In the blink of an eye, winter had passed and spring had arrived. Even though the changes of the four seasons in the Hellfire Archipelago were not too obvious, under the blowing of the spring breeze that stimulated the growth of all living things, the deep green of the dense jungle on Scorpion Island still appeared to be a little thicker.
Standing on the black reef that had naturally hardened into a dock in the newly built port city of Black Stone, Zhang Lisheng, who was wearing a gray robe made of spider silk, turned around with his feet bare and shifted his attention from the endless primeval forest in the distance to the equally vast blue sky and blue sea.
After a long silence, he suddenly asked in a low voice, "Tugra, have you still not found the safe route to the Nutao Sea?"
At this time, thanks to the Manifestation that had been fed with the slime before he became a Grand Wizard, the young man's appearance had already reverted to his human form from the Demon God.
Not only that, due to the Manifestation's omniscient power of 'collapse, transform, and assemble' being activated passively, Zhang Lisheng had collapsed, evolved, and combined the transformation power of the five wizard gus that he had mastered before into one when he made a breakthrough to the Rank-18 Wizard. For this reason, Zhang Lisheng had already lost the other transformation powers.
This situation could be said to have both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage was that as long as he could maintain the Manifestation's incarnation that could transform into various forms, he could cast all the omniscient power of the wizard gus that he had transformed before purely by relying on his physical body.
The disadvantage was that he could no longer rely on the transformation power to restore to his peak state in just six breaths when he was in danger, which was equivalent to having five or six lives.
Fortunately, with the advantages and disadvantages, it seemed like the advantages still outweighed the disadvantages. After all, other than his physical strength, after his soul and body had completely merged together, the young man's ability to cast the power of water and earth manipulation, as well as the 'nurture' and 'repair' abilities extended from these two powers, had become as agile as moving his hands and feet. There were very few people who could put him in danger at the moment.
With the further mastery of the divine power possessed by the witchcraft's ancestor, in addition to his own understanding of witchcraft cultivation, Zhang Lisheng naturally had many epiphanies these days. He understood that to an ordinary wizard, cultivating the Three Gates of Witchcraft, Life, Death, and Sacrifice, was actually just a matter of trying their best to simply use the Nuwa's divine power.
For example, the Gate of Life could use various secret techniques to seize the vitality of the enemy to make up for the loss of oneself or allies. In the end, it was just a low-level 'repair' power. An ordinary wizard could only use a mysterious spell to seize the vitality of all living things for himself before he could cast the enhancement spell. Those who truly mastered the 'repair' power could make up everything with soil as long as they had enough divine power.
In the ancient mythology, Nuwa had once refined the earth to make up a stone to the sky to of the sky.
Another example would be the Gate of Death, which would select wizard gus to defend against the enemy and transform strange insects to strengthen oneself. After going around in a big circle, the final purpose was to make one's body strong to the extreme and then divide one's own life to a powerful corpse, turning it into a living corpse to be commanded.
All of these were actually a simple imitation of the nurturing of life. However, it was something that could be done by a person who mastered the power of nurturing with a pile of soil and a few trays of water, but the wizards had to do it in a much more complicated manner. Of course, this was also a last resort. After all, not everyone could be like the ancient goddess Nuwa, who could create a new species just by kneading the soil.
Lastly, the Gate of Sacrifice cultivation was to train the soul and trace the power of the gods in order to obtain the method to cast all kinds of divine power. However, in reality, it was still the same. The strongest person would definitely obtain a simple method to manipulate the power of water and earth.
Other than ordinary wizards, to a lucky person like Zhang Lisheng who had inherited the Great Goddess Nuwa's power by an extreme coincidence, the cultivation of the Witchcraft's Gate of Death had transformed his body into a vessel that could accommodate the god's soul after transforming the six ancient strange insects.
Relying solely on the power of faith to continuously break through the Gate of Sacrifice, on the other hand, allowed him to gradually activate the ancient god's resurrection seed hidden in his soul. In the end, he obtained the power of the two ancient gods and completed the most critical and most difficult transformation from a human to a god.
Even though it was impossible for Zhang Lisheng to have a meteoric rise, be it his body or his soul, he was still far from reaching the ancient god's stage where he could cast his divine power in any world. However, relying on his extraordinary accumulation in the past, he could already compete with those wizard gods or Gate of Dao's legends who had made a breakthrough to the Rank-18 Wizard Shed and Restore. This was just the beginning of his new journey.
However, even though he had already grown to such a level, Zhang Lisheng's tone still faintly revealed a different kind of solemnity when he mentioned the Nutao Sea, the holy land of the Hellfire tribesmen.
"Great God, those reefs are just too hard and terrifying. Not only that, there's also extremely bad weather, ocean currents, and sea monsters …" Upon hearing the tribal god's question, the Wizard Li headman replied humbly and bitterly.
"There's no need to say anymore, Tugra. Looks like I'll have to go there myself." Upon seeing Tugra's nervous look, Zhang Lisheng interrupted his words.
"Even though it's very difficult to find the route, there's no need for you to do it yourself." The Wizard Li headman was stunned. Kneeling on the ground, he said, "As long as we send more iron ships to advance slowly, I believe the nautical chart will be drawn out very soon."
"You're worried that I'll be in danger, right, Tugra?" The young man smiled and turned to look at the towering totem pole in the distance before stretching out his left hand.
In an instant, the stone pillars on the more than 200 islands belonging to Wizard Li began to emit mottled yellow, blue, and red light. The brilliance on the totem pole behind Zhang Lisheng was even more magnificent. It continued to extend and gathered in his palm. Not long after, it condensed into an oval colorless gem the size of a pigeon's egg.
The gem was crystal clear, flashing with a soft light under the sunlight. It did not look particularly precious, but in fact, it was condensed from the power of faith contributed by hundreds of millions of Wizard Li believers. Its value was simply immeasurable.
Originally, it was impossible for such a faith stone of such extreme purity to appear, but Zhang Lisheng managed to do it by chance.
The young man had already learned that all the successful religions that had left a strong mark in history since ancient times on Earth had risen because of their pious priests, priests, and other preachers.
When it declined, it would always be because those who were supposed to serve the gods selflessly had become greedy and corrupt, using the theocracy to pursue their own selfish desires.
The Hellfire tribesmen believed in a primitive religion. Initially, they planned to transform it into a more mature religious model when the time was right.
However, when Zhang Lisheng could give buff spells and gift power to people, he recalled the religions on Earth and changed his mind. He decided to no longer select priests, build temples, and perfect prayer rituals. Instead, he would continue to enhance the believers' high piety by bestowing power to ordinary believers.
When 100 ordinary Wizard Li tribesmen gathered to pray, they would be able to use the various magical powers that Zhang Lisheng had opened his divine power network. A particularly devout believer or fanatic could even use the divine power of 20 to 30 people or even one person alone. Such consumption would undoubtedly reduce the power of faith collected by the totem pole.
However, this kind of unpredictable power that ordinary people could directly experience with their own bodies would make them revere and be more devout to his faith. Not only that, but this mode also ensured that Zhang Lisheng's theocratic rule over the Wizard Li tribe would never be corrupted, maintaining a virtuous cycle.
Such a harvest was undoubtedly greater than the effort in the long run. Another unexpected thing was that through this unprecedented massive consumption of the power of faith, the purity of the power of faith stored in the Wizard Li totem pole had reached its limit. The round stone that was originally the size of a bean that was covered with water chestnuts after being condensed had turned into a smooth and smooth pigeon egg shape.
The power of faith condensed by this colorless faith stone that resembled a pigeon egg was far above that of the bean-sized round stone. Correspondingly, the number of believers needed to produce such a stone was also jaw-dropping. It would take about 100 million Wizard Li tribesmen to dedicate a day's faith to condense it into one piece.
Based on this calculation, Zhang Lisheng, who had more than 160 million believers, could harvest three gems every two days. However, he was usually cautious and far-sighted, so he would never kill the goose that laid the golden eggs unless it was a critical moment. For this reason, he could only condense one piece every day.
"Don't worry, Tugra. With such a faith stone, I'll definitely be able to exert my strongest power even if I'm in the territory of the other island's god." After the colorless gem had completely solidified, Zhang Lisheng smiled and put it into a huge animal skin bag on his waist. With a firm voice, he said, "Go prepare a steamship for me, I …"
As the young man was speaking, a strange bird with a fat worm's body and gorgeous seven-colored wings suddenly landed beside him. Like a solid rubber ball, it bounced a few times before stopping. A native chief servant with feathers on his head jumped down and crouched on the ground before saying, "Great God, there's a fleet of mainlanders who have come to the Red Mountain Harbor.
The young mainlander called Luqi who brought your outlander companions away is the leader of the caravan. He wants to see you. "
"Luqi …" Zhang Lisheng muttered this name that had become not very deep in his memory. An image of a tough and rugged young man with thick eyebrows and big eyes wearing an embroidered hunting suit with colorful patterns who liked to talk appeared in his mind. Chuckling, he asked, "Why does he want to see me?"
"He said that he has something very important to tell you, Your Majesty. Not only that, but he's also inquiring about the news of the entire Scorpion Island," The sturdy chief servant replied respectfully.
"Inquiring about the news of the entire Scorpion Island?" Zhang Lisheng's expression changed right away. Before he controlled the entire Hellfire Ocean, it was not a pleasant thing to let the mainlanders know that there was a native tribe that had already conquered half of the island.
After pondering about it, the young man walked to the side of the winged worm and leaped onto its soft back.
At once, the strange bird, whose character was obviously not as sturdy and gentle as it looked, swelled up like a balloon with its round head that did not have a neck and was directly connected to its body. Hot magma-like saliva dripped from its mouth onto the reef, making a sizzling sound as a faint rancid smoke rose into the air.
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