God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 349: Charity at Interest

With Nidhogg’s approval, the entire process at the Dragon Bond Exchange became much smoother.

They set different interest rates based on each church’s rank, number of believers, scale, the projects they planned to complete with the borrowed funds, and their collateral.

Since they had divine orders from above, the church members didn’t hesitate and all agreed. In just three days, these churches’ bonds started appearing one after another in the bond exchange market.

Although the mystique around stocks was gradually fading and people had discovered that stocks couldn’t just keep going up forever, many people with relatively lower risk tolerance had already shifted their attention to bonds.

Compared to stocks, bonds had less of that crazy energy. Getting multiple times your investment back was impossible, but bonds were stable—offering stable annual interest rates slightly higher than Dragon Bank, with very low risk probability. So many people focused their attention here.

Especially certain long-lived species and those who had tons of money that needed to be spread across multiple baskets—for them, many things didn’t need to be rushed.

For example, the Western Grand Duke of the Kingdom of Dawn chose to put ten percent of his wealth in the stock market, forty percent in the bond market, twenty percent in Dragon Bank to supplement both the stock and bond markets, and the remaining thirty percent investing in new commercial activities within his territory.

A perfect demonstration of hedging.

In short, guided by various different strategies, the bond market’s attention level was no worse than the stock market.

If anything, it was even more popular.

In fact, you could tell from the number of accounts already trading in the bond market—it was already several times that of the stock market.

Most people still believed there was no such thing as a free lunch.

Against this backdrop, today, so many churches suddenly appeared issuing bonds and opening subscriptions, immediately attracting countless people’s attention and discussion.

"Oh my God?! Did I not sleep well last night and my eyes are playing tricks on me? Or has this world gone so crazy I wouldn’t even dream of this?"

"Why are so many churches suddenly borrowing money together? They’re not planning to take the money and run, are they?"

"The dragons are watching—they can’t escape!"

"Is there something wrong with my brain, or am I dreaming? How come these churches’ borrowing projects are either building schools and hospitals, or building roads and bridges, or other things that benefit people?!"

"According to past practice, when these churches were willing to give out benefits, it was only to their own believers. But why do all these projects look like everyone can participate?!"

"Did these churches suddenly grow a conscience?"

"Maybe they feel they’ve made too much dirty money these years and done too many bad things, so they want to atone!"

"The problem is, with these churches’ financial resources, doing these things shouldn’t require them to borrow money, right?"

"I heard a bunch of churches got stuck playing the stock market together before, and now they’re broke, so they have to borrow for actual business."

"I feel like something’s fishy about this whole thing, but I hope they actually do what they say they will. That would be good for everyone."

"Speaking of building roads, there’s a rumor that Viscount Roster and the Gray Fort Emperor are discussing something—seems to be about transportation between Dawn’s southern region and the Gray Fort Empire. Don’t know if it’s specifically about the ultra-high-speed maglev trains mentioned before, but it feels like it’s not just that."

So many things had been happening recently. Forget ordinary people—even some nobles and supernatural beings were confused about the situation.

But they could be certain of one thing: some mysterious force was interfering in these matters.

It might even involve the deities, otherwise the churches wouldn’t react this way.

While people were confused, discussing on the Magic Net and offline with friends, major churches like the Church of Light had already completed their bond subscriptions.

With funds in place, this massive organization immediately started running at full speed. Churches everywhere began building free schools where school-age children could come learn for free, and adults who wanted to learn literacy could come in the evening.

To ensure money was spent where it should be, clerics everywhere would execute the God’s orders, and Disciplinary Knight Orders departed from headquarters and started wandering around various places.

The moment the schools opened, there was new consensus on the Magic Net about these churches’ unusual behavior.

Because they discovered that the churches really were teaching those kids for free. They’d even give out some silver coins as rewards to children who excelled in their studies.

Aside from using some church classics during teaching—seemingly wanting to accomplish evangelism invisibly, making these kids believe in the deities behind them in the future—that was it. There were no other excessive actions.

Most people could tolerate this kind of influence.

They even felt it was completely reasonable.

Investing so much, dispatching so many people to teach these children for free—if they didn’t even include this little extra content, they wouldn’t be the churches that never do anything without profit.

Gray Fort Empire.

Capital.

Imperial Palace.

The Gray Fort Emperor listened to his shadow’s report, his brow slightly furrowed. "You’re saying all these churches received orders from their deities, and their deities suddenly gave them commands on the same day to do these things?"

He heard it very clearly.

He also knew the shadow’s report was very clear.

But he just found it somewhat incredible.

What made all the deities react the same way almost simultaneously?

In countless years past, something like this had never happened before.

"Yes, at almost the same time, all clerics, no matter what church, got the same command—to choose one of these things. If they didn’t have enough money, borrow from the Dragon Bond Exchange. Don’t touch the believers..."

The shadow explained everything he’d learned in more detail.

"What do you think caused these deities to do these things?" The Gray Fort Emperor couldn’t help but ask.

But the shadow didn’t speak.

He was an excellent intelligence officer supervisor. His job was to collect enough information and deliver it to the Gray Fort Emperor. He had to ensure every piece of information was objective and fair, without any trace of his own thoughts, otherwise it might influence the Gray Fort Emperor’s thinking.

This matter was no exception. Even though he had some vague guesses, it remained so.

Seeing the shadow remain silent, the Gray Fort Emperor didn’t mind. He knew what kind of person the shadow was. He hadn’t expected the shadow to give an answer—he’d just asked casually.

Besides, he actually had some guesses himself.

After a brief silence, he pulled out his Magic Net and quickly found Viscount Roster.