Natural Constant

Within the church, God Chosen held a fairly high status.

Along the way, Chen Fan and Gao Yuan encountered almost no obstruction—most areas of the Main Church were left undefended for God Chosen.

The biggest unexpected incident was being stopped by a passing Purple Robe Bishop, who questioned them about the progress of the Third Divine Decree ritual.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, Chen Fan barely spoke in response to the bishop's questions, leaving Gao Yuan to handle everything.

Chen Fan's taciturnity did not arouse the bishop's suspicion.

In fact, most God Chosen had this sort of attitude—as those chosen by the gods, most of them were exceedingly proud.

The Purple Robe Bishop did not ask much. After getting a basic understanding of the situation, he respectfully stepped aside for them.

If even a Purple Robe Bishop acted like this, the lower-ranking White Robe Deacons and Black Robe Priests were even less worth mentioning.

In fact, according to Chen Fan's observations, unless they had a task or orders from higher-ups, these low-ranking church clergy would never think of getting involved with God Chosen.

They would even avoid God Chosen whenever possible!

After giving it some thought, Chen Fan understood why:

No employee would take enormous risks just to curry favor with an airborne superior whose term lasted only a few months.

Wasn't that just thankless busywork?

In a little over ten minutes, Chen Fan followed Gao Yuan to the church's library.

Obviously, the library was an important church site.

Several Black Robe Priests and dozens of guards clad in gleaming silver armor, carrying shields and swords, stood meticulously before a thick, tightly shut metal door, blocking every gaze that tried to peer into its secrets.

To Chen Fan, the scene felt a little too fantastical.

The defensive strength of that thick, sealed metal door clearly surpassed that of the dozens of guards armed with cold weapons.

What was this called?

Defending a bank vault door with a primitive man's mindset?

All he could say was that the church really knew how to defend itself.

As for why they had assigned so many people to guard a library...

Chen Fan could understand the reason.

For the church, controlling the channels through which knowledge spread meant controlling ordinary people's thoughts.

This could greatly reinforce the church's ruling position. For the church, it was undoubtedly a hugely profitable arrangement.

Upon seeing Gao Yuan, one of the Black Robe Priests guarding the library forced himself to step forward. "God Chosen Esteemed One."

"We need to enter the library."

Gao Yuan raised his chin calmly toward the tightly shut metal door and ordered in an unquestionable tone, "Open it."

The Black Robe Priest showed no dissatisfaction at Gao Yuan's lofty attitude.

He raised his head slightly, and the red-glowing Mechanical Eye beneath his hood carefully examined Gao Yuan and Chen Fan behind him.

To allow God Chosen to learn more theological knowledge, every God Chosen had permission to enter the library and study.

On the condition that it was the God Chosen themselves.

Thus, Chen Fan, who had remained silent and "hidden" behind Gao Yuan, naturally became the focus of scrutiny.

"What?"

Gao Yuan's expression darkened. "As a church priest, can you not even recognize a God Chosen?"

The Black Robe Priest said nothing. He merely bowed slightly to express his apology to Gao Yuan and Chen Fan.

After confirming their identities, he turned without hesitation and shouted to the Black Robe Priests and guards behind him:

"Open the door!"

The order was given.

The guards carrying shields and swords retreated to either side, revealing the full extent of the enormously heavy metal door.

As for the Black Robe Priest, he swiftly walked to a Metal Shrine beside the door.

A finely crafted statue rested atop the metal shrine. Under the glow of concealed wall lamps, a fleeting glint flashed across the statue's eyes.

Under Chen Fan's watch, all the Black Robe Priests stood before the shrine and uttered prayers that sounded almost like chanting.

The syllables of the prayer were extremely indistinct, and they used a rather strange method of pronunciation, likely to prevent anyone with ulterior motives from secretly memorizing this "door password."

But...

Even the so-called Goddess probably could not have imagined that among her most devout followers would be an anomaly like Chen Fan!

And that anomaly possessed an Intelligent Terminal from an advanced civilization!

With a thought from Chen Fan, Yi began recording the complex prayer. At the same time, relying on its immense computational power, it began analyzing the specific meaning and patterns of the prayer word by word.

Got it.

Before the prayer had even ended, Yi had reached a conclusion: Natural Constant.

Chen Fan froze for a moment. What?

So far, a total of ten different syllables have appeared in this prayer.

This unit attempted an exhaustive search and easily discovered the pattern: each syllable corresponds to a decimal digit.

After translation, it produced a non-repeating, irregular string of numbers: 2718281828459045...

Looks familiar, right?

*...*

You don't know the natural constant? It is the base of the natural logarithm function. It plays a rather important role in many scientific theories, and you don't know it?!

Is that... so? Chen Fan replied stiffly.

...Forget it. Let's skip that topic for now.

Yi's voice was filled with helplessness. In any case, the fact that they could use this string of numbers as a password meant that they must have developed a basic mathematical system.

Mathematics is the foundation of all science. This is enough to prove that they possessed...

Isn't that obvious? Chen Fan interrupted Yi's rambling. If the so-called gods are an alien civilization with more advanced technology, how could they possibly lack such basic mathematical knowledge?

What if...

Yi's voice rose faintly. What if this password was designed by the church itself?

Then...

Chen Fan suddenly fell silent.

At that moment, he abruptly realized that he seemed to have fallen into a tremendous misunderstanding earlier!

From beginning to end, he had never seen any direct evidence of an alien civilization's existence.

All the information he had previously observed could only be considered circumstantial evidence.

Under the "double misdirection" of that circumstantial evidence and the database materials provided by Yi, he had firmly believed that the gods were merely an alien civilization with more advanced technology!

But if it was really as Yi now said...

Then...

Chen Fan immediately felt his throat tighten. Gods... could they merely be a lie used by the church to maintain its own rule?

In other words, the church itself was the technological civilization that possessed more advanced technology!

No, that's not right!

That still doesn't explain the God Chosen issue.

Chen Fan refuted it inwardly. If the church wanted to consolidate its own rule, there would be no reason for it to frequently select God Chosen!

Yi fell silent for a while.

You have a point. This is indeed a suspicious point.

After all, this is merely one possibility calculated by this unit. Without sufficient evidence, its accuracy cannot be guaranteed.