Chapter 290: Attitude Of Blood And Sweat
As for Prometheus, during this time, he had not been idle at all.
Or rather, he was busier than before, and even more anxious.
After all, although the Gods’ travels were grand in momentum and astonishing in spectacle, that was merely the natural manifestation of their own authority and majesty, which they could effortlessly achieve anytime, anywhere.
But to have Mortal Spirits—humans still in the most initial and ignorant stage of civilization, these mortals—prepare a grand ritual sufficient to “welcome” and “receive audience from” the Gods, that was truly no simple matter.
Compared to the majestic Gods, the current situation of humans could be described as extremely difficult, extremely barren, extremely humble, and extremely insignificant.
And this time, Prometheus only dared to teach and direct from the side.
All other preparations had to be completed by humans themselves.
In this matter, he did not dare to personally help directly as before.
Once he intervened, the nature of this sacrifice would completely change.
This time, it was humans themselves showing the Gods whether they were worthy of being loved, whether they were worthy of Shelter—the most significant, and possibly the sole opportunity.
If even this matter required the Gods’ personal help to accomplish, it could only prove that humans were completely unworthy of the Gods’ love.
It could only prove that humans had absolutely no qualification to receive the Gods’ Shelter.
If the Gods personally completed any major task for them, the meaning of “offering” would instantly vanish.
This would no longer be humans’ wholehearted devotion to the Gods, but the Gods’ performance for the Gods.
Even more seriously, this would be blaspheming the God King’s majesty and honor!
The God King wanted the attitude of Mortal Spirits, not another god’s deception.
After experiencing the lesson of death, Prometheus finally had this sense of proportion.
This sacrifice did not need to be truly perfect or splendidly magnificent.
Even the offerings did not need to be truly abundant, nor the ritual truly ornate.
But humans must show their wholehearted sincerity, their utmost effort.
This was a matter of attitude.
Just like a child, a gift personally prepared by their own hands, no matter how crude and rough, would always bring joy to their parents.
But if it was cheating, if another “adult” was roped in to help make it, then moving the parents would probably be quite difficult.
However, while the reason was simple to explain, putting it into action was truly exceedingly difficult.
The current humans were still in the most primitive tribal stage, completely relying on hunting and gathering for survival.
To put it bluntly, “starving for three days and nine meals” was almost the norm.
The food stored in a typical tribe was only just enough for the entire group to barely sustain a few days’ livelihood.
If weather or other reasons delayed foraging for even a few days, people might immediately starve to death.
This was not like the previous era where people “would not starve to death.”
And preparing such a grand ritual, whether drilling those complex behavioral norms or preparing offerings of sufficient weight…
All of this meant that the tribe’s most elite labor force had to stop daily labor, stop food harvest, and continuously expend already scarce resources.
In this state, human life was destined to be extremely arduous.
And teaching the current ignorant and foolish humans to drill those complex rituals, to chant those sacred sacrificial song and dance—this was also something enough to make Prometheus’s head ache to the point of exploding.
After all, to make it grand enough, there must be many people, the scale must be magnificent.
Many is grand; large is beautiful.
But such large-scale collective activities, especially a grand ritual like sacrifice requiring highly rigorous, uniform discipline, was truly beyond the scope for humans who did not even know what “discipline” was.
During this time, countless humans had suffered greatly for this.
The entire human society had devoted all its efforts to this, with all humans investing all their energy into this “grand gamble” concerning the future.
For this, too many people had to endure hunger.
To save every mouthful of food, so that the young and strong participating in the sacrifice and building the Divine Palace could have more strength, the elders and weak in the tribe would voluntarily, in silence, give their food to those who needed it more.
Even in the process of drilling etiquette and building the Divine Palace, many casualties occurred.
Adding up all these things, humans had suffered heavy casualties and profound suffering.
Prometheus watched all this with infinite heartache.
But he could only steel his heart, watching wide-eyed without any divine power assistance.
Even, he had to demand and teach even more rigorously and harshly.
Because he knew, the greater the price humans paid for this welcoming sacrifice, the more it proved their piety and respect.
And this “piety” and “respect” was the only thing current humans could offer to the Gods.
Only by paying a sufficiently heavy price could piety be proven not empty words; only respect forged in suffering could truly move the Gods.
As long as… as long as they could move the Gods, as long as they could move the merciful God King, then all the prices paid now, all these sacrifices, would be worth it.
Even if many people would pay an extremely painful price for this, even the price of life.
But all of this was worth it.
This was an inevitable and necessary price.
The current human society had an overall tribal population of about two million people.
But more than half were still children, children, and youths.
Currently, those truly supporting the entire human society were still the strong-bodied, experienced First Generation Humans.
After death descended, their survival pressure was already immense.
And for this grandest, and the “first” sacrifice in human history, under conditions where starvation deaths had already begun, over a thousand large and small tribes still managed to gather one hundred of the healthiest pure white adult bulls.
This was for sacrificing to that supreme eternal sovereign master, King of the Gods—Zeus.
This was—the Hundred Cattle Sacrifice.
One must know, without agricultural development or long-term reserves, to produce such a number of adult livestock, and raise them extremely well.
This meant that for each cow, at least twenty people had to die for it.
Moreover, having everyone participate in this sacrifice was also impossible.
With the current human society’s structure and organizational ability, no one could organize a gathering of over a million people.
Without using divine power, no one could achieve it, not even Prometheus.
In the end, only the bravest, wisest, most alert, most humble, and most knowledgeable people could be carefully selected from each tribe to participate.
All told, no more than three thousand people.
Even this was, under Prometheus’s personal command and supervision, the largest-scale collective activity that humans could barely achieve currently in terms of numbers.
For this sacrifice, Prometheus specially formulated the most troublesome, rigorous, and solemn etiquette norms.
The location of the sacrifice, venue specifications, participants’ identities and attire, every behavior, every action, the ritual process, types and placement of offerings, content of prayers, tunes of odes…
And so on, all had extremely rigorous rules and regulations.
Because this set of sacrificial rituals was not just for this one time.
After the formal covenant between Gods and humans today, in the endless years thereafter, humans would all follow this sacred sacrificial ritual.
It would become an indelible mark, a symbol of the “God-human relationship”!
In the half year since returning from Olympus, Prometheus had exhausted his mind and finally barely prepared everything properly.
At the sacrifice site, with a deep gaze, he watched the busy and nervous humans.
His heart was also filled with indescribable tension and heaviness.
The destiny of humanity’s future would be decided here.
His heart was also filled with grief and sorrow, even to the point of heart-wrenching pain.
Because, for the arrival of this day, his “children” had truly paid too much, far too much.
Already, countless lives had been exhausted in this preparation.
He slowly raised his head, looking toward that altar and Divine Palace which, to the Gods, still appeared extremely crude and rough.
That was a Divine Palace without a roof, facing south from the north, forever oriented toward the brightest place.
The Divine Palace was 120 meters long and 80 meters wide, with the ground entirely paved with polished pure white marble stone slabs.
Surrounding it were 120 massive limestone pillars, each 20 meters high, requiring three people to embrace.
Upon the pillars were carved the beautiful and mysterious patterns symbolizing flames, wisdom, and hope, which Prometheus had personally taught them.
In the center of the Divine Palace stood a massive altar.
The altar’s largest base was 40 meters in diameter, with twelve layered steps narrowing upward, reaching 12 meters high at the top.
In front of the altar were 120 wide steps, forming a platform 24 meters high.
Upon the platform was placed an exquisitely magnificent massive divine seat carved from a single block of pure white marble.
That was specially prepared for His Majesty the God King.
One must know, current humans were still in the most primitive Stone Tool Era.
All these magnificent creations were made by them using the simplest and most primitive stone tools, hammering bit by bit from hard rocky mountains, then chiseling and polishing little by little.
Every stone slab was soaked with sweat and blood.
