"Let me introduce to you, this is... uh, one of the first followers of the Crow God. I brought her along when we set off, her main mission here is... whatever." Lilina happily pointed at the cat lady, who was already at a loss, and introduced.

The petite girl standing nervously in front of us (barely about 1.4 meters tall, and with a mature build, calling her petite is quite an understatement) clumsily bowed to everyone, then fumbled to switch gestures, trying to lift her skirt to give a curtsey. From her awkward actions, it seemed she hadn’t figured out the common etiquette for communicating with people. Eventually, I heard a voice squeezed out from her mouth, almost inaudibly: "Hel... hello, my name is Rabi, not ’whatever’..."

"Oh, you’re called Rabi, I forgot," Lilina scratched her head, showing an insincere demeanor, then pulled out a handful of cheap souvenirs and stuffed them into her hands, "I got these for you along the way, keep them for fun, and remember to share them with the others when you get back."

"Tha... thank you, Lady Lilina, um, I should tidy up the room... uh, who are these people..." The cat lady named Rabi struggled as she held a bunch of miscellaneous little trinkets, carefully glancing at us as if she dared not speak directly to strangers, then looked down and glanced at Lilina. Lilina immediately jumped up to grab my arm, excitedly introducing, "This is my boss! I’m under his wing, the Crow God is also under his wing—by the way, this means he must be the King of Gods..."

"Eh... eh?" The cat lady looked at me with a slow reaction, but to my surprise, she didn’t seem too shocked. Lilina then introduced our entire family, though her way of introducing was truly chaotic:

"This is Sister Qianqian, the Divine Queen. This is 123, shining bright, this is Lin, very strong, this is Sayaka, the rice balls she makes are delicious, this is Monina, she can cook over two thousand types of dishes, this is Ji Shanshan..."

Lilina’s introductions ranged from nicknames to specialties to identities, completely muddling the poor cat lady who didn’t seem too bright, who could only continually give a silly smile, showing eight teeth to everyone. I couldn’t help but tug on Lilina: "Do you usually introduce people like this? This is as good as saying nothing."

Lilina waved her hand dismissively: "It’s fine, she’ll definitely not remember anyone’s names anyway, just giving her a sense of familiarity is already a big success."

Lilina wasn’t wrong; after a round of introductions, the cat lady named Rabi hadn’t remembered a single person, not even the easiest and most distinctive "Golden Shiny 123" gentleman. Blushing, she looked at us, muttered "umm" for a long time without saying a name, and eventually scratched her head indecisively: "I will go tidy up the rooms for everyone... ah, Master of Ceremony, you don’t need to come..."

Vanilla wanted to follow and help, but Rabi quickly waved her hands in panic and almost jumped into the room. I caught a word she used: she called Vanilla "Master of Ceremony". I looked at Lilina, smiled, and said: "Are you really starting a religious movement?"

"Of course, better than being idle, occasionally helping others, and under the name of the Crow God, proselytizing in this world is much easier than in those religiously rigid worlds," Lilina glanced at the little crow rummaging through her sister’s pocket for nuts, her expression suddenly a little dejected, "Ahh, such a contradictory environment, unfortunately, we have to let little birds take over first, Lady Goddess, your followers are incompetent..."

A group of people couldn’t help but look at this girl with disdain. After so many days helping other gods spread their faith, Lilina suddenly pitifully admitted that she discredited her own god, akin to Jesus wandering around promoting Allah’s teachings with a string of prayer beads. If the integrity she discarded were combustible, it could at least solve half of Southeast Asia’s power needs.

I glanced down at the pocket on my chest, regretting that I couldn’t pull out Dingdang for a thorough comment. This little thing still hadn’t adjusted to the time zone; it had a meal and then fell asleep in a dreamy haze.

We followed Lilina to the lounge first; the lounge was the largest room on this level, with soft couches and low tables, clearly a place for lazy folks like us to gather for collective relaxation and chatting—or so it seemed to us. For experts truly attending the Secret Magic Meeting for academic research, this should have been a place for discussing matters, but in our hands, it immediately transformed into a paradise for card games and chit-chatting. After throwing myself onto a couch lower than a bed but higher than the floor, I comfortably stretched. Mercury Lamp tried to bounce on my stomach a couple of times but was caught by my sister. Glancing at Lilina who kept shoving snacks into her mouth, I thought it was time to understand their activities over the past few days, so I started by asking about the unfamiliar girl: "What’s the story with the girl with cat ears?"

Lilina’s ears twitched slightly, and she grinned mischievously as she came over: "Boss interested in kemonomimi girls? Isn’t there already a fox-dog at home? Lan is already quite clingy, so you’re feeling unaccomplished and decided to find a cat next time..."

"Listen well if you don’t want to sleep in a basket tonight!"

"... Actually, she’s someone we encountered on the first day we arrived here," Lilina immediately became obedient, "When we teleported here, we landed in a barbarian area far to the south—which is essentially a no-man’s-land. I don’t know where that cat wandered from; her combat power is about 5, obviously unable to survive there, so she tried to live by stealing. But as you can see, she’s really not cut out for that work—when we went to town to gather intelligence, she was being beaten up, nearly on her last breath, so I conveniently rescued her."

Then I discovered that the local situation was utter chaos. Long ago, the place was a mining area that produced a type of crystal sand used for processing ’glass,’ which gradually led to the formation of a small town. But eventually, the crystal sand was exhausted, and the mine was abandoned. Now the only livelihood there is a little farmland around and a tiny bit of remaining crystal sand in the mine. Those who remain are poor farmers, thieves, bankrupts, refugees, basically those kinds of people. Many there are like that cat, unable to sustain themselves, nor can they afford to leave for another place, struggling to survive locally. We first found a giant sinkhole deep within the mine, which no ordinary person dared approach, created when the mountain structure collapsed during crystal sand mining. We settled there and began packaging and selling the little bird—"

Lilina’s method of proselytizing is always quite straightforward. Despite her appearance as a cunning, curious little girl, she inherently knows how to provide the appropriate help to suitable people to make them wholeheartedly follow her will. To her, the most downtrodden people are the best candidates for potential followers. These individuals have nothing left, not even a piece of bread is a salvation. As long as they are fed, they are willing to follow anyone—naturally, the loyalty gained through food cannot be guaranteed, but for Lilina, guiding them temporarily with her tactics wouldn’t find it difficult to make them religious pillars.

She led Vanilla and the recently rescued cat lady (leaving her sister and the little crow to guard the mine, according to Lilina, the god must maintain an air of mystery, although I’ve never seen her try to keep Dingdang mysterious) to the town without revealing their true identity or mentioning the Crow God. Their first action was the simplest: food distribution.

And in an astonishing manner: they summoned a giant tree in the middle of the town’s open field (which used to be the town’s assembly square), the tree grew within thirty minutes with a thunderous sound that attracted almost the entire town (almost, because there were four deaf people in the town), the tree’s branches hung low enough for a normal person to reach, its enormous canopy covering the entire square, and the low-hanging branches were filled with hamburgers tasting like steak, bread tasting like chicken, apples tasting like pineapple, bananas tasting like oranges, and chicken legs tasting like ribs—in short, nobody cared about these details anymore. This was a sacred tree from myth, bearing bread on its branches, enabling the poor to fill their bellies: without hesitation, Lilina borrowed Jesus’s idea.

And the tree’s trunk split open with twelve neat openings from which emanated fragrant cola and Sprite... 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Actually, there’s another version of the Holy Tree," Lilina explained to me, counting on her fingers. "I used it while preaching on Ganglanier Planet. The trunk would drip spicy soup and pearl milk tea, but those seeds ran out. The stock of Races in the World Tree Temple are all in Cola and Sprite versions. Well, they work the same anyway, and people in this world don’t know about Cola or Sprite. I later explained to them that those are Divine Wines, essential at the banquet prepared by gods for mortals..." I was dumbfounded, "This works!?"

I was about to throw this girl into the basket when I saw the Tiaozi Five from the Divine Race nodding thoughtfully one by one around me...

What Lilina did was just too typical of her style. She’s using the Life Goddess’s power to perform miracles for the Crow God without any psychological pressure. How sensational can such a giant tree be? Of course, it’s evident. Even on Earth in the 21st century, if a tree appeared with large bowls of beef noodles hanging on it, it would cause a global sensation--but here, the key issue is that this tree has become a miracle in a mining town. After doing all this, Lilina and Vanilla, who have already attracted great attention, explained nothing. They pointed to the fruits on the tree, indicating that the hungry people in the square could take as they pleased, then vanished into thin air.

The next day, they purified all the water sources, making three long-dried-up wells spring forth clear streams again.

On the third day, they healed everyone’s diseases in the town, including those who were deaf and blind.

On the fourth day, they summoned a miracle of life, making the once barren land around the town instantly fertile and bountiful. Each field, which could barely feed anyone, was filled with crops and matured within a day. Apart from the giant tree, the town finally had real stockpiles of food again.

On the fifth day, they planted a giant black feather like a flag before the giant tree in the square. Thus, the entire town began to be enveloped by a shield with steel-like strength. The shield started judging the behavior of the town’s residents, halting all acts of violence. Hungry beasts that regularly raids the townsfolk from the wilderness were all killed outside the town by this powerful shield when trying to raid livestock again that night.

On the sixth day, Lilina, Vanilla, and Silly Bird discussed for a while but couldn’t think of anything else to do, so they finally started preaching. Yes, the "Five Days of Redemption," miracles within the "Ten Miracles of the Crow God," lasted five days, mainly because on the sixth day, God ran out of ideas... Initially, Lilina planned to mess around for seven days like in Genesis, but after thinking for a long time, she finally abandoned the idea of summoning seventy or eighty giant dragons to siege the city and then leading Vanilla to slay dragons herself: she feared I’d hit her if I found out.

"So you just marketed Silly Bird like this?" I looked at Lilina in astonishment. I always knew she preached, but never encountered the details of her preaching. So... this is how preaching works? It kind of makes sense.

"Of course, these are skills summarized from experience," Lilina said with a face full of satisfaction. "I actually deliberately suppressed the spread of information, otherwise, causing too much of a stir would bring trouble. Preaching is a brain-draining task, doing it too slowly could drop you off the rankings, whereas rushing it could get you tied to a stake—although I’m not afraid of stakes, it’s not good to let the Crow God Sect show too much aggression at the beginning. Now Silly Bird’s followers... for now, let’s call them believers, since there’s not even an organization, and we haven’t summarized the first version of the charter yet; Vanilla has to handle this, so going slowly is inevitable. Currently, Silly Bird’s followers are concentrated in the southern mining areas, spreading to a few small towns outside. Preaching is about laying a good foundation, then fanatical believers will naturally spread it to tens and hundreds. This is the difference between the True God Sect and a cult: we have real stuff."

I looked at the Little Medwen sitting next to me, the Little Crow, still oblivious to the world, was focused on a jar of dried fruit brought by Qianqian, trying to twist open the lid with her unskillful hands—until she accidentally crushed the whole jar in the end. Noticing someone watching her, Little Crow immediately turned her head and looked at me with those eerily glowing red eyes, saying happily, "Caw!"

I pressed down on Little Crow’s head, speaking seriously, "First, you need to get used to greeting others in human language, and second, even if you’re not comfortable greeting in human language, remember you’re a crow, not a duck..."

Little Crow nodded happily, "Caw!"

I sighed and looked at Lilina, "By the way, how far are you planning to go with this task? Until Little Crow has worldwide followers here? This isn’t going to happen overnight."

"Of course not," Lilina immediately waved her hand, then dragged the daydreaming Vanilla over, "First of all, this work is ultimately up to Vanilla. Although she’s a bit slow, I find her quite talented. Now the main ceremony for the Crow God is her, not me. Also, if we leave a bit of miracle in a world, and a couple of Little Bird’s things to provide contact, we can remote control the progress from Shadow City. I’m thinking of seeing if I can train a couple of assistant masters of ceremony or the like, although frankly it’s quite challenging. The southern town does have a few good people, but unfortunately, you can’t find a few well-informed strongmen; they’re all common folks who’ve been digging sand in the mines all their lives, or how else couldn’t they have fled to other cities when the mine collapsed. Ah, ah, it’s something to be considered long-term."

"Is there any progress in your research?" I teased Silly Bird with a handful of peanuts as I spoke casually, "Regarding this guy’s divine power, can those believers acquire Silly Bird’s powers through prayer or other means?"

"Should... be possible, from what I’ve observed," Lilina scratched her head, seeming a bit unsure too. "After all, the Xyrin Divine System is different from the two existing divine systems, and it’s still in the budding stage now. My experience can’t quite match the phenomenon. In short, the Crow God’s followers indeed have signs of receiving power or blessings. Have you met that cat named Rabi? She was among the first to follow the Crow God, and it’s been only a few days, about seven or eight days. I’ve made her try to interact with Little Bird as much as possible, including prayer, taking care of daily life, eating, and sleeping together—honestly, to make them form a bond quickly, I’ve even had them bathe together six or seven times a day, until now that cat developed a fear of water: although cats don’t like water anyway."

I gave Lilina a side-eye, thinking this girl doesn’t intend to run the Crow God Sect like a bathhouse...

"Now that cat is much stronger than before. You can’t imagine what she looked like initially: skinny enough to slip through window cracks. And now she can single-handedly deal with seven or eight well-armed Beastman Soldiers—if that cat isn’t scared to tears. This transformation resulted from the influence of the Crow God’s power, but I’m not sure if it’s because of prayer or living together every day, perhaps it’s both reasons. Also, there are two believers in the town who know a bit of magic, and after intense prayer, they’ve seemingly established a connection with Little Bird. One inadvertently grasped the concept of shadow magic: this world originally doesn’t have shadow magic, so that believer’s power is definitely borrowed from Little Bird. The other one didn’t master new magic but greatly enhanced existing powers; initially, he was just a street performer who fooled common folks, and now he’s acquired the mage qualification in a nearby major town, earning a self-exam Level Two Mage three days ago..."

Me: "..." Can anyone explain what a self-exam Level Two Mage is?

"In short, mortals who sincerely pray to the Crow God, affirming their relationship with the Crow God in their hearts, can indeed acquire certain powers," Lilina concluded, "But this process is extremely unstable. Some become physically stronger, some acquire more magic power, some gain knowledge from another world, and some even abruptly acquire the skill of eating, drinking and talking simultaneously... Don’t laugh, this is real, and I’m worrying over it now—the powers bestowed by Little Bird are quite random. You have to admit it’s a godly trait, but... have you ever heard of the God of Grocery Store?" (unfinished. If you like this work, you’re welcome to visit Qidian.com to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)