These two devout believers knelt on the ground, continuously expressing their heartfelt faith and gratitude towards Lucas Reeve's statue.
Lucas Reeve had also considered it before.
To maintain the purity of faith, simply erecting a stone statue wasn't enough. After all, as time passed, some descendants would inevitably begin to question the statue. Take the young woman Zumama, for example. Over time, this faith would gradually fade, and eventually, they would become like the city dwellers outside.
Therefore.
There was no harm in appropriate displays of divine power. Not only could it solidify the piety of the tribe's residents, but it could also do good deeds and reap a huge wave of Prayer Power.
Faith without material benefits is just empty talk.
The god that is worshipped occasionally revealing themselves and granting some benefits to their followers is the foundation for maintaining the most primitive faith. After all, believers are also human, and humans have desires. If the god they believe in can't play any role, they will eventually feel that their faith is useless and leave one by one.
Of course... this rule only applies to Lucas Reeve's situation. After all... he was fortunate enough to actually be inside the statue, while the vast majority of divine statues are really just ordinary stone blocks.
This pair of siblings spent a long time kowtowing on the ground before turning to leave.
Lucas Reeve guessed that it wouldn't be long before this news spread and likely attracted a large number of natives to come and make wishes.
However.
To maintain the most primitive sense of mystery, Lucas Reeve naturally couldn't fulfill every wish.
Fulfilling them occasionally is beneficial.
Too frequently, however, would risk turning them into crybabies, asking the statue for help with everything.
Indeed.
The place where this soul fragment resided was truly wonderful.
With such a wave of Prayer Power farming, Lucas Reeve felt he should be able to gain a lot.
On the other side.
[Gavial's Will Tribe]
The pair of siblings who had received Lucas Reeve's grace returned to their tribe with immense excitement, shouting to everyone they met.
"The god in the temple has shown his power!!!"
"The god has shown his power?"
The people around them didn't really believe it.
Although they believed in the god in the temple, due to the passage of time, for many, this faith had transformed from its original deep level to a more placid state.
So, upon hearing this, no one showed surprise, but rather skepticism. After all, according to the memories of the tribe's residents, it seemed the Lord God in the temple had never shown his power. Even the faith that had been passed down was just what their elders had told them. If you were to ask their fathers or grandfathers about the deeds of the god.
Both fathers and grandfathers would be at a loss for words, unable to explain it. In the end, they would just smack their child on the head and scold.
"Why are you asking so many questions? It's been like this since ancient times!! Passed down from our ancestors, there must be a reason for it. What does a little brat like you know? You wouldn't understand even if I told you! Go, go, go~"
Faced with the surrounding tribe members' skepticism and disbelief.
The young woman became anxious.
"It's true!! I wished to the god to heal my brother's stone disease, look~"
She pointed to her brother.
And the surrounding residents now shifted from their original disbelief to being half-convinced.
After all.
They had indeed seen with their own eyes that her brother had contracted the stone disease and, according to the tribe's witch doctor, was on the brink of death. That was why she had no choice but to drag her brother to the temple. And one moment he was at death's door, the next he was back, full of life.
Hiss!!!
Some of the older generation's eyes widened. They were already starting to believe.
Just then, the commotion in the tribe reached the ears of the chieftain. She slowly pushed open the door and walked out of the chieftain's wooden hut.
And when the crowd saw the young woman who walked out of the hut, their expressions all became incredibly respectful.
"Chief Tomimi!!"
She was cute in appearance, looking a bit timid and shy, with skin as white as snow and incredibly striking. Her thighs were full and fleshy, but wrapped in black, crocodile-skin-like thigh-high leather stockings that squeezed out traces of white flesh. At her rear was a pitch-black and incredibly thick crocodile tail at the base.
In terms of appearance, this cute young woman was on a completely different level from the surrounding residents who all had crocodile heads.
"What happened?"
Tomimi asked, puzzled.
The commotion in the tribe just now almost made her think Gavial was back...
This pair of siblings quickly recounted what they had seen in detail to Chief Tomimi.
After hearing the description.
Tomimi's eyes widened instantly, and she looked very excited. She had often gone to the temple to pray over the years, hoping Lord God would bless Gavial and have her return soon. However, there had been no response at all. Tomimi had even suspected that the statue was just a statue, with no god inside at all.
If there really was a god.
Was her prayer back then not sincere enough?
Tomimi began to doubt herself.
And Lucas Reeve, far away in the temple, was overjoyed.
Ever since this pair of siblings left, the Prayer Power provided by one of the tribes had increased significantly.
After a short while.
Under the leadership of Chief Tomimi, all the men, women, old, and young of the tribe flocked to the temple. The surrounding tribes didn't know what was happening and were extremely puzzled as to why the [Gavial's Will Tribe], which rarely visited the temple on normal days, would swarm into the temple today.
The tribe was not small.
The small temple certainly couldn't accommodate so many residents.
And when Tomimi led a group of the tribe's young and strong core members into the temple, something unexpected happened. An incredibly brilliant golden light suddenly lit up around the statue, as if the radiance of divinity was shining upon the earth. The sense of holiness and mystery left many of the surrounding people dumbfounded.
Although it was only for an instant, it was still captured by Tomimi and the other young and strong core members.
Each of them was so excited they couldn't speak. In an instant, they knelt on the ground, constantly shouting.
"Lord God has shown his power!! Lord God has shown his power!!!"
Although Lucas Reeve had only simply made the surface of the statue shine with the light of his soul, in the eyes of the tribe's residents, such a simple scene was no different from a miracle.
A stone that can glow?
This is definitely a miracle!!
Otherwise, there's no reason for it to glow. The god must have revealed himself!!
Upon hearing the excited cries from inside the temple, many of the residents of the [Gavial's Will Tribe] in the plaza below the temple also shifted from a state of half-belief to full faith. They immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed in the direction of the temple, expressing their most sincere convictions.
Even some of the younger ones who had initially disbelieved were now beside themselves with excitement.
"Holy crap!! My dad wasn't lying to me!!"
"Indeed, the ancestors did not deceive us."
Lucas Reeve just performed a simple 'miracle', and in one fell swoop, he harvested a full twenty thousand Prayer Power. The total amount of Prayer Power had now reached one hundred and thirty thousand. Since his awakening, Lucas Reeve had never had it so good, raking in Prayer Power until his hands went soft.
Of course.
After the miracle was revealed, the people of the [Gavial's Will Tribe] didn't stay idle. One by one, they began to silently recite their wishes in their hearts.
Due to the prayers, Lucas Reeve could also hear the wishes in their hearts.
Tomimi: "Lord God, can you please let Gavial come back? Or tell me where Gavial is now."
"Lord God, my husband was so scared by the explosion last night that he can't 'stand up'. Please bless my husband to 'stand tall and firm'."
"Lord God, I want a child, but I don't have a wife. Please grant me a child and a wife."
"Lord God, I like Cuihua from the next tribe... but she's already a mother of three... Lord God, can you please bless me so that my relationship with Cuihua isn't discovered by her current husband... after all, all three children are mine..."
"Lord God, I know my wife has a close relationship with that guy from the next tribe, and that all three children are not mine. Lord God, your most devout believer hopes you can bless me, so that my wife's fourth child will be mine."
"Lord God, the girl I like married that guy from the next tribe, and then she has a close relationship with another guy from our tribe. My qualifications aren't bad, why doesn't she like me..."
"?"
Damn!!
Lucas Reeve was speechless at this moment.
What kind of wishes are these? So absurd? Utterly and thoroughly absurd. The drama between these three people could be made into a 100-episode TV series.
As expected of residents of a primitive tribe, their wishes are all very simple and direct. If they were city dwellers, they would probably be wishing for money, money, and more money...
His Spiritual Power swept across the vast temple plaza.
Each resident had an expression of utmost piety, silently reciting their wishes in their hearts.
Indeed...
Only by becoming a 'god' do you realize that your believer next door might look pious, but who the hell knows what kind of outrageous wishes they're silently making in their hearts. It was so absurd that Lucas Reeve thoroughly enjoyed watching the drama unfold.
Of course.
Lucas Reeve naturally wouldn't help them fulfill such absurd wishes.
Faith also needs to be supported by mystery. Faith that has lost its mystery can no longer be called faith. Revealing himself once in a while to solve the most critical problems for his believers, like the recent Oripathy outbreak, could both maintain the mystery and preserve the purity of the Prayer Power to the greatest extent.
As Lucas Reeve was here accepting the worship of the tribe's believers, the process lasted for a very, very long time. After all, when the surrounding tribes noticed the strangeness of the [Gavial's Will Tribe], they also came forward to investigate. After getting a general idea of the situation, even the current Great Chief led other groups to come over together.
They knelt respectfully on the open ground in front of the temple, and the chieftains of each tribe, under the leadership of the Great Chief, once again offered their piety before the statue. Although they hadn't seen the statue's miracle with their own eyes, they believed Tomimi's words without a doubt. After all, the one who had contracted the stone disease was now hopping around on the road in perfect health, which was a prime example.
A stone disease that even the tribe's most skilled witch doctor couldn't cure.
There was only one possible explanation!
The god has shown his power!!
And Lucas Reeve's Prayer Power harvest was insane. Even without doing anything, he had collected a full forty thousand in one go... bringing his total Prayer Power close to one hundred and seventy thousand again... Lucas Reeve had scrimped and saved for so long in Columbia and Ursus to barely save up one hundred thousand. He never expected to get seventy thousand in one go just by coming to this place called Acahualla...
Since there were too many people, there were all sorts of bizarre prayers.
Lucas Reeve was now just a spectator enjoying the show.
As for the Great Chief's prayer, the style was even stranger.
"Lord God, please let me be bolder and overcome my cowardice. Bless me so I'm not so afraid of my wife..."
???
Lucas Reeve looked at this Great Chief—burly and muscular, taller than even Hellagur, towering over two meters. The muscles on his body bulged like rocks, and he even had a tattoo of a fierce beast.
This wish really did not match his physique at all...
That tattoo is truly being wasted on you...
——————
"Grandpa High Priest!!"
Zumama ran all the way, returning to the back mountain where she often stayed. She shouted as she ran.
"Grandpa High Priest!!"
And amidst the shouts, from the center of the pile of metal, something seemed about to emerge. Many metal parts were thrown out, and with a thud, a blue-feathered parrot, much larger than an ordinary bird, even the size of a penguin, emerged from the metal pile.
This giant blue bird wore a pair of round glasses, which, combined with its somewhat 'wise' eyes, looked slightly comical.
"What is it, Zumama? Why did you run back in such a hurry?"
The large blue bird actually spoke human words.
"Grandpa High Priest!! Just now! Just now I went to the temple to pray, and the Lord God spoke!! He showed his power!!"
Zumama was momentarily at a loss for words. The huge snake tail behind her whipped back and forth, hitting the ground with loud thumps.
"Oh..."
Zumama had met this large blue bird by chance. When they first met, she was also very shocked. Why could a bird speak? But after spending a long time together, Zumama had come to enjoy calling the blue bird High Priest.
However...
The bird's simple "oh" completely threw Zumama off.
"Grandpa High Priest? Aren't you surprised? Lord God has shown his power?"
Zumama's eyes widened.
The large bird shook its head: "Not surprised..."
"???"
"Could it be that you already knew, Grandpa High Priest?"
Zumama was in disbelief.
"I suppose so."
Then Zumama stopped paying attention to the big blue bird and rummaged through the pile of metal to find the engine she had developed based on books, plus her own modified understanding.
The huge metal engine weighed at least a hundred pounds.
However.
Zumama effortlessly picked it up with one hand, hoisted it onto her shoulder, and then ran quickly towards the temple.
The big blue bird chased after her, asking puzzledly.
"Zumama, what are you doing?"
"Lord God said he knows a thing or two about machinery. I'm going to ask him to teach me how to improve it!!"
By the time her voice reached him, Zumama had already run far away, leaving only the big blue bird standing there in confusion.
That soul fragment that has been sleeping for so many years knows about this stuff?