The basement was not empty.
Stone steps led down into wet air.
The room was four meters wide.
Dust and old rain filled the space, and in the center stood an altar.
The stone was cracked.
Above it loomed smaller broken statue of the God of Lost Children. The head was missing like outside.
There were no offerings. No incense. Only two hundred years of silence.
Silas stepped forward and placed his hand on the altar.
The moment he touched it, his world changed.
His divine sense, which had been clear and colorless, flickered.
A thin, faint gold bled into it, like light passing through dirty water.
It was faith contamination.
It was noise.
Hundreds of prayers slammed into his mind all at once.
_"Please let the rain come."_
_"Please heal my daughter's fever."_
_"Please let my son come home."_
_"Please... my mother is coughing blood."_
All of them were aimed at this stone. At this god who was no longer here.
The altar was a vessel. It had been collecting faith for centuries.
Now, with Spiritual Energy in Silas, it was trying to pour all of it into him.
Silas tore his hand back and staggered.
His chest felt full of other people's grief.
In the cultivation world, mortals had nothing.
No medicine. No tools. No immortal to save them.
If the crops failed, they starved.
If bandits came, they died.
If they fell sick, they prayed.
They were too dependent.
Not on strength. Not on themselves.
On gods. On immortals. On anyone with power.
"So that is what faith looks like," Silas whispered, his voice shaking. "Desperation carved into stone."
*THE GIRL*
On Day 3, someone entered his 10m.
He heard small, bare feet.
Her heartbeat was fast.
Her lungs were wet.
An eight year old girl. Her hair was tied with grass. Her clothes had been patched three times.
She walked upstairs, knelt before the broken statue, and placed wilted wildflowers in front of it. That was all she had.
Then she pressed her forehead to the cold stone.
"God of Lost Children," she whispered. "Please. My mother. She is coughing blood. Please make her better. I can work. I can clean. Just... please."
She stayed for ten minutes.
Then she left. No healing came.
She returned the next day. Same flowers. Same prayer.
On Day 5, the same.
On Day 7, the same.
Silas watched from the basement. He did not move.
Through his Domain he could see her ribs. He could hear her mother coughing two hundred meters away in a mud house.
In his last life he would have ignored it. An F talent had no time for mercy.
In this life, the altar made the prayers loud.
On Day 8, she did not bring flowers.
She only knelt. "Please. I will sweep the shrine every day. Just let her breathe."
The altar remained silent.
That night, Silas ate.
Cold rice and pickled vegetables.
The villagers still left offerings at the shrine once a week out of habit.
An old habit. For a dead god.
He was the only one eating them now.
He could not sleep. The faint gold tint in his divine sense would not fade.
*THE FIRST CONTAMINATION*
On the night of Day 8, Silas tried something without thinking.
He put his hand on the altar and did not open his Domain.
He tried to take the prayers in directly, like a normal cultivator would.
For three seconds, it felt like enlightenment.
The grief did not feel like grief. It felt like purpose.
The pain did not feel like pain. It felt like duty.
He could save them. He should save them. He was meant to save them.
Then he realized: that was not his thought.
Faith Energy was rewriting him.
Without his Domain to vent it, he was starting to think like a god.
Silas yanked his hand away and vomited onto the floor.
His heart was pounding.
"So that is why," Silas whispered. "Without a filter, you become what they pray to."
Varn had written something in the margin of `9 Steps to Heaven`.
Silas remembered it now.
_Step 2: Threading. Use the faith of others to strengthen divine sense. Warning: Without proper technique, faith will corrupt the soul. The gods use it. Do not imitate the gods._
Varn had feared contamination.
But Silas had something Varn did not.
A 10m Domain.
And he had a problem.
Using his divine sense to hold the 10m Domain for hours left him tired.
His mind felt foggy. In a fight, that fog would get him killed.
Divine sense was too crude. Too draining.
"What if I do not let it contaminate me?" Silas thought. "What if I use what is left after?"
He placed his hand back on the altar.
This time he did not only receive. He filtered.
He let the prayers in.
He felt the golden Faith Energy try to stain his soul.
Then he pushed it out through his Domain and released the corruption into the air.
He kept only what remained.
What was left was not Spiritual Energy.
It was something else. Pure. Warm.
He named it immediately.
*Divine Energy.*
The energy pure than faith energy of gods.
It was different from the raw, dirty *Faith Energy* that filled the altar.
He tested it.
Instead of pushing Domain with divine sense, he pushed with Divine Energy.
His 10m Domain snapped into place.
Clear. Sharp. Effortless.
No fog. No headache.
Silas exhaled. "So that is Step 2."
Threading was not just for power.
It was for survival.
In battle, Divine Energy could sustain his Domain without burning his mind.
Then he did something reckless.
He followed one thread.
From the altar, to the girl, to the mud house two hundred meters away.
Her mother lay on straw, coughing blood.
Silas pushed a thread of Divine Energy through the connection.
And as he did, he projected an image with it.
It was his face but blurred.
It was a silhouette. Tall, robed, seated behind the altar.
The head was obscured by shadow, but two faint points of gold light rested where eyes should be.
Ancient. Patient. Unreadable.
A warmth filled the mother's chest.
The coughing stopped for a full hour.
Upstairs, the girl gasped. "Mother? Did you... did you feel that? Like someone was watching over us?"
Silas pulled back, sweating.
It had worked.
*THE FIRST MIRACLE*
Three days passed.
The girl came every morning.
The mother coughed less.
Silas practiced. In. Filter. Out.
The thread connecting him with girl and mother work even better than faith energy in altar every time they pray it gave him a small amount of divine energy without need of filtering as the tread was connected to domain itself.
It was more useful than altar as altar only have faith energy which while filtering give very small amount of divine energy , maximum of it is waste contamination.
On the morning of Day 11, the girl did not come alone.
Her footsteps were different.
Slower. Two sets.
Silas opened his Domain.
The girl. And a woman leaning on her.
Thin. Pale. But standing.
They stopped before the broken statue.
The woman's hands were shaking as she made an altar of mud then placed a bowl of rice in front of statue .
The first real offering in years.
"God of Lost Children," the mother whispered. Her voice was hoarse but steady. "I do not know if you hear me. But three days ago... I could breathe. For one hour. And today I could stand."
She pressed her forehead to the stone.
"Thank you."
Silas was in the basement.
His hand was on the altar.
He could feel them. Both of them.
Two golden threads now, thick and warm.
The girl's thread pulsed with hope.
The mother's thread pulsed with gratitude.
He pulled Divine Energy from the altar.
He pushed it through both threads.
And he projected.
The silhouette again.
But clearer.
The shadow around the head receded slightly.
The two points of gold where the eyes should be burned brighter.
The mother gasped.
The girl's eyes went wide.
Neither of them saw a boy.
They saw a lord.
Something that had sat in the dark for centuries and had finally opened its eyes.
A warmth spread through the shrine.
The mother's chest loosened. The pain in her lungs dulled.
When the image faded, both of them were crying.
"Did you see him?" the mother whispered.
"I saw," the girl said. "He's real."
They left the rice.
They left believing.
Silas pulled his hand back. His fingers were numb. He has used all divine energy to strengthen the thread as the tread strength increases more divine energy will it produce through prayer.
His head ached.
It worked.
But it cost him.
That night, the girl told one neighbor.
An old woman whose grandson had a fever.
On Day 12, there were three people at the shrine.
On Day 13, there were five.
Silas sat in the basement and listened to 100 new prayers.
All of them aimed at the shadow with gold eyes.
He was not a god.
He was F talent with 10 meters and a filter.
But in Greywater Village, the God of Lost Children had answered for the first time in 200 years.
And people remembered.
_END CHAPTER 3_