12 – Robert’s problem

With the incentive of Internet Coins, Internet users invited more and more people.

What started as 10 people became 16 by the end of the day.

The next day, the number that started at 16 had jumped to 33 people, earning me a total of 77 Divine Power Points after deducting the cost of running the Internet.

Among the new users, their main focus was on the [Library], especially the books on magic, because of those 17 new people, 10 of them had learned about the Internet because of Sam and Martha's celebration of their newly discovered magical talent.

The curious neighbors were puzzled as to why Martha was celebrating so much and went to find out what was going on.

Martha even thought about keeping the Internet a secret and bragging about her magical talent, but seeing the opportunity to get 100 Internet Coins in front of her, Martha thought long and hard and told them about the Internet.

Following her example, they also started using the Internet and tried to learn how to use their friend.

But magical talent wasn't that common.

Out of the ten people who learned about the Internet from Martha, only one person discovered that he had a magical talent, but it was a very basic talent.

But for ordinary people like them, even though the talent was basic, it was still a great reason to celebrate.

The next day, the number of people who knew about the Internet increased even more.

From 33 people the day before, the number of believers had risen to 60 the next day!

Some people just learned about the Internet and didn't tell anyone, while others took advantage of the fact that no one knew about the Internet and told people they trusted so that they would receive Internet Coins for those invitations.

That day I received a total of 150 Divine Power Points through the prayers of these believers!

Considering that the average for an ordinary god was for a believer to pray to him only once a week to receive an average of 150 Divine Power Points a day, that god would have to have more than 1,000 believers, while I received the same amount of Divine Power with only 60!

I didn't know how the other gods in the other cities were doing, but considering how impressive their powers were, I had no doubt that there were gods with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of worshippers from a single demonstration of power.

Besides, while I was in a realm controlled by logic-driven wizards who didn't care much for gods, as evidenced by how empty the local church was before I showed up, my competitors probably didn't have it that hard.

But I didn't let that deter me.

My growth might be slow at first, but once I had thousands of believers, my divine power would skyrocket.

Considering that a single follower of mine generated the same amount of Divine Power points as more than 17 follower of other gods, this was my great advantage.

After all, their worshippers praying once a day couldn't compete with my worshippers praying five or more times a day, seven days a week.

While I was analyzing the divine power I was receiving and thinking about what I could do with this divine power to make the Internet more interesting for them, I received a special prayer.

When I paid attention to it, I noticed that it was from Father Robert.

[Oh Great God of the Internet, thank you for all the changes you are making with your people. This old man would like to clear up some doubts that are haunting my old mind, if possible, could you send someone to help this old man?] He asked very sincerely through prayer.

Thinking about it, I decided to go down to the mortal world and see what Father Robert's doubts were.

Of course, I had to maintain my persona as Athenos, the messenger of God.

In front of Robert, the statue that had been standing still for three days finally began to move again, causing him to look at it in amazement and excitement.

"Thank you, Lord Athenos, for coming." Robert bowed respectfully as he thanked me.

I just nodded. "My god told me you needed help on your way..."

"Yes Lord Athenos, I'm sorry to bother you, it's just that in the last few days, with the popularization of the internet, this useless old man has realized even more how useless I was and I couldn't find anything useful I could do for our God..." Father Robert sighed.

When I heard that, I was surprised.

But when I thought about it, it was really true, Robert didn't have much to do.

With the Internet already spreading the prayer of the Internet God, and Robert knowing very little about me, he really didn't have as much use for believers as he used to.

Since I thought that the church was the ideal connection between the God and the believers, I knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to give it up, so I started to think of a solution.

Robert noticed me thinking and politely kept quiet while he waited for me to finish.

"I think I've come up with some ideas on how you can show your usefulness to the Internet God." I said after thinking of something.

There were no public schools in this world, except for magic schools, children learned to read and write at home from their parents, who were fortunate enough to be educated by their own parents.

But even though the percentage of literate people was higher than in other kingdoms, the percentage of illiterate people was still very high.

And to use the Internet, you had to be able to read what was on the Internet.

Since I couldn't teach people to read on my own, Father Robert could be useful!

When he heard that I had an idea, Robert became curious and looked at me excitedly.

"As you may have noticed, in order to use the Internet, a person must at least be able to read in order to understand the knowledge that the God of the Internet makes available to believers. But there are many people who cannot read...how about using the church to teach children and adults who cannot read to read so that they can use the Internet?" I suggested.

Upon hearing this and realizing how useful this would be to the God of the Internet, Robert's eyes lit up in amazement.

"Yes! I can do that!" He replied excitedly.

"Not only can you teach people to read and write, but you can also help people who don't know how to use the Internet to learn how to use it, helping believers to go even deeper in their faith in the God of the Internet." I explained, making Robert's eyes shine even brighter.

"Thank you Lord Athenos, with your enlightenment I already know what I need to do to be useful to the God of the Internet!" He said excitedly as he bowed to me in thanks.

Seeing how happy he was to be useful, I could imagine why they were like that.

After living in the church for so many years, even with difficulty and not knowing which God he was praying to, when the God finally appeared and he could be useful to that God, it was a little disheartening for Robert to find out that he couldn't do anything to help, as if his life's purpose could never be completed.

But with my ideas, Robert realized that he had several other ways to be useful besides just doing masses and trying to convince people to follow a path under his God.

Frankly, I didn't even need people to worship me as long as they used the Internet.

Considering how high the atheist rate was in my previous world, I'm sure people would still use a god's Internet even if they didn't believe in gods.

So for me, as long as the Internet was useful, it was worth it.

But this conversation also made me realize a major flaw in the Internet.

All the entertainment on the Internet today was for educated people, even though the number of illiterate people was very high.

So I had to think of something I could do that illiterate people could also enjoy on the Internet...

////NunuNote////

Comment on your ideas of what it can do for illiterate people. I already have an idea in mind, but your ideas could be useful for the next features, or even to improve the feature I'm already writing about.