The creaking of the wooden door immediately caught the attention of the Church Knight outside. His icy gaze snapped toward the sound, steel armor emitting a sharp clink as he raised his greatsword.

Norton's scalp prickled with fear. He quickly closed the door, leaving only a small crack, and whispered to the knight outside, "Wait! I just wanted to ask why there are no books about the Ascension Ceremony! These two books only explain the ceremony's origins, not the actual procedures!"

"You don't need to know that much!" A cold, raspy voice echoed from within the steel armor, chilling as the metal itself and filled with ruthless violence.

Norton reluctantly closed the door completely.

What did that mean? He was supposed to participate in the Ascension Ceremony! Why wouldn't they even show him the rules and procedures?

Could it really just be gathering together to recite the Bible?

But upon second thought, that seemed perfectly reasonable. Either they would gather to recite scriptures, or he'd be standing in some unimportant corner watching the entire ceremony as a dispensable newcomer.

After all, he had just been promoted to Missionary status. Naturally, they wouldn't assign him any significant responsibilities.

Besides, he'd never even heard of the Ascension Ceremony before, which suggested it must be a small, silent group ritual. They definitely wouldn't use him as a sacrifice! He was a newly promoted Missionary, after all.

If they wanted to kill him, they could just cut him down directly. No need to go through the trouble of some elaborate ceremony.

Norton comforted himself with these thoughts, finding them quite logical.

He finally relaxed a bit and sat back down on his bed.

A day and a half of confinement posed no problem for him. Having been isolated for over twenty years already, his greatest skill was lying or sitting around while letting his mind wander.

Aside from getting hungry without meals, there were no other issues.

While Norton lay on his bed counting imaginary cows and sheep, the Church was already busy preparing for the Ascension Ceremony two days later.

The Holy Lord Cathedral housed thousands of Church members, covering an absurdly large area. The largest section was the cemetery behind the cathedral.

This place held the remains of every priest and bishop who had served at Holy Lord Cathedral over centuries - those who weren't just disposable tools. When Norton was still an Acolyte, he had to come here monthly for cleaning duties.

He noticed the Church paid particular attention to memorializing the dead. Every month when the junior Acolytes came to clean, they could see piles of burned charcoal remnants.

Little Norton didn't realize these black ashes weren't from memorial offerings, but rather the burned-out firewood from Ascension Ceremonies. The source of thɪs content is novel•fire.net

And the next person to be burned would be him.

Ascension required death - that's why the Ascension Ceremony took place in the cemetery. Additionally, they used the purest faith and sacrifice to purify the cemetery's corruption, preventing the birth of unclean things like vampires.

So preparations had already begun here two days prior.

A wooden cross stood planted in the central clearing of the cemetery. The soil beneath bore indelible black ashes from countless firewood burnings, the earth itself turned charcoal black from repeated scorching.

The cross's vertical beam stood long and sturdy, with firewood piled high beneath it in layered stacks.

A barrel of mixed oil sat beside the firewood - accelerant for the Ascension Ceremony. This too was considered a sacred item.

Actually, previous Ascension Ceremonies hadn't used this oil. While firewood couldn't reduce a body completely to ashes, it could still burn someone to death, achieving the ascension.

But Norton's impure heart differed from previous ceremony sacrifices. If he wasn't thoroughly burned, he might turn into a vampire. Of course, this was just an excuse. The real reason was that Father Mia didn't want to see Norton's intact body, as it would pain and sadden him.

After all, watching such a handsome youth burn into a blackened, human-shaped charcoal would be truly heartbreaking.

The resulting ashes made excellent natural fertilizer, effectively enhancing soil fertility. Thus the entire cemetery flourished with green grass and trees, resembling a carefully maintained botanical garden.

This showed the Ascension Ceremony had its benefits. As the saying goes, fallen petals are not heartless things - they turn into spring mud to nurture flowers. Little Norton could still enrich the soil after being burned.

Missionaries came and went, arranging flowers to decorate the surroundings. Flowers used to symbolize holiness were the Church's most common and effective means of masking ground-level waste and the pervasive stench in the air.

Father Mia stood in a small pavilion within the cemetery, watching the missionaries prepare the ceremony grounds nearby.

Beside him stood the familiar Bishop Rosen, sipping red wine from his glass.

On the stone table before them lay a book Norton had never seen.

"Vampires"

The Holy Church had existed for thousands of years, though the Papal States had only been established about three hundred years ago. Research on vampires began with the Church's founding, with generations of members compiling studies for nearly a millennium, making their research quite comprehensive.

But only superficially comprehensive.

Whether because vampires fundamentally opposed God or not, the Church faced significant obstacles in vampire research.

Foremost was their inability to cultivate vampires themselves for observation and experimentation.

However, a thousand years of research made the Church believe they had largely identified the factors required for vampire creation. (This was the Church's presumption, not the book's actual setting)

1. Lack of faith, non-belief in God, extremely impure thoughts.

2. Death through extreme means.

3. Harboring immense resentment.

According to Church research records, vampire creation generally involved these three conditions. Yet experiments to deliberately create vampires never succeeded, as if their souls had already converted to God and couldn't be tainted by impurity. Or perhaps they carried God's holiness, preventing their corpses from turning unclean during execution.

This sounded like a powerful passive ability, but Church higher-ups found it regrettable. After all, vampires could achieve immortality. Despite their ugly appearance and blood-drinking habits, they remained undead, long-lived species most favored by important figures.

Many bishops attempted to transform themselves into vampires for immortality on their deathbeds, but none succeeded. Only those with impure faith who died filled with resentment during brutal killings had any chance of becoming vampires. (Just a possibility, still unlikely)

It seemed becoming a vampire required resentment even more pure than faith in God?

As for Norton, while his faith wasn't pure and he had independent thoughts, and the torture of Ascension Ceremony execution could stimulate resentment, his status as a Church member still made vampire transformation impossible.

But who could guarantee the research records were completely accurate?

Better to burn Norton thoroughly, completely preventing any chance of him becoming a vampire.