Taking a closer look.
Within the Sin-Bearing Strongman Jade Tablet lay a self-contained space, with a prison pillar standing inside.
The prison pillar was bound by several chains—ten in total.
"A hundred thousand merit, ten chains—so each chain represents ten thousand merit?"
As for the merit he had accumulated so far, the jade tablet mysteriously gave Lu Chen an exact figure: four thousand five hundred.
"Only four thousand five hundred?!"
Lu Chen's mouth twitched hard. Half his eager anticipation instantly went cold, and he cursed himself for celebrating too soon.
"But that's strange. All this merit came from the people who used the talismans these past two days. By rights, I sold so much Netherworld Currency before this; that should have accumulated quite a bit of merit too. How come I didn't get even a single point?"
Lu Chen could not make sense of it.
In the Daoist tradition, merit chiefly came from saving lives, relieving poverty and suffering, disaster relief, donating clothes and food, and other good deeds.
In addition, supporting the Three Treasures, protecting temples, observing precepts, conducting fasts and rituals, reciting scriptures, confessing repentance, and so on were all sources of merit.
If it was calculated from the point when he became the Sin-Bearing Strongman, then Netherworld Currency was being spent every day. That counted as doing good, so it should have earned merit too.
How could there be none at all?
Could it be... that he really had two systems of merit hidden within him?
After all, he did not need to provide the merit used to make Heavenly Gold Underworld Currency; and when it was sold and did good, that merit did not fall to him either.
Self-produced, self-sold, self-enjoyed—a closed loop all by itself?
A few thoughts had only just crossed Lu Chen's mind.