludwig had always treated Aina like a daughter, nurturing her with utmost care, striving to be a good charlatan for her healthy growth. Yet, all his painstaking efforts were met with this attitude from Aina, infuriating the old father to the point of rage, like Gandalf ready to strike.

As a result, Aina, like a child just entering puberty, also lost her temper. Without saying a word, the girl suddenly lifted her skirt, took off her white stockings in front of Lud, and threw them at Lud. Then, her face turned red, and she shouted at Lud with all her might the most "vicious" words she knew so far.

"Master is a big idiot!"

After speaking loudly, Aina turned and crawled into bed before Lud could react, sealing herself into a reclusive sphere.

Stunned, Lud reached up and removed the white silk that had been thrown at his face, momentarily speechless.

The master and disciple, locked in a petty argument, remained silent all night, and this cold war continued until the next day. Even the village chief of Owl Village vaguely sensed that there seemed to be some conflict between Lude and Aina, but because of their age difference, he didn't make any unfounded assumptions about anything inappropriate.

For Lud, this was probably the first time he and Aina had argued since they met. The incident had already happened, and he didn't know how to fix it.

Lude was single for the exact same amount of time in his previous life as he was old enough to be completely clueless about how to win over a girlfriend or a daughter. In comparison, gaining the trust of pyramid scheme members and cult leaders was much easier.

And so, the group spent another day in Owl Village, setting off back to Pine Village early the next morning. Aina, like a little girl throwing a tantrum with her parents, persisted in giving Lud the silent treatment.

On the way back, the master and apprentice sat in the car in silence. Lu De pretended to look through the medical records he had compiled, but he was always absent-minded.

Just then, the carriage suddenly stopped, and Lud looked up and asked the militiaman driving it.

"what happened?"

"Master, there seems to be something going on ahead?"

"Ok?"

Hearing the driver's words, Lu De put down the medical record in his hand, went to the front of the carriage, lifted the curtain, and looked in the direction the driver was pointing. He saw a convoy of vehicles not far ahead by the river, with quite a few people, making a lot of noise and doing something he couldn't tell what.

However, the self-defense squad responsible for protecting Lud's medical outreach team was very nervous. In this remote border region, they could not trust anyone they suddenly encountered.

At this moment, the convoy on the other side seemed to have noticed this as well, and soon a group of three people, two men and one woman, came over.

The two men were tall and burly, carrying weapons, and were clearly dressed as mercenaries. The woman in the middle was rather strange, wearing a very revealing purple dress and dressed very flamboyantly, giving off the vibe of a prostitute, yet she seemed to be the leader.

Soon, the three approached Lu De. The beautiful woman gestured for the two burly men to stay put, while she stepped forward with her hands outstretched, smiling at the wary crowd.

"Hello, we are from the Rainbow Circus. Excuse me, how do I get to a place called Pine Village around here?"

End of this chapter

In the middle of nowhere, they encountered a circus troupe who approached them asking for directions, saying they were going to Pine Village. At first glance, it seemed harmless, but Ludwig keenly sensed something amiss.

According to Lu De's understanding, large performing groups with a large number of members, such as circuses and dance troupes, generally operate in relatively wealthy towns and cities. They are occasionally invited to perform in rural areas, but usually after the autumn harvest, because at this time, rural people have some spare money.

But it's only early June now, and the autumn harvest is still far off. Songshu Village is hardly a well-known or wealthy place, so under normal circumstances, a circus wouldn't come to perform there.

So, with this question in mind, Lude took the initiative to ask the other party.

"Were you all invited to perform in Pine Tree Village?"