CH429 Ancestral Worship

***

Alex took a seat in front of the campfire, then patted the ground beside him, inviting Zora to sit as well.

"You'd be right—if this were an ordinary situation," Alex said as the flames crackled. "But it isn't. We're outsiders to this world, which means we need a clear, defensible identity here.

"And more importantly, if we want a steady flow of high-level resources—resources we can either sell back home or use to grow our House's power—we need a territory where we can develop without excessive restrictions."

He poked at the fire with a stick, sending sparks dancing upward.

"Unfortunately, neither the Hollowcrest Wildlands nor the Celahan Empire offers us both."

Zora listened quietly.

"The lawlessness of the Hollowcrest Wildlands works in our favour," Alex continued. "No one cares about your origins. No one checks your background. If you can survive and make a name there, that reputation carries over into lawful territories as well. The opposite isn't true. If we start in a lawful territory like the Celahan Empire, our identities as outsiders would likely be exposed very quickly—and that's something we absolutely want to avoid."

Zora nodded slowly.

"But," Alex added, his tone sharpening, "from what Kron told us, while the Wildlands are chaotic, it isn't truly uncontrolled. They're more like a crucible the major powers keep burning. Hot enough to keep the chaos going… but never hot enough to melt the container."

Zora's eyes narrowed slightly.

"You think the empires are deliberately caused and are maintaining the Wildlands' lawlessness?" she said, "In that case, it means they'd never permit any single power to grow large enough there to threaten them."

Alex nodded in affirmation.

"And that's why," Zora continued thoughtfully, "you asked Udara to focus her scouting on BloodIron City's major powers. You suspect those factions are backed—directly or indirectly—by the surrounding empires."

She looked at him.

"So whenever a new player grows too big, the established factions—and the empires behind them—step in together to crush it. That way, the balance is preserved, the Wildlands remain chaotic, and no one ever truly wins."

Alex's lips curved into a faint smile.

"Exactly," Alex said with a satisfied nod. "As expected of my intelligent and beautiful empress. This humble knight of yours couldn't have explained it better myself."

Zora shot him a flat stare, but she accepted the compliment nonetheless.

Alex smiled and continued, his tone turning more serious. "Since we can deduce all that, trying to develop seriously within the Wildlands would be a fool's errand. Instead, my plan is to make a name for ourselves there—whether through trade, mercenary work, or whatever opportunities present themselves—and then use that reputation as a springboard into an empire where we can legitimately acquire a fief and cultivate its potential."

His smile slowly turned predatory.

"According to Kron—and from what I've seen so far—the greed of the nobility here is no less rampant than back on Pangea. I'm confident we can grow a territory to the scale we need. And if we do it that way, instead of provoking five or six empires at once, we'll only have to contend with one… maybe two at most."

Zora's gaze sharpened.

"In that case, almost any empire would suffice—even Lumeria," she said thoughtfully. "The reason you're fixating on the Celahan Empire must be because of ancestral worship, right?"

"Hm." Alex nodded, tossing the stick in his hand into the fire. "Though it's technically no different from Navi worship, at least ancestral deities are true to their advertised nature. And their believers tend to be just as straightforward."

"And more importantly," Zora added, "they won't be out hunting outsiders."

"Well, there's that too," Alex chuckled.

"As long as the Celahan Empire doesn't worship a single ancestral spirit exclusively—and remains as antithetical to the Navi and their followers as Kron described—then we can expect a much easier reception there."

He leaned back slightly, watching the flames.

"Once we establish ourselves in Celahan, we'll be relatively safe from crusades and holy hunts. Ancestral spirit worshippers don't care about Navi prophecies, after all."

Alex's gaze turned contemplative as he watched the fire.

Ancestral spirits and Navi were both faith-energy beings—entities worshipped as deities. However, despite the surface similarities, there were fundamental differences between the two.

Navi were originally cultivators who followed one of the three traditional branches of Ascension—warrior, mage, or warlock. Yet, at some point—usually after reaching the Legendary Realm—they abandoned their original paths and turned to the fourth branch; the Faith Path.

It was an easier road, after all.

Through faith, they could acquire Providence more easily and regularly, using that to gain insight directly into the natural laws without enduring the same risks, bottlenecks, or tribulations required by orthodox cultivation.

After all, plunder had always been faster—and far less demanding—than honest labour.

Ancestral spirits, on the other hand, were fundamentally different.

They were entities born from belief and Providence itself, later elevated into deities through sustained faith energy.

With enough Providence, a spirit could be born from almost anything.

For example, Alex's AetherKindle Primal Origin Flame was, in essence, a spirit born from the Providence of a deceased fire dragon and a major realm's subspace. The same was true for nearly all Origin Flames –they were born from the Providence of something.

What distinguished Ancestral spirits from other such spirits was the source of their birth.

Ancestral Spirits were born specifically from Providence shaped by collective belief—belief rooted in lineage, memory and reverence. And because such belief was almost always accompanied by stable and long-term faith energy, these spirits naturally evolved into deities capable of manipulating faith energy themselves.

Alex couldn't help but recall a familiar example from Pangea.

The World Tree.

Much like the elves of countless stories from his previous life, the elves of Pangea once believed the World Tree to be their creator god.

But in truth, nothing could be further from reality.

Most elven World Trees began as nothing more than ordinary trees.

However, as generations of elves gathered around them—living beneath their branches, worshipping them, attributing their fortune and survival to them—the accumulated belief and faith granted the trees immense Providence.

That Providence awakened their spirituality.

And because that spirituality was born from faith energy itself, the trees gained the innate ability to manipulate faith energy, performing what the elves came to regard as divine miracles as they grew stronger.

This led to the most important distinction between Navi and Ancestral spirits—and the reason the latter were far more tolerable to Pangeans than the former.

***

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