Individual Faith Issues

Ten days was a decent pace. Since he could cheat his own improvement through Precepts and other means, it was only natural for it to be faster.

But this unfamiliar field still required careful refinement.

"Next, you need to further draw upon the power of the Deep Well Water within your body and continuously strengthen your base attributes."

"Once your base attributes reach a certain level and you enter the Steel Breed, Whale-ification will truly erupt."

Naimus collected some of Pur's flesh and blood to keep as samples.

The reason he had been able to complete this further transformation so quickly in ten days was largely due to the Old Priest's help.

The new Bloodline Connection trait of the Rope of Oath was immensely powerful.

His Rope of Oath had originally consisted of strands slightly thicker than a thumb.

But as more and more effects were added to it, and as he acquired more contracts, the Rope of Oath's length and transformations increased rapidly.

For example, it had previously been able to evolve into fine threads invisible to the naked eye and decapitate the sprinting Benjamin.

Now, it had been refined further. After the Rope of Oath split into filaments, even more microscopic "threads" extended from the tips of those filaments.

These threads could influence the bloodlines of living beings to a certain extent.

"Unfortunately, this requires extremely powerful microscopic vision and exceptionally precise control."

"If this ability could be raised a few more levels, I might be able to use it to directly edit bloodline genes." Naimus had not completely brought concepts from his previous life into this world.

Perhaps the people of this world had things like bloodlines and genes, but many things could not possibly be identical to his previous life.

The existence of the Sky Whale alone would shatter the biology of his previous life.

Science also had to respect objective laws. It was merely a means of observing, summarizing, and categorizing the objective universe.

Naimus's current problem was that both his observational ability and precision were insufficient.

He could not bring this special tool to its fullest potential.

"What I need now is a real opportunity—an opportunity to explosively combine all my power." Naimus could sense that his seizure of this identity and entry into the Material Plane had reached a critical stage.

As long as he could complete the consolidation, he would be able to unleash all his power without having his Demon body cover his own body and form a physical medium.

Naimus had largely completed a model for utilizing the Power of Faith. Once he activated it, the newly born trait would become a bridge connecting all of Naimus's power.

"There is only one problem now—the Power of Faith is insufficient!"

"The Holy Nail formed from twenty-one years of Power of Faith, according to my estimates, simply cannot support the formation of the trait I want."

"And because I need to mobilize the power of both my Demon body and Paladin identity, I need two different types of faith."

"Around one hundred and fifty years of faith in the God of Precepts, and around twenty years of faith in myself, should be enough."

"The faith in the God of Precepts is easy to obtain. The faith on the church statue has never been drawn upon."

"The difficulty lies with the Old Priest. He has been guarding the church and rarely leaves, so I need to find a way to lure him away."

"And those twenty years of Power of Faith in myself are even more troublesome. This kind of faith produces far too little." Naimus currently had only three and a half believers.

Downs, Pur, the Village Guardian, and the general populace.

Downs counted as a standard shallow believer. In one year, he could produce one year's worth of Power of Faith.

Pur, meanwhile, was a devout believer. The Power of Faith he produced was of extremely high quality; trading quality for quantity, he produced roughly five to six years' worth in a year. Moreover, as Pur's strength increased, his faith output steadily rose as well.

The Village Guardian was a broad-sense believer. Due to his unease toward evil, he had chosen to be accepted by Naimus, thus producing Power of Faith born from his fearful faith in evil. This Power of Faith was explosive.

Normally, the Village Guardian produced almost no Power of Faith. But when he committed evil, or witnessed the existence of evil, he would explosively generate an amount of Power of Faith equivalent to half a month or even a month.

The remaining half was the villagers of the entire village.

When they occasionally saw Naimus and greeted him, they also projected some admiration and envy toward Naimus's identity as a Paladin.

These could also be considered Power of Faith in the broader sense; they were simply far too troublesome to extract.

"At the current pace, it will probably take seven or eight years to gather twenty years' worth of Power of Faith."

"To speed things up, I can only increase the number and quality of my believers."

Yet Naimus had not done nothing these past few days. He had already begun preparations to establish a secret Cult.

There were more than five hundred people in the village, most of them simple villagers.

They had lived in this little village their entire lives and had basically never left. Their thinking and beliefs had long since solidified.

Their hearts held only their own small plots of land and the firewood, rice, oil, and salt needed for their future lives.

Without some major upheaval, it was essentially impossible to change the way such individuals thought.

The others were mainly adolescents.

"They still hold dreams of leaving the village and going out into the wider world. They do not want to spend their whole lives here, either gathering herbs in the mountains or working in the fields."

"During this period, some people have seen that I am easy to talk to and wanted to join The Church through me."

"With a certain degree of enticement, I am fairly confident I can fool some of them into coming to my side."

"But this will greatly increase the risk of exposure." Naimus knew that Jacques and Isabella were still watching them.

Those two appeared to have fallen silent, but in truth, they were waiting for an opportunity.

They worked hard to blend into the village, observing every abnormality in daily life.

Isabella had even tested Downs.

Fortunately, although Downs was full of hedonistic desires, he had not been completely blinded by them.

His fear of Naimus kept him from indulging his "desire" for Isabella, and he did not reveal any further intelligence.

Otto, on the other side, was also waiting—for there to be fewer troublesome people.

Sure enough, today an order arrived. Because Jacques had acted without authorization and clashed with Naimus, he was ordered to return to Tail-Wagging Town immediately.

Jacques had no choice but to bid farewell and leave Dorsal Fin Village within the next few days.

Though unwilling, Jacques knew he had no other choice.

After receiving the order, Jacques packed his things and left alone early in the morning.

Otto's caravan was still being prepared. Usually, one was organized every one or two months, carrying enough herbs, animal furs, and other goods to Tail-Wagging Town or Long Back Town.

There, they would exchange them for sufficient daily necessities before bringing them back to the village.

It had almost been time anyway. After learning about Jacques's situation, Otto had even asked him to wait two days so they could set out together.

But Jacques insisted on leaving, so Otto did not stop him.

After leaving the village, Jacques looked back at it. Once he confirmed no one was watching, he decisively left the main road and slipped into the woods beside it.

Please keep following along. Thank you.