Gods of the Baatorian Pantheon didn't really require Faith as they could increase their Godhood Index by absorbing and converting other energy into their God Force to increase their Godhood Index. Still, the Power of Faith was one of the fastest ways, though, of course, only after the Faith had been cleansed and refined.
In truth, Sirzechs didn't really like dealing with these fanatics, as they were mad and lost in their Faith, many of them not able to see any kind of reason.
So, he kind of admired that Rias was able not only able to work with them, but they also adored her, probably because she every time said exactly what they wanted to hear.
"Brother, I need your authorization to mobilize Executioner Temple and the Department of Intelligence for a new mission for the Ecclesiarchy."
Sirzechs sat with Rias in her office. Her office was located at the top tower of the Ecclesiarchal Palace, which was an enormous building, almost rivaling the Imperial Palace, as this was the spiritual pillar of the Empire. Sometimes Sirzechs really wondered how the religions were powerful and how they could be used as a method of control or weapon.
"What is it this time?"
Asked Sirzechs as he could see troubles coming. Every time, Ecclesiarchy did something, it usually resulted in a bloody war with someone, as the Churches of Gods they worshipped were pretty unruly and kept on creating enemies left and right.
"We found a few big sealed Dimensions in the Void; we are attempting to spread out Faith in, among them was even one entire Universe. These places could be a steady stream of Power of Faith in the future, so I need to obtain as much information as possible before we start spreading our roots there and preaching."
Spreading Faith was always the main task of the Ecclesiarchy, as they were the "mortal" instrument for their Gods. And, of course, the best place to spread their Faith were humans. They were not really mortal, but in the eyes of believers, they posed as mortals.
Usually, the Ecclesiarchy, which came into contact with some human civilization, they would at first analyze the civilization.
If it was primitive, the job was easy peasy, and they could start preaching.
If it was advanced, the progress was a bit complicated but straightforward. They would engineer the apocalypse of the civilization, destroy all of their technological or magical any other kind of advances, and create a new culture and new civilization from the ashes of the old one, which were fanatical believers of the Baatorian Gods.
Basically, enormous world-sized human farms of the believers. Not only did they get an enormous amount of Faith in their Gods, but they also farmed Souls, which were refined into Soul Power, and which was refined into Divine Crystals, Demonic Energy Crystals, or Mana Crystals.
Also, one of the big gains when breeding humans was that sometimes genetic mutations occur and rare bloodlines among humans would appear, and these ones were precious for some species among Baatorians who got stronger by devouring such bloodlines.
Around seventy years, she even sold one of such humans to one of the Generals of the Draco Aetherna Army who was stuck at the Heavenly Dragon Level for a very long time, for 50 million Soul Coins, which was an astronomical amount of money.
After eating the human alive, General broke through and reached Elder Dragon Class.
Of course, such things were rare, but as humans bred fast as rabbits when they were in safe environments and controlled, Ecclesiarchy would find a few of such humans every 100 years, as some of them were born with very unique and special bloodlines.
"Okey, I will authorize everything, anything else? How are you handling the Jihad?"
Asked Sirzechs in concern as he could see that Rias was overworked.
"Too much work; entire Jihad is overworking all Churches to maximum, as the number of active believers are increasing at least five times."
Believers were divided into several types based on how strong their Faith was and, thus how much Power of Faith they generated.
1st were the Non-Believers, 2nd were the Pseudo Believers, basically occasional or half-believers, then there were Shallow Believers, people with not so strong Faith, but not so weak either, so somewhere in the middle and they don't pray too often.
Then there were the important ones for the Gods.
True Believers were the foundation of every religion; they were people who truly believed in God and prayed often. Fanatics were just as the name said, blinded by their Faith and loyalty to God; these were the bests ones God could ask for.
And finally, there were Saints.
Saints were chosen for the Gods and were most devoted to God.
"We also took over several planes where the Dawn Lord was spreading the Faith in a similar way than we are, so I was forced to relocate a lot of manpower on handling this issue. One of these planes is a Secondary Grade 2 with a population of about 1 billion, and another one is some kind of Dimension in the Void, with a population of another 870 million, and we barely have enough priests..."
Complained Rias, as the manpower of the Ecclesiarchy was currently stretched as much as possible, as they were digesting the planes from the Dawn Lord.
Because the Dawn Lord's God Avatar has been cultivating his Faith for several Eras, he had entire planes where he was breeding and rearing his worshippers as any ancient animal breeder would. And to digest, all those places required a tremendous amount of work.
Sirzechs didn't really say anything, as he knew that Priest and other Clergy were more complex to train than even Custodians.
Not only were there requirements on the power of the Clergy, but also all of them must be Fanatician Level Believers, must obtain blessings from their gods, learn how to perform miracles, and a ton other things, so becoming a clergy was an arduous path.