Chapter 169-3: The Faith Plan, Profound Foundations (3) |
Colorful Mist Coast, by the beach.
As he scrolled through forum replies from players, Tong Xin felt more and more chilled.
Especially Darkness Approaches’ analysis post, which detailed the definition of faith and the stringent requirements for establishing faith.
It could be called high risk and high return.
But what this high risk is likely to bring is that the weak force you have supported for years of hard work suddenly vanishes, and all effort goes to waste.
“This Divinity Inherited Soul seems like I cannot afford to play it.”
The number of replies was still increasing. Tong Xin turned his head to the Kindergarten bros who were also reading and said helplessly.
“No, better to sell it. Relying on our ability alone, it is indeed hard to establish a religious faith.” Iron Hammer sighed as well.
If the Principal took off, they could also get a piece of the meat.
Establishing faith is already hard, and now you also have to consider how to protect believers. This adds another risk to an already difficult way of obtaining faith power.
Hearing this, Tong Xin also felt like giving up.
Charging into battle was no problem for him, but cultivating a force really put him in a bind.
“Forget it. I will ask later which guild leader is willing to buy the Divinity Inherited Soul. If no one buys, I will dismantle it. That can also produce a lot of sacrificial power.”
Saying this, Tong Xin could not help sighing.
Just then, the silent Cute Baby at the side suddenly spoke up.
“Principal, look at this comment.”
As he spoke, Cute Baby shared the forum interface before him in visualized form.
Tong Xin looked up. On the interface was a reply from a forum player.
I Am Destiny: After reading Brother Darkness’s analysis, I thought of a force very suitable for establishing faith: the Darkborn race.
These guys have lately been trying to make contact with us players. Several times after meeting while hunting in the Colorful Mist Coast region, they would take the initiative to help us fight monsters.
From conversations you can tell they want to investigate the details of us players. There is even a feeling they want to attach themselves to us players, but they are hesitant. So I think you can try the Darkborn race. They are now at the end of their rope and urgently need a big thigh to cling to. Go over and put on a fierce show, praise our player race to the skies, and first raise the sense of mystery.
By the way, Guide says the Darkborn race also has revival ability, though I did not ask in detail how the revival works.
—
Seeing this post, Tong Xin snapped his head toward the floating Guide water sphere beside him.
“Brother Guide, I need you!”
[Speak.] Guide glanced at Tong Xin.
“Give me a detailed introduction to the Darkborn race, the one whose Darkborn space I raided for resources last time. Do they really have revival ability?”
Guide heard this and nodded calmly.
[They do have revival ability. The Anshui you have contacted controls a Darkborn space. Inside there is a reincarnation node that can inject the consciousness of Darkborn warriors, then transmit it to a Rule node for remolding. But the process is very long, needing roughly ten years to complete life remolding.]
Guide’s answer instantly extinguished more than half of the hope that had flared in Tong Xin.
Revive once every ten years?
He only had a few tens of years in this life. Even if he went to the Lunar Eclipse race in the future for gene modification, it would only extend his life by several decades.
His lifespan could not possibly wait for such a long revival cooldown.
In his eyes, the Darkborn race’s revival ability was no different from not having it.
“Hahaha, Principal, this is not bad. The waiting for death and revival would surely be full of anticipation. If it really works, from then on you can look at the death cooldown calendar every day and life will be especially full of hope.”
Hearing Drunken Milk’s teasing, Tong Xin spat.
“Having me wait day in and day out for ten years, I feel more like the believer.”
Just as Tong Xin was about to give up, Guide continued at this moment:
[However, others need to wait ten years, but you do not.]
“What do you mean?” Tong Xin started in shock.
[If you embed the ‘Divinity’ Inherited Soul and establish a stable faith connection with the Darkborn race, you can continuously obtain the malleable energy known as faith power. This malleable energy can transform many substances and can also provide energy to accelerate rule operation.]
[Simply put, you can spend faith power to speed up the post-death revival of Darkborn warriors.]
Guide’s answer rekindled hope in Tong Xin, who had already been thinking of giving up.
By establishing faith with Darkborn warriors to gain continuously produced faith power, then using a portion of the faith power to speed up the warriors’ revival.
If the connection could truly be established, he would have an infinitely loyal Darkborn legion.
The script was already written. The next question was how to make Darkborn warriors produce faith in him.
Darkness Approaches mentioned three keys in the reply: sense of mystery, spiritual sustenance (sense of security), and a story system.
He needed to lay out plans from these three aspects.
That is, he needed to tell a good story that would make the Darkborn race willing to believe and feel awe.
Then, starting from this story, have the Darkborn race gradually enter the framework of faith, form the cognition that pious belief can solve all problems, and gradually become devout believers.
“Brothers, you keep having fun. I am going to the library to look up related information.”
“Go ahead. We will wait for your good news.” Iron Hammer nodded, knowing the Principal was clearly moved.
A few minutes later, Tong Xin arrived at the library area of the Emperor’s Mound Village space.
He entered keywords to search, and a large number of books immediately appeared before his eyes.
Revelation of the Eternal Light.
Summary: A mythic work recorded in the eyes of the Sirius race about the origin of the world, exploring the eternal struggle of world cycles and the meaning of the Sirius God creating the world.
The Voice of the Void.
Summary: The sacred truth recorded by the High Priest of the Whitefeather race, revealing the entire process of a god being born and enlightening the Whitefeather race.
The Book of Stars: Fate.
The Growth Rings of the Divine Tree of Life.
The library recorded information on many races and the deities they worshipped.
These were exactly what Tong Xin needed now.
He needed to cram the relevant knowledge to understand the process by which a race establishes faith and worship.
Though he did not know whether this method was feasible, he had to give it a try. How could he be willing to give up just like this.
What was certain was that fooling a highly intelligent being with an independent system of values would not be easy.
But as a player, he felt he still had certain advantages.
Maybe it really could work.
Opening the first book, the beginning of the story told of the world’s birth, when chaos and the unknown filled heaven and earth.
A weak primitive race was born during this period.
It mentioned plague and death, and the Sirius God descending to sweep away the plague. The primitive people who witnessed this miracle firmly believed this was the deity who protected them.
At this point, the concept of the Sirius God was born.
The people revered the Sirius God as their supreme faith, built altars, and held grand sacrificial ceremonies, praying for the Sirius God’s protection.
And the Sirius God always protected the Sirius race, witnessing their reproduction and growth, becoming an eternal pillar in the spiritual world of the Sirius race.
—
Over the next three days, Tong Xin stayed in the library.
After browsing a large number of books related to religious faith, he found a common feature in these stories of faith.
The rapid establishment of faith requires the display of miracles.
Miracles such as curing terminal illness and raising the dead can intuitively display the power and authority of a deity.
Stunning miracles can even omit the gradual process of establishing faith. As long as the ability is beyond the scope of cognition, it can instantly arouse awe and worship in those who witness it.
Tong Xin felt he could completely start from this aspect.
With the idea, he immediately contacted the Kindergarten brothers to discuss how to stage a stunning display of miracles.
Learning of his idea, the players of the Kindergarten Guild all expressed support and offered suggestions for reference.
During this, Drunken Milk put forward an interesting idea.
He said Monster World is a world with a transcendent power system. Ordinary displays of transcendence cannot bring shock at all. Perhaps a miracle could be constructed through the setting of player death and revival.
But to make the miracle present better, a group of extras would be needed to cooperate.
Through a revival ritual, establish in the watching Darkborn warriors the cognition that Tong Xin is the agent of a deity, and secondly display the ability of death and revival.
But there is only one chance for this miracle display. If it fails and reveals a flaw, there will not be a next time.
Therefore, before implementing the plan, every detail must be nailed down carefully to ensure that no mistakes appear during the ‘miracle’ demonstration.
During the discussion, Iron Hammer pulled Darkness Approaches into the team group chat.
Darkness Approaches, ever enthusiastic, also provided many suggestions for reference.
Among them was a view that one could use the ‘Emperor’s Sign,’ which many forces in Monster World know, to establish a high level faith. Tong Xin would, as a lower-ranked one under the Emperor’s Sign, then establish faith with the Darkborn race.
The most notable benefit of doing this is that it provides a common cognition that can be corroborated and can strengthen the credibility of the story through this cognition.
A few hours later, the plan for the miracle demonstration was officially finalized, and then a post was published on the player forum.
[Recruiting extras. Price by private message. Payment in cash or sacrificial power. Actors with relevant work experience preferred.]
After posting to recruit extras, Tong Xin began to conceive a reasonable opening.
Although it was a miracle demonstration, he definitely could not display it proactively. He had to let the Darkborn warriors discover it passively.
Let the Darkborn warriors observe the manifestation of the miracle from the shadows and be shocked by it.
And the significance of the extras was to set off his status, letting the Darkborn warriors intuitively see his identity as the deity’s agent behind the player race.
With this identity, he could then tell the story of faith well in subsequent contact.