Zumama jogged all the way back to her place. She was so excited she could barely speak. She wanted to share her joy with Grandpa High Priest, but when she ran to the back mountain, she found the High Priest was gone.
She could only hurry back to her small hut to eat a simple meal to fill her stomach. She was already eager to return to the temple and have Lord God guide her.
And on Lucas Reeve's side, a large blue bird, like a parrot, flew over flapping its wings.
"A bird?"
Lucas Reeve looked puzzledly at the blue bird that came fluttering over.
Most importantly.
This blue parrot wore a pair of small, round-framed glasses. Its slightly 'wise' eyes were wide open, giving the whole bird an indescribably comical look.
However.
Lucas Reeve didn't dare to underestimate it.
This blue parrot looked ordinary, but it was actually not simple at all.
This parrot's body seemed to contain some kind of strange feeling, and the ancient aura emanating from its entire body made Lucas Reeve feel that this parrot seemed to have lived for a very, very long time.
Another old monster?
However, its strength didn't seem to be that great... maybe it was hidden too deeply for him to see clearly.
"Yo~ Hello there~ I thought you weren't going to wake up?"
The blue parrot flapped its wings at the statue. Lucas Reeve knew that the other party could see him through the statue, so he didn't hide, directly emerging and floating in the air, with his arms crossed in front of him, looking puzzledly at the large bird.
"You know me?"
"I don't..."
"?"
The parrot flapped its wings and said: "But, I sensed you as soon as I arrived. There's a hint of divinity deep in your soul. It seems your divinity has nourished this stone statue for a long time, right? Otherwise, a broken piece of rock wouldn't bring good luck to an entire tribe. How long have you been asleep? Five hundred years? Or a thousand?"
"I didn't expect to meet another old thing besides that penguin. It's a bit rare..."
The parrot chattered on incessantly, seemingly without any defensiveness.
And Lucas Reeve had no idea what this parrot was talking about.
After all, strictly speaking, Lucas Reeve...
hadn't been on Terra for long and didn't understand the situation at all.
"By the way, how do you know about this machinery stuff?"
The parrot flapped its wings again.
"Logically speaking, shouldn't you have been sleeping in the stone for a long time? You shouldn't know about these things, right? Things that even Zumama and I don't quite understand, you do?"
However, the parrot thought again.
"A soul fragment? You have other souls elsewhere? No wonder your divinity is so weak. You must be an old guy who chose to live in seclusion in the past... After all, your divinity is different from those old guys from the past. There's no arrogance, no slaughter, it's very peaceful. You probably enjoy life too."
Damn it!!
Lucas Reeve was certain that this parrot was definitely an old fellow who had lived for countless years. It had identified him as just a soul fragment in one sentence. And from its tone, he had caught a detail: it seemed to have mistaken him for a former god... and if it knew so much, could this bird also be a god?
Or a long-lived species?
But that's not right.
A long-lived species wouldn't live for that many years.
The bird casually mentions thousands of years; a long-lived species living for a thousand years is already considered quite old...
I don't get it...
However.
The blue parrot continued: "Hey, you like to slack off too, huh? Slacking off is so comfortable, seeing through the world. Since you also like to build machinery, how about we build a big robot together with Zumama?"
"The little girl loves this kind of machinery the most. You seem to have the characteristic of absorbing the power of faith to strengthen yourself. Phew~ I most enjoy chatting with gods like you who have this characteristic. Those with this characteristic are basically good people..."
Lucas Reeve didn't speak, but was processing the information in the parrot's words.
Simple monologues, but for Lucas Reeve, who had only truly experienced the world for a little over twenty years, it was really a bit explosive.
Lucas Reeve didn't explain too much either. He decided to go with whatever it said. Anyway, Lucas Reeve could just use memory loss as an excuse.
"Eh? Grandpa High Priest, you came here?"
Before the soul and the parrot had talked for long, Zumama's surprised voice sounded from outside the temple.
"I was looking for you, Grandpa High Priest."
The High Priest flapped its wings a few times and landed on the engine in the corner.
"I was just chatting with this god about some mechanical matters, ahem..."
"I'm full!! Lord God, let's begin!!"
Zumama forcefully patted her chest, and the enormous mounds trembled.
Lucas Reeve really wanted to complain about whether the people of this tribe dressed so simply.
At least.
During the collective worship in the afternoon, Lucas Reeve had also noticed that the men of this tribe were basically all shirtless, while many of the women wore tube tops and shorts... at most, they had a piece of ragged cloth to cover their bodies. It had to be said... this style of dress was indeed... nice...
Lucas Reeve simply explained the principles of Terra's engines to Zumama.
And the one Zumama had built was just an ordinary engine similar to a small car's.
But, Terra's engines, due to the different fuel, naturally couldn't have the same construction as those on Earth.
After a quick scan, Lucas Reeve criticized the overall structure of the engine and the material of the energy output pipe. Then, Lucas Reeve explained his own understanding based on what little he knew. After all, in his current soul state, his soul strength was very high, which made Lucas Reeve's learning ability far superior to that of ordinary people.
In fact.
As long as Lucas Reeve wanted to learn, his upper limit would not be lower than any industry expert.
Although soul strength is not necessarily linked to IQ, in reality, there are indeed many somewhat simple-minded, big individuals with ridiculously high soul levels but whose physical brains are not very sharp. But Lucas Reeve did not have this problem, after all, he didn't even have a physical body.
After he finished explaining in detail some of his understanding of engines to Zumama.
The cute snake lady listened with rapt attention.
Having spent her whole life learning from books since she was a child, now, after listening to Lucas Reeve's explanation, she felt for the first time that having a teacher was so wonderful.
After all, books only contain standardized knowledge points. Even if Zumama could read the words, she might not be able to understand the meaning behind some of them. Sometimes, a casual remark from a teacher could solve a problem that Zumama had been struggling with for a week.
"So! It's that amazing?"
Zumama's face was filled with excitement, and the High Priest also held a wing to its beak, contemplating the knowledge points Lucas Reeve had just explained. Zumama had already figured out some parts, but it was still struggling with others.
"Thank you, Lord God!!"
Zumama bowed respectfully to the statue.
+2000
Another deposit.
This was a win-win situation.
Zumama was happy, and Lucas Reeve was happy too.
"You can go back now. But, you are not to mention me to anyone else, understand?"
Lucas Reeve did not reveal his soul state to Zumama, but had been speaking to her in the form of a blurry, indistinct statue. He needed to maintain a sense of mystery in this tribe.
"Yes!! I know! Lord God!"
Zumama flicked her snake tail, and reluctantly carried her homemade engine away from the temple. She even looked back every three steps, hoping Lucas Reeve would teach her more. Because a casual piece of advice from Lucas Reeve just now had solved a difficult problem from a book that had been troubling her for a long time.
As expected of Lord God!
So amazing...
After returning to the back mountain, Zumama and the High Priest tinkered with the engine and some other new gadgets. In the following days, although Zumama really wanted to continue asking Lucas Reeve for help with more difficult problems, she always felt that doing so would annoy Lord God... What if he started to dislike her?
Moreover, on the second day.
The inside and outside of the temple were directly sealed off. Special tribal guards were stationed 24 hours a day to protect the temple and prevent any disrespect towards Lord God. And if one needed to pay respects, it had to be done under the supervision of the guards.
For these few days, Zumama would go to the temple at the same time every morning to offer various fruits to Lucas Reeve.
And the other tribe members were quite surprised when they saw Zumama. How could they not know Zumama? She was someone who used to fight Gavial to a standstill. But later, it seemed she had been possessed by some evil spirit, tinkering with some broken metal things all day. They heard that she seemed to hope that these pieces of scrap iron could be assembled into something that could move. What a fantasy...
And...
After tinkering with these metal scraps for a long time, Zumama's personality gradually changed... she began to lose faith in the gods and even said disrespectful things like the temple was hindering the tribe's development.
Such a strange person was now respectfully worshipping every day?
But, it was understandable.
Perhaps Zumama also knew about Lord God revealing himself, and was probably scared and wanted to apologize to Lord God for her past disrespectful behavior.
For a whole week.
Even with the daily limit on visitors, the temple was constantly crowded.
Every day, a large number of residents came to worship Lucas Reeve, from morning till night. The huge offering table in front of Lucas Reeve was piled high with fruits and meat. In the past, these things would probably be eaten by the residents themselves after a few days, but now no one dared. After all, Lord God really existed. No one dared to touch anything, for fear of angering the god and bringing down divine punishment.
With many worshippers, there were also many wishes.
Most of these wishes were a bit bizarre, or related to marriage. Lucas Reeve had no interest in these and couldn't help at all.
After thinking about it, he randomly chose a patient in the late stages of Oripathy and alleviated his condition.
The news of the god's second miracle spread even faster than the first.
In just half a day, everyone already knew about the god's second miracle. They were so excited they couldn't control themselves, and their piety and faith increased even more, hoping to gain the god's favor. And for Lucas Reeve, Prayer Power flowed like a river, pouring into his soul one wave after another. It could only be described as blissful.
These days, Zumama and the High Priest would sneak into the temple in the middle of the night to talk with Lucas Reeve about something.
After a while.
Zumama, the High Priest, and Lucas Reeve became quite familiar with each other.
And what shocked Zumama the most was that Lord God was not serious at all, just like an older brother who was slightly older than her.
Chatting with Lord God was very comfortable, which made Zumama grow fond of the feeling. She even started sneaking into the temple more and more frequently. Sometimes, even if she didn't have any academic questions for the time being, she would come to the temple to chat with Lucas Reeve.
About ten days' time.
Lucas Reeve had harvested a large amount of Prayer Power these days, and the total value had reached two hundred and fifty thousand... However, the situation in the tribe might be similar to that of the Reunion Movement, gradually becoming peaceful and entering a sluggish period.
However, the population of the entire tribe was much larger than that of the Reunion Movement, and everyone was extremely pious. In addition, Lucas Reeve had shown his power, so this piety seemed to have become a standard for every tribe member. And he could easily get a fixed ten thousand Prayer Power every week, which was much better than the one thousand or so from the Reunion Movement...
"Lord God!!"
On this day.
Zumama continued to quietly tinker with machinery behind the temple, while the High Priest helped by passing tools.
"I want to participate in our [Eunectes Tribe]'s chieftain selection in a few days. If I become the chieftain, I will definitely make it easier for the tribe members to accept mechanical creations!"
Lucas Reeve: "Isn't it easy for you with your strength?"
Zumama shook her head: "I want to use my machine to defeat my opponent fair and square... That's the only way to be convincing!"