After being expelled from the visiting delegation, Father Paul returned to Silver Circle City and plunged into the Third Inquisition where he worked before the mission. No one knew or cared about what he was busy with there. People only knew two things.
thing.
First, he was originally a popular candidate for the next bishop, but he was completely alienated by Bishop Fabian.
Second, his colleagues who traveled with him gave him a very bad evaluation.
Today, to everyone's surprise, the bishop actually agreed to his request and was willing to have a private interview with him for ten minutes. This gave the church staff new ideas.
When Paul walked into the Bible interpretation hall, he seemed to have lost a lot of weight, and his jaws were deeply sunken. All over his body, only his eyes were still astonishingly bright.
The bishop glanced at the priest and motioned for him to sit opposite.
In the old man's impression, Paul was a very talented person, but this talent was limited to his ability to think and act. His terrible level of handling interpersonal relationships gave Fabian headaches again and again.
But having said that, Paul's disdain for cliques and selfish interests is what Fabian admires most about him. After all, in this world, there is always a shortage of capable people, but there are only a handful of loyal and reliable people.
Even if Paul didn't tell him the reason for this visit, Fabian could make a rough guess. The latter's original intention was to let the former take a break and calm down. But judging from the flames of revenge burning in the other party's eyes,
See, the priest still couldn't get over this hurdle in his heart.
"Paul, you let me down..."
Bishop Fabian's words made the client grit his teeth, lower his head, and said bitterly: "I made a serious mistake regarding this delegation."
Knowing shame and then being brave is another thing the bishop admires about this man.
The old man leaned his body against the back of the chair and said slowly: "Tell me, let me hear what you found."
The priest took out a large pile of cloth bags and several notes from his arms and spread them on the table.
This inexplicable behavior left Fabian confused.
"At first when I faced Brother Todd, I thought he was just a false believer whose soul was dominated by greed. But I was wrong. The evil he concealed was more terrifying than I imagined." Paul took out a piece of paper and said,
It contains dense notes and a model of a refining furnace.
Fabian glanced at it, raised his head and looked at the person opposite, waiting for his further explanation.
A bit of cold wind blew through the cracks in the window and blew into the room. The priest shrank his body, put his hands into his sleeves, and whispered: "After I was dismissed as the leader of the visiting delegation, I spent a lot of time in the camp.
Over the course of a day, I started sorting out some of the things I found strange."
Dropping a hand and placing it on the paper, Paul continued: "First of all, it is the silver refining field at the foot of the monastery mountain. The things on this paper are information that I bought from a craftsman at a large price.
It records the silver purification process, which is so complex and sophisticated that no mortal can imagine. And according to him, these things were all made by Todd."
Bishop Fabian touched the top of his head: "It's nothing. The kid named Todd has a monk master, maybe he learned from it."
"Maybe..." The priest took out a second piece of paper, which recorded many times and notes.
"I found the person in charge of the monks' dormitory in the monastery and asked him to give me Todd's daily schedule and letters. I compared the records for almost ten days and found a strange coincidence." He traced his finger across a line.
Records and time points, Paul said: "From 12 noon to 5 p.m., nine days out of ten, Todd disappeared, not in the dormitory, library, church, meditation hall, or anywhere in the classroom.
, that is to say, he...disappeared during this time period."
The old man shook his head: "Maybe he walked out of the monastery and went down the mountain or somewhere."
The priest immediately rejected this hypothesis: "The gatekeeper of the monastery also confirmed that Todd is rarely seen going out in the afternoon."
"One last thing..." Paul carefully opened the small paper bags on the table. Some contained powders of different colors, some contained crystal nuggets of different sizes, and some contained some strange metals.
After putting on the crystal spectacle lenses, the old man observed them carefully, his face full of confusion.
The priest began to explain one by one: "This yellow powder is sulfur, this white lens is salt-alkali, this black metal is heavy iron (ferric oxide), and other things in the paper bag, I asked many people, they
No one knows. But they only confirmed one thing. Only master-level alchemists can refine alchemy materials of such high purity and variety."
The bishop heard a familiar word and raised his head in surprise: "Alchemy?"
In the Church of Heavenly Father, alchemy is regarded as a scourge and one of the "devil's arts". Tracing its roots, the most important reason is the pressure that the alchemist Sutherland put on the church thousands of years ago.
The priest carefully wrapped each paper package and asked the other side: "Sir, do you know where I found these things?"
"where?"
"The cemetery of the monastery. Someone buried them in the ground as waste and covered them with soil. Unfortunately, they forgot that the color of the newly covered soil was very different from the color next to it. If you look closely, you will find the difference. According to the tombkeeper
Testimony, these things have never appeared in the past few years, and were only buried there in the past two months."
Paul supported the table with both hands, faced Fabian, and said in a low voice: "A fifteen-year-old boy, born in a peasant family, has not received any education, has mediocre qualifications since childhood, and is unremarkable. After entering the monastery, for a short time
He learned the teachings, created complex silver refining techniques, survived the fire, sailed north and returned safely, and may be an alchemy master... If all of this is explained by coincidence, it would be too far-fetched.
.”
Bishop Fabian rubbed his forehead and asked the other party: "Then what do you mean...?"
"There is a demon living in Todd's body, a demon from the depths of hell! I propose that he should be tried for heresy immediately!"
After seeing Father Paul off, Bishop Fabian sat on a chair, looking at the sunshine pouring in from the window, but he was undecided in his heart, swaying from side to side.
In his opinion, it doesn't matter whether Todd did those things; it doesn't matter whether Todd is a devil. What matters is whether the monk is useful? How useful is it? Can he use it for himself?
This is the key.
The knock on the door interrupted Fabian's thoughts. Without waiting for the bishop's permission, the aide ran into the room abnormally, with an urgent look on his face: "Your Majesty, the Queen is here!"