As time passed, Lin Mo had gathered nearly half of the church's injured patients, leaving the other priests completely dumbfounded.

Was this even allowed?

The clergymen present were also sweating profusely, quickly arranging for someone to inform the bishop about the situation.

"Bishop Fletcher..."

Fletcher put down the documents in his hand and looked up at the clergyman before him.

"What's happening outside?"

He had faintly heard some commotion from inside.

"It's like this, Bishop—"

The clergyman hastily explained the situation, and Bishop Fletcher showed a helpless expression: "This young man, really..."

He then waved his hand and said, "Just let him be. After all, he won't come regularly. Occasional incidents like this won't cause much impact."

Although this somewhat affected the church's and those priests' income, the church wasn't short of this money, and priests themselves were well-paid professionals who didn't lack this bit of income.

Instead, his approach could be worth learning from—it might actually attract more people to come to the church for healing.

Of course, such tolerance was also due to his talent and connections. Otherwise, even if the church didn't punish him, they wouldn't let him continue causing trouble and would likely chase him away.

Watching the clergyman leave, Fletcher turned his gaze back to the documents in his hand, his brow furrowed.

This matter still needed more discussion with the city lord and Chairman Vic...

[Healing Art] proficiency +1

[Cleansing Flow] proficiency +1

[Healing Art] proficiency +1

[Cleansing Flow] proficiency +1

...

Just as Fletcher had said, after the initial surprise, the priests in the church didn't hold much resentment toward Lin Mo, mostly adopting a spectator attitude instead.

After all, they weren't short of these treatment fees, and one person's magical power was ultimately limited. [Healing Art] was inherently a high-consumption spell—most of them could only cast about four or five times, while Professional-level priests could manage around ten or so.

Simply put, even if they had more patients, they couldn't treat them without magical power.

But as they watched, they began to feel restless.

"That's already over twenty, right?"

"It's past thirty now..."

"How much magical power does this guy actually have?"

"You can tell from his Healing Art's effectiveness... although it doesn't look very skilled, the effect is remarkably strong, which means his magical power is very high."

"But if Healing Art proficiency isn't high, how can his magical power be so strong?"

Some priest apprentices immediately asked in confusion.

"Could it be that he's actually not a priest, but a mage?"

This was the only explanation, since if he were a priest, he wouldn't struggle with the most basic Healing Art.

Someone sharp-eyed suddenly noticed the key point: "Notice the area on his chest—if I remember correctly, that's a Bronze-rank adventurer's identification badge, right?"

"Holy, it really is!"

"..."

The priests fell into an eerie silence once again.

A Bronze-rank adventurer! Even in Silverstream City, this counted as someone significant.

Such a young Bronze-rank adventer, clearly a mage, yet having learned priest skills... this sounded exactly like the protagonist from a bard's story.

"Maybe in a few years, while we're drinking tea, we'll hear today's story from a bard's mouth."

More than an hour later, a dizzy Lin Mo finally stopped healing and took down his sign.

"Finished, finished... come back next time."

"Next time? When will next time be?"

The injured who hadn't received eggs asked reluctantly.

Lin Mo smiled, replying with just four words: "We'll meet if fate allows."

Coming to the church to play priest was ultimately just a spur-of-the-moment whim for him. He might not come again in the future, and even if he did, it would probably be much later.

While packing up, Lin Mo distributed the remaining eggs, bread, and other items to the other priests in the church.

"Sorry for taking your business."

"No problem, no problem..."

"As long as you're happy."

"We should thank you for helping. Without you here, we couldn't have treated so many injured."

The priests received the items—though not valuable things—and felt much better.

Of course, the main reason for their politeness was still the badge on Lin Mo's chest and the mithril gloves he wore.

This clearly showed he was someone they absolutely couldn't afford to offend.

After exchanging a few polite words with them, Lin Mo winked at Finnie and left the church.

On the way back to the inn, Lin Mo tallied up his gains from earlier.

Altogether, Healing Art had increased by...

63 proficiency points!

Cleansing Flow had the same increase.

"Skill [Healing Art] Lv3 (40/40) leveled up!"

"Current skill [Healing Art] Lv4 (51/100)"

After this session, [Healing Art] directly rose to level 4, and it was now less than halfway from reaching the maximum level 5.

However, with Healing Art's level up, Lin Mo could clearly feel that when treating less serious injuries, the proficiency gains had started decreasing.

Also, treating adventurers was clearly more difficult than treating civilians, with higher efficiency in proficiency improvement.

It was predictable that after this skill evolved, coming to the church to treat ordinary people would offer quite limited improvement.

Maybe he could open a clinic? Or set up a stall specifically treating injuries that ordinary church priests found difficult to handle—this way he could charge more, and it wouldn't be just for fun but could actually earn some money.

But these were matters for later;

Lin Mo didn't dwell on them for now.

Besides Healing Art, [Cleansing Flow] naturally improved too.

"Skill [Cleansing Flow] Lv2 (20/20) leveled up!"

"Current skill [Cleansing Flow] Lv3 (40/40)"

"Gained attribute Magic +2!"

"Skill [Cleansing Flow] Lv3 (40/40) leveled up!"

"Current skill [Cleansing Flow] Lv4 (14/100)"

Cleansing Flow also leveled up twice, reaching the same level 4 as Healing Art, and gave Lin Mo an additional +1 base Magic.

He had done all he could, rested enough, and it was time to continue with missions.

Lin Mo had already discussed with Landon and the others—they planned to set out on their next adventure tomorrow.

But they hadn't decided on which specific mission to take yet.

They planned to discuss it while bathing this afternoon.

That's right—before setting out on their adventure, this afternoon, their Silver Radiance Team and Azure Orchid Team were going together to Haliya Grand Bathhouse to relax.

Previously, Lin Mo had gone once with his former teammates Alden and the others, and he still remembered his embarrassing experience during the massage...

This time when going back, Lin Mo would definitely refuse to enter the restroom no matter what, just soaking in the bath pools and leaving afterward.

Oh right, there was also the matter of the manor—this afternoon would be a good opportunity to ask Finnie about it.

After returning to the inn to rest for a while, taking advantage of the fatigue from casting so many spells, he meditated for some time.

[Primary Meditation Technique] proficiency +1

"Skill [Primary Meditation Technique] Lv1 (10/10) leveled up!"

"Current skill [Primary Meditation Technique] Lv2 (0/20)"

Finally, this skill reached level 2.

This was still a blue Excellent-grade skill with a maximum of 7 levels—who knew when it would reach max level...

So meditation techniques were actually the hardest magic to learn and improve!

After a simple lunch, Lin Mo and Ellie headed toward the grand bathhouse.

They arrived quite early, so they waited in the lobby for a while until Finnie in casual clothes and Landon's group arrived one after another.

Even wearing relatively ordinary clothes, their strong adventurer aura was hard to conceal, so people frequently glanced their way. Most of these people were adventurers themselves, so they could better recognize their significance—especially the members of Azure Orchid Team. After all, Lin Mo and Finnie's adventuring experience was still relatively shallow, and they looked young. Ellie was somewhat better than them, but still far from matching these veterans of Azure Orchid Team.

Some people recognized Landon and came to greet him. Although Landon had no idea who they were, he still exchanged polite words out of courtesy.

When they reached the front desk, the attendant's attitude was noticeably more reserved.

In a way... this had both advantages and disadvantages.

The good part was that no troublemakers would bother them;

the bad part was receiving too much attention, which felt somewhat uncomfortable.

So Landon directly took out 1 gold coin and booked a private enclosed bath area.

The private bath area also had separate male and female baths, plus a mixed bath in the middle. The bath pools weren't as large as the public ones, but they were still quite good, hence the expensive price—1 gold coin for half a day.

After changing in the dressing room, just like last time, staff members took their clothes for cleaning and ironing.

Entering the bath pool, Lin Mo let out a comfortable sigh—indeed, occasionally coming for a soak was truly relaxing.

Landon and the others also entered the pool one after another. As for Ellie and Finnie, including Sheila—the only female in Azure Orchid Team—they were naturally in the women's bath area.

"So, what mission should we take next?"

After enjoying themselves for a while, Huck started the conversation.

"Similar to before... after all these years, there aren't many new missions anyway."

Benny was rather indifferent about this—any mission was fine with him.

"But I've heard some rumors recently..."

Huck put on a mysterious expression: "The City Lord's Mansion should be preparing to issue special missions again."

"Oh? Tell us more..."

Landon immediately looked over.

"Think back—we've previously exterminated goblin settlements and found many goblin infants inside, but we almost never found those kidnapped young women."

"That's true."

Hearing this, Lin Mo was also startled. He had exterminated quite a few goblin settlements but had never seen those kidnapped young women.

He had seen many human bones that had been eaten by goblins, but those were most likely male skeletons.

For reproduction purposes, goblins basically didn't actively kill females.

Of course, in the harsh wilderness environment, coupled with the goblins' various abuses and humiliations, they generally didn't survive long.

Goblin embryos usually hatch in about a month, and the vast majority of kidnapped young women didn't survive past the third delivery.

But even so, logically speaking, in goblin settlements of considerable size, these victims should be visible.

Yet in Lin Mo's previous several goblin settlement exterminations, without exception, he hadn't found a single human young woman.

He did occasionally see other magical creatures that had been harmed by goblins.

So, why was this?

Lin Mo hadn't carefully considered this question before, but now thinking about it...

"Perhaps they were transferred away?"

"That's possible."

Knight Benny nodded.

Landon frowned.

This was a terrifying thought upon closer consideration. If goblins had truly developed the awareness to transfer, exchange, or concentrate these scarce resources, it meant they had achieved quite high organization—and this organization was no longer limited to individual settlements but had begun connecting with each other, forming a true goblin "society."

If this were really the case, then Lord-level goblins had probably... even been born a long time ago!

"There's another possibility..."

After Landon voiced his concerns, Lin Mo thought for a moment and offered another perspective: "Perhaps there's someone behind these goblins giving them advice!"

He recalled the small town from when he first crossed over. Even though the goblin disaster was already quite severe, Roland Town's lord still firmly refused to dispatch guards to take any measures, even adopting a very passive attitude toward the town's defense, causing the disaster to worsen.

This didn't seem explainable by mere incompetence.

Moreover, could someone who became a mage really be that foolish?

Compared to stupidity, malice seemed more reasonable.

In other words, Roland Town's lord, including the Lawrence family behind him, intentionally allowed the goblins to grow stronger, even playing a significant role in fueling their expansion!

Goblins, necromancers, Lawrence...

There must be some connection between these three.

But what was their purpose?

For now, Lin Mo couldn't figure this out.

Diverting disaster eastward? But even for the sake of appearances, to avoid suspicion, they would still suffer considerable losses.

And although Silverstream City and Lania City didn't get along, Lin Mo didn't believe those nobles would go to such lengths over so-called "grudges."

A more likely reason was "profit"—they stood to gain from doing this!

"So, Huck, what's your news?"

Benny asked from the side.

"The information I gathered is that regarding the issue we just discussed, the City Lord has actually been conducting related investigations, but previously there were no results. However, just recently—to be precise, yesterday—there seems to have been a discovery!"

"How so?"

"The City Lord considered the possibility of goblins transferring those kidnapped young women, so he specifically arranged personnel to investigate the movement patterns of several goblin settlements. Eventually, they discovered clues... just yesterday, scouts found several entrances leading to underground tunnels. According to preliminary detection, they're suspected to be goblin-built bunkers used to imprison those kidnapped young women!"

"They've already developed to the point of building bunkers?!"

Landon was utterly shocked: "If this is true, then Lord-level goblins must have already been born, secretly plotting something!"

"Regarding the bunker rescue operation, if they're short-handed, they'll likely issue missions. So... should we participate?"

Compared to Landon's worries, Knight Benny was clearly more focused on the present.