Chapter 599

Chapter 432 – Harvest

On the northern shore of the Conquer Sea, in Trua.

During the night, in a luxurious hotel suite, Dorothy sat on the sofa, in a state of restful meditation. At this moment, she was absorbing knowledge voraciously through Vania who was far away. Through Vania’s eyes, she was feasting her sight on the many precious books cherished by the Summer Tree tribe.

After learning about the “Cup” spiritual accumulation method used by the Summer Tree to gather spiritual energy, Dorothy continued reading about the extraordinary powers of the Summer Tree. She knew that the Path of Waves primarily focused on the “Cup” with support from the “Lamp.” After having discovered the accumulation of “Cup” spirit, she soon found another method of spiritual accumulation called the “Faith Gathering Method.”

The Faith Gathering Method, as its name suggests, is a method of gaining spiritual energy through gathering faith. The customs on Summer Tree Island are relatively fierce and combative; they respect warriors, and there are many public competitions every year. In these competitions watched by countless people, the warriors of the Summer Tree engage in various contests, such as bare-handed fighting, swimming races, and weightlifting…

The warriors of Summer Tree publicly display their various strengths before all the people, earning the cheers of the audience with their spectacular performances. Those who rank highly in these competitions are chosen by the deities, becoming sea warriors or even the title of Wavewalker. Excellent performances, titles, and the affirmation of priests make those who excel in these competitions gain revered status, respected and worshipped by all the people of Summer Tree. This reverence generates the “Lamp” spirit.

…

‘Faith Gathering Method is how the Summer Tree accumulates the “Lamp.” It is similar to Adelle’s Desire Dance Method and the Eight-pointed Fear Inducing Method, all of which involve acquiring spirit by becoming an object of certain emotions. The Desire Dance Method involves desire, the Fear Inducing Method involves fear, and the Faith Gathering Method involves reverence or faith. This corresponds to the three spirits of “Cup,” “Shadow,” and “Lamp,” which represent desires, fear, and reverence respectively.

‘Recalling correctly, on the New World side, Uta also required Kapak to always maintain his nobility within the tribe, making shamans and their disciples become inviolable, god-like authorities within the tribe. This is also an application of the Faith Gathering Method. From what I can see now, the “Lamp” has yet to reveal any more material methods of accumulation. Generally speaking, to obtain the “Lamp” spirit, one needs a certain level of popularity among the people. Of course, my reading method does not fall under this category.’

Sitting on the sofa, Dorothy evaluated the spiritual accumulation methods of Summer Tree. To her, the Faith Gathering Method was a spiritual accumulation method, while the Bathing Tide Method was more materialistic.

‘The Bathing Tide Method can be seen as finding a ‘feng shui treasure spot’ in the sea for cultivation, absorbing the spiritual energy inherent in the sea itself, which is certainly more materialistic. It is quite similar to Spirit Carving Method and bl**d Food Method. Of course, due to the dangers of the deep sea, the Bathing Tide Method is indeed much riskier than other spiritual accumulation methods.’

Dorothy pondered this thought, then shifted her attention to other interesting aspects in these documents.

In the documents of Summer Tree, they refer to themselves as the “Defective People” or “Flawed People.” In their myths, they believe that their nation suffered from a widespread “flaw” due to a natural disaster in ancient times. It was the blessing of the Goddess of Abundance that suppressed and concealed this flaw. If they were to leave the blessings of abundance, their nation would be plagued by this flaw again, leading to a disastrous future. The giant trees growing on the island are considered manifestations of the Goddess of Abundance’s blessing, being key to the stability and health of their nation.

Of course, this vague statement lacks concrete evidence and is merely a legend passed down through generations among the Summer Tree people. Almost all Summer Tree people firmly believe in this, considering it a crucial reason why they cannot abandon their belief in the goddess. However, Dorothy did not truly believe in such claims without any recorded instances.

Among these documents, Dorothy felt she gained the most insight into two spiritual accumulation methods and information about the Path of Waves, aside from intelligence about the Goddess of Abundance.

Out of the three goddesses known to have “maternal” traits, she had the least information about the Goddess of Abundance. Now, she had filled in a significant portion of her knowledge.

‘Cup Mother, Holy Mother, Abundance—there are three maternal deities associated with the “Cup.” That seems a bit excessive. But upon closer reflection, although these three share overlapping elements, they are different in overall aspects.

‘The Goddess of Abundance seems to be a traditional and primitive fertility deity, a nurturing deity, with elements of forests and nature. Her maternal traits are relatively normal; her believers worship her maternal aspect mainly to seek bountiful harvests and children. The worship of Cup Mother emphasizes flesh and bl**d sacrifices, with maternal traits that are not only strange and twisted but also the strongest. She is the mother of humans, gods, and many monsters. Her believers almost treat Cup Mother as their own birth mother. The Holy Mother, although possessing maternal traits, does not emphasize them at all. The church’s worship of the Holy Mother treats her as a savior deity, making her the one with the least maternal traits among the three.’

Sitting on the sofa, Dorothy analyzed the differences between the three maternal deities within her mind. She concluded that in terms of maternal traits, Cup Mother > Abundance > Holy Mother. This is indeed a noteworthy pattern.

As Dorothy pondered this, with Vania’s prolonged reading, she finally finished reading all the documents collected by Anman. After going through so much content, she began extracting spiritual energy. This time, her gains were substantial.

The worship practices and religious activities of the Goddess of Abundance and the Wavewalker, detailed information about the Black Earth and White Chalk Tier of the Path of Waves, Bathing Tide Method and Faith Gathering Method… This series of documents containing poison recognition gave Dorothy 30 points of “Cup,” 2 points of “Lamp,” 1 point of “Stone,” and 20 points of “Enlightenment” in spiritual energy. After subtracting the 3 points of “Cup” used to control Vania and the three living puppets, Dorothy’s current spiritual energy status is as follows:

32 Cups, 5 Stones, 20 Shadows, 4 Lamps, 14 Silences, 34 Enlightenments. For “Cup” spiritual energy, this could be considered a major harvest for Dorothy.

‘Over thirty points of “Cup,” wow, I’ve never seen such abundant “Cup” before. No wonder these are documents collected by the priest. Reading through all of them actually yielded so much spiritual energy.’

Looking at her incredibly abundant “Cup” spiritual energy, Dorothy felt a surge of joy, thinking that helping Summer Tree was well worth it, as it directly helped her “Cup” become affluent. As “Cup” spiritual energy is something she frequently uses, the more the better.

Previously, Dorothy used three live puppets to manipulate three Summer Tree warriors for reconnaissance and controlled Vania to dance, using up 3 out of her 5 points of “Cup” in one go, leaving her with only 2 points of “Cup.” After reading all these documents, she was able to recover some of her spiritual energy, unexpectedly regaining a large amount, pushing her “Cup” count up to 30 points.

Seeing the significant increase in her spiritual energy, Dorothy couldn’t help but smile broadly. After the initial joy subsided, she finally began to examine the intriguing detail she had acquired: she had accumulated 1 point of “Stone” spiritual energy!

Dorothy’s reading method involved accumulating spiritual energy related to the contents of secret transmissions. Among the documents, she obtained four types of spiritual energy: “Cup,” “Lamp,” “Enlightenment,” and “Stone.” Naturally, “Cup” didn’t need explanation, as the Goddess of Abundance herself is a deity associated with the “Cup.” Knowledge about her and the Wavewalker, along with the Bathing Tide Method, naturally carries the “Cup.” The “Lamp” spiritual energy comes from the Faith Gathering Method. And “Enlightenment” is present in any knowledge.

But… where did this “Stone” come from? Dorothy was certain that there should be no content related to “Stone” in the documents she read. So how did this single point of “Stone” spiritual energy come about?

Facing this peculiar situation, Dorothy carefully thought it over and eventually found the most likely source of this “Stone” spiritual energy: the title of the Goddess of Abundance.

In an old animal skin document, Dorothy saw that the Summer Tree people once recorded a title for the Goddess of Abundance, in addition to titles like Goddess of Abundance, Forest Goddess, Mother of All, and Goddess of Fields. They also mentioned a title: Earth Mother Deity.

This title of Earth Mother Deity seemed to contain the meaning of earth.

‘It’s really quite unique. Among the titles of the Goddess of Abundance, there’s also the title of Earth Mother Deity, but shouldn’t earth be the domain of “Stone”? Strictly speaking, the deity of earth should be the Prince of Stone, which should be in opposition to the “Cup” domain.

‘It feels like this title of Earth Mother… might be a title added by the Summer Tree people based on their simple religious sentiments without supernatural knowledge. But would doing this actually cause poison recognition? What exactly is the mechanism for the generation of poison recognition? Hiss… everything about this is truly puzzling.’