The Path Toward Heaven

Chapter 781: The Female Priest
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Jing Jiu went over in a hurry. He spent some time studying the building.

The protective shield was situated above the airflow of the atmosphere, so it could neither block the rain nor the wind.

Jing Jiu extended a finger in the air to sense the speed of the wind. Based on his calculation, he figured that the surface of the building should have been eroded badly based on the erosive rate of the wind and rain here.

The traces of a war on this patch of prairie were so apparent that this place was the most vehement battlefield during the invasion of the Sea of Dark Matter, but how could this building have survived it?

The lines on the stone pillars were not the amulet scripts and was also devoid of any formation waves.

Jing Jiu rebutted his own earlier theory that the inheritance of female priests had something to do with the ascendants.

The sand dune moved slowly until it went over his feet. And it continued moving upwards until the sand dune swallowed his whole body.

A moment later, the sand grains stopped rolling, as if nothing had happened.

An intermittent glow appeared at this patch of prairie that had a severer desertification problem.

The glow gave off a sharp and aggressive intent; it seemed that nothing in the world could impede its advance.

Whoosh!!!

The glow vanished without a trace.

…

…

The magnificent and gigantic building was the main preaching hall on the Stargate Base. It was similar to the Fire-Passing Pagodas in other cities; but it was bigger in size by several hundred times.

This building didn’t have much of modern style to it, probably because the female priest resided in it. However, it didn’t mean that this place was outdated, as the high-tech devices were all hidden in the huge stones, like the devices of military scale for the gravitational field, which looked like a few stone statues.

There were seven meditation rooms on the eastern side of the praying hall and a Zen garden surrounded by walls. The garden was small in size with an ancient well inside it; a few green bamboos in the corner looked rather marvelous under the sunlight shone down from the sky.

Whoosh!!!

The water in the well stirred slightly as a figure leapt out from it. The bamboos looked more vigorous when the figure landed amid them.

Seeing the green bamboos, Jing Jiu thought of the bamboos in the small village and in front of the manor cave of Bai Rujing on Tianguang Peak, and the bamboos brought to the Three-Thousand Nunnery by that boy…

Jing Jiu felt more vigorous as well.

Protected by the sword energy, the blue tracksuit didn’t sustain any damage even though he traveled two hundred kilometers in the underground, except that the straps outside the black backpack were a bit scratched. Jing Jiu rubbed the damaged straps into a waft of green smoke with his hand before he walked to the edge of the well and looked down. He looked at the rippling surface of the water that had eventually died down for a while and turned to leave.

…

…

The praying hall was unimaginably large. Its roof was about three hundred meters high. The wall painted with the frescos of god and the distant ancient civilization seemed endless.

Yet, the hall, like the universe itself, had an edge.

A gray screen was hung at the end of the hall, from the roof all the way to the floor. Its surface was exceedingly smooth, devoid of any wrinkle on it; it was unclear what material the screen was made of.

Nobody would object to the suggestion that the screen was a small version of the sky.

On the other side of the screen was a quiet and empty stone room, with the candles burning on both sides of the stone steps. The sunlight shone down from somewhere unknown.

A futon was placed on the green stone slabs, the edge of which was badly damaged.

A woman with black hair wearing a white priest robe sat on the futon. A golden belt was worn in her waist, indicating her noble status.

The golden belt was as smooth as the screen, devoid of any crease.

The black hair was scattered like a waterfall; but all the hairs were extremely even and uniform, as if every piece of hair had its own position and rank.

The woman displayed an amiable expression, her eyes calm and feeble, giving off a feeling that she had no intention to contend with anyone, like a tranquil water without any ripple on it.

She was none other than the female priest, a person with the highest and noblest status on this planet.

It was hard to tell how old this female priest was. For some reason, a mark of worry could be detected between her eyebrows.

This room, behind the sky-like gray screen, had no roof; it could lead to the sea of stars in the universe.

She sat here quietly, as if she had already done so in countless years.

No incense could be found in this room. The burning flames in the room didn’t give off any peculiar scent.

Besides a small green ceramic bowel placed before her, there was no lavish décor in the room.

Three pink flower petals floated on the surface of the water in the bowel. The unmoving flower petals looked like fake ones.

A draft of gentle breeze blew over.

The breeze was exceedingly amazing; it tousled neither her hair nor the rims of her robe. It couldn’t even be sensed.

Yet, the floating flower petals started drifting around on the surface of the water in the green ceramic bowel.

The female priest lifted up her head to look at the gray screen ahead. A slight emotion could be detected in her eyes, as if she intended to find out the truth in this patch of the sky.

No truth had been revealed on the screen, but a figure.

“Do you believe in the existence of god?” the female priest asked the figure on the screen softly.

“No,” replied the person.

Thinking of the conversation between this person and the main preacher in Shou’er City, she demanded with a faint smile, “But why did you come here today?”

“I have something to ask you.”

The person outside the sky-like screen was of course Jing Jiu. His voice was emotionless.

The female priest knew that he wouldn’t come in; so she answered him directly, “The distant ancient civilization had arranged its revival before it died along with the Sea of Dark Matter. It had made a great many arrangements and predicted all the things. How can you say someone that can predict all the happenings is not a god?”

“Has a person of that kind indeed existed?” asked Jing Jiu.

The female priest replied, “God has no need to prove his existence; but He has indeed left footprints behind in the world, including the Main Planet, each colonized planet, and the one you stand on.”

Thinking of the Mecha buried in the dirt in the storehouse of the museum, Jing Jiu remarked, “That Mecha is truly backward.”

The female priest was not surprised that he could find the footprint of god, saying with a faint smile, “Look, this is the so-called association.”

“How come you know me?” demanded Jing Jiu.

He was certain that the files on him were safely kept in the laboratory and that this female priest shouldn’t come up with the conclusion that he was the new god even if some ascendants had noticed him through the novel “The Path toward Heaven” and the Twirling Rain Company.

The female priest said softly, “I’ve been looking for, or in other words, waiting for your arrival for many years; so we can discover the relevant traces more easily.”

As for those top-secret files of the military…it was not difficult for the female priests who were on the top of the religious chain in the Federation of Milky Way to learn of them.

“When did you begin to notice me?” asked Jing Jiu.

“The moment you arrived in the lab,” answered the female priest.

Jing Jiu thought it was quite fast. “How did you find me after I left the lab?” pressed Jing Jiu.

The female priest replied with a faint smile, “A rumor suddenly spread in an underground neighborhood…a ghost making a fuss in a gaming parlor. As you know, we, the priests, are good at disguising ourselves as gods and ghosts; so we paid close attention to such sort of things…”

Jing Jiu didn’t continue the topic but asked, “What is the female priest?”

“We’re responsible for inheriting the distant ancient civilization,” the female priest said softly. “But in the very beginning, the humans didn’t believe us and pursued and persecuted us as the witches. It wasn’t until the revival of the civilization that various planets had discovered many remains of the distant ancient civilization in their archeological diggings and accepted the existence of god.”

“What kind of inheritance?” prodded Jing Jiu.

“The priests have passed the information from generation to generation without anything written down,” said the female priest. “Then, we would recite them over and over again in our minds in an effort to not forget one single word.”

The task sounded easy enough, but it was actually quite difficult.

The memories of the humans could fade with time; worst of all, as time passed, many distant memories would disappear naturally.

He had even forgotten many scenes in the royal palace back when he was reborn as a sword body, to say nothing of these female humans.

To remember the information passed down from the previous generations, these female priests had no choice but to repeat it over and over again daily; it was an unimaginable hardship.

Jing Jiu realized by now why the knowledge of humanities and history was emphasized for the selection of female priest and understood the meaning of the word “serenity”.

“Are all the remains of the distant ancient civilization kept in your mind?”

“We are merely regular humans; the difference is that we can put up with the loneliness better than others. We are not the omniscient god; how can we remember all the details of a grand and advanced civilization?”

The female priest explained patiently, “There were three thousand female priests in the beginning; and there are seven hundred of us left now. Each female priest is responsible for the part she needs to remember and inherits.”

“What part are you responsible for remembering?” asked Jing Jiu.

The female priest returned softly, “In addition to the episode of the history all the female priest must remember, I’m responsible for the most useless part…the arts.”

Thinking of the famous arts gallery in Shou’er City, Jing Jiu agreed with her modest statement that the arts was indeed useless.

The episode of the history must be the dark years when the distant ancient civilization had died along with the Sea of Dark Matter. Yet, what about the common awareness?

“What does a new god mean?” pressed Jing Jiu.

This was what he intended to do by coming here.

He had read the awareness of the main preacher and found out that the female priest was looking for a new god; but what was the purpose?

It was pointless to think this sort of thing through. Now that he happened to come to the surface of the planet, it was better for him to come to her and ask her directly.

The fact that the female priest had a superior status on this planet didn’t concern him.

This was a secret only known by the female priests and their most trusted subordinates; but it was pointed out by him. The female priest didn’t feel surprised, but instead, she became more reverent and bowed down toward the figure outside the screen.

A god was omniscient and omnipotent.

“The last wish of god before his departure was for the humans to wait for the arrival of a new god.”

She said while prostrating on the floor, “I’ve waited for many years until your arrival.”

“But why me?” prodded Jing Jiu.

The female priest said, “It’s because you’re omnipotent and you came from another world.”