After absorbing fourteen different advancement items in succession, Li Li had finally become a competent class advancement instructor.
Aside from those obscure classes, he could now guarantee that most players would be able to find the advanced class they wanted from him before their third class advancement.
The only problem was that he had taken advancement items worth over a hundred million Alliance Coins from the two professional players.
With his pockets empty, Li Li had no idea how to repay them, so he could only award them an exclusive, limited-edition title: "Divinely Favored Under Radiant Glory."
This title had no stat bonuses or special effects, and only other players could see it.
After all, Li Li could not even bear to heal his own injuries. He still planned to summon another fifty players and later issue them quests that rewarded Experience Points, so he naturally had to conserve the faith he had left.
After the two players accepted the quest and left with the Scholar, who seemed to want to say something but held back, more than two hours passed before the players returning by truck found him and advanced to Silver Rank.
Li Li took the opportunity to connect with Aer, withdraw the faith from her, and then share all his advancement abilities with her.
From then on, players could also seek out Aer to advance into new classes.
But this was only treating the symptoms, not the root cause.
After all the players had left, Li Li took out the idol Aer had given him before. He planned to spend some faith to turn it into a node so players could level up and advance by touching it.
He had not done this before because the necessary conditions had not been met.
The prerequisite was having an "eye" beside the idol.
Only then could he constantly check whether the idol had been corrupted. By leaving an avatar beside it now, he could also absorb the faith stored within the idol and transport it back to his main body.
The night had grown late.
Li Li was sitting on a crate, wholly focused on modifying the idol's structure.
A black business van pulled up outside the warehouse.
A beastman wearing a tailored suit, delicate gold-rimmed glasses, and a fountain pen clipped to his chest stepped out of the black business van.
He looked disdainfully at the muddy road outside the warehouse, took out a handkerchief to cover his nose, and entered Li Li's warehouse under the protection of an elegant male elven butler.
Li Li had already guessed the identities of these uninvited guests.
Since they were not treants, they were most likely people from the Transcendence Merchant Guild or the academy, sent to probe him.
Nodens, who had become a little bear plushie, had said that many gods were hiding within the Alliance—both righteous gods and evil gods. The Alliance's upper ranks knew of their existence, and some gods were even among the Alliance's upper ranks.
Aer was resting in the small room behind the warehouse, and his avatar was here as well.
Li Li could ensure his own safety. If this body suddenly died, he could immediately switch to another one. If necessary, he could even possess another player's body.
It was just that when creating the bodies of the Divine Legion, Li Li had omitted certain organs to avoid trouble.
If circumstances allowed, he still wanted to resolve this peacefully.
After the two entered the warehouse, the bespectacled beastman handed his handkerchief to the butler and surveyed the surroundings with obvious disgust before finally turning his gaze toward Li Li, who was seated in the corner.
He did not say a word, seemingly waiting for Li Li to approach him first.
Li Li remained seated on the delivery box without moving, smiling as he stared at the somewhat effeminate beastman.
Seeing this, the elven butler behind the beastman stepped forward half a pace. After saying, "Excuse me," he snapped his fingers.
The next moment, the delivery boxes piled like a small mountain behind Li Li, the layer of stone bricks beneath his feet, and the scattered clutter around him were all transferred in front of the two men.
Only Li Li, who had been sitting atop the box, remained exactly where he was.
However, with the box beneath him suddenly gone, he nearly fell flat on his face.
After Li Li steadied himself, the elven butler sighed and snapped his fingers again, teleporting himself and the bespectacled beastman before Li Li.
Li Li struck first, pointing at a section of chipped floor tiles.
"Damaging private property means compensation."
The beastman with gold-rimmed glasses did not respond. Only after getting closer did he carefully observe Li Li, ultimately letting his gaze rest on the idol in Li Li's hand.
"Which deity are you?" the beastman with gold-rimmed glasses asked.
"Is that important?" Li Li asked in return.
"Of course... not," the beastman with gold-rimmed glasses replied. "It is merely a standard opening line."
Li Li shrugged. "I thought my demand for compensation was the opening line."
"My time is valuable. Get to the point. How much for your ability to mass-produce Silver Rank individuals?"
"What?" Li Li froze for a moment before understanding what the beastman meant.
Today, eight players had gone from Lv1 to Lv30 through him.
From an outsider's perspective, eight ordinary people had become Silver Rank superhumans in an instant.
Although sacrifices to certain evil gods could achieve similar results.
Such sacrifices had to be conducted outside the city, however, and their special effects would be difficult to get approved.
But the reason players could level up through Li Li was that they were using bodies created by the Divine Legion.
Li Li had no ability to level up other people. Not even his saintess, Aer, could do it.
It seemed these people knew even less about him than he had imagined...
Watching Li Li's expression shift from confusion to realization, the beastman with gold-rimmed glasses spoke again in an indifferent tone.
"Name your price."
"You're from the Transcendence Merchant Guild?"
"As long as what you provide satisfies the guild, it can afford any price you name."
"Do you people not conduct preliminary research before doing business? I do have the ability to mass-produce Silver Rank individuals, but it is limited to people I summon. I have no means of making ordinary people become Silver Rank so quickly."
As the two talked, the two large trees across the road suddenly stood up. Their thick roots transformed into feet, and they slowly walked toward the warehouse entrance.
"Mr. Antonio will arrive shortly," one of the treants said.
"Even treants are here." Li Li simply took out his phone and asked everyone present, "Then let's do this together. Do any of you have the phone number of an academy executive?"
The next moment, the moonlight spilling through the window condensed into the phantom of a curvaceous woman wearing a pointed hat.
"We are already here," she said.
"Fine." Li Li looked somewhat frustrated. "Then we'll discuss business once the treants arrive. Before that, why don't you tell me how much you know about me?"
He had not hidden his existence at all. With a little effort, even ordinary people could uncover the anomalies surrounding him.
On one hand, he was waiting for the major factions to come to him. On the other, though he did not want to admit it, Li Li truly had no way to hide his abilities in a modern city.
Aer was just a brute who fought with her fists. She was useful in a fight, but hopeless at everything else.
Nodens, that little bear plushie, could at most give people nightmares and bully ordinary people, not to mention that the fellow was unreliable.
While Li Li was wallowing in self-pity, the next arrivals at the warehouse were a member of the shadow race wrapped head to toe in shadows and a blonde Magical Girl following behind him.
The Magical Girl wore armor bearing a sun emblem, carried a longsword at her waist, and had a banner marked with the same emblem on her back.
She looked nervously into the warehouse. The instant she saw Li Li, she rushed over, dropped to her knees before him, pressed one hand to her chest, and was too overcome with emotion to say a word.
Li Li reached out to help the Magical Girl up, extending his consciousness toward her and receiving her information.
Unsealing Saintess Aperia
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