Chapter 153: Faith

Morin’s actions were better than Wu Qingsong expected. He didn’t take luxurious fabrics or exquisite items as Wu Qingsong had imagined. Instead, he took some food, let his daughter cook it, and then gathered the rabbitfolk and mousefolk around the temple, distributing the food to them before starting his first sermon.

Of course, Morin didn’t know what the so-called Xuanyuan was like as a deity, but Wu Qingsong had already provided him with the most basic elements he could use. Benevolence, equal treatment for all beastpeople, fairness, love, strength, and the ability to protect every follower. Most crucially and directly, following Him would bring additional rewards and freedom, which was more attractive than anything.

Many rabbitpeople didn’t even understand what was going on. They just listened to Morin talk about the beautiful life to come, more interested in the food.

Wu Qingsong spent a night extracting some seemingly useful phrases from The Book of the Dead, then called Morin to discuss how he usually preached. Wu Qingsong didn’t expect much from this method. For stability, he let Morin study those phrases to find a way to incorporate them. Most importantly, he needed to ensure that the followers understood and accepted that believing in Xuanyuan could bring them tangible benefits. All they had to do was offer their bodies and souls to Xuanyuan with a devout heart after death, serve Him as His messengers, and then enter paradise to enjoy eternal happiness.

Morin had no psychological burden regarding such teachings, as similar concepts exist in many religious sects. Though slightly unusual, many sects spoke of dedicating one’s body and soul to the deity, which wasn’t much different from offering one’s mind and spirit.

If someone familiar with the secret history of the Batiz Kingdom came to Orgrimmar and happened to hear his sermons, they might immediately recognize the underlying issues. However, the Elven Empire had buried everything about the Batiz Kingdom for nearly a thousand years. Apart from a few descendants of the Batiz Kingdom, treasure hunters, and people like Wu Qingsong and Nina who accidentally came into contact with these matters, almost no one knew about them. Thus, such preaching, occurring only among over five hundred rabbit and mouse slaves, wouldn’t attract anyone’s attention.

Wu Qingsong organized the construction of a modest temple next to the slave settlement area. To him, who had seen the Temple of Death, this building was rather humble, but for Morin, it was enough to bring tears of joy.

He immediately held the first sermon in the new temple. With the majesty of the temple and the presence of the lord as the protector of the new temple, all the slaves unhesitatingly converted to the temple of Xuanyuan, kneeling before the seal script “Wu” symbol, worshiping devoutly.

They also received pendants carved from ghost cypress wood in the shape of the seal script “Wu” from Morin, solemnly hanging them around their necks. For them, the tangible benefits of this new faith were enough to embrace the new god wholeheartedly.

These people were of shallow faith, even pretenders, but Wu Qingsong himself had not held much hope. After all, it didn’t require too many additional resources from him. He considered it a casual move in this place, planting a seed to see what he could harvest in the future based on his luck.

However, Wu Qingsong did one more thing. He excerpted the method for purifying soul fragments. After removing references to Battiz and altering it significantly, he taught it to Morin. In the future, to collect these followers’ souls, someone must be by their side at their time of death to comfort and accompany them, allowing them to dedicate their souls peacefully with devout faith. He couldn’t do this task as the lord but must be entrusted to the priest.

Yet, Morin was unable to grasp it, so Wu Qingsong could only leave the method with him to train a suitable candidate within the church later.

With all the slaves suddenly becoming followers, Wu Qingsong found it somewhat difficult to differentiate in treatment. However, Morin quickly proposed a feasible plan. All slaves could receive 10% more food as a reward for becoming followers, but only those with genuine faith could receive more food, even precious meat and fabrics, as rewards.

The criteria for genuine faith included attendance at every sermon, attentive listening, sincere praise of Xuanyuan’s glory, adherence to Xuanyuan’s teachings in private, and most importantly, wholehearted reverence for Xuanyuan’s guardian, the kind, noble, and powerful Lord Tagraedi, and full commitment to the work arranged by the lord.

He also proposed the idea of judging heretics and pretenders, where heretics and pretenders were essentially those who exhibited behaviors opposite to the ones previously described.

Wu Qingsong was completely taken aback by Morin’s ability to take things this far and quickly vetoed the idea of granting the right to judge, which he found to be anti-beastman. The concept of a religious tribunal at this stage felt too advanced, didn’t it?

Wu Qingsong only agreed to the first part of Morin’s suggestion. According to feedback from Ram, after the establishment of the Church of Xuanyuan, the slaves’ work efficiency and enthusiasm saw a noticeable improvement, an effect Wu Qingsong hadn’t anticipated.

“Even if we don’t get pure souls, it’s worth the small cost to improve their work efficiency,” Ram told Wu Qingsong. “But seeing that guy Morin’s zeal, developing devout believers seems just a matter of time.”

“Let’s see how far he can go,” Wu Qingsong said.

He shared with Morin what he knew about modern religions, and Morin quickly applied it, developing a whole set of ceremonies that seemed somewhat plausible to Wu Qingsong. They used various decorations to make the small temple look more solemn and even adapted a song praising the God Xuanyuan from traditional rabbitfolk and mousefolk songs. They selected a group of children for training to perform before and after each sermon.

Wu Qingsong felt as if he had unleashed something peculiar, wondering how far it could develop. This piqued his interest even more.