Mage Manual
Chapter 522 - 426 Additional Gospel

Chapter 522: Chapter 426 Additional Gospel

After leaving Mongfera, the funeral party changed their means of transportation several times and safely arrived at their destination, Fidel.

Ash thought Hanna must have some local contacts here, as the only faction they hadn’t offended in the entire Gospel was Lala Fei. If there were no contacts, they would be met with either betrayal or gun bullets.

However, according to Hanna, "This is a city where one can safely conceal oneself even if they have offended the whole world."

And it was indeed so.

This was because Fidel was an area where Gospel influence was extremely weak. It wasn’t that the area was some kind of magic-prohibiting territory where the Gospel couldn’t function, but rather because the people here were too poor to afford to listen to the Gospel.

Listening to the Gospel required Gospel Points, and the only source of these points was to be listed on the charts. Geniuses could list themselves, of course, while the only way for the ordinary masses to earn points was to mooch off city points and collective points—that is, the city distributing points to all citizens, and companies distributing profits to employees.

But there was a problem: there were limited spots on the charts, so certainly, there would be cities and companies unable to make the list.

Azura, Vatican Mura, and Mongfera were all cities ranked at the top of the charts, so both the city and businesses had a good influx of points every year. These points were then reinvested in production, resulting in these cities constructing strong initial advantages in their respective fields, swiftly completing new modernized constructions, one after another raising up double-layered cities.

In contrast, Fidel was like the backdrop group that couldn’t make it onto any chart, existing mainly to highlight how excellent the listed cities were.

What, you ask why a backward city doesn’t strive to catch up and aim to become a national model city? This is the same reason single dogs don’t break away from singles, why authors don’t update their books, and why people shot at by bullets don’t dodge.

Public safety, organizational power, GDP, education levels... these metrics were not independent but interrelated.

Except for Mongfera and Vatican Mura, which cheated using Miracles, let’s take Azura as an example: because everyone listened to the Gospel, public safety was good, everyone willingly received education, businesses had a conducive environment to thrive, overall city standards rose, then they ranked well, citizens earned Gospel Points, and then citizens had even more motivation to listen to the Gospel...

Therefore, if all aspects failed to get listed, it didn’t mean the city was slightly lacking, but rather to the extent of being deep in the mud—because it was not part of any positive feedback loop at all!

Fidel was the prime example. As a city among the top five populations, its competition was with first-tier cities like Azura. However, the gap between it and Azura could be summarized in one sentence: Fidel had no schools.

Azura’s public schools had education pods, where anyone could lie down and enjoy a customized education. Such welfare facilities were nonexistent in Fidel, not because the Empire didn’t provide them, but because anything sent there would be dismantled and sold by the locals.

This led to Fidel’s second distinctive trait: Red Hats only took responsibility for the wealthy central district. As for crimes in other areas of Fidel, the Red Hats completely ignored them.

Disorder, lack of education, and lack of government defined the three major features of Fidel.

It wasn’t that the citizens of Fidel yearned for freedom, but rather the result of complex strategizing—simply put, the Empire distributed points annually based on the city population ratio. The upper echelons in Fidel early on believed that Fidel couldn’t compete with other cities, hence any supplemental points would be wasted. Thus, they might as well let the residents spend it themselves.

Lacking point-assisted governance, Fidel naturally decayed day by day, but this ulcer-like city attracted special attention: companies wanting to conduct dirty work in unlawful areas, and anarchists longing to break free from Gospel constraints.

Bribery, buying off, dereliction, collusion... Crimes that would be exposed by the Gospel Book in other cities thrived anew in this cesspit, with the cooperation of all involved. As for the Red Hats, they acted as if they knew nothing—being the lowest-ranked Red Hats in the entire Gospel, their non-involvement in crimes was solely due to the professional contract restrictions of their roles.

After decades of deterioration, Fidel had completely degenerated into a chaotic city of freedom. Hanna choosing to seek refuge here was indeed an excellent choice—don’t forget, though the locals here were too poor to afford the Gospel, Hanna herself was a rich lady who could afford to pray for Gospel blessings!

After seeing her mother and Yvalin’s wealth, Hanna was indeed only a rich lady in Ash’s eyes. However, even as just a rich lady, she could cause a dimension-reducing strike in a primitive society like Fidel.

Ordinary people without Gospel Points couldn’t even investigate their identities. Hanna prayed for a fixed ’Random Avatar Blessing’ in the house, and as long as they moved around the house, their appearances were swapped with others to outsiders, so there was no fear of identity exposure.

If it were in a normal city, Hanna wouldn’t dare to pray for such a blessing. In a regular Mage’s reconnaissance pack, including Miracles, Technique Spirits, Blessings, and dozens of other items, for only 10 points one could detect all anomalies within a hundred meters, Purple Moth daring to pray for a fixed blessing was practically saying to others, "Look at me, I’m super suspicious here."

But in a dirt-poor place like Fidel, such blessings were more practical than ever.