Adam didn't go out that night; his strength was still too weak, and his understanding of transcendent knowledge too limited.
He planned to first gather more intelligence about Otherkinds at the church before beginning his own plan. After all, for Adam, he was more familiar with the church's methods than with the Otherkind themselves.
Early the next morning, Adam met the priest at the door, as he had hoped.
The priest forced a smile and said, "Brother Jim and Alva, the painter have agreed. You will follow me to see him later, and he will take you as an apprentice."
"Thank you, priest Fra! " Adam was very happy. Seeing the smile on Adam's face, Fra breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps he had been too inflexible before?
Putting those thoughts aside for now, Fra led Adam towards the south district church.
"Priest Fra seems very busy lately? " Adam was fiddling with his hair, as if to make a good impression on his soon-to-be teacher.
He finally used his semi-long bangs to cover the scar under his left eye. The priest might be too young to know, but the other priests at the south district church might not be completely ignorant of it.
"Yes, dealing with some trouble," the priest said.
"Are they those monsters? " Adam guided the conversation. "That day, I saw priest Fra kill that monster with one sword. Now, those monsters must have all been killed by you, right? "
"It's not that amazing," the priest smiled shyly, completely lacking the decisiveness he showed when he thrust that sword.
"Otherkinds are not that easy to eradicate, Adam. You still need to be careful if you see any suspicious people." The priest raised his hand and looked at his palm, saying, "Those monsters are too dangerous."
"The most common types of Otherkind include werewolves, ghouls, wendigos, and banshees, and by the sea, there are sirens. Of course, besides these, there are others, such as vampires."
Fra did not go into deep detail, only roughly describing the characteristics of these Otherkind.
Among them, the most interesting to Adam was the vampire. According to some legends from his previous life, vampires were the sworn enemies of werewolves.
In this world, there was also a deep relationship between the two.
Initially, vampires did not exist. The birth of vampires was the result of some human sorcerers researching werewolves in pursuit of long life. The birth of every pure vampire required the sacrifice of a werewolf, so the two were not harmonious.
Ghouls and wendigo were similar, but neither could hide in human society for long. Once they reached adulthood or a certain stage of development, they had to stay away from crowds, no longer able to conceal their abnormalities. Banshees lived deep in the mountains.
Therefore, among human populations, werewolves were the most hidden and caused the most harm.
The priest only briefly introduced the characteristics of common Otherkinds to make Adam more vigilant and then said no more. They had already arrived at the south district church.
Walking in through the side door, the priest felt everyone looking at him with curious eyes, which made him want to lower his head and cover his face.
"Too young." Adam curiously looked around the church. Catching sight of Fra's embarrassed look, he felt a bit guilty.
Perhaps the priest's bottom line would continuously lower over time, but that was his own business. Guiding someone to lower their bottom line still made Adam realise the fact that he was a scumbag.
"Sure enough, the structure of the Holy Sound Church is almost the same? "Adam slowly memorised the church's layout.
Although most people generally just call them churches, they are different from each other.
A legitimate church only has one god, and that is the creator god Nu, the god depicted in the scripture.
It's just that the god seen by different churches is a different aspect of the god Nu, so the churches that developed from this vary in their doctrines and their perception of the image of god.
The relationships between different churches also vary; some are relatively harmonious, while others are like fire and water.
The churches in Heavenly Sound Country are basically Holy Sound Churches that worship the divine voice of god Nu. They are considered a relatively people-friendly type, and their scale is relatively large among the various churches on the continent.
For Adam, what he had to do was stay away from the Holy Sound Church. Of course, before that, he needed to gain more from here.
Adam saw a middle-aged man squatting in a corner from afar, slowly caressing the patterns on the wall with his fingers.
He had a scruffy beard and dry long hair tied into a simple ponytail and wore a long robe that had turned from white to brown, though it didn't smell. His hands were stained with various paint colours.
"Alva Latour! "Fra had briefly told Adam about him beforehand, "a great painter who settled in Roya a few years ago."
"Master Alva, this is Adam." As they got closer, the priest pulled Adam and introduced him.
"Priest Fra, you go about your business. Just leave him here." Alva didn't put down his work, still fumbling on the wall, occasionally tapping the wall with his hand, listening to the sound.
"Then I'll be going. Adam, study hard, and if anything comes up, come find me! " Fra patted Adam's shoulder and turned to walk inside; he also had a lot of things to deal with.
With the priest's departure, it seemed only Adam and Alva were left in this corner. However, Alva had no intention of talking to Adam and continued to observe the wall.
Adam didn't stay idle either; he followed along and observed. The murals depicted the deeds of God creating the world and saving all beings in the words of God. Currently, these murals have some fading and flaking sections.
This was not surprising. Although the Holy Sound Church did not actively hunt sorcerers or witch doctors, these grey professions, in recent years, were still very exclusive. Therefore, church items were at most of good quality and contained no extraordinary power.
The church's focus was always on communication with God; as long as communication was maintained, more divine spells could be obtained.
Adam followed behind Alva and found Alva's observation to be very strange: touching, gazing, listening, and even sniffing with his nose.
"Hey, you, go tell that other person to procure an extra bottle of strong liquor for the materials," Alva said something out of the blue.
Adam looked around and saw only himself, so he said nothing more and walked to another area, found a passing priest, asked who was in charge of procurement at the church, and then went there himself.
For a long time, an apprentice was essentially free labour, and what the teacher would teach depended entirely on luck.
Adam didn't care about this; he took the opportunity to walk around the church more and listen to some of the church's secrets.
The church's procurement officer was a middle-aged fat man who showed great impatience regarding Adam's request to add materials, even revealing a sense of disgust towards Adam.
"Does painting require strong liquor? Could it be that the sloppy painter just said it casually and you didn't hear clearly?
Go back and ask clearly before coming again." After hearing that a bottle of strong liquor was to be added, the fat man almost told him to get lost.
"I confirm I heard correctly, please…" Adam looked at some documents on the table and said, "Please, Brother Jim, add this material. If you have any questions, you can ask the teacher."
"Brother Jim, Earl Rupert is here." Someone knocked on the door and said something, which made the middle-aged fatty even more impatient with Adam.
"You go back. I'll add the materials for you later." Brother Jim looked like he couldn't stand it and waved his hand as if agreeing to Adam but found that he made no movement and remained standing there.
At this time, Brother Jim seriously looked at Adam, pulled out a document from the side, and added one bottle of strong liquor to it.
"Thank you, Brother Jim," Adam said with a smile, then turned and left.
Returning to that corner, Alva was still there. For the rest of the day, Adam followed behind Alva, watching Alva continuously measure various parts of the church.
"Hey, you, come early tomorrow! "As dusk gradually fell, Alva finally turned to Adam and said, still not remembering Adam's name.
What Adam didn't expect was that as he walked through the corridor, intending to exit through the side door, someone called out to him.
It was the white-bearded priest who announced the judgement at the execution site that night.
At this moment, he looked benevolent, waved to Adam, and said with narrowed eyes and a smile, "You're Adam, right? I have something I want to ask you."