After the expedition party was wiped out in the Valley of the Tragic Dead, the other Players in the newbie village stayed put and waited for the expedition members to revive. That was when Xi Wei turned his eyes to the other side.
Leah Yakaran was leading her few remaining guardsmen across the mountains towards the newbie village outside the Valley of the Tragic Dead, and was currently resting in a small city called Wickidor to resupply.
The city was not far from the Valley of the Tragic Dead, and Xi Wei estimated that they would reach the newbie village in a day or two.
Leah's guardsmen were shallow believers of the God of Games in the first place, and were the kind of people who would pray a little when they see the statue of the God of Games. However, it was a habit they had developed since young when the Tierra Empire still existed, and they were not the type who would pray piously every day.
After Xi Wei saved them when they were surrounded by the cultists of the Rotten Bones Church (although Xi Wei's main objective was to save Leah, and they were just collateral damage), the guardsmen's faith in the God of Games had become much more pious.
After Leah's class-change to Warrior Princess class and gradual display of her power as she leveled up along the journey, the guardsmen immediately skipped the stage of true believers and directly became devout believers of the God of Games.
After all, Leah's hidden class, Warrior Princess, was no different from Eleena's Saintess-in-training class, and was a bug-like character who would completely overwhelm other Players of the same level in terms of combat ability. Moreover, the other Players were still in basic classes, and the class-change system had yet to appear.
In any case, the Players of this world were his believers, and he did not have to worry about their protests breaking the balance of the game …
The guardsmen who had followed Leah until now were handpicked by the Tierra royal family, and as former royal guardsmen, they were devout believers of the God of Games from a young age.
If not for the God of Games not showing any miracles when Tierra was wiped out, causing their faith in him to crumble, Xi Wei would have gained a bunch of fanatics the moment he transmigrated!
Be that as it may, after they regained their faith, they got into character faster than other believers and became devout believers in no time at all.
Interestingly, however, when the guardsmen broke through the ranks of shallow believers and activated the system, they all chose the warrior class at the same time.
That instantly pulled up the proportion of warriors, with mages and rangers following closely behind, while there was no choice for clerics.
After thinking about it for a moment, Xi Wei understood the reason for this.
In the game system's initial Job Advancement page, he had included a demonstration and explanation of some Job Advancement skills. Regardless of whether it was on Earth or in this world, most people liked to be a hero and deal damage. Therefore, as long as the believers looked at the class descriptions and videos, there was no doubt that brave and fierce warriors and powerful and cool mages were the top choices. Rangers were also very flashy, and they were agile and light ranged players. Therefore, they were quite popular.
Clerics, on the other hand, not only did they have to face their enemies head-on, but their skills in the early stages were all support and not cool at all. Naturally, no one wanted to change their class.
All Xi Wei wanted to say was, 'Don't you fools know that clerics are the class closest to gods?!' Once the Class Change System is completed, I'll definitely let you know what the horror of this version is …
Be that as it may, he couldn't descend to the mortal realm and grab the heads of his believers and force them to choose clergies. Moreover, clergies were certainly a little weak in the early stages, and there was nothing wrong with having more classes when the Players were not even level ten.
Either way, once the number of believers increased, the number of clergies would definitely increase as well with the lessons learned from the mistakes of the early Players …
In comparison, when Xi Wei was observing Leah and the others, he unwittingly noticed that the Rotten Bones cultists were starting to appear in the town they were in.
At first, Xi Wei was shocked that the cultists' faction had expanded to Wickidor in just a few days. Still, he realized that was not the case after a closer look. There were only a handful of cultists in Wickidor, and if a god had a stronghold in the city (such as a church or something like that), the area around the stronghold would be shrouded in divine might, and even other gods would not be able to observe it.
Still, Xi Wei did not find such an area in Wickidor.
By observing the actions of the cultists, Xi Wei realized that they were here specifically to hunt down Leah and the others, with Carlo, the middle-aged man who had betrayed the God of Games among them.
While the specific reason was unclear, the cultists must have noticed the traces left by Leah and the others after they were teleported, and used some special method to track them.
Xi Wei relaxed at once when he came to that conclusion. As long as the Rotten Bones' faction did not expand and his divinity did not improve in essence, he had nothing to fear.
As for the safety of Leah and the others, Xi Wei was not worried at all.
To be fair, not only did the cultists sent by the Rotten Bones church outnumber Leah's group, each of them were elites who would not lose out to Carlo. While the cultists might not be as strong as Carlo in terms of raw power, Xi Wei could feel the blessings of another god — the Rotten Bones Church. That blessings alone would put them on par with Carlo!
After all, Carlo was the captain of Tierra's royal guards and Princess Leah's swordsmanship teacher. One could imagine how powerful he was!
The reason the Rotten Bones Church sent so many champions to hunt down Leah was probably because they were afraid that Leah and the others would give themselves up to the righteous churches such as the Brilliant White Church, and tell the other churches about their original hiding spot in Lancaster as well.
After all, the Rotten Bones Church's bishop was currently located there. If the other righteous churches learned about it, the Rotten Bones Church that had just taken root would be directly uprooted by the other righteous churches. Even if they weren't wiped out, they would be greatly weakened!
If this had happened a few days ago when they were surrounded, Leah and the others would have no chance of surviving the pursuit of this group of champions!
However, things were different now. Putting aside the fact that Lia and the others had been killing monsters and leveling up throughout their journey after obtaining the System, they had already gained and grasped brand-new powers. Even if they were to take ten thousand steps back and assume that Lia and the others were no match for them, so what if they were all wiped out in the face of pursuit?