Even a novice can become a god

Then, she turned around and instructed the guards behind her, "Quickly get Mr. Ryan ready."

Recently, Ryan had become accustomed to being fussed over by the princess and was also used to things like getting dressed up and changing clothes.

Many times, Ryan thought to himself privately, was it really necessary to make the simple act of dressing so complicated?

It took a full hour for Ryan to put on the ceremonial robe, which was composed of more than forty separate parts, with the help of four guards and two maids.

This was the first time Ryan had worn the full ceremonial robe; usually during training, he would only wear up to a third of it.

Without the princess's command, Ryan didn't dare leave the room after putting on the robe; this was an order the princess had given at the beginning of the training.

He waited until the princess came out of the inner chamber before daring to stand up from his chair. Seeing the princess in her court banquet attire, standing there so beautifully, Ryan didn't know how to describe it.

Because he now knew that wearing such beautiful clothes must be quite uncomfortable. Just that curly hairstyle would take two hours to perfect. Was it worth all that effort?

Following the princess outside, all the members of the delegation were already ready.

Looking at Ryan in his splendid attire and with his transformed noble demeanor, many people's eyes revealed envy.

Among them were gazes from his familiar companions, with Jiesitan's gaze being the most eager, as he most wanted to become a noble.

Looking at their gazes, Ryan could only shake his head and smile bitterly; others couldn't understand the various inconveniences hidden beneath these splendid appearances.

There was only one person who sympathized deeply with Ryan's view.

That person was the prince, who was also dressed up like a gorgeous zongzi (sticky rice dumpling). The prince sympathetically patted Ryan on the shoulder.

However, this action, which clearly disrupted the noble image, immediately drew a stern glare from the princess.

It was evident that the prince was quite afraid of his sister; he shrank behind Ryan in an instant. But he didn't know that Ryan also wanted to find a place to hide just now. Recently, he had almost developed a conditioned reflex; whenever the princess glared, he would tremble all over.

"We must first visit the Victory Temple; His Majesty the Emperor will receive us there," said the princess.

So that was it.

The group proceeded towards the Victory Temple under the protection of the holy knights.

The Victory Temple was located in the very center of Videsc and was originally the palace of the ancient magical empire.

During the Victory Day battle, the coalition led by the Twelve Heroes defeated the emperor of the magical empire. The ruins of the former palace were transformed into the Victory Temple, which originally enshrined the Twelve Heroes. However, due to subsequent deteriorating relations between countries, the Victory Temple removed all heroes except for the four from the Kingdom of Caoqi.

Regarding this action by the Kingdom of Caoqi, other countries responded in kind; therefore, although Ryan knew there were twelve Victory Day Heroes in total, he was only familiar with two from his own country (one of whom was Joel's ancestor).

Approaching the temple, one could clearly see the twelve triumphal arches in front of it from a distance; these were the only symbols representing the twelve Victory Day Heroes.

Passing through each triumphal arch, Ryan eagerly admired the exquisite reliefs carved on them. These twelve triumphal arches were truly magnificent. Ryan secretly decided that he must come here to have a good look in the future.

Ascending the temple, on the ten-meter-high white marble steps, densely stood the civil and military officials and court insiders of the Kingdom of Caoqi.

Among these people, some Ryan recognized, but most he had never seen before.

Parting the crowd, a young man in a golden robe approached; Ryan immediately realized he must be His Majesty the Emperor of the Kingdom of Caoqi, Helcos III. 

Seeing the arrival of the envoy from the Kingdom of Sophie, Helcos III immediately descended the steps to greet them. He warmly approached Princess Franzine and earnestly greeted her, "Your Highness, Princess, since you have come to my country, if there is anything inconvenient in your life, please be sure to let me know. I will have my ministers arrange everything so that you will feel as if you are in your own country."

"Oh, Your Majesty, your kindness is deeply appreciated. In your country, I find everything so wonderful. Here, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the warm hospitality you have shown us these days. And I wish Your Majesty good health and prosperity for your country."

Listening to the diplomatic and formulaic conversation between the princess and Helcos III, Ryan really had no interest. He stole a glance at the prince beside him, and it seemed that the prince was also uninterested in the current scene.

Finally, Helcos III ended his lengthy diplomatic etiquette.

He turned his head and had cordial conversations with each important member of the diplomatic delegation separately. He would first greet everyone warmly, except for Ryan.

When he came to Ryan, he stepped back two steps, looked Ryan up and down twice, and then turned back to ask Kobe Leo, the Great Archmage, "Is this young man the one who tied with your forbidden spell?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Kobe Leo said as he stepped forward two steps.

"Oh—not simple, not simple!" Helcos III said happily.

He looked at Ryan up and down several more times, then turned back to the princess and said, "I congratulate you. Your training in palace bridal etiquette for this gentleman has been quite successful."

Palace bridal etiquette training? What on earth was that? Ryan felt completely baffled.

But when he saw Helcos III's mysterious smile, Kobe Leo's usual half-smile expression, and everyone around him holding back their laughter with stiff faces, and even from a distance, he could see the ministers of the Kingdom of Caoqi pointing and laughing heartily...

Ryan knew there must be something wrong with him.

Among all the people present, only two did not join in the sneering. One was the princess, and the other was the old magician Mados.

Regarding the princess, Ryan would avoid her as much as possible, and of course, he didn't have the courage to ask her the reason for their laughter.

As for the serious-looking magician Mados, Ryan had always respected him greatly, so he couldn't disturb him with such a trivial question.

Just when Ryan thought it was impossible to know the reason, the prince beside him leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Ryan, my sister was afraid that you would make another fool of yourself in a diplomatic setting like last time, so she used a special training method from the royal palace to train you. This training method is designed for princesses who need to marry into foreign countries and can master the etiquette and living habits of a foreign country in a short time. This training method is called palace bridal etiquette training."

At the end, the prince added, "Ryan, you are quite lucky to be the first man to complete the palace bridal etiquette training. You will be remembered in history for this, and I envy you."

If one were to describe Ryan's feelings at that moment, it would only be with the word 'devastated'.

He had never expected that he would ultimately not escape the tragic fate of being a super laughingstock, and now it seemed that he would even become a subject of ridicule for all eternity.

Surrounded by curious gazes and sneering glances, Ryan followed the princess and the others into the temple.

Perhaps it was the solemn atmosphere of the temple that focused everyone's attention, but after entering the temple, Ryan felt much more relaxed.

Looking up, Ryan observed the entire temple. Since the architectural style of the Kingdom of Caoqi was completely different from that of the Kingdom of Sophie, with Sophie's architecture emphasizing multiplicity, complexity, and local decoration, while Caoqi focused more on wholeness and the overall sense.

The entire temple was composed of a massive dome structure, covering an area so large that only Kris's laboratory could compare to it.

However, the elegant and sacred decorations of this temple and the magnificence and beauty presented by the various reliefs embedded in it are simply incomparable to Kris's crude laboratory.

The entire dome of the temple is woven together by countless gilded and silver-colored rafters, setting off the lapis lazuli roof and appearing rigorous in structure and magnificent. The stories of the heroes of Victory Day are carved on the twelve reliefs on all sides.

Moving clockwise, Helcos III personally led everyone to visit those exquisite reliefs. In front of each relief, His Majesty would enthusiastically explain the story told by that relief.

In Ryan's view, Helcos III really has some talent as a commentator. He often speaks passionately and inspiringly, as if for a moment, everyone has returned to the era when heroes emerged in large numbers, bravely fighting and stubbornly resisting the powerful army of the Magical Empire in the baptism of magic and weapons, and fighting to the death with the twelve heroes against the seemingly immortal and infinitely powerful Magical Emperor.

The stories told by Helcos III are exciting for an ordinary person like Ryan, but not much. However, for knights like Oliver and Haomeng, these legends are the stories of the heroes they admire and revere.

Someone said that for knights without too deep a belief, heroes are their gods.

Referring to the current boundless reverence expressed by both royal knights and holy knights, Ryan now truly understands.

However, Ryan is quite unaccustomed to Helcos III always addressing the names of the heroes with respectful language.

Ryan is the kind of person born in a small town. He doesn't even pay much attention to other people's surnames, let alone the respectful language and names of heroes, which are all long and tricky. It's really hard to understand and remember.

However, he dared not interrupt casually, because before setting off, he had been severely admonished by the princess not to talk nonsense, not to move around casually, not to interrupt casually, not to ask questions, not to eat casually, not to sit casually, not to walk around casually, not to... Anyway, Ryan really couldn't remember how many things he wasn't allowed to do.

He only remembered the last sentence the princess said: "If you disgrace me again this time, hmph..." As for what was after the hmph, Ryan was absolutely not interested in knowing.

He had already experienced the princess's temper. When this princess goes crazy, she is no less formidable than her aunt.

Fortunately, although he didn't raise this question, there were still people very interested in this question, always extremely curious about everything about heroes, and daring to violate the princess's orders to ask questions. Of course, it could only be Oliver, a member of the glorious knight family.

Unlike the princess, the prince and Joel, who had received court education since childhood and understood the meaning of various respectful languages well and had studied systematic history, fully understanding all the details of Victory Day battle (therefore, Helcos III, who had received the same education, could serve as an excellent historical commentator).

Although Oliver also has a noble status, the education he received is far from comparable to royal education. Like ordinary people, he was forbidden to learn about the deeds of heroes from other countries since childhood. Now that he has heard what he has always wanted to know, how could he not be curious and find out clearly?

Hearing Oliver's request, Helcos III was not surprised. After all, every country adopts the same approach to educational issues, and the subjects of the Kingdom of Caoqi are also completely unaware of the deeds of heroes from other countries.

Therefore, he stopped and patiently answered, "Among the three heroes of our country, the leading hero was revered as the Martial Saint in his time, and his name was Xin Luoyan. Whether as a knight or a swordsman, the Martial Saint Xin Luoyan was unstoppable. It was this hero who finally defeated the emperor of the Magical Empire.

The second of the three heroes is a divine archer revered as a Demon Hunter. Unfortunately, his archery skills have been completely lost. Back in the day, this hero was the one who eliminated the most imperial magicians among the twelve heroes.

The third hero is the only female among the twelve heroes. She is the Holy Maiden Luciya, the sole inheritor and user of the highest holy magic in a thousand years and also the first generation guardian of this temple."

After hearing the legendary names described by Helcos III, Ryan felt a sense of déjà vu. He turned to look at Oliver and saw that Oliver also had a puzzled face. At the same time, he noticed that Jiesitan was also scratching his head, as if he was trying hard to recall something.

 However, despite his doubts, Ryan did not become distraught like Oliver and Jiesitan. This was, of course, thanks to the princess's strict and special training methods, which enabled Ryan to remain calm in the face of less severe accidents (of course, this only applied to less severe situations. Soon, Ryan discovered the limit of his ability to remain calm; it was much smaller than he thought). While Ryan was wondering why Helcos III only mentioned the names of three heroes, when the legends he had been describing since earlier clearly had four protagonists, and why Helcos III hadn't mentioned the fourth person...

Helcos III clearly saw Ryan's doubts and led everyone to a relief, pointing at it and saying to Ryan, "Look, this is the fourth founding hero of our country - the demon beast Fandosi."

Ryan looked up in alarm and couldn't help jumping up and down, stammering and exclaiming, "Wolf, wolf, old wolf, old wolf..."

Seeing Ryan bouncing around and exclaiming in such a ridiculous manner, everyone around, including Helcos III, felt both amazed and amused.

Of course, the princess was an exception. At this moment, she wished she could kick Ryan to death. She had worked so hard to train this guy to finally look presentable, but in the end, he still embarrassed her so much. This was a complete loss of face.

Very good, very good, the princess made up her mind that when she got back, she would give Ryan an intense etiquette training session that he would never forget in his life.

At this moment, Oliver and Jiesitan, who were immersed in trying to recall, were also awakened by Ryan's strange behavior. They saw Ryan facing them, pointing at the relief with his hand and jumping up and down. Although it was ridiculous, Ryan clearly wanted to draw their attention to something.

Oliver and Jiesitan looked in the direction Ryan was pointing, and both jumped up and shouted face to face, "Old wolf."

The princess saw all this and was both angry and frustrated. Two more unlucky people had been added to her etiquette training list.

Everyone looked very strangely at these three people behaving oddly, then looked up at the relief. There really didn't seem to be anything particularly astonishing about it.

On the relief, a three-headed demon wolf was carved standing upright. The clouds in the sky on the relief were curling into unnatural spirals.

Around the demon wolf, the four elemental magic spirits symbolizing the four types of magic were also carved. They stood guard around the demon wolf like four warriors, ready to sweep away all enemies before them.

Seeing the three young men gradually calming down, Helcos III asked, "What is described here is the story of the fourth hero, the demon beast Fandosi, using the super forbidden spell - 'Heaven and Earth Collapse' to eliminate all the magician corps of the Magical Empire. May I ask why you are all so surprised?"

Regarding Helcos III's question, Ryan and the others didn't know how to answer.

After all, if they told the truth to everyone present that they had traveled with the founding hero of this country for several days and finally saw this predecessor hero from five hundred years ago fight fiercely with their teacher, the Princess Royal of the Kingdom of Sophie, and the result was a tie, with even the super forbidden spell not harming their teacher at all.

If they said this directly, firstly, whether the people present would believe it was a question. Another question was, if the people present believed what they said, when they learned that there was such a powerful magician in the Kingdom of Sophie, what impact it would have on this diplomatic mission was unimaginable.

While the three diplomats were racking their brains trying to come up with a plausible explanation, a deep and steady voice came from the other end of the great hall.

"Welcome, Your Majesty, welcome, Your Highness the Princess, and all the honored guests from the Kingdom of Sophie present here, and especially welcome the companions of the heroes."

As the voice approached, an old man in a white robe slowly walked over from the other end of the great hall.

Ryan watched the old man closely. He saw that the old man was holding a cane with a blue gem embedded in the top in his hand. His hands full of sinewy veins and his wrinkled forehead indicated that the elder had traveled a long life path.

 His deeply sunken eyes indicated that this old man was actually blind. All these signs proved that the old man in front of him should be the Grand High Priest Melon of the Kingdom of Caoqi.

Ryan had heard a great deal about this Grand High Priest Melon. Just like the magician Mados in their delegation, Melon was one of the only two God-descended priests in the entire world.

Melon worshipped the God of Wisdom, Aitartanscat. And like the magician Mados, he was also a magician with the strength of a Great Archmage.

However, since he served the God of Wisdom, and the royal family of the Kingdom of Caoqi also worshipped the God of Wisdom, he took on the position of Grand High Priest, a position that should have been held by clergy. For a magician, this was indeed a rather strange matter.

The Grand High Priest who walked in front of everyone gave Ryan a feeling of being completely seen through, as if in front of this wise man, everything became transparent and presented itself in the eyes of this great magician.

And this feeling not only came from the front, but it seemed to be everywhere, as if there were a pair of divine eyes in heaven observing this world.