Pioneer Lord: Starting From Daily Intelligence

In the days that followed, Demster personally appeared on the ruins of Rapids Castle. Apart from the clanging sounds of dwarves repairing the walls and fortresses, there was also an unusual sight — Mole Knights were directing engineers to build Mole’s Garden.

He first cleared an area of relatively flat bedrock in the part of Rapids Castle facing the river, where the shelling and Sea Dragon had caused the most destruction. Then he directed the dwarves to transport two massive stone pillars from a nearby quarry. These were erected on the base, one black as night, the other as pale as bone, forming a heavy lintel without doors. This was the symbol of Mole’s Divine Hall — the Gate of Life and Death. On the lintel, Demster personally engraved the runes of the Mole Church.

These were the two divine magics he mastered: one was to destroy the undead — using stakes or stone pillars as catalysts to deal damage to undead series targets. Virtually any ship passing in front of this Gate of Life and Death would harm any undead creatures on board.

The other divine magic was the threshold line — a Mole believer draws an 8-yard line on the ground while praying to Mole. Any undead creature would find it difficult to cross. The power of this line would last until sunrise, with each undead creature having only one chance to cross it. If the line is not a closed loop, the undead might circumvent it, so the line is often drawn as a ring or to block a gate.

The content of this divine magic looks complex; indeed, its effect is not simple either. First, this threshold requires daily prayers from Mole’s priests to gain the authority of Mole as Death Watcher, drawing a rule-binding boundary between the world of the living and the domain of death. This alone is enough to attract Mole’s followers to make pilgrimages here and to station themselves here. Under this line imbued with divine power, it forms a formidable barrier against all types of undead creatures, including ghosts, zombies, skeletons, vampires, and corpse demons.

Demster drew a straight line, but as a divine chosen hosting the divine ritual personally, the effect extended over 30 meters, enough to cover half of the Brionne River.

In terms of effect, this was almost like a security line, significantly reducing the probability of undead monsters infiltrating from downstream to upstream, into the Flash Spear City Plain or around Heisen City Plain.

After erecting this gate, Demster then supervised the dwarf engineers to continue extending behind the gate. Behind the gate, instead of a grand hall, it was a deep, vast underground space carved and expanded downward along the cliff faces and ruins.

Following the doctrine, Demster maintained an austere style internally. The walls and dome were made of neatly cut gray rocks, without excessive reliefs or decorations, leaving only specific spots reserved for niches and recesses for embedding lighting crystals. The design for air circulation was extremely clever, using natural fissures in the cliff and ventilation shafts dug by dwarves to ensure the interior of the Divine Hall always maintained a constant, dry, slightly cool "tomb-like" feeling. At the end of the Divine Hall stood a smooth stone wall, in front of which was reserved a stone platform that would become the main altar. The altar faced the Gate of Life and Death, symbolizing the end of the path of death.

To one side of the Divine Hall’s main body, Demster planned a tightly enclosed area with tall stone walls, which in the future would be Mole’s Garden. Currently, it was still barren land, with only black fertile earth neatly laid out. Demster personally collected some scorched earth deeply contaminated by shellfire and Sea Dragon’s desecration energy from the battlefield, mixing it with silt from the bottom of the Brionne River and scattering it within.

"Fertile soil of death," he commented, "will grow the most beautiful black roses in the future."

The garden’s sole entrance was a heavy stone door reserved within the Divine Hall, presently tightly shut.

Along the garden’s outer walls, simple stone houses began to be erected, intended as the future dwellings of Mole Priests and Tomb Guardians stationed here.

In just over ten days, a structure emerged from the ruins and scars of Rapids Castle, or rather delved deep into the ground, completely different in style from any Imperial Cathedral or Manan Divine Hall. It lacked ornate decorations and towering spires, featuring only those silent standing black and white stone pillars and behind them a deep, cold, silent entrance exuding an instinctively breath-holding, spine-chilling solemnity and awe.

The aura of death was skillfully guided and constrained within this area, no longer wantonly spreading, but rather forming a peculiar "sense of order".

Upon completing the main body of the structure, this powerful church and Mole’s Holy Land successfully received the descent of Mole’s Divine Grace.

The Holy Land designed meticulously by Demster began to show effects, with Rapids Castle Watchtower Gate becoming a divine hall area, exuding the orderly aura of death that was guided and constrained, greatly reducing the probability of spontaneous low-level undead sprouting within and around its range.

Whether the fertile soil of death carefully cultivated by him, along with the river water from the upstream Saint Leonard’s Shallow Bay, could grow black roses was yet to be seen, but the Ghost Vine was successfully transplanted here!

The Dawn Goddess Church and Mole Church combined efforts, planting more than 60 Ghost Vines in this Mole Garden, which left the West Commerce Association in disbelief.

It should be known that Mole’s Holy Lands are very numerous in the West Highlands. Their West Territory is the core heartland of the Mole Church, just as the Sulande Province believes in the Goddess of Justice, the Midlands Province believes in Yurik, and the Avalan Province believes in Redema.