Chapter 702: Youngster – I’ll Make the Arrangements
The divine spell [Resurrection] severely depleted him! Despite the resurrection targets only being silver level.
Part way, the dragonman youngster swapped to magic power to use necromancy, raising the vast majority of the corpses into undead lifeforms.
The expenditure of magic and spiritual power was also an important cost.
Finally, the dragoman youngster activated a few alchemy puppets and imbued them with deception divine spells.
Planting false memories into the resurrected also required expenditure.
There were other multi-deceptive divine spells, tricking not just Hun Tong, Tripleblade, and others, but also those that were turned into the undead into believing that all of the dead had been truly resurrected.
The dragonman youngster had invested a large sum, yet the result was only a few pious level believers, the rest were ordinary level ones.
If this was put into business terms, it would be him investing a million gold coins for only a few thousand in revenue, it could even be said he lost his ancestral home.
“Preaching is so hard.”
“I am indeed a divine emissary, I have peak mastery over divine spells and the help of the divine domain, yet this is how it turned out. How do other missionaries fare?”
“The vast majority of clergymen preaching will spread their doctrine or perhaps utilize low level divine spells (at most healing spells), to display their god’s power to gain a populace’s goodwill and trust, a slow process.”
“Swaying the feelings of people is easy, and changing their opinions isn’t challenging. What is most crucial is that these people need to genuinely approve of a god and live according to their teachings. That is how believers of sufficient quality are fostered.”
The biggest thing the dragonman youngster felt was that evangelization was no overnight affair, rather it was an eternal and imperceptible long term undertaking.
“The ordinary and low level clergymen preaching methods are the cheapest.”
“The biggest cost incurred is time.”
“And since they are weak, their time is of little value. As for the gods themselves, they are not constrained by life span and have plenty of time to spare.”
“This is the best way to preach.”
The dragonman youngster had many regrets.
“When a lifeform’s evolution hits the god level, their life span is infinite, and at the peak of transcendent strength, the only true threats are existences of the same level.”
“Like Charming Blue Goddess, the reason why she was injured and sank into slumber was due to other gods of the same level besieging her?”
“Therefore, even if one is a god level, gods still need to constantly improve themselves. Only with power and the ability to defend oneself can one continue to survive.”
“And to get power, one needs to pursue faith!”
The dragonman youngster was currently still unable to determine whether the gods’ foundation was faith, but he already knew - faith absolutely could give gods more power, and the power of faith was a strong guarantee!
Even if faith was not the foundation of divine power, so long as one god pursued faith vigorously, the other gods had to imitate them and follow close behind or strive to surpass them.
If you don’t compete, while others do, then you will be the one who comes to grief.
By now, the dragonman youngster had a certain understanding of the gods’ living environment.
He had to understand it and gain an even greater comprehension of it.
The dragonman youngster was clear: don’t be fooled by the fact that he was drawing support from the mighty Charming Blue divine power to obtain immense benefits. Charming Blue Goddess was absolutely an immense future danger. After all, what he was really doing was blasphemous prayers, and as a blasphemous priest, he stole Charming Blue Goddess’ power and ruthlessly exploited it.
No, he didn’t just exploit it just once, it could be predicted that he would exploit it many more times in the future!
The more he exploited it, the more he understood it, and the more the dragonman youngster was afraid of the consequences Charming Blue Goddess would inflict on him.
He told himself: he had to be wary!
This wary mentality led to him, despite knowing the Resurrection spell, to not make it a priority to resurrect Zi Di – just in case Charming Blue Goddess tampered with it, he couldn’t tell if it was the case.
Therefore, his resurrecting of everyone had many objectives, one of which was as an experiment.
He wanted to resurrect others first, then put them under constant observation, watching if their temperament, faith, and other things were tangibly and intangibly affected for the worse, and if that was the case, then to what degree.
The long sermon finally concluded.
“Stand.” The dragonman youngster proclaimed.
Everyone stood up, and looked towards the dragonman youngster, reverence and fanaticism across their faces as they fervently awaited the dragonman youngster’s next order.
Cong Mang and Hun Tong were the same too.
Hong Zhu went without saying, she was one of the new pious level believers.
Only Da Dou was different, wobbling as he stood up and pain still clearly remaining on his face. He persevered for a long time, and it wasn’t easy as his mind and willpower experienced a harsh ordeal.
The dragonman youngster already made arrangements for everyone.
He first arranged for the big guy, Da Dou, Hong Zhu, and some resurrected mercenaries to leave Snow Bird Harbor and join up with the Vegetable Pirates.
The big guy’s mouth gaped, gasping, he wanted to object. He was unable to make sense of why he had to be separated from his father after just reuniting with him, he didn’t want to do that!
But a moment later, the dragonman youngster glared at him slightly, his strict eyes cowed the big guy into shrinking his head, not daring to disobey.
He zipped his mouth, and his eyes quickly reddened, feeling very aggrieved.
Hong Hu also looked lost, and regretful. She made up her mind, she wanted to tenaciously hug the dragonman youngster’s thigh, but at this moment, she was to be dispatched into the ocean again,
Da Dou on the contrary was indifferent, and even somewhat happy. He was very afraid of the dragonman youngster and didn’t want to stay by his side. The dragonman youngster put him under too much pressure, especially during his sermon, that experience was etched into his memory. Keeping far away from the dragonman youngster could allow Da Dou to breathe.
Tripleblade also felt lost.
He still wanted to bring back these resurrected mercenaries, rouse morale, and reconstruct the mercenary corps.
His heart really was set on the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.
But he quickly had a thought, and realized the dragonman youngster was right, “Bringing these people back alive is too garish.”
“Although we have Deceptive Disguise that can let them pretend to be other people, why would we expend valuable Pearl Bubbles like that?”
“These people are not strong enough to use Pearl Bubbles on.”
“Letting them go out to sea on their own is the right choice.”
Of everyone, Cong Mang was the most unwilling.
“The Vegetable Pirates is the foundation I painstakingly worked to build!”
Just now, the dragonman youngster took it over with a light word.
How could Cong Mang be willing to let that happen?
But what could he do?
The circumstances were stronger than the person’s will.
Cong Mang could only secretly console himself, “My foundation was originally subsidized and established by the Wisteria Merchant Alliance. Returning it to them is fine.”
He had second thoughts, “No, what is the Wisteria Merchant Alliance’s relationship with Long Fu?”
“The Wisteria Merchant Alliance is destroyed already, when confronted with a foreign god, how could they possibly cooperate equally?”
“It is very likely the Wisteria Merchant Alliance has already been annexed!”
“The Long Fu before me is the leader.”
Cong Mang’s repeated visualizations quickly dissipated his stirred up emotions.
If someone in dire straits also saw someone meet the same fate, they would be in a much better mood. This was the approximate mentality – I’m not the only one that has bad luck, look, there are others who have the same terrible luck as me!
Like Cong Mang surmised, the Wisteria Merchant Alliance was in equally terrible straits, so he didn’t have much beef with them.
He called out at once, “Lord Long Fu, I am truly honored that you can look after my people.”
He continued to express that he was willing to proactively conform and help Da Dou and the rest assume control over the Vegetable Pirates.
To this, the dragonman youngster merely nodded, expressing his approval.
Cong Mang’s reaction was something he expected.
The dragonman youngster analyzed Cong Mang’s temperament and considered how he would react.
As a pirate, he had a constant admiration for strength. Therefore, the pirate commander being the strongest within a pirate group was true with almost no exceptions.
In fact, this world belonged to the strong.
Every social class and all aspects of society had universal admiration for strength.
Cong Mang’s expression of this was also very obvious.
Just look at how he attached himself to Da Han willingly, led his entire pirate group as a daring vanguard, and obediently gave the Icebound Pirates a portion of his spoils of war.
Now that Cong Mang was actively helping the dragonman youngster’s annexation, he once again embodied his mentality of attaching himself to the strong.
On the one hand, he was already a captive, one under the yoke, and had no choice but to cooperate. On the other hand, the dragonman youngster had a foreign god backing him, an existence far surpassing saint level Da Han!
The dragonman youngster deliberately invoked the “God Mist” as deterrence and intimidation due to the considerable benefits it brought. Cong Mang’s active cooperation was one of those benefits.
The dragonman youngster continued to arrange things.
He had Cong Mang follow him to the Ice Sculpture Capital. While Hun Tong was left behind in Snow Bird Harbor to secretly defend and look after the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps branch here.
Cong Mang wanted to go to the capital. An important reason was the Wisteria Cache.
Now that he belonged to the survivors’ group, it would be very beneficial to Zi Di acquiring the cache.
Another important reason was that the dragonman youngster wanted him by his side so he could observe him at close range and understand him. The deeper the dragonman youngster’s understanding of his nature and thinking was, the greater his control over him would naturally be.
While Hun Tong was stationed in Snow Bird Harbor…
On the one hand, the dragonman youngster was relatively comfortable with Hun Tong. His hatred of Tan Mo, to some extent, was in a way loyalty to the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.
On the other hand, the dragonman youngster needed to give Hun Tong time alone.
This was because Hun Tong had experienced both the Snow Bird Harbor Battle as well as the dragonman youngster’s public evangelization, his mind was certain to have been immensely battered.
He was unprecedentedly loyal to the Sheng Ming Empire, this was due to his noble education from childhood, and it was how he habitually thought.
And now, he couldn’t help but ponder and compare.
On the one side was the empire, he had let a group alone far from the continent, painstakingly developed his territory, racked his brains to operate it, and then was blackmailed and framed by Tan Mo
On the other side was the enigmatic foreign power, one that had a god that magnanimously used a Communal Resurrection spell, and their higher-up Long Fu who was at least a bishop.
Which was better, returning to the Sheng Ming Empire or joining the dragonman youngster?