Chapter 119 — The Shifting Faith of the Druids

Hearing Gao Song's words, Pi Yun's eyebrows couldn't help but twitch: "Very few people know that much about the history of druids."

"I wouldn't call it knowing much. It's no secret that druidic arts were born out of natural divine arts; it's just that the people of this era have too narrow a breadth of knowledge," Gao Yang said lightly. "Back in the days of the Gondor Empire, the many druidic schools all had their plaques hanging in the Empire's Hall of Sacred Knowledge."

"Heh heh, I forgot again—there's no judging you by common sense, you ancient relic from seven hundred years ago," the little old man chuckled, beginning to tidy up the tools for compounding potions. "You're right, of course. All druidic arts derive from the natural divine arts of primeval times. In fact, druidism was originally a pure religion, no different from today's Church of the Holy Light or the War God's sect. But as time passed, many religions declined and vanished, and those that managed to barely carry on... either became cults, or transformed their form like the Order of the Forest Dusk."

"The druids are split into countless factions—Heart of the Woods, Spirits of Nature, the Wild Sect, the Grotto School, the Elementalists... I can name five or six off the top of my head, and those are just the big ones. The small ones must number several dozen," Gao Yang said fluently. "They say the split among druids first began with the 'Fall of the White Star' three thousand years ago. The original Forest Dusk religion underwent a massive internal upheaval after that event, and in a short span of time fractured into a great many schools, large and small. You all once worshipped a single 'God of Nature' with no definite form, but after the White Star fell, that faith changed along with it..."

Though Pi Yun looked like an unreliable druid, his arts were proof enough that he had received a complete druidic inheritance, so answering in matters of professional common knowledge put no strain on him at all: "The God of Nature split into many forms, and every school claimed its own interpretation was the correct one. Some worshipped the spirits of the forest, some the spirits of nature, some even worshipped beast spirits or elemental spirits elevated to divinity... That's hardly a secret. But unlike other religions after they split, though the druids' concepts grew somewhat fragmented once they divided into many sects, we never actually came to blows. Every faction has coexisted in peace—even before the 'Sacred Covenant' was laid down, the druidic factions were at peace."

Gao Yang wore an expression of interest: "I really don't know the specific reason for that. Would you tell me?"

"Every faction upholds one rule: the druids share one source though their paths diverge, and whatever road they walk in the future, druids are forever brothers and sisters," Pi Yun said, stroking his beard. "This isn't some mere organizational regulation—it's the Druidic Code. Before receiving the inheritance, one must swear a deadly oath upon one's own soul."

Gao Yang rubbed his chin and quietly filed this piece of knowledge away, then steered the conversation back to arts and divine arts: "The transformation of the Forest Dusk religion's original natural divine arts into the druidic arts of later ages—that happened in this same process, didn't it?"

Pi Yun nodded: "That's right. It was completed slowly over the long ages after the White Star fell and the factions split."

Gao Yang: "That final step just now, when you blessed the potion you'd brewed—that's actually a vestige left behind by the original druidic divine arts?"

Pi Yun nodded with a half-smile, but said nothing.

Such were the druidic arts—the most peculiar "magic" in this world. It was perhaps the only magic whose origin could be clearly stated, yet that origin pointed to the gods. Three thousand years ago, the druids had been a unified religion; merely because of a cataclysmic event that had since passed into legend, the religious druids became scattered schools and organizations, and the divine arts they commanded inexplicably became magic.

To this day, a faint shadow of divine rite still lingered in these arts—a blessing invocation, perhaps, or a specific sacred symbol—but in truth these "divine portions" had long since lost any practical function. They were more a cultural and spiritual inheritance, a token of devotion. The more proper druids would faithfully reproduce these sacred steps that no longer did anything at all, while the less proper ones—Pi Yun, say—would simply mutter a few random phrases during casting to stall for time.

But how had divine arts become magic?

The two powers ought to be utterly distinct things. The former came from the gods and required devout prayer, fusing one's body, mind, and spirit with the will of the god so as to "borrow" mighty power; the latter came from the caster's own strength and understanding of the world. Their very sources were different.

After so many years of evolution, druidic arts had become magic with distinct characteristics—as when Pi Yun prepared runes and chanted incantations, all of it using personal power to call forth "natural miracles"—whereas standard divine arts contained no such steps.

So some had made bold conjectures about this. A few scholars even believed that the druids of three thousand years ago had used some forbidden ritual to wholly usurp the power of the gods, turning "natural miracles" that could only be wrought through divine arts into magic that could be reproduced by human hands. And the so-called Fall of the White Star was not the meteor shower recorded in the history books at all—it was in fact the God of Nature plunging from the divine realm after losing its authority...

The druids, of course, would never admit such a claim, but Gao Yang had to say... it was rather convincing.

He would certainly not raise such a conjecture in front of Pi Yun, and merely said offhandedly: "Why do you think only you druids succeeded in turning divine arts into magic? Why couldn't the clergy of other sects?"

The little old man's face twitched at once: "You're asking me, but who am I supposed to ask? Don't you know my real level? Just learning my own school's skills nearly killed me—where would I find the spare capacity to study others..."

"And yet you can fry, stir-fry, boil, deep-fry, tell fortunes, cast hexagrams, read the stars, and mind children—all of it?"

"...That's not the same thing at all..."

Gao Yang didn't press Pi Yun further on the matter, but said as though musing aloud: "They say a follower of the Holy Light once tried to reforge divine arts. He studied the abilities of mages and attempted to invoke the Holy Light the way one casts magic—only to be devoured by the Holy Light run amok, reduced to a pile of ash."

Pi Yun gave a couple of hollow, mirthless hums: "Hah, and that's a case the Radiant Sun Church deliberately publicized, to warn off anyone who shows the Holy Light too little respect and tries to be clever by stealing its power."

"A priest of the Radiant Sun Church releasing Holy Light miracles through magic gets devoured by the Holy Light, yet a priest of the Forest Dusk order releasing natural miracles through magic has no problem at all," Gao Yang said, looking at the alchemical implements and the workbench carved with runes and magic circles, and shaking his head slightly. "What do you think is the biggest difference there?"

"Because our god is broad-minded," Pi Yun said, drawing a religious sign over his chest with great solemnity, "and the Holy Light is petty."

He looked very serious and proper, but Gao Yang was quite certain the little old man held no reverence whatsoever for the God of Nature.