Holy Crap! There's a Cow!

Hearing this, though he had not held much hope to begin with, Gaia still sighed.

Yet upon learning this answer, Gaia slowly felt a weight lift from his heart, because he did not know—if Isaac had said it was possible, would he have sent Isaac to do it...?

On one side was his most beloved youngest son; on the other, the people he had sworn to protect with his life...

Either choice was agonizing!

"Can we find out which Outer Gods are on the other side? Is it dangerous?"

"Emmmm..." Isaac did not know how to put it.

Dangerous? Definitely not. Intelligence of this level did not require sacrifices of particularly high quality. Do not think too highly of the Outer Gods' moral standards—those fellows were even less reliable than the Holy Lord.

At least the Holy Lord would publicly claim that he had always honored his promises.

As for these Outer Gods, being one second slower to sell out their teammates would be an insult to their identity as Outer Gods!

So finding out this information would be easy. What made Isaac hesitate was whether holding a ritual specifically for this piece of information would be too much of a loss.

Even though he currently had a pile of research projects waiting and was not short on much, he could still fleece some resources for nurturing the Dimension. As the saying went, a thief never left empty-handed.

But if he did that... would it look like he was padding the budget?

Hm, no. Not look like it—he definitely would be.

Still, the pangs of conscience were one thing. More importantly, if he told the truth, Gaia would definitely refuse. There was no need to even think about it.

Thus, after hesitating for several seconds—and just as Gaia began to regret asking—Isaac nodded. "No problem. It's very simple. But I'll need to consider the target of the trade. Different targets have different requirements for rituals and sacrifices."

"..." Gaia swallowed the words at his lips. After a moment of silence, he let out a heavy sigh. "Then make a list of what you need and give it to your Eldest Sister. She'll provide it."

"Understood. Then I'll... go back and do my experiments first?" Isaac blinked at his family, whose expressions were somewhat grave, and asked cautiously.

"Go on." Gaia waved him off and sighed again.

Isaac nodded, turned, and left the council hall. He could hardly wait to pick out a lucky Outer God!

"Ah..." After Isaac left the council hall, Gaia watched his departing back and sighed yet again. With a desolate expression, he said, "Are we really doing the right thing?"

Caesar pressed his lips together and clenched his fists. He did not know how to answer that question either...

From the family's perspective, it was naturally right. To put it bluntly, the family had reached a critical juncture between life and death. The more intelligence they had now, the better their odds of victory. As a member of the family, Isaac had that obligation—after all, Solomon Family blood flowed through his veins as well!

But...

From Isaac's perspective, this was wrong... Isaac had been frail ever since childhood and had never lived an easy life. His health had only just recovered, yet he had to take risks again... It was unfair to him...

For a time, the atmosphere in the council hall grew even heavier...

Of course, that was all wishful thinking on their part. After all, they did not know that Isaac had a Golden Finger.

At that moment, Isaac had already strode out of the castle, taken the Pumpkin Carriage back to the Mage Tower, then plunged headfirst into the study and happily began searching for a lucky victim.

Before long, Isaac had settled on three targets: the God of Courage, the Dream Fairy, and the God of Black Orcs.

There might have been others more suitable, but Eldest Sister's study did not contain them. That was normal—Cheryl was a Truth Wizard, so she did not know much about the Outer Gods.

Still, these three were enough. Of them, the God of Courage had an extremely misleading name. Judging from the name alone, one might think this was a good god, but that was not the case.

The God of Courage should actually have been called Khorne, also known as the Blood God. What It represented was uncontrollable belligerence, mindless madness, and rolling seas of blood flooding the battlefield. It possessed an unquenchable thirst for blood, and all who took up blades and slaughtered in Its name would surely receive Its favor.

It was an extremely dangerous Evil God, but also extremely generous—the most common bus-type among the Outer Gods. Just swipe your card and get on board. Of course, whether you could get off safely depended on your skill. Bus-type Outer Gods were usually tremendously powerful.

There were many ways to trade with It. Isaac had found three basic rituals in Cheryl's study alone, and every single one worked!

Of course, the probabilities were all very low.

And it was particularly interesting: judged purely through the ritual knowledge he had learned, all three basic rituals had extremely high success rates—as high as ninety percent!

Worthy indeed of its reputation as a bus!

But just like Its title of God of Courage, that too was merely a disguise. The Golden Finger showed that the actual success rate of these three rituals was only one percent. Using any of them for real would be nothing but giving oneself away.

Khorne was a fine trading target. Aside from being easy to approach, the most important thing was Its passion for war. It surely knew the situation of the black orcs like the back of Its hand. It might even have had a hand in this matter, so the gains should be considerable.

The second, the Dream Fairy, had been selected from the perspective of developing the Dimension. According to the scant information he had gathered over the past few days, the Dream Fairy's realm contained a special crystal capable of greatly accelerating a Dimension's growth. Moreover, the Dream Fairy's dream realm was closely connected to the real world, so It would surely know what had happened among the black orcs.

The third, the God of Black Orcs, had been added only after Isaac thought it over again and again.

As everyone knew, Outer Gods had no credibility.

None whatsoever. So even if they themselves had set a plan in motion, as long as you provided sacrifices, they would tell you about it. Of course, that was on the premise that you could still be alive when the ritual ended.

Thus, the God of Black Orcs could also serve as a trading target, and this had two advantages. First, the sacrifices were easy to obtain—black orcs would do, and they were readily available. Second, the benefits obtained from It might have miraculous effects against the black orcs!

All three were quite good. How should he choose~

Isaac stared at the three targets and fell into thought.

If this had been any other kind of magical knowledge, Isaac would certainly not have agonized over it like this. As an adult, he chose to have it all!

But this involved the Outer Gods, after all. Even with his Golden Finger, it was better to take things slowly, one at a time. Otherwise, he feared he would grow drunk on the joy of shortcuts and become careless.

Besides, all three of their summoning rituals were basic ones, each with a one-percent success rate. Raising that to one thousand percent would be no simple task...

Just gathering the materials would take a long time.

So after considering it again and again, he ultimately chose the God of Black Orcs!

For one thing, black orcs were easy to find as sacrifices—he could even buy them. For another, using the divine power of the God of Black Orcs to deal with black orcs... just thinking about it was thrilling! For some reason, it gave him a deliciously taboo feeling!