Chapter 347: Liu Family Village, Winged God Church!
[You recuperated in Liu Family Village for a year.]
[Your injuries had mostly healed up to about seventy or eighty percent, but once you equipped "Wolverine," your body recovered completely, even feeling lighter and more agile than before.]
[You tried to control your bones like Wolverine, for instance, extending the bones in your palm to use like claws.]
[Considering your current physical body's strength, you figured your bones could serve as weapons.]
[But there was one small problem.]
["Ow! Pain, pain, pain!!"]
[The agony of bones breaking through skin and leaving your body was unbearable.]
[You'd probably only be able to use this move when adrenaline took over your body.]
[Of course, there was another way.]
["Superbeast's Pain Threshold."]
[On second thought, you decided against it. You wouldn't waste a precious equipment slot on a white-grade trait tag either.]
[Once you'd fully recovered, you didn't rush to leave Liu Family Village.]
[Instead, you stayed to help Old Liu's family with farm work for a while.]
[Along the way, you observed the true face of the Real Realm through these villagers' daily lives.]
[These farmers lived largely the same lives as those in the Void Realm.]
[The difference was, they were exceptionally poor.]
[Going hungry was a common occurrence.]
[They didn't even have clothes to wear.]
[In many homes, a single pair of pants was shared among the entire family, worn only by whoever needed to go out.]
[Most men didn't wear shirts, while women stitched together rough pieces of cloth to make simple garments.]
[The village had another characteristic.]
[There were no strong laborers.]
[Not a single able-bodied young man was present, and even teenagers were rare. There was a complete gap in the age range, with the next tier being elderly people in their fifties and sixties.]
["Uncle Liu, where have all the young people in the village gone?"]
["The church assigned them work. Just like when I was young, you work until your body can't keep up anymore, then you can come back to farm."]
[The villagers' poverty all stemmed from this Winged God Church.]
[People were conscripted, grain was forcibly collected, and women could be abused at any time.]
[The villagers only had a vague understanding of cultivators, and you couldn't get any information from them about how strong the Winged God Church actually was.]
[As for that Old Hag who stole the Ten Thousand Souls Banner and all those human world Immortal Artifacts, no one knew anything about her either.]
["Old Wan, Prison Pot, and all you loyal ministers of the Spirit Artifact Nation! Just wait, your boss will find you all…"]
[For now, besides retrieving the Ten Thousand Souls Banner and the others, there was one very urgent matter.]
[Why wasn't there any Immortal Qi in this place?]
[Where could you find Immortal Qi?]
[You couldn't just stop cultivating forever.]
[You decided to leave Liu Family Village and find the answers to these questions.]
[Just as you were about to leave that day, a fully armed army stormed into Liu Family Village.]
[They wore silver, barrel-like armor that wrapped them up tightly from head to toe.]
[Beneath them were tall, majestic warhorses.]
[In their hands, they carried three-to-four-meter-long cavalry lances.]
[Liu Tian told you these men belonged to the Winged God Church's Guardian Knight Order. Every single one of them was formidable, and ordinary people stood no chance against them.]
[The Guardian Knight Order contained no humans. They were the Scale Clan, whose bodies were covered in fish scales and who possessed both lungs and gills.]
[Behind the Guardian Knight Order, four white horses pulled a metal carriage.]
[The carriage was ornately decorated, and seated atop it was an "Angel."]
[—It had the same appearance as a human, but with a pair of white wings on its back.]
[Liu Tian told you this was the Winged God Church's White Priest, an exalted being that ordinary people must never provoke.]
[Looking at the White Priest's appearance, you thought to yourself, isn't this just the Winged Clan?]
[You'd seen them in the fifth simulation.]
[You speculated that the myriad races of the Void Realm, each occupying their own plane, had all mixed together in the Real Realm.]
[Seeing the Winged Clan, you couldn't help but think of their racial talent.]
["Come to think of it, I still need to grind their talent from them…"]
[The White Priest stood on the carriage, spreading his arms wide.]
["Sinners! The time for atonement has come!"]
[The villagers knelt in rows along both sides of the road, their foreheads pressed deep into the ground, not daring to look up.]
[You didn't act rashly.]
[You couldn't use your Divine Sense to probe now, so you had no idea how strong the opponent was, let alone how vast the Winged God Church's power was.]
[But you also didn't want to kneel to an alien race.]
[So you took out the cloth strips you'd wrapped around yourself before, wrapped yourself up like a mummy, and pretended to be a severely injured person lying on the ground.]
[At the same time, you used "Playing the Pig to Eat the Tiger" to suppress your cultivation level aura to the lowest state the trait tag's effect allowed.]
[The Winged God Church came to Liu Family Village to do three things.]
[First, release people.]
[Those like Liu Tian, who were old and whose strength had declined, would be released from their work sites and sent back to their hometowns to farm.]
[Second, collect grain.]
[The Guardian Knight Order searched every house, one by one.]
[If they couldn't find grain, they'd take the furniture, as if they wished they could scrape the plaster off the walls too.]
[Third, take people.]
[All people of appropriate age, regardless of gender, had to go with them to the church's hall, where they would be assigned work based on their cultivation talent, with the possibility of joining the Winged God Church.]
[The White Priest announced these three matters in a sacred, sing-song tone.]
[The villagers of Liu Family Village lay numbly on the ground, listened numbly, watched their belongings being ransacked numbly, and watched their children being taken away numbly.]
[This included Liu Ying.]
["Dad, I don't want to go… I've heard some people die there."]
[Liu Tian sighed.]
["Ying'er, if you don't go, you'll die right now."]
[You sat up from the ground.]
["Uncle Liu, I'll go with Ying'er."]
[You wanted to take this opportunity to get in touch with the Winged God Church, see if you could figure out the situation on Fortune Star from them, and also find a chance to feel out the Winged Clan members and grind their talent.]
[Liu Tian was at a loss for words. Of course, he wanted someone to look after his daughter, but his inherently kind nature made him reluctant to drag an outsider into danger on their account.]
[However, Liu Tian didn't have to agonize for long.]
[The White Priest noticed you.]
["There's actually a young able-bodied male here. Those people last year were really careless."]
[This guy spoke slowly and deliberately, his eyes half-closed. Even though he was clearly a man, his aura was very effeminate.]
[After glancing at you, he added.]
["You have cultivation? You're not from Liu Family Village, are you?"]
[You mentally praised yourself for being cautious.]
[The fact that he could tell you had cultivation meant he likely had Divine Sense, and his realm was definitely higher than yours. It was a good call not to make a move against him directly.]
["You're right, Priest. I'm not from Liu Family Village."]
["Which region are you from?"]
["I don't remember."]
["You don't remember?"]
["I was injured and fell into the river. Uncle Liu and his daughter fished me out. I can't remember anything before my injury."]
[Seeing the bloody cloth strips wrapped around you and getting confirmation from Liu Tian and his daughter, the White Priest didn't ask any more questions.]
[With your current displayed cultivation level at the Body Refining Realm, you were practically no different from an ordinary person in his eyes, not worth any special attention.]
["Come along, then. The church will not abandon any sinner. You'll be given a suitable job."]