Chapter 27

【Faith Value: 11086 (-100)】

【Daily Growth: 108~128】

【Daily Consumption: 100】

Raising a common-level soul to the Black Iron level requires consuming 100 points of faith power.

If his faith value had only been in the triple digits before, Luo Yan might have felt a pang of heartache.

But now his strength was no longer what it used to be! Thanks to the gold coins dropped by a certain fat rat, his faith value reserves were quite abundant; even upgrading all 100 players on the server to Black Iron would be no pressure at all.

As for himself, he wasn't in a hurry for now.

The faith value required to upgrade from Steel to Bai Yin is ten times that of Bronze to Steel, which is 100,000 points. For him at this stage, this could be called an astronomical figure.

Rather than saving up until who knows when, it's better to let the capable players make some progress first.

Furthermore, he had only just advanced to Steel, and there was still a long way to go before touching the level cap, so there was no need to be in such a hurry to upgrade his "Talent" to Bai Yin.

Soul level only affects the upper limit of extraordinary power, not the strength itself.

"... Always hiding in the cave is not a solution, I must find a way to develop some believers."

Hopefully, Jack can bring me some surprises.

Just as Luo Yan was pondering, the players in the Demon King's territory also noticed him one after another.

To be precise, they noticed Sarah behind him.

That delicate face and petite figure made people feel pity, and the cat ears gently swaying on top of her head made the skeletal eyes of countless skeleton soldiers emit hot green light! What's going on?!

A new NPC?! Seeing the players looking over, Luo Yan didn't waste any more time, cleared his throat, and got straight to the point.

"Subjects of the Great Graveyard, I am now announcing something! Starting today, the first shop in the Great Graveyard is officially open, only accepting Underworld currency payments—"

Before Luo Yan could finish speaking, the entire mine was filled with the creaking sound of bone friction.

"Oh oh oh oh oh!"

"Cat girl!!! Cat girl!!!"

"The dog developer actually understands me!"

"Mine!!! All mine!!!" (Screaming)

"So cute!!!"

"Damn it! Really want to rua!"

"Can I touch the ears? I can go wash my hands first!"

Watching the group of creaking, screaming skeletons surrounding them, the fur on top of Sarah's head stood up, and a low growl of "he-he" came from her throat.

If Luo Yan hadn't been standing beside her, she probably would have had a stress reaction.

"Quiet! All of you, be quiet!"

Not expecting these guys to be so spineless, Luo Yan, with black lines all over his head, finally used his authority power to forcibly calm the players present.

Where did the reliable players go? Did they all go to play another game? Interrupting his speech halfway through, Luo Yan didn't even know where to start.

"In short, she is like you, a subject of the Demon King's territory, and I do not wish to see my subjects hurting each other."

"I will be watching this place at all times. If I find anyone bullying her, or buying things without paying, or stealing my treasures... I will make them regret coming into this world."

Very good.

Luo Yan felt that his impromptu performance was very much like a BOSS, and he couldn't help but feel smug for two seconds.

The only regret was that not a single player's attention was on him...

In the corner of the Demon King's territory, several adventurers locked in cages were looking over from afar.

Although they couldn't understand a word the Demon King said, they clearly felt the difference in treatment.

A look of obvious jealousy hung on Chris's face, her hands gripping the stone window like a resentful woman.

"Ah... men, they're all like this. Just because she's a little cuter, the treatment is completely different."

Lei Kesen, who was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed, glanced at Chris.

"Are you sure it's just because of that?"

Although he was also a thief, he at least had the awareness that his skills were inferior and he was a sore loser.

Even if he were executed, he would have nothing to complain about.

However, what he didn't expect was that Chris, who had completely misunderstood, was triggered by this sentence and glared at him fiercely.

"What do you mean by that, you guy?! Are you trying to say I have no appeal? Do you believe I'll gouge your eyes out, stuff them in your mouth, and force you to eat them!"

Lei Kesen looked at her, speechless, unable to retort, and could only shut his mouth and say nothing.

It wasn't just Lei Kesen who shut his mouth, but also Amu on the side.

This guy hadn't said a word from beginning to end, just staring fixedly at the Demon King, a hint of longing hidden in his fearful eyes, as if expecting some reward.

The grey dog was huddled in the corner in fear as usual, clutching his head with both hands, looking outside for a while, then looking at his teammates.

Crazy...

They're all crazy!

As the only normal person here, he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on.

After the cutscene ended, Luo Yan hung the 'No Feeding' wooden sign next to the shop, then took Sarah to the stone counter where she was supposed to stay, and gave her some instructions.

For example, don't eat things handed over by players, how to tell if a skeleton has paid or not.

And for example, what to do when encountering problems she couldn't explain, and how to call Hearing You You to handle skeletons that harassed her, etc.

At this stage, the vast majority of players were penniless, and all the money in their pockets combined couldn't buy a steel dagger worth 20,000 Underworld currency, so Sarah's work shouldn't be too busy, and she could get familiar with the position first.

And the subsequent development was just as Luo Yan had expected; when they saw the shop's shopping list, the players immediately cried out "Black Shop."

"Holy crap! A steel one-handed sword without enchantments is actually 60,000?!"

"How is it as much of a rip-off as Mount & Blade 2?!"

"Too dark! Too dark!"

"MMP! I might as well forge it myself!"

Watching the indignant skeletons, Sarah showed a fearful expression, looking left and right for Luo Yan, only to find that the latter had already vanished.

At this moment, she suddenly remembered what Luo Yan had said to her when he left, and after hesitating for a long time, she finally bit the bullet and squeezed a shy murmur from her mouth.

"Meow..."

In just an instant, those skeletons who were originally indignant all quieted down.

Watching the skeletons frozen in place, Sarah blinked blankly.

Was that word some kind of spell?

However, just as she thought this, the skeletons, who had been quiet for less than two seconds, boiled over again!

"Aooooo!!!"

"Again! Do it again!!!" "Louder! My brother didn't hear it!"

The noisy creaking sound was like firecrackers, and the fanaticism written on each face was different from before.

Suddenly, a skeleton soldier took the lead, stood out from the sea of skeletons, and jumped onto the shop counter.

"Brothers!!! I can't take it anymore! For the cat girl, even if it's the Demon King, I'll kill him for you to see—"

Before he could finish his sentence, a flash of emerald light hit the top of his head.

The transparent ghost left his body, and within a moment, it drifted toward the core of the Demon King's territory.

Pig-Headed Knight: "Damn! Why is it the Demon King's Absolute Punishment again?! No—what the hell did I do?!"

Hu Wan looked at him with a subtle expression.

"What did you do, you ask? You jumped onto the counter and scared the NPC into a stress reaction."

Gou Shi had an even more wretched smile on his face.

"Hahahaha! It's you again! Speak! How come you're involved in every crackdown!"

Looking at the remaining jail time, the Pig-Headed Knight let out a wail like a slaughtered pig.

"Brother, I'm wronged!!! Demon King, I won't dare to do it again! Let me out!"

Too embarrassing!

The Minotaur Warrior shook his head, pretending not to know this guy, and walked away quietly.

The miserable wailing echoed in the mine, adding a touch of faint sorrow to the evil and terror of the Great Graveyard.

Although he sympathized with this guy's encounter, Luo Yan didn't have time to deal with him for now.

He had more important things to do.

Through previous tests, he had confirmed that not only could players gain experience by killing monsters, but he, the Demon King, could too!

And not only that, gaining experience by grinding monsters was far faster than meditation! Back at the Demon King Academy, Luo Yan vaguely remembered it was Iger or someone else who mentioned to him that, setting aside the high casualty rate, the front line was actually a good place to improve one's strength.

Often after a great battle, the surviving demons could achieve more or less growth.

Especially those demons who had slaughtered a city or a village, many of them had evolved into quite terrifying existences.

Although the academic explanation was that this was because the instinct for survival stimulated individual potential, and at the same time, the slaughtering behavior on the battlefield pleased the Demon God Bayeli, passively triggering sacrificial rituals, etc.

However, Lin Te·Aisake's system gave a completely different, cruel, and cold explanation—

When an individual with a soul kills another individual with a soul, they can gain growth! This has nothing to do with faith.

It is a law that universally exists in this world! Just as gods killing gods can absorb the other's faith, mortals can also plunder the extraordinary power from other mortals! Even if, due to the insignificance of individual power, this plunder ratio is not obvious and has no quantified representation, so that most people don't notice it at all, or even if they do, they attribute it to other reasons.

For example, gaining new insights into power during a life-and-death duel, or stimulating potential under the instinct for survival, etc...

Actually, none of that is true.

It's purely because one person or monster has become an experience pack for another person or monster.

Luo Yan has reason to believe that since his transmigrator predecessor could discover this truth, there's no reason why Sheng Saint Xisi and the third-generation Demon King, as locals, couldn't... it's just that both sides tacitly chose to conceal it and hid this naked truth under doctrines and creeds.

And the reason why they did this is actually not hard to guess.

Standing from the position of a lord or knight, compared to killing demons on the battlefield, they, who hold power and authority, actually have lower-risk strategies... such as wielding their blades against the weaker ones within.

Conversely, Hell is the same.

Hell is even a jungle society where the strong prey on the weak; if the demons knew there was such a convenient way to improve their strength, the high-tier demons would probably slaughter most of the low-tier demons dependent on them in an instant.

In this way, order would cease to exist.

Standing from the position of Sheng Saint Xisi or the Demon God, this is clearly not what they want to see.

So they use various ways to constrain the God-chosen ones and the power hierarchy under them, including but not limited to sending down oracles, setting laws, strengthening theocracy, etc...

And for those people or demons who violate their will, they will also spare no cost to eliminate them as a warning to others.

After all, no matter how strong a person or demon's power is, there is ultimately a limit.

Not to mention that the mutual annexation of extraordinary power itself involves huge losses.

In a sense, Luo Yan can be considered to have benefited from this rule.

If the demons in the Demon Capital used their extraordinary power unscrupulously, it would be absolutely impossible for a human like him to live to eighteen.

Not to mention anything else, he wouldn't even have been able to pass Professor Lilith's class.

As for why Lin Te·Aisake wanted to leak this information to him, it's also not hard to understand.

Because this is indeed the optimal solution for an individual—if you want to speed-run another world, the fastest way is to kill, kill, kill.

Use magic to kill and increase mental power, use physical attacks to kill and increase strength... the more powerful the opponent, the higher the experience points provided; the efficiency of improving strength through this method far exceeds training and meditation.

Just like how the efficiency of accumulating wealth through farming is not as good as war, the design of the entire experience point system actually implies this.

And the reason why the Catastrophe System couldn't filter players might be because that guy, compared to neutral-lawful players, was more inclined to let "heaven-defying yet not-so-heaven-defying" guys come in to stir up trouble.

Just as this "God of Machines" said at the beginning—

Let this world feel pain!

He wasn't joking.

What he wanted to release was a true catastrophe! However, having said that, Luo Yan is not a guy who is used to being manipulated by others.

Lin Te has his own demands, and he also has his own ideas.

Of course, it's too early to talk about that now.

No matter what ideas he has, he must improve his strength as soon as possible right now.

And compared to the hard-to-provoke Lei Ming City, the traitors in the labyrinth are clearly a better target to bully.

That's right.

He's going to start competing with the players for monsters!

After handing over the NPC shop to Sarah to manage, Luo Yan then headed straight to the depths of the mine, using a relatively open cave as his magic workshop, and hung a 'No Trespassing' sign at the entrance.

After finishing these things, Luo Yan then instructed Hearing You You.

"Hearing You You, find a few players and have them drag a few cave spider corpses from the warehouse to me. You can decide on the mission rewards; I've already taught you the logic for designing the values."

That player named "Ye Zhiqiu" had gotten him quite a few cave spider corpses, which would come in handy now.

"Alright, Demon King!"

Hearing You You responded, quickly assigned the mission, and then asked curiously, "By the way, may I ask? What are you doing with the cave spider corpses?"

That thing doesn't look tasty no matter how you look at it.

Taking out the crucible, silver knife, mortar, and pestle for preparing magic potions from his suitcase, Luo Yan raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

"Nothing much."

"Just making some necessary preparations for going into the dungeon to grind monsters." - (I added too much sliding shovel yesterday and fed the tiger, so it's just one chapter today, can it count as two-in-one? I'll release it in advance and go to sleep. T. T)

(End of chapter)