Alice turns around and says, "Rise, Sir Kay. Now is not the hour for such formalities. The cultists have yet to be captured." Her tone is completely different from when talking to us!
The knight's visor is raised, but because we are blocked by Alice, we cannot see his face.
"Then, I shall take my leave now, Your Highness." The knight speaks and bows to Alice before taking a few steps back and turning away. His name is Kay, right? He also wears silver plate armor with a black chainmail inner layer like Alice, but his armor looks much less sophisticated than Alice's; at least, his armor does not have complex patterns engraved on it. He is wearing his helmet, so we can't see his face.
Before leaving, he also hands Alice a pair of silver-plated finger gauntlets and a sword in its scabbard, which perfectly fit her armor. They should be parts of her armor. As for why she didn't wear them, maybe for secrecy? She sneaked into the cultists' den after all. She couldn't possibly wear shiny silver gauntlets and carry a sword to infiltrate the cultists' den, could she? They are unlike her armor, which can be covered by a black robe.
Alice takes off her fingerless gloves and puts on her finger gauntlets. Then, she hangs her scabbard with a sword inside on her belt. Her gauntlets, like her armor, also have intricate patterns engraved on their silver plates. Shiro is really curious about what they can do.
It's a pity her sword is inside its scabbard; otherwise, we would know whether it also has patterns engraved on its blade too. Maybe, it can shoot out a beam of light when she shouts, 'Excalibur!!'
Her sword's hilt is silver like her armor, except for its grip, which is black. Her scabbard's body is made of black leather, while its endmount and topmount are made of silver metallic metal with intricate patterns engraved. They should be made up of the same metal as her armor's plates, as they are of the same silver color.
"Do you two have any plan for the future? How about staying with me for now? You know, it isn't easy for people to accept your special features." Alice asks us, her tone gentle. We indeed have no plan for now, so let's go with her for now. She has a lot of interesting things on her anyway. Besides, since she is a princess, we should be able to use her influence to help us build our religions.
"We don't have anywhere to go! We will be in your care for now!" Shiro replies. Kuro also nods in agreement.
"Good. Let's go to the camp." Alice leads us to the camp some distance away from the town. It is covered by a barrier that bends the light and filters the air, so we couldn't find it before.
The barrier is maintained by a group of red-level mages led by an orange-level mage. The red-level mages are responsible for providing magic power to the barrier, while the orange-level mage is responsible for fixing wherever the problem occurs in the barrier.
After entering the camp, Alice leads us to the tent at the center of the camp. It is also the biggest tent here. We think it is her temporary residence.
The interior is rather simple. It only consists of a two-person bed in the innermost part of the tent and a meeting table with about five chairs in the middle of the tent.
"Wait here first, alright? When everything is dealt with, we will head back together." She leads us to the two-person bed and signals us to wait there before she herself sits on a chair, closes her eyes, and begins to absorb free magic power to recover her magic power.
Unlike us dragons, humans cannot recover their magic power automatically. They need to actively absorb free magic power that exists everywhere to slowly recover their used-up magic power.
We stare blankly at the bed. We run into a problem now. We figure out that we can't sit on the bed without taking off our robes, as if we sit on our robes, it will pull our tails, and our tails will either be uncomfortable or we may accidentally tear our robes apart. Neither of these is acceptable.
After pondering for a few minutes, we decide to just take off our robes. Problem solved! Then, we sit on the bed, holding hands, and Shiro continues analyzing the statue with Kuro's and her processing power.
Half an hour later, "Your Highness, I have completed your order." A voice flows into the tent from the outside. Judging from the sound, the speaker should be the knight Kay.
"Your effort has been commendable, Sir Kay. You are welcome to enter." Alice says in her formal tone. Alice also adjusts her seating position to sit elegantly with a straight back and her legs together. Why do they have to go through all these tricky steps before they can just chat?
The knight Kay enters the tent and walks toward Alice with his visor raised. He appears neutral and composed. His steps halt for a moment when he sees our tails, but he quickly suppresses his emotions and walks on. He stops a few steps away from Alice and bows deeply.
"Rise, Sir Kay. Have all cultists been captured?" Alice says.
Kay stands up straight, his body upright and motionless with his head slightly lowered. He maintains steady and respectful eye contact with Alice. "104 ordinary-level cultists have been taken prisoner. 1 hero-level, 12 elite-level, and 52 ordinary-level confirmed dead. A total of 169 cultists."
"Has no one escaped?" Alice asks.
"Your Highness, none have escaped." Kay answers.
"Very well. You have done well, Sir Kay. How are the townspeople?" Alice nods with a hint of satisfaction.
"They are recovering, Your Highness. The mages said that they are expected to recover by tomorrow at the latest."
"Good. Then, prepare to head back to the capital tomorrow. You may take your leave, Sir Kay."
"It is my honor, Your Highness." Kay says. Then, he respectfully bows before taking a few steps back and turning to leave. Before leaving, he couldn't help but glance at our tails. His face shows little emotion; even if it isn't as expressionless as Kuro's, it is still not easy to guess what he is thinking.
After Kay exits the tent, Alice immediately slumps back into a relaxed sitting posture and continues to absorb free magic power. She doesn't glance at us, so she has not seen us without our robes on yet. Shiro also closes her eyes to continue to analyze the statue.
Three hours later, Shiro finally finishes her analysis of the statue. Alice is still closing her eyes, absorbing free magic power. Humans' magic power absorption speed is sure slow! Even if we used up our entire reserve of draconic power, it would only take us an hour or so to fully recover to full capacity again!
The statue has the ability to compress magic power to increase its energy density. This ability isn't abnormal. Everyone has that ability; this is how red-level magic power transforms to higher levels. What's abnormal about this statue is its ability to absorb magic power from multiple individuals and convert it into faith power.
Normally, magic power from different individuals cannot mix together; not even Shiro and Kuro can mix our dragonic power together. But this isn't what is the most important; the most important is what it transforms into.
Faith power is the power unique to demigods. It is light purple in color. In comparison to a much darker purple of draconic power. Faith power is considered to be closest to divine power. It, like divine power, has the ability to create miracles. However, it cannot create or fuel divine power constructs.
Miracles are something beyond the laws of the universe, something that cannot be replicated by normal means. It can even say that the only ability of divine power is to create miracles; other forms of power, like divine power constructs and divine arts, are just utilizations of such a capacity. Of course, this is only the upper limit of miracles. Not all miracles are required to defy the laws of the universe.
The difference between a miracle created by faith power and a miracle created by divine power is that a miracle created by faith power has a limit. It cannot break away from the laws of the universe.
Faith power is also believed to be an initial form of divine power. Therefore, the fact that magic power can transform into faith power contains a hidden implication; it means that magic power and divine power are the same at an essential level. It also means that magic may actually be a very weak miracle with an extremely low upper limit.
Since divine power is condensed from faith, and divine power is actually a higher form of magic power, does that mean faith is actually magic power? This theory can also explain why faith from a strong individual is worth more than from a weaker one.
If this is the case, then the ability to mix magic power from multiple individuals and convert them into one makes it virtually no different from a degraded version of a godhead.
This also points us to something we overlooked before. As we know, the demigods, like the gods of faith, can naturally condense faith into an unusable power, which for the demigods is the faith power. There is a problem with our understanding of the godheads. If the godheads can only be condensed after the construction of divine kingdoms, how can the demigods condense faith power?
Our new hypothesis is that the gods of faith and the demigods may not have godheads at all; instead, the godheads may be an attempt of the ancient gods to replicate body parts of the gods of faith and demigods that are responsible for this function. As for why construction of divine kingdoms is necessary to create a godhead, we currently have no idea.
By the way, the term 'demigods' refers to forming gods of faith only, but because there are really a lot of them in the universe and they are not an anomaly in the purple level like us dragons, they are generally used as a benchmark for the purple level.
Another interesting product of the statue is what we called 'black powder.' It is an unwanted product of the process of compressing magic power into faith power. We find out that this thing is somewhat similar to what the goblin dissipates into after death. Maybe monsters are products of magic power compression and purification?
From information related to faith power, we also figure out that the crystal-clear, transparent, glowing purple crystal cube dropped from the goblin isn't divine power crystallization at all, but faith power crystallization. This is also why we didn't recognize it at first glance.
After Shiro finishes her analysis, we put on our robes again, preparing to go out. We still leave our hoods off. We are quite curious about what humans' so-called military camps look like. As for why we don't take a look at Alice's interesting toys first, they are Alice's; we can take a look later, but if we miss this camp, who knows how long it will take for us to have this opportunity again?
"Alice, we are going out to take a look outside!" Shiro says, and without waiting for Alice's response, she rushes out with Kuro's hand in hers.