Chapter 163 Fishing Day (Part 1)_1

The holy spring flowing from the sanctuary winds through the city along a canal filled with flowers. It churns and bubbles, dancing in the air to create spots of rainbow-like light. Out of the statue fountain in the square sprung jets of water gleaming like oil. The holy citizens, carrying baskets and shepherding their flocks, walked across the square.

Every so often, angels in white robes and bare feet would pass through the crowd. They smiled and greeted the crowd, crossing their chests in the sign of the cross. They asked about heaven's recent affairs and exchanged pleasantries regarding the amusing anecdotes from the cosmos they were tasked with keeping.

Countless multiverses share a single heaven, but not every angel has admin privileges. The vast majority remain as files within the divine computer, like antivirus software, while only the archangels, led by Lucifer, operate it like programmers sitting in front of a computer.

In other words, only the archangels are unique. The newly born angels cannot use clones or projections to manage the cosmos, which is why new angels are continually being birthed in heaven as the number of cosmos continues to increase.

Whenever a new cosmos is added, new angels are born from the holy spring. They typically inspect the new cosmos before taking up positions in the relevant heavenly departments, responsible for specific cosmos' upkeep.

The archangels preside over heaven, but they also have countless clones and projections in every cosmos. The newborn angels mainly ensure the stability of the church and faith, while the archangels must maintain the normal order and stability of the cosmos itself.

Mortals can summon different angels through special runes and energy pathways designated by Heaven. However, arrays for summoning archangelic projections are much more complicated than those for summoning new angels. Few individuals in the cosmos could master these arrays, and they are predominantly well-known characters in comics.

Angels don't truly need power or faith to respond to summons- it's more an appearance indicator within the comic context, particularly for the Archangels. They were created by God himself as perfect beings, why would they require an offering from mortals?

To put it plainly, their countless projections and distribution throughout each cosmos stem from the editors' consideration of religious influence in plot design. They occasionally allow certain characters with religious elements to respond to summons, providing legitimate reasons to participate in the storyline. This is part of the fundamental setting of the cosmos.

However, for all creatures in the cosmos, this is a real world, not some comic where a magic array appears with a change of a frame or a jump of a grid. This is a specialized discipline; mortals need to study and research to gain the skill to summon angels.

Yet, herein lies the problem. Mortals' learning capacity is far from flawless; it is riddled with mistakes. They prefer short-cuts, often recklessly simplifying the arrays without considering the outcome. They're also efficiency chasers, fond of adding all kinds of strange catalysts to the arrays.

There's a department in heaven specifically designed to respond to summons. Their job is to answer calls from human mages. However, sometimes even the angels in this department are baffled. Human calls are made, but they are incomplete or possibly wrong. Sometimes, they hang up without leaving an address, or when connected, it's unclear what they are saying.

Despite the archangels' omniscience and omnipotence, they can't simply sit by the phone all day solving puzzles, can they?

Humans are short-lived creatures. With each generation, much knowledge is lost. The original system of runes passed down to today has become like the Western city of Jerusalem; even in orthodox churches, various prayer formulas and communication languages have been lost or altered substantially.

Upon Lucifer's return to Heaven, he discovered that the summons department was semi-paralyzed. This was a primary reason Gabriel could wreak havoc in the world unnoticed for so long. Complaint calls couldn't get through, angels couldn't communicate properly with their designated followers. With Michael declaring peace and stability, Gabriel had free rein to create chaos.

Lucifer wanted to change the current situation. His initial plan was to directly modify the base files of the cosmos, altering the thoughts of all mages or followers who communicate with heaven, forcibly making them remember the runes.

But on second thought, humans have such short lives, with every hundred years bringing a new generation, and within just ten generations, everything would be forgotten again. Was he to repeat this every thousand years? Wouldn't he tire himself to death?

Most importantly, God may have overestimated the memory and professionalism of humans. The initial runes and prayer system are so complicated that even the angels can't bear to look.

To start, you need to depict a highly intricate array and offer a dozen-odd things out of thousands of possible offerings according to the array's function. Then cozy up to specific movements and prayer languages, using special power-infusion techniques, and only then might you get through to an angel.

The complexity was intended to weed out the less devout followers, preventing heaven's phone line from being slammed. But even the most devout followers inevitably miss something when teaching this method. Moreover, certain smart alecks thought they could simplify the process without compromising functionality. After several generations, the entire method had lost its original form and function.