Goddess Kaleidoscope

So Atropos, realizing the situation, immediately changed his attitude, grabbed his two sisters, and knelt down on one knee before Ludwig without hesitation.

"My lord, we sisters were blind and offended you. You gave us life, and for this immense kindness and the sin of offense, please allow us to offer our loyalty as a way of repaying you!"

"No, no, get up!"

Seeing that he had achieved his goal of establishing authority, Lude knew when to stop. With a kind and amiable smile, he gently patted the heads of the three goddesses and voluntarily returned some of the faith power that he had previously taken.

After the three goddesses sensed the power "bestowed" by Rudd, their initial fear and anxiety were replaced by joy.

Looking at the three people's grateful expressions, Lu De thought to himself that the old man's experience was indeed useful. As the saying goes, "a slap followed by a date," Stockholm syndrome can still work on the goddess even in another world!

End of this chapter

Using a combination of kindness and severity, Rudd subdued the three craftswomen who had been tainted by the vices of the old gods. This experience of creating a god taught Rudd a valuable lesson: the selection of the first group of believers must be made with care, because their knowledge and character will directly influence the god's inner nature at the beginning of his birth. Therefore, it is not necessarily better to have more believers.

Thanks to the presence of many dwarven artisans and skilled knights among the first believers, the three sisters not only became literate but also possessed craftsmanship comparable to that of dwarven masters, as well as a solid foundation in martial arts.

These skills, which would take ordinary people decades or even centuries to master, are acquired by deities born from faith the moment they open their eyes. In fact, because they combine the strengths of many schools of thought, their level is even higher.

So, setting aside morality and ethics, the gods' belief that they are superior to the mortals who gave birth to them is not entirely self-aggrandizement.

With the official addition of the three sisters, the number of goddesses around Ludwig doubled to six. Although it was still a long, long way from achieving the title of Pantheon, it had finally reached a considerable scale.

Rudd told the three sisters that he would organize a secret séance between the dwarven leaders of the Steelwhip Clan in a few days, and that the three sisters would need to cooperate with his "performance." After it was done, Gulig and the dwarven elders would promote a top-down religious conversion within the clan, abandoning the Earth Mother and becoming the three sisters' followers.

There are over 30,000 dwarves here. If they could all convert to the religion, even if they were just casual believers, the three sisters would never have to worry about food and clothing again.

After listening to Ludwig's explanation of the plan, the eldest sister, Atropos, raised her right hand. This wasn't to cast a spell, but rather to ask a question, following the "meeting protocol" Ludwig had previously explained.

"My lord, there is still something I don't understand. Our current goal is to develop the pantheon you have established and compete with those traditional gods for believers. So what is our ultimate goal in the future? Is it to replace those old gods who are scattered and disorganized with a unified pantheon?"

"That's one way to understand it, but what we need to do is not just simply replace them, but to establish a more complete new order. We don't have to fight to the death with all the old gods. As long as they are willing to make changes, they are all people we can unite with."

Ludd's ultimate goal was to establish a harmonious world where mortals and gods could coexist in mutual benefit, rather than one-sided exploitation—the so-called "community of shared future" that China is currently promoting on the other side of the world.

However, this concept was undoubtedly too advanced for the other world, so it meant something completely different to Atropos.

The great man before us, does he actually want to unify all the gods?

Ah! What an arrogant yet captivatingly grand ambition this is!

Atropos had unknowingly begun to convert Dihua!

After the meeting, Ludwig told the three sisters to stay in the basement for the time being, as it wasn't appropriate for them to be seen in public yet. Although they could dress up as nuns like Aina and Shanes, it would still feel somewhat out of place.

So the group moved to the basement. The three sisters looked around and found that the conditions weren't great, but they were still within an acceptable range.

At this moment, the third sister, Lachesis, timidly raised her hand and asked in a soft, delicate loli voice, which was almost perfect.

"My Lord, High Priest, the space here is a bit small. May I try to make some minor modifications?"

"Laxis, do not be rude! This is the master's temple. Even the basement is not to be touched without permission!"

“Atropos, don’t yell at your sister. It’s no big deal. Go ahead and try to modify it if you want, just don’t collapse the temple above me.”

In a good mood, Lud nodded in agreement to Lachesis's request. He also hoped to take this opportunity to learn about her abilities. After all, the three sisters had learned authentic dwarven techniques by "stealing" their skills. Giving them a chance to showcase their talents might bring unexpected surprises.

And so, with permission granted, the three sisters eagerly began to rub their hands together, while Ludwig returned to his bedroom on the ground floor to rest, quickly falling asleep and sleeping soundly until dawn.

When Lu De woke up in the morning, he saw Romian making breakfast for everyone in the kitchen as usual. He thought to himself that he had drugged her and made her fall into a deep sleep all night, but no one had checked on her condition. So there was no guarantee that she wouldn't wake up unexpectedly. Therefore, Lu De deliberately went up to her to ask her how she slept last night and whether she heard any strange noises.

"I slept very well last night! But speaking of strange noises, I heard a clanging sound coming from the cellar when I woke up this morning, like someone was hammering iron down there. Was that you, Master, doing something?"

"Uh... it should be Arno (Luoye's pseudonym). He said yesterday that his dagger was a bit dull, so I told him to go to the cellar to find tools to fix it."

"I see!"

Romian had no doubts about Ludwig's explanation, but Ludwig couldn't help but feel uneasy.

"It's only been one night, it shouldn't have been too much of a hassle, right?"

With these doubts in mind, Ludwig finished his breakfast and hurried to the basement. When he went down the stairs and pushed open the door, he was stunned by what he saw.

Holy crap!

After calculating the time, Lude agreed to let the three sisters renovate the basement. Less than ten hours had passed, and the basement, which was originally only a hundred square meters in size, had expanded to more than five times its original size, almost the same size as the temple above. It was completely empty.

Lude, whose mind was gradually becoming chaotic, heard a series of metallic clanging sounds. He looked in the direction of the sound and noticed a passageway entrance not far away. When he walked over, the first thing that caught his eye was a sloping staircase that extended at least a hundred meters. Every so often on both sides of the passageway, there was a pair of crystals embedded in the walls, emitting a soft white light.

Standing at the entrance of the passage, Lud hesitated for a moment, but in order to find out what had happened, he had to go down and investigate.

As he descended the stairs, Rudd estimated that he had fallen about fifty meters. The earthen mound on which the temple was situated was only about twenty meters high, which meant that Rudd was now underground and that his orientation was extending eastward.

Soon, Lud reached the other end of the passage, and in an instant, a huge underground altar opened up before him.

Stunned, Lud looked around. The circular altar was nearly a hundred meters in diameter, its floor neatly paved with smooth marble tiles. At its center stood a pavilion-like furnace, burning fiercely. The surrounding walls, about four meters high, were carved with murals depicting men and women kneeling in worship. The ceiling was a dome, inlaid with numerous colorful, luminous crystals, creating a magnificent starscape.

Although Lude wasn't an architecture student, he knew some common sense. Even if a professional construction team of hundreds of people were given the task of building such a magnificent underground altar, it would be difficult to complete it in a year or two. Yet the three goddesses completed it in just one night, and even more!

Looking around, Ludwig spotted three doors again, and the sound was coming from one of them, so he headed straight for it.

After walking through another long passage, just as Lud was wondering where they had put all the excavated soil after digging such a large space, they finally met Atropos and Croto in the room at the end.

The entire room resembled a giant forging workshop, with a huge furnace standing in the center. Small robots, resembling miniature dwarf war puppets, were constantly pouring cartloads of ore into the feed inlet.

The enormous furnace was controlled by Croto's divine power. The ore that was continuously fed in was refined into a pot of molten metal in just a few seconds. Then, a small robot pushed the crucible to Atropos.

The beautiful older woman, with a cigarette dangling from her lips, reached into the molten metal with her slender, elegant hands and scooped up a handful. Then, like kneading clay, she used an elegant and dazzling technique to shape the molten metal into a small part. With a gentle breath, she cooled the part instantly, leaving its surface with a near-perfect luster.

Just then, a cylindrical metal barrel suddenly rose up from a corner of the room, and Lachesis, the third sister, emerged from it, carrying a huge pickaxe. The little girl's face was covered in soot, making her look like a little kitten, but her smile remained radiant.

"Big sister, second sister, I just dug up diamonds down there!"

You three... you're actually Steve with cosmetic mods installed, right?!

End of this chapter

Because they possessed abundant divine power from the very beginning, the three sisters also unleashed their respective divine characteristics and used these abilities to renovate the basement.

The eldest sister's skill is hand forging; the alchemical dolls in the room that can perform repetitive tasks and the elevator used by the third sister, Lachesis, to go down into the mine are all her creations.

The second sister was an excellent all-around boiler operator. In addition to smelting copper and iron, she could also fire clay and make pottery, providing a large amount of building materials for the construction of the altar.

As for the third sister, her greatest skill was actually forging, but because of her great strength, she became a miner. This huge underground space that was expanded was dug out by her. The useful parts of the excavated soil were directly used by her two older sisters, while the useless parts were compressed and temporarily stored in the adjacent storage room.

"Compression?"

"Yes! Just like this."

In front of Ludwig, Lachesis stretched out his small hand, clad in work gloves, towards a pile of dirt. Then, with a clench of his fist, nearly a cubic meter of dirt was molded into a small, yellowish-brown ball about five centimeters in diameter by an unseen, powerful force. When it landed, it made a crisp sound like a stone.

Upon seeing this, Lu De couldn't help but gasp, thinking to himself how fortunate it wasn't directly molded into a diamond, otherwise the purity would be incredible!

"You must have expended a lot of divine energy last night, right?"

"It's not small, but fortunately there's been a constant supply from outside, so it's actually not too bad."

Atropos smiled. Because of Lud, the humanoid signal enhancer, in the temple, the faith collection rate in Pine Village and the surrounding area was very high, almost zero loss. Therefore, as long as Lud did not deliberately intercept the faith, a continuous stream of faith would gather around the temple 24 hours a day.

Furthermore, the three sisters were determined to make a good impression on Rudd and did not hesitate to expend their divine power, which led to such an amazing progress in the project.

"Give us just two or three more days, and we guarantee we'll transform this place into a magnificent underground palace!"

"Uh... actually, there's no need to go to such lengths. This is perfectly sufficient as it is. By the way, what happened to my old stuff?"

“We have properly stored your belongings. This is our workshop, and your office is in another room.”

Led by her elder sister Atropos, Ludwig left the workshop and returned to the altar in the hall. As soon as he arrived, he saw a bewildered Aina standing there, at a loss for what to do. The little nun was clearly frightened by the basement, which had expanded dozens of times overnight.

"Master! How did our basement suddenly become like this?"

"Just consider it a miracle!"

There are four doorways on this side of the main hall. One leads to the ground and can be considered the main entrance. The one on the left leads to the three sisters' workshop, and the one on the right leads to the storage room where compressed earth is piled up. The one in the middle, directly opposite the main entrance, is Lud's new office.

Thanks to the series of frights he had suffered before, when Lud, whose nerves were gradually becoming numb, saw his office, which was big enough to be converted into a football field, he only showed an awkward but polite smile. At the same time, he became more and more convinced that these three sisters, like the dwarves, were incurable "mega-worshippers" who liked everything to be big!

"Hmm, it's quite impressive."

"It is our honor that you like it."

Looking at the spacious office full of flaws, the first thing that catches Lude's eye is a huge desk that can seat twenty people in a circle, and equally exaggerated chairs.

Lude thought to himself, how big could his back be, barely over 1.8 meters tall, that he would need a backrest at least five meters high? He imagined himself sitting on this thing, looking exactly like a peacock spreading its tail feathers!

What made Ludwig feel most ashamed was the Pantheon emblem on the huge backrest.

In fact, Ludwig has not yet established an official emblem for the Pantheon; he has only drawn some alternative designs in his research notes, and the pattern on the back of the chair in front of him is one of those designs.

Lude guessed that it was probably his ghost secretary, Elaine, who had come up with the idea for the three sisters; she had seen Lude's research notes. But to Lude's utter surprise, of the dozen or so proposals he had come up with, they immediately chose the one that made him feel the most utterly ashamed.

A huge "万" (wan) character is right in the center of a red sun. If a transmigrator from Earth were to arrive in this world someday, he would probably laugh his head off at just one glance.

In short, it was awesome!

"I said... can we change the design?"

"Hey? Isn't this good? I think it's great! Especially that symbol in the middle, it has a really mysterious feel to it!"

"..."

What's so mysterious about farts? You're just doing that because you don't understand it, right?

For a moment, Lude didn't know where to begin his rant. He couldn't help but think of some American celebrities on Earth who liked to tattoo Chinese characters on their bodies. These guys, who didn't understand Chinese at all, would often put phrases on their bodies that would make Chinese people both laugh and cry.

For example, "cowardice" symbolizes following one's inner feelings!

As several people were discussing the chairs, a faint light suddenly emanated from the drawer of the desk directly opposite the chairs, and Elaine, yawning, suddenly appeared, looking as if she had just crawled out from under the desk.

Watching this scene, Lude couldn't help but imagine that he was working at his desk when Elijah's face suddenly popped out of the hole in the desk between his legs. It was truly terrifying, yet he also vaguely felt that he could barely manage to get through to her.

At that moment, Lude suddenly remembered something. Although Elijah had been sleeping in that magical pendant, the pendant had always been hanging on her remains. This meant that... Elijah's bones were in the drawer of his new desk. Maybe he could find them if he pulled them out.

Are you crazy?! Am I working from a grave?

"Eleven, where...where is your body? It can't be..."

"Ah? Ah! No, no, it's definitely not in the drawer. It was Ms. Atropos who helped me. She said that my remains hadn't been treated and would slowly start to crumble if left like this, so she made a special container for me. There's only my pendant in the drawer."

"Oh, I see! That's alright, that's alright."