Domain

Day after day, the Priest continuously examined his heart in prayer to God, clarifying his own piety.

Compared to the many novice Priests present, Zhao Xu had skipped many steps, more like a transfer student.

Normally, novice Priests would first examine their daily gains and losses in front of the deities, only spending a small amount of time selecting the Divine Spells bestowed by the deities at the very end, not daring to be negligent in the slightest.

Some Divine Spells even required actively communicating their needs to the deities before they could be obtained.

Zhao Xu, however, offered a few perfunctory pleasantries to the Goddess before directly entering the dimension for acquiring Divine Spells.

If other players had the same attitude as him, they would naturally be stuck at the stage of acquiring Divine Spells.

Devoting faith to a deity, the deity condenses divine power from it and bestows blessings upon believers; this is Arthur's unchanging principle for millennia.

By the time Zhao Xu finished studying the Divine Spells, the hour of prayer for everyone else was also nearing its end.

After the Priests' morning lesson, there was some time left for self-arrangement, most of which was spent reading scriptures.

Zhao Xu found a corner and joined the group of players, attempting to exchange information.

The number of players in Mistral was not large, and those who managed to reach this place had already undergone a form of selection.

"The 'Luo Feng' successfully advanced to Priest yesterday?" a tall Priest said.

"Yes, yesterday he was among the few player representatives on that list of 300 people. He then successfully advanced and is now a novice Priest with Divine Spells, so he's no longer praying with us," another person replied.

"As for Feng Shao, he didn't make it. I saw he was so dejected he didn't even log in today," a novice Priest standing in the corner chimed in.

"This place is really shady. I saw on the forums that other churches tend to give players more opportunities. Unlike Sacred Heart here, players have to pass an assessment before they're allowed on the list of 300. Even the old novices who have been here for over a decade can't pass. We've only been playing for half a month, how can we possibly pass the assessment?"

"Ah, it's not too bad. The native Priest groups are the really difficult ones. Even if they can pass the assessment, they still have to consider seniority and family background to squeeze onto the list. At least we can switch to other professions."

"Switch professions? Xiao Ke, other players might not know, but we who are in Mistral know how powerful Mages and Priests are. Would you be content if you were asked to switch to a non-spellcasting profession?"

Upon hearing the tall man's words, the female novice Priest named Xiao Ke, standing opposite him, fell silent.

"So, are we playing the game, or is the game playing us? I'm starting to genuinely believe in the Goddess from the bottom of my heart," a slightly chubby player said.

"Mind your words," a Priest who had been silent the entire time quickly said.

Upon hearing this, all the novice Priests present felt a lingering fear.

With the repetitive morning prayers and scripture study day after day, although they were not as devout as the native inhabitants of Arthur, they did not dare to blaspheme the deities like players outside. They wouldn't even dare to speak profanities, even if just for a momentary outburst.

As time went on, more and more players became immersed in this kind of role-playing, eventually becoming like method actors in the entertainment industry—unable to succeed without going mad.

"Are you new here?" At this point, some players started to notice Zhao Xu and asked him.

The native Priests of Arthur had mostly returned to their dorms to continue their morning lessons.

The only ones still chatting and joking around here were this group of players who were just waiting for their afternoon training.

Zhao Xu nodded, "I just arrived yesterday."

"You just arrived now? Then why aren't you quickly deleting your character and going somewhere else?" the initial tall player said.

Zhao Xu looked surprised, "Is there a particular reason?"

"Don't listen to him talk nonsense. Mistral is the headquarters of the Goddess's church, setting the benchmark and requirements, so the advancement conditions here are stricter than in other churches," the girl named Xiao Ke explained.

"In some churches, players were promoted to formal Level 1 Priests a week ago. We're still struggling here, and only yesterday did a player officially break through. They'll probably complete the procedures and become formal Level 1 Priests in the next couple of days."

Hearing this, Zhao Xu finally understood. It was a combination of intense competition and an elite focus.

Otherwise, logically speaking, the players in Mistral were already screened for suitable talent, and they should have graduated faster.

It was unreasonable that they hadn't even managed to squeeze into the initial hundred-person tier, and they weren't making any waves on the forums.

At first, he thought it was due to the small number of players, but now it seemed they were all being strictly held back.

For a group like Zhao Xu, if they didn't want to study scriptures and hadn't yet been promoted to Priest, precious time in the early stages of the game was being wasted by just chatting and joking around here.

The surrounding players also took the opportunity to inform Zhao Xu about the common knowledge of Sacred Heart Church.

It wasn't until the afternoon that Zhao Xu finally waited for the church's officially scheduled training time.

The Priest training courses were conducted in batches and in parallel, generally dividing the Priests' vocational abilities into modules for teaching.

Zhao Xu was not in a hurry for training with weapons and armor, as he couldn't wear heavy armor anyway.

As for the ability of "Self-Initiated Spellcasting," he had already figured it out himself yesterday and didn't need further training.

He directly looked at the content on the schedule and found the "Domain" class, which was just starting its first session.

Priests were also among the few professions that could master most abilities on their own through divine power.

Because Zhao Xu had gone to the wrong place initially, by the time he arrived at the venue, the Priest responsible for the lecture had already begun speaking for a while.

"As a powerful deity, the Goddess's domains are vast and potent. And we Priests can each select two domains from them to become our exclusive domains."

"Upon acquiring a domain, one can master the domain's power and the domain's spell list."

"The way to determine if you have mastered this domain is whether you can unleash the domain's power."

"Concurrently, for each spell level, we will gain a Domain Spell Slot to cast Domain Spells."

The novice priests, a group of them, each found a corner to sit down. All the novice priests present had inquired about this knowledge.

At this moment, they continued to listen patiently, not daring to interrupt the elderly priest's thoughts in the slightest.

After Zhao Xu listened at the doorway, he quietly walked in and found a seat.

Every time he heard something, his heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

He knew that a Domain was a powerful ability for a Priest.

He just didn't know how strong the Goddess's Domain was.

Next, the priest began to have them go up one by one to collect materials.

In reality, the priest didn't know how many people would come, so the stack of materials was piled thickly together.

After each person announced their name, the priest would pull a piece of parchment from the stack and hand it to them.

Everyone likely received the same information.

Zhao Xu followed the person in front of him and walked up. In front of the priest, he briefly introduced his name and training duration.

The priest, as before, pulled a piece of parchment from the thick stack and gave it to him.

Zhao Xu's eyes immediately twitched, but he said nothing.

He noticed that the priest had drawn the bottom-most piece.

And most people present were looking down at the contents of their parchment, no one noticed this.

Zhao Xu took it with both hands, gave a slight nod to express his gratitude, and then slowly walked back to his seat.

As soon as he sat down, he busied himself with carefully examining the parchment.

The entire parchment didn't list four or five Domains for introduction like others'.

There were only three: Magic, Plan, and Knowledge.

And under each Domain, a line of small text was specifically marked.

Did this mean he would have one more Domain than others?

PS1: Thank you to San Guo Du Shi Jia Xu 2 for the 100 Qidian coins reward, thank you.

PS2: Thank you all for your recommendation tickets and encouraging comments, I will work hard to write well.