NOVPUBSeeing that the Holy Maiden had already made a decision, Joshua no longer persuaded her, and hisncerns about those Wizards eased a great deal.
With this, the rvery of the kingdom was just a matter of time!
"Has the next Holy Maiden candidate been decided?" Lucia asked.
"Here is the list of candidates..." The Pope gently stroked the scepter in his hand, and five humanoid silhouettes emerged within the Sky Dome Tower.
They were all girls between the ages of 16 and 18, with impeccable looks, status, identity, and talent. Four of them had steadfast faith and had been cultivated by the local churches to have the spiritual power level of bishops.
The remaining one surprised Lucia. She wasn’t a nun but a member of God’s Punishment Army. Strictly speaking, she shouldn’t have been qualified to be selected.
"This is Ivina Pedro, the snd daughter of Viunt Pedro from the Eastern Port Town. She passed the recruitment of God’s Punishment Army two years ago. Although her Spiritual Energy talent is somewhat lacking, she possesses an extraordinarymbat intuition, and it’s the leader of the God’s Punishment Army who specifically rmmended her to me," the Pope explained respectfully.
"The Eastern Port Town, is it the place that nearly got burnt to ashes by the hellfire?" Lucia paused, saying quite surprised.
The incident had made big waves and ofurse, it reached her ears. She heard it had something to do with a Great Wizard who had been hiding within the Empire’s territory for a long time. It was Edwell who arrived in time to chase the intruder away. Such tragedies hadn’t occurred under the Church’s rule for many years!
"Indeed!" The Pope nodded and thenntinued. "The eldest son of the Pedro Family was killed by a Wizard in that catastrophe. Ivina’s joining of God’s Punishment Army must be related to that event."
"Another tale of revenge?" Lucia seemed uninterested. After hearing the information about Ivina, she didn’t pay much attention.
No matter how formidable one’smbat talents might be, they were only icing on the cake; Spiritual Energy was the foundation of everything!
Lucia casually picked a candidate that she found pleasing, then waved her hand, breathily saying, "You may leave, I’m tired and need to rest."
The two present nodded their heads in a bow, promptly exiting the Sky Dome Tower.
Once outside the tower, Judgement Chief Joshuauldn’t help but sigh. "It’s a pity that the kingdom’s fall just had to be at this time."
Just another three to five years, and the goal of one million faithful Believers would have been achieved.
It was exactly at this moment that the Wizards chose to instigate rebellion, leading to tens of thousands of faithful Believers dying by the sword and persecution. Their plan might need to be postponed again...
"It’s of nonsequence; since Her Holiness is willing to personally eliminate the Wizard Council, this great enemy of the Church, it might not be such a bad thing," the Pope said in an even tone.
Once the kingdom’s citizens witness God’s mighty power, they will naturally return to the Lord’s embrace...
...
In the royal capital of Hadlata, within a heavily guarded laboratory, Orlando, Philip, and over thirty other Wizards of the Iyeta School were busily drawing a massive Alchemy Array underground.
While everyone was busy sketching the electromagnetic Array, Lynn was also hard at work. After preliminary testing, the uraniumntent in the shell of the Demon Stone exceeded ninety-five percent!
Ofurse, not just any uranium is suitable for use in nuclear weapons.
Natural uranium orentains three isotopes, uranium-234, uranium-235, and uranium-238.
Among them, uranium-238 has the highestntent, aunting for over 99 percent. Unfortunately, it is not an effective nuclear fuel, with a very long half-life measured in billions of years. Forcing it to undergo nuclear fission is not an easy task.
Uranium-235 is different. It is the only isotope in nature that can naturally undergo fission, with a radioactivity 6.5 times that of uranium-238 and the most important fuel for nuclear weapons!
However, it’s very scarce in nature, with only seven out of every thousand uranium atoms being uranium-235!
Uranium-234 is even rarer, at only 0.0054%!
In fact, the principle of nuclear weapons is quite simple: it involves a neutron striking a fissile atom like uranium-235, forcing it to split into two smaller atoms. During the fission process, several spare neutrons are produced, which shoot at other uranium-235 atoms, thus creating a chain reaction that causes all the nuclear fuel to undergo fission in a short period of time.
The mass loss that occurs during atomic fission isnverted into a large amount of energy released arding to the mass-energy equation. This is what we call a nuclear explosion!
Although this principle sounds simple, actually making it happen is not so easy.
When testing the uraniumntent, Lynn ran into a tricky problem, which was that heuld not use the "High-Order Material Dmpilation Skill" to dmpose uranium!
This divery came as a great surprise to Lynn. After bming a great Wizard, he had been able to analyze the known forty-nine elements of Wizard Land using this skill.
Previously, Lynn thought that with his current power, no atomuld escape thentamination of his magic power, but this time he euntered a tough nut to crack...
However, uranium is indeed somewhat differentmpared to the elements previously divered by the wizards. Firstly, it is a radioactive element with the chemical symbol U and an atomic number of 92, belonging to the special actinide series in the periodic table, also the heaviest element found in nature in the past...
After pondering for a while, Lynn speculated that all actinide elements, that is, the fifteen radioactive elements with atomic numbers 89–103 in group IIIb of the periodic table, might not be analyzable with the power of a great Wizard.
This might be the reason why they had not been divered...
Realizing this, Lynn felt somewhat helpless. It meant that his previous idea of using Magic Mimicry to imitate uranium-235, thus releasing endless nuclear explosions, had been shattered.
Now, the only option was to utilize its power using a slightly more scientific method...
After a whole night’s work, Ailoke and others had drawn the last electromagnetic symbol on the ground. Afternfirming that everything wasrrect, everyone present breathed a sigh of relief.
"Dean, the electromagnetic Array you requested has been set up," Ailoke announced, wiping the sweat beads from his forehead, clearly excited.
"Very well, let’s begin the preparation!" Lynn stepped forward, assured that the Array was without issue. He then used the Mage’s Hand to place the ’Demon Stone’ in the center of the Formation, and subsequently activated the Alchemy Array.
The next moment, the inscriptions etched in the ground, one by one, lit up. Incandescent lightning manifested inside the Array, with the hissing sound of electric arcs striking dust echoingntinuously in the chamber. The powerful and ferocious force of the thunder was firmly bound within the Array of about three meters radius, quicklynverging and flowing toward the Demon Stone placed at the center...
