The Pathway Of Wisdom-Chapter 18: The Church of the God of Wisdom. Part-1.

By the time the two of them managed to reach the church, it was already getting dark, and the sun was about to set.

Looking at the church of the god of wisdom, Alex wasn’t too disappointed.

He had already heard Ethan mention that it wasn’t in a good state and they were not doing well financially, so he wasn’t surprised that it looked old and worn out.

The church was located in a massive area and secured by a tall wall surrounding it, but most of it was damaged due to wear and tear likely caused by age, rain, and weather.

There wasn’t anyone standing guard at the front door; they were wide open for everyone.

After passing through the front gate, there was a massive garden and an open grass field likely built for people to stay when holding some big rituals where hundreds of believers come.

’I can start doing daily running here to improve my physical fitness; this body needs to become stronger after all...’

Aside from the grass field, there was a main path in the middle leading to the main church building in the center of the entire area.

The main church building looked much cleaner and well taken care of, but even that was quite old-looking and needed renovation.

"This is the grand church of the god of wisdom, your holiness! It’s a magnificent place!"

Alex got down from the horse with Ethan’s help and stretched his body to relax his tense muscles.

"Yeah, the architecture is amazing; it must have took quite an effort to build this..."

Just when Ethan and Alex were talking, the door of the church opened and a lady walked out.

She was wearing the clothes of a sister of the church, and the design of the clothes was completely different from what Alex had seen in his past life.

Her clothes were bluish in color, and there were the symbols of books and scrolls engraved on them, clearly showing that she was a sister of the church of wisdom and believed in the god of wisdom.

She had a small basket in her hand full of vegetables.

"Oh! Sir Ethan! You are back!"

A smile appeared on her face after seeing Ethan, then she looked at Alex and did a slight bow as a greeting and a form of respect.

"You must be Saint Alexander. Welcome to the church of the god of wisdom, dear saint!"

"We have been awaiting your arrival since a long time ago! I am Maria, a sister of the church..."

Alex knew that this was likely a ’test’; first impressions mattered a lot, so he smiled lightly and nodded his head in return as a greeting before speaking in a calm voice.

"Thank you for welcoming me. I have heard a lot about the church of the god of wisdom. After seeing this place in person, I have to say I am impressed."

"I hope we will be able to work together in the future and spread the name of our benevolent and kind god to all places in the world!"

The sister named Maria was so taken aback by Alex’s smiling face and his sweet words that she could not find words to answer, and her jaw hung wide open in shock.

"T-that... I have to go and deliver these vegetables to the house nearby; I shall pardon myself now..."

With that said, she left hurriedly as if she were running away.

"Err... Your holiness... I-I didn’t knew you could... uh..."

Even Ethan was taken aback after hearing Alex talk in such a calm and gentle tone.

Up until now, Alex had been either teasing him or talking with him in an arrogant tone; this was the first time he saw Alex talk so nicely!

"You thought I can’t talk politely, heh... you are too young, little Ethan; you clearly don’t know much about the world yet..."

Those words coming out of the mouth of a sixteen-year-old with a thin and small body seemed quite odd, but Alex didn’t care about that.

He opened the door and entered inside without caring about Ethan’s expression.

Ethan couldn’t find the chance to argue, so he could only follow him inside hurriedly.

Alex entered inside, and there was a massive hall in front of him, and a gigantic statue was placed on the stage at the end of the hall, right opposite the main door.

It was a statue of a man wearing a robe with patterns of stars, moons, and various incomprehensible words engraved on it.

In one of his hands was a book, and in the other was a scroll.

But oddly enough, the entire statue was heavily damaged and broken in many places, almost as if it was hit by hammers in many places.

It was missing a leg and several major pieces in various places, but most importantly, its entire head was missing!

While walking up to it, Alex rubbed his eyes three times to confirm he hadn’t seen wrong.

"Errr... what is... why are... uh... what...."

Seeing this situation, even Alex was confused, and he couldn’t find words to question about the situation.

As if noticing Alex’s confusion, Ethan sighed deeply, and a look of sadness appeared on his face as he spoke in a sad tone.

"Your holiness, what you are seeing is the statue of our benevolent god of wisdom... it’s not that we didn’t take good care of it or it got damaged due to some accident..."

"It is like that because it’s representing the bad situation we are in..."

Ethan looked at the broken statue and spoke.

"In the records it’s mentioned that the statues located in the grand temple of the church of a god represent the situation of the faith and the god themselves!"

"This damaged state represents our church’s situation, our broken faith and the weakening of our benevolent god..."

"Some popes have tried to repair the statue before, but nothing works and it’s been concluded that the statue can’t be repaired by our mortal efforts..."

"It can only be repaired if we repair the broken faith of our god and improve the situation of the church while spreading his great name in the entire world..."

Ethan’s words made Alex understand that the situation of the Church of Wisdom was even worse than he had originally expected.

Hearing Ethan’s depressed words, Alex could only shake his head and sigh in helplessness.

’Err... I suddenly feel I might not be able to get three full meals anytime soon...’