Chapter 171: God-Building Flow

Source Altar.

While Tong Xin was arranging his faith plan, Qi Sheng was closely monitoring it.

He never expected that the extra qualifications he casually distributed could bring such an unexpected bonus.

The divine essence Painful Painful Minghun held by Tong Xin is of the Seventh Source, generating 100,000 Shou Shou Jili per hour, totaling 2.4 million Shou Shou Jili daily.

The stable income from one Painful Painful Minghun equals the unstable output of twenty thousand new players in the early stage.

But this Painful Painful Minghun, like the Sixth Source's infinite Painful Painful Minghun, cannot be compatible with all players; too many players embedding it would hinder the development of player legions.

So he set this Painful Painful Minghun as a special one not available for purchase.

In the future, he will distribute it in small quantities via lottery depending on circumstances.

During this time, the progress of Tong Xin's faith plan exceeded his expectations.

He originally thought that, given the players' current strength, the divine essence would hardly generate any income.

Even if it were to be used, it would require waiting until players gained sufficient strength to establish affiliated factions in the Monster World or small worlds.

But unexpectedly, under the collective brainstorming of forum players, Tong Xin chose the Dark Descendant race at the start—a race with strong growth potential.

You must understand that this is a highly intelligent race with a complete knowledge system.

Deceiving such a well-traveled species is not easy.

But Tong Xin's approach was clever.

From the outset, he seized the core conditions for establishing faith and employed the strategy of borrowing authority.

He constructed lies under the name of Beneath Di Zhao.

The most powerful aspect of this lie was that all abilities Tong Xin demonstrated were real.

During the display of divine miracles, he had two brothers from the Child Group choose their offline method to create the illusion of the Dark Shard being decomposed and killed.

He then had the brothers log back in and consume a special potion to simulate resurrection.

To the Dark Shard, this scene had no flaws—it exploited Yan Ming's spatial rule ability and the healing potion created by Shou Shou Jili.

During the second contact, he directly revealed the Dark Descendant legion's secrets, creating an overwhelming informational superiority that left the Dark Shard repeatedly stunned.

This utilized Zhi Yin's All-Things Analysis rule ability and the vast intelligence provided by Zhi Yin.

All abilities were real; only Tong Xin's strength was fake.

The finest lies are woven from truths.

From the Dark Shard's perspective, Tong Xin was a player-tribe divine emissary who controlled this entire set of rule abilities.

If this trend continues, the likelihood of the Dark Shard becoming Tong Xin's believer is extremely high.

The forum players' suggestions even included psychological manipulation tactics—turning initiative into passivity, setting trials for the Dark Shard.

Qi Sheng was deeply curious about how this faith plan would develop next.

But he could be certain: if this plan succeeded, he would claim 30% of the faith force income.

After all, the faith force generated by divine essences does not count as hunting income—he gets not a single bit of that.

But whenever players generate profit, he must take a share.

Even if Tong Xin truly grows into a rule-based deity in the future, he must pay taxes to him.

Recent investments in the cultivation system have been enormous; only with more player output can he better build player legions.

This percentage cut applies to all players without exception.

Second, he noticed the number of players switching to Statue Flow and Support Flow was beginning to rise.

Through Zhi Yin's investigation, he discovered this was linked to the newly contained Second Source, "Life Link."

The free use of the Painful Painful Minghun's trait allowed players to develop a combat tactic for dealing damage via Life Link.

The specific method is to directly connect to an enemy using the Life Link trait.

For example, Statue Flow players connect to their attacker while taking damage and set the damage feedback to 100%, directly reflecting it back to the opponent.

Although greater damage requires more blood consumption for feedback, in cases of fatal damage, feedback may fail, resulting in death.

But the Life Link trait gives Statue Flow players a counter-damage option when facing opponents they can reasonably contend with.

This differs from the Blood Feedback Painful Painful Minghun's trait.

Although Blood Feedback can also reflect damage taken, it consumes blood drastically while active.

It requires precise timing and demands technical skill from the player.

But Life Link does not—during connection, it only consumes minimal blood, accelerating consumption only when damage is taken.

Thus, the appearance of this Painful Painful Minghun gave Statue Flow players an additional counter-damage method.

It can both help teammates absorb damage and deal output.

Support Flow players are the same—in comparison to Statue Flow players, their advantage is weaker defense, meaning they deal higher counter-output when taking the same damage.

As for magic users, they too can embed the Life Link Painful Painful Minghun.

But the primary attribute bonus granted by the Painful Painful Minghun's growth is physical stat increase—specifically blood increase—which significantly reduces their own damage output.

Second, the new Painful Painful Minghun "Star Shift" also shone brightly in battles within the Evil Moon Domain.

It improved the survivability of magic users, allowing them to escape certain death by swapping positions with a teammate's Star Shift, gaining space to continue outputting.

Various interesting Xin De Wan Fa emerged alongside the containment of these three new Painful Painful Minghun.

For example, the Clone Self-Detonation Technique.

Place a clone loaded with spiritual bombs in a safe position; when magic users are targeted from behind by demons controlled by Di Nian the Tyrant, swap positions and detonate the spiritual bombs to inflict area destructive damage.

Or have an assassin player dash to the enemy rear and swap positions with the magic user's self-detonating clone.

Or have an assassin player dash to the rear and swap positions with a Statue Flow player via Star Shift.

At this moment, activating Taunt can instantly draw massive fire from the enemy rear, achieving battlefield division and limiting enemy output efficiency.

After this round of Painful Painful Minghun updates, Star Vein combinations underwent a complete reshuffling, with many new Xin De Wan Fa emerging.

The exploration progress of the Player Corridor region has already reached 3.02%.

Recently, the Arms Merchant Guild has begun initial testing of a first-generation mining robot, at an underground mine located northeast of the Colorful Mist Coast.

The specific effects still await verification.

Player development is steadily advancing toward a complete legion system.

The only thing troubling Qi Sheng is that the recent construction of the cultivation system has been consuming too much Shou Shou Jili.

The era of idle cultivation for all cannot be opened for the time being.

……

Colorful Mist Coast.

"Many thanks for the guidance, Divine Emissary."

Listening to the voice in his mind, An Sui nodded respectfully.

Through these days of contact, An Sui was immensely shaken by the abilities this player clan Divine Emissary had displayed.

Remote communication that ignored spatial distance without building a spiritual connection, death resurrection, information analysis… these abilities all struck him as unbelievable, all rule-based abilities beyond his comprehension.

It was clear that the player clan, like the terrifying Black Tide, mastered multiple rule abilities.

Moreover, the performance of each rule ability was far stronger than the Reincarnation ability mastered by their Darkkin Legion.

From this alone, one could see how profound the player clan's foundation was.

He now had only one thought: to climb this great tree of the player clan as high as possible.

Perhaps… with the player clan's help, he could succeed Dark Star and become the next commander of the Darkkin Legion.

Originally feeling somewhat lost about the future, it now saw hope of rising in Monster World.

Thinking of this, An Sui, who was in Darkkin Space, turned his gaze toward the blood-and-qi energy orbs extracted from hunting with his clansmen over the past two days.

It decided to lead its clansmen out to continue hunting right now, increasing its assessment chips, even using the resources gifted by Dark Star as chips.

It was all for development; rather than spending them on development and construction, it was better to latch onto the player clan's thigh first.

Thinking of becoming an affiliated force of the player clan, it felt boundless motivation surging within its body.

The chance to ascend in a single step was right before its eyes; it had to seize it.

Meanwhile.

Severing the faith connection, Hearing Tong Xin let out a long breath.

The bait was still on the hook; the plot was unfolding in the planned direction.

Opening his notebook, he began reviewing the story background he had written.

Once the first round of assessment ended, he would gradually explain the player clan's background story to the Darkkin, as well as the great Beneath Di Zhao god behind it.

Then, through this story, deepen An Sui's faith.

Perhaps when the assessment formally ended and he received the invitation, An Sui's awe would directly transform into faith.

He even felt that inviting now would give An Sui a fairly high chance of shifting from awe to Level 1 faith.

Between a believer and awe lay a barrier; in An Sui's eyes, he himself had not yet earned its recognition, only an outsider.

And his explicit affirmation of An Sui was the force that would break the barrier between believer and awe.

But Hearing Tong Xin felt this matter could not be rushed; it had to continue unfolding according to plan.

Only with a solid foundation could a towering cathedral of faith be built.

He had also already planned out a clear direction for An Sui's future.

He would not act alongside the Darkkin Legion as a leader, but would continue to operate with his brothers in the Little Ones group, letting An Sui change its territory and develop freely.

And he would continuously provide resurrection, resources, and other forms of assistance throughout this process.

Doing so was based on two considerations.

First, he had no feelings for An Sui at all; when playing the game, he still preferred being with his brothers.

Second, he had to maintain a sense of mystery and distance; too much contact might seem to make the relationship more solid, but would actually weaken An Sui's faith in him.

He had discussed this aspect in detail with Hei Ye.

The conclusion reached was that as long as he could help the Darkkin clan speed up resurrection and occasionally provide some Shangcheng resources An Sui couldn't obtain, he could maintain and continuously deepen the faith.

This was precisely the sense of security, one of the original three cores.

So in the future, he would still act with his brothers and leave An Sui to develop on its own.

Compared to supporting other small forces, with the Reincarnation ability, the Darkkin clan didn't even need him to worry about sudden extinction.

If possible, he even wanted to get his hands on the Reincarnation Space in An Sui's possession.

That way, he could completely control the resurrection of Darkkin warriors like An Sui, and in wartime even have these Darkkin warriors come work for him, without worrying about death consumption.

Simply the perfect soldier type.

If successful, he would pioneer a brand-new Liu Pai Wan Fa in Monster World: the Deity-Building Stream.

A playstyle similar to an SLG.

Imagining a future with faith warriors who could constantly produce faith power for him and even die for him, Hearing Tong Xin felt he was about to strike it rich.

Although he entered the game late, the appearance of the divine fragment Painful Painful Minghun might allow him to reverse his fate against the heavens.

He would soon be able to advance to the top ranks of the player legions.

……

Five days later, Colorful Mist Coast.

Wicked Moon Domain.

Above Xie Yan Gao Ta, Di Nian Xie Ling was communicating with the Wicked Eye.

With the war against the player clan continuing until now, the resources in the entire domain node were nearly exhausted.

The blue-skinned Wicked Eye had lost control of Xie Yan Gao Ta and could not see the direction of the war, but could still sense the resources in the tower below continuously draining away.

He repeatedly inquired about the progress of the battle.

In response, the Di Nian Xie Sui solemnly stated that the player faction's attacks had grown increasingly fierce, and with each new troop type generated, it secretly stole a portion of resources.

The war was nearing its end, and the Di Nian Xie Sui began contemplating how to withdraw.

Although he could simply abandon the mess to the Blue-Skin Xie Yan and let it fend for itself, the Blue-Skin Xie Yan, after reestablishing its connection with Gao Ta, would inevitably review the war records.

This portion of the content had already been altered by his Xie Yan.

But there remained a potential risk of exposure.

It would be better to outright eliminate the Blue-Skin Xie Yan before leaving, to cut off any future threat.

"Xie Yan, what do you think?" the Di Nian Xie Sui asked at this moment.

"I agree with your decision, but it would be best if our projections died together, rather than returning early, proving we fought until the very end."

"Good."

At this moment, the viewpoint shifted to the front battlefield.

Having realized the Xie Yan's domain was about to collapse, more and more players had entered the Xie Xie Yue domain over the past two days.

In an instant, the Di Nian Xie Sui began generating troops of the Huang Chao and Si Zai lineages, igniting a new round of fierce combat.

During this process, the Xie Yan collected real-time player information for him.

"Xie Yan, have you noticed a problem? While creating Hei Chao·Players, we gathered a vast amount of facial feature data and found many players' appearances were extremely similar—even identical."

In response to the question, the Xie Yan nodded calmly:

"Indeed, many faces are similar, but their abilities and life strength differ."

As it spoke, the Xie Yan fed a flood of data into the Di Nian Xie Sui's mind.

The data recorded comparative battlefield traits of players with identical faces.

For example, a player clad in blue garments had appeared multiple times within the Xie Xie Yue domain.

Yet beyond their identical appearance, all other traits varied drastically.

He first appeared in the Di Zhong Mountain Range, where his ability was launching lightning orbs, with blood qi strength at 23.7 and mental strength at 82.82.

He reappeared in the Cang Xing Sea's Xie Xie Yue domain, wielding a dagger to maneuver and slay Hei Chao Xie Sui, his blood qi and mental strength both rising above 100.

Subsequent appearances occurred on this very Xie Xie Yue domain, where his ability mirrored that of Hei Chao Tian Zai troops—absorbing damage to create space for his team's output.

Clearly, both combat style and life strength had changed significantly.

The only constant was the player's face.

"We can confirm that some players share only identical appearances, while all other traits differ; yet there is also a group whose abilities are identical but whose life strength shows marked differences," the Xie Yan explained at this moment.

Upon hearing the Xie Yan's explanation, the Di Nian nodded in understanding.

He was merely curious about the high rate of facial similarity among players; he did not care why such a phenomenon occurred.

Regardless, players were his enemies.

This information about similar faces offered him no advantage in defeating players—it merely added another entry to the "Player Information Database," perhaps useful someday.

After resolving his curiosity, the Di Nian Xie Sui resumed controlling Hei Chao against the players.

During this time, it once again activated its mental interference tactic and treasure chest tactic.

Through battlefield testing, both tactics had proven to significantly impact players.

First, the mental interference tactic: faced with his taunts, players became excessively aggressive, losing rationality in combat—he could easily manipulate their emotions.

Second, the treasure chest tactic, each use disrupted the players' battle formation, causing internal chaos.

These were, in his view, the two major weaknesses of the player faction.

It even led him to believe the player army lacked any strict or effective discipline.

In contrast, the insectoid troops, though lacking intelligence, were never influenced by emotion or external interference under the control of the Hive Mind.

Yet this disorganized, undisciplined, warlike force possessed the perfect counter to Hei Chao: the ability to decompose it.

It also wielded a series of rules-based abilities that were nearly impossible to counter.

It felt to him like a group of fools holding advanced combat technologies.

As if Hei Chao's natural nemesis—truly a headache.

It now had only one thought: after the war in the Xie Xie Yue domain ended, he hoped the player faction's target would not return to the Di Zhong Mountain Range.

If they did, he would have to restart the Tian Zai troop strategy, minimizing losses from attrition.

The player faction loved battle—he would deny them that satisfaction.

He would make things as uncomfortable as possible, as repulsive as possible, forcing the player faction to abandon the Di Zhong Mountain Range themselves.

If all else failed, the lateral expansion plan would be activated.

Though this would sacrifice strategic depth of territory, it would at least secure development resources, rather than relying solely on resources produced by domain nodes.

That level of resource yield barely sufficed to maintain scale.

If he continued consuming resources in this way against the player faction and the battle insects, he would eventually sink into a quagmire of war and collapse under attrition—his controlled Hei Chao would weaken and decay.

This was his greatest frustration.

As the Hei Chao commander, he had lost an attrition war—utter disgrace.

"Di Nian, do not grieve. You are merely a negligible commander among the Hei Chao, yet you face a player army with endless reinforcements, a force wielding multiple rule-based powers. Your performance has been quite admirable."

"Thanks," the Di Nian Xie Sui replied irritably.

"You're welcome. Calming your emotions is my duty. If saying this makes you feel better, I could say more—even weave some lies into encouragement; it might be more effective," the Xie Yan's projection blinked its eye, then continued:

"In truth, you are the finest Xie Sui warrior I have ever seen. Every war, you strategize with precision; your insight is unmatched—you always seize critical moments amid the chaos of battle. Your wisdom terrifies the player faction; you construct perfect counter-Xie Sui armies and tactics tailored to their traits. No wonder you're a potential warrior from the Abyss."

After praising him, the Xie Yan asked curiously:

"Di Nian, have you felt a sense of joy stirring within you?"

After hearing the praise, the Di Nian Xie Sui stood frozen—realizing he had vastly underestimated the Xie Yan.

Compared to the mockery from the Player Clan, the one beside him was the true master of sarcasm, especially with that innocent gaze... Emotions surged within him.

"Di Nian, you still haven't told me..."

"Shut up, you idiot."

"'Idiot' is a common insult used by the Player Clan. You've been using it too frequently lately; you may have been influenced by them to some degree. I advise against continuing to use it, as this could be a form of unknown mental pollution, subtly altering your cognition and habits."

"Idiot Evil Eye, you are an idiot!"

"Very well, from now on I am an idiot. You may address me thus. My mother did not bestow a name upon me; I thank you for naming me."

Di Nian:...

(End of this chapter)