Of course, Rohan was not against the idea of building some houses near the church.
First of all, he could not keep letting Arminius, Luciana, and the others live inside the church indefinitely.
Secondly, having buildings nearby might improve the overall aesthetic. As it stood, he was fully aware that his church looked like something out of a horror story, a lonely and unsettling structure in the middle of nowhere.
However, Rohan also made it clear that he would not be able to help personally in the next 24 hours or more due to his injury. Still, he could lend the Bone Blade to Luciana so she could build the houses more easily.
With that settled, Rohan turned his attention to his new quest. As for the unfortunate soul who would have to turn his nonsense into a holy book of the storm, he already had a candidate in mind: Rin Carmelia.
Rohan had been observing this particular follower from time to time, and the reason was simple. Since she had survived being a sacrifice, both the Shadow Cult and the Rivia Academy would naturally want to capture her again, either to silence her or to learn how she had escaped.
That was assuming she ever revealed herself to the cult's members in the region, which was highly likely, since the Rivia Academy was controlled by the cult.
However, contrary to his expectations, the moment she returned home, she and her family moved away from the academy's territory almost immediately. It was as if she could sense the danger of staying in that region, she quickly convinced her parents to relocate far away.
Now that she possessed the ring, she no longer needed the academy. Having a ring that allowed her to cast an indigo spell was equivalent to spending three years studying there, assuming she was talented. If she was not, it could take fifteen years to reach Indigo Soul Essence.
So Rohan could fully understand how easy it was for her to leave Rivia Academy once and for all.
Once Rohan lent the Bone Blade to Luciana and flopped onto the wooden floor, he immediately focused his authority on Rin.
After closing his eyes, he saw her standing on a ship in the middle of the sea, completely absorbed in learning a new spell. Watching her reminded him once again how difficult it was to learn magic. If spells were so easy to master, he would have already bought countless spellbooks and learned them all without effort.
He kept observing Rin closely, watching her fail from time to time, unable to carve the spell's symbol onto the surface of her soul. That step was the core of the process and also the most difficult part of learning a spell. For mages, it was not as simple as memorizing a spell's name and fueling it with essence.
To cast a spell, they first had to discover the symbol that represented it. Then, using a special tool called a wand, they had to carve that symbol onto the surface of their soul essence. It was an extremely delicate and difficult process to perform.
For Rohan, even a simple "Lightbulb" spell had taken nearly three months to fully master, let alone more complex combat or healing spells.
When he noticed that she was taking a break from her practice, Rohan, as the Storm God, immediately gave the order for her to write a Holy Book of the Storm.
As for the content of the book, Rohan had no idea.
He would simply leave Rin to worry about that part.
He only gave her the basics of his made up story about the Storm God, how He created humans, vampires, elves, dwarves, harpies, and werewolves, and how this deity loved His creations, and so on. Now, it was her job to turn a few paragraphs into fifty thousand words for a holy book within a duration of thirty days. And with that, Rohan silently wished her good luck.
...
Above a ship cutting through the open sea, Rin suddenly dropped to her knees. Her body trembled with exhaustion after spending nearly every day of the past week trying to learn a single indigo level combat spell.
And then, without warning, she heard it.
A voice. Vast, distant, and impossible to ignore.
A deity's voice, giving her a command.
To be completely honest, Rin had never truly believed in the Storm God. The only reason she had been willing to spread His name and help gather followers over the past week was because she felt grateful to the so called oracle who had saved her. And, of course, the ring was real, and undeniably useful.
But in her mind, the Storm God had never been a true god. More likely, she thought, it was just an extremely powerful mage pretending to be one, just as had happened many times throughout history.
She remembered reading about one such case. Years ago, a religion had suddenly risen out of nowhere, worshiping a so called God of Miracle.
In the end, that "god" turned out to be nothing more than a Verdant Soul mage, only one level above Cyan.
Even within the Belithorian Kingdom, where she had spent nearly all her lives, there were more than ten Verdant level mages. So when the truth came out, the fraud was quickly exposed, brought down, and executed by the orthodox churches.
But now, she truly believed about the existence of the mighty Storm God.
Yes… the Storm God is undeniably real, she realized.
That magnificent voice. The overwhelming awe and pressure she had felt. And the fact that it had reached her all the way out here, in the middle of the sea.
To her, all of it was undeniable proof of true divinity.
But… why did He choose me to create a holy book?
Rin's thoughts spiraled. The only thing she had ever written before was a made up story about the two boys she had once had a crush on back at the academy. Compared to something as grand as a holy book, she had no real experience at all.
Is this some kind of trial? she wondered. A deity would not just randomly choose me for something like this… right?
The weight of the task settled heavily on her shoulders. It was overwhelming, almost suffocating.
And yet, beneath that pressure, there was also a quiet sense of honor.
If this truly was a trial given by the Storm God, then she could not afford to fail.
Clenching her fists, Rin took a steady breath. Drawing on her experience as a writer of boys love stories, however small and embarrassing it might be, she resolved to give it everything she had.
And then, just a few moments later, she heard singing rising from beneath the sea. She walked to the railing and leaned over, looking down. There, she saw several mermaids the size of whales, slowly swimming beneath the surface. Despite their gigantic size, Rin was not afraid. Mermaids were known as peaceful creatures that loved to sing, and they had no interest in attacking humans.
Then slowly, a smile appeared on her face. The appearance of mermaids could only mean one thing. She was now close to the sea territory of the Eastern Empire, or at least that was what the Belithorian people used to call it. The true name of the empire was the Rommelion Empire.
To her, this particular empire was fascinating. As a military enthusiast, she was naturally a huge admirer of it. It was an empire so powerful that it had forced the dwarves, elves, and werewolves to form an alliance just to avoid complete annihilation.
"Truly, the representation of humanity's strength," she murmured.
Of course, after she came to believe in the existence of the Storm God, she naturally planned to spread the faith within the Rommelion Empire.
And due to her innocence and lack of experience, she did not realize how significant this would affect the Storm God in the future.