Chapter 172

A sea of consciousness that is pitch black.

Luo Yan, standing in front of the stone tablet, confirmed the refreshed data, and the original 3000 closed beta qualifications had become 3100!

Not only that, the net daily increase of faith value was exactly fixed at the number 12001, close to an integer!

Combined with the results of previous observations, Luo Yan probably figured out the law, and from this, a preliminary conclusion can be drawn.

"... After the net daily increase of faith value exceeds 10,000 points, every 100 points increase in this variable can obtain 5 closed beta qualifications!"

"The ratio is close to 20:1."

This is the conclusion Luo Yan obtained through data comparison based on the changes in the increase of the power of faith over the past month.

And interestingly, this added 2001 points of faith value increase was exactly provided by the new population of Beifeng City.

Unlike other races.

The power of faith provided by humans is the most stable, not fluctuating high and low due to cohesion like little demons and goblins, nor contributing much due to low mental level and weak self-awareness like stone men, cave spiders, and frost beetles.

Currently, the permanent population of Beifeng City has just reached 500, and these 500 people go to the local temple to pray at least once every seven days.

Some people go every day, seeking spiritual comfort.

Considering that the gods of this world are the kind that can really descend miracles, believers who still have piety to Saint Xisi are unlikely to stay in the Demon King's territory, and even less likely to pray to the Demon King.

Therefore, these 500 people can be counted as his believers by "rounding up".

It's just that considering that individual piety cannot be quantified and counted, there are differences in mental levels of people of different age groups, and factors such as personality may also become interference items, so this statistical result almost certainly has errors, but it is no problem to use it only as a reference.

Luo Yan boldly made a conjecture based on the drawn curve. In an ideal state, the ratio of human believers in the Grave to the chosen ones should be about 5:1.

This is determined by the current distribution method of the power of faith in the Grave. The overall strength of the chosen ones he personally promoted is relatively weak, so the power of faith occupied is not much.

And with the increase in the overall strength of players, the ratio of human believers to chosen ones may be diluted to 10:1, 15:1, or even lower.

It's like the people eating the cake have bigger and bigger appetites, and the number of supporters needed to support this person also rises with the tide.

After all, it is unrealistic to significantly improve the overall mental level and soul purity of a race; people cannot turn into elves overnight.

Therefore, if gods want to ensure the surplus of the power of faith, they often adopt two strategies: one is to control the overall strength of the chosen ones, and the other is to increase the number of believers.

The population of the Saint Xisi Empire is nearing saturation.

Without huge changes in society itself, population growth will weaken cohesion, thereby inhibiting the growth of the power of faith. While population decline will reduce the number of believers, it will in turn make the living people more united, indirectly increasing cohesion, thereby maintaining the power of faith unchanged.

Therefore, as long as the empire's population does not exceed or fall below a certain threshold, the power of faith condensed by Saint Xisi can be maintained in a high range, satisfying the current expenditure of the power of faith.

From this perspective, increasing or decreasing the number of believers is not the optimal solution for the empire; maintaining the status quo is.

If no major social changes occur, such as the Isaac Dynasty trying to start an industrial revolution, the decisions of the empire's emperor and pope will often tend to maintain the status quo, and increase the mobility within the vested interests through the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death, thereby "balancing" the overall strength of the chosen ones and reducing the occupation of the power of faith.

For example, nobles like Baron Guss live in a pampered environment during peacetime. Although their soul level may be silver or even higher, because they don't have to fight, they may not really train their extraordinary power to the silver level until they die of old age.

After all, improving strength is a continuous and painful process, even for the martial Kingdom of Ryan.

And if it catches up with the war years, the regional war situation is tight, and the nobles facing survival crises will naturally pick up weapons and armor... even if he doesn't do this, his son or grandson will do it, thereby indirectly completing the "mobilization" of potential chosen ones in the region.

In order to prevent sudden accidents, the Saint Xisi Church also bestowed "artifacts" that can quickly improve strength and turn the tide on the battlefield to some special families.

For example, the "Light of Praise" passed down from generation to generation by the Campbell family.

These weapons themselves are legendary existences, condensing huge power of faith, not only bringing huge abilities and growth bonuses to the user, but also raising the user's ability to a higher level after use!

This set of systems ensures the efficient allocation of the power of faith, even if the price is that the mobility of the class is almost locked. Unless they make great contributions, commoners are commoners in this life, and commoners in the next life, at most they are reincarnated in a rich family... and this is still the case where they can afford a priest and have the opportunity to reincarnate and be a human again.

If you die sloppily in a mass grave like Robert, it is impossible to have the opportunity to return to the embrace of Saint Xisi and reincarnate. These lonely ghosts with nowhere to go are at most becoming undead, and eventually disappear into this universe like wild grass, making room for new wild grass.

In contrast, the Underworld adopts a completely different strategy.

Due to the lack of resources, famines often break out outside the Demon Capital, the quality of the population is uneven, and the cohesion is even more difficult to say, so the combat effectiveness of the demons always fluctuates high and low with the faith of the Demon God, indirectly leading to their difficulty in defeating the alliance of humans and various races on the front battlefield.

However, precisely because they are at a disadvantage, the Underworld is more inclined to seek change. In the past thousand years, not only have three Demon Gods been changed, but the system has also evolved from the early feudal system to the "Main God Offline" system.

In addition, in order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the chosen ones, the Underworld will consciously extend the lifespan of high-level demons, sacrificing mobility within the class to improve the overall strength of the chosen ones, thereby making up for the huge gap between grassroots combat effectiveness and social productivity.

And in the expansion of the power of faith, the Underworld will also more actively try to corrupt the vested interests of the empire and its subordinate states, intimidate the believers of Saint Xisi, shake the cohesion of surface human society, and thereby snatch the cake in the hands of Saint Xisi.

The Grave belongs to one of the Underworld camps, and is located in the hinterland of the human world. The best strategy is naturally to follow the old ways of the Underworld and let the minions under his command develop freely, and take the opportunity of chaos to dig the wall of Saint Xisi hard.

However, due to a coincidence, Luo Yan also has an extra card in his hand that the Underworld does not have to play.

That is to expand to Kao Planet!

The cake of the Aus continent has been divided by various forces, and even if he digs the wall of Saint Xisi, it is what the Demon God Bayeli has left over. To open up the situation, he still has to focus on the "New World" n light-years away.

For the Grave and even the entire Aus continent, that is the real "incremental market", not the "stock market".

Before, his faith value increase could break through ten thousand points, largely thanks to the outpost fortress deployed on Kao Planet.

Luo Yan's heart moved slightly when he thought of this, and he cast his gaze on You You floating in the sea of consciousness.

"If the number of believers decreases significantly, leading to a decrease in the increase of the power of faith, will the upper limit of closed beta players decrease accordingly?"

He wanted to know if the decrease in the power of faith would cause some closed beta players to be unable to enter the game.

If so, he had to figure out whether he could actively decide who can go online and who can't, so that when the time comes, all the people who do work can't go online, and all those who can go online are guys who make up the numbers.

However, just as he was thinking this, You You's answer denied the concerns in his heart.

"The number of closed beta players should not decrease."

Luo Yan frowned slightly. "Should?"

You You answered in an ambiguous tone.

"You You is also not sure what the specific situation will be, but analyzing from the principle of extraordinary power itself, although the number of players will not decrease, the overall strength will also be weakened, right? For example, the specific performance is that all players or NPCs who have been promoted through you will get a debuff, such as extraordinary power decay of 10% or 20% or something."

Hearing You You's statement, Luo Yan immediately understood its meaning.

This is actually the same as his previous conjecture. In an ideal situation, there is an optimal ratio between believers and chosen ones.

If the number of believers far exceeds the chosen ones, the strength of the chosen ones will not be directly affected, but they will get a greater growth limit. But if the number of believers is too low, it is equivalent to fewer people making cakes. In the case that the appetite of the chosen ones remains unchanged, the extraordinary power that each chosen one can share naturally decreases.

Replacing chosen ones with players is roughly the theory that You You said.

That is, when the number of believers is lower than the threshold, all players will automatically get a debuff of weakened extraordinary power, and the debuff caused by this debuff can be infinitely close to 100%!

Although it is impossible to really reach 100%, Luo Yan feels that with his current prestige, even if he really loses power one day, there will be more people who miss him than those who miss Regi Dragon.

"I generally understand, the early 3000 players should be provided by the faith left by the Machine God Lin Te Isaac. Now I have to rely on my own strength to get more believers, so as to support more chosen ones... is that what it means?"

=9+Book_Bar

Seeing Luo Yan understand his meaning, You You shook his abstract big head excitedly up and down.

"Mm-hmm! As expected of Lord Demon King, you found the core of the problem at once!"

Being embarrassed by this flattery, Luo Yan coughed lightly.

"This is not a difficult thing to find, you have hinted to me many times, urging me to expand the faith territory or something."

Actually, he pondered that the power of faith left by Lin Te Isaac should be more than this, after all, there are still quite a few people in the Kingdom of Ryan who remember him, but there are not many people who pray to him devoutly.

However, considering that this guy not only invented a set of mechanical spells, but also redefined inscriptions, maybe a large part of those powers of faith have been spent, who knows.

Anyway, that guy has already become history, and since he has already walked out of the novice village, he should try his best to rely on himself.

Luo Yan, who fell into thought, couldn't help but hit the idea of Kao Planet again.

"... If only I could train a batch of human acolytes from Beifeng City and send them to the outpost fortress on Kao Planet."

Why not just build an "internship base" at the outpost fortress on Kao Planet?

For example, throw the newly joined acolytes over to practice hard for two years before bringing them back to change shifts with the newcomers...

This method seems feasible!

Just when Luo Yan was seriously thinking about this plan, a new brain hole suddenly appeared in his mind—

If the acolytes he sent to Kao Planet not only prayed themselves, but also could assimilate the local "native" Kao people into his believers, that would be great!

This idea seems whimsical, but if you think about it carefully, it seems that there is not completely no chance.

Especially since Luo Yan soon remembered that the posts updated by players on the official website forum mentioned that those Kao people did not rely on traditional methods to reproduce, but grew from mushrooms.

Kao tribes often patrol in mushroom forests, bring the cubs they find back to the tribe to raise them, and complete the brainwashing of the latter in this process, assimilating them into machines that only know how to kill, and servants of the "Flame of Destruction" Kalmandes.

If you can influence the mushrooms on Kao Planet through some way and improve the genes of the Kao people, maybe there is a way to assimilate the natives on Kao Planet!

The more Luo Yan thought about it, the more he felt it was promising.

At least this is a line of thought worth trying!

If successful, not only can it further spread the corrosion of the Grave to the chaos's lair, but maybe it can also beat down the resurrection cost of the players!

"You You, say hello to Tyrell, the leader of the Gray Wind tribe, for me. I have something to talk to him and Gray Wind about... regarding the plan to build a research station targeting Kao people on the fifth floor of the labyrinth, I might need their cooperation."

"No problem! Lord Demon King, You You will arrange it for you right away."

You You's answer is as reliable as ever, and full of energy.

When it comes to expanding the territory of the power of faith, it is more active than anyone else, and even he himself sighs at it.

Luo Yan turned off the window projected on the stone tablet and was about to end his meditation and leave the sea of consciousness, but You You, who had just left for two seconds, suddenly floated back to his side.

"By the way, Lord Demon King, did you forget that there is also a Despair City on the tenth floor of the labyrinth where nearly 100,000 demons and magic people live. If you can replace the Demon God statue there with your statue, why do you need to worry about the power of faith not rising?"

Speaking of this, You You was so greedy that it almost drooled.

If it had that kind of thing.

Luo Yan guessed it would ask this, and replied without hesitation.

"I didn't forget that place, in fact, our acolytes also went there to preach, but the progress is relatively slow. After all, the magic people and demons there have just surrendered, and the faith is still mainly based on the Demon God Bayeli. We can only subtly change their ideas, and put our statue next to the Demon God statue when the time is ripe. Being too impatient will only be counterproductive."

Actually, it's not just Despair City.

Including the Blood Blade Clan, they all have the potential to expand the power of faith. He has never forgotten it, but the strategy adopted is relatively conservative.

After all, this piece of meat is already in the pot for him, as long as he doesn't do anything too outrageous, there is no way it can run away.

However, You You's words still reminded him.

It has been almost a month since the four Demon Generals offered their loyalty to him. During this time, he has been busy with the internal affairs of the Grave and has not had time to visit the territories of his vassals.

Now that the work at hand has finally come to an end, perhaps it is time to go to his loyal Despair City and accept the cheers and reverence of the residents there...

Went to the hospital for a follow-up today, updating in advance... I feel like I've been running to the hospital every three days in the past few months, it's boring.

(End of chapter)