Growing divine power

"Toss a coin?"

The young man froze at those words. Would tossing a coin help?

"Give it a try."

An Weiyan nodded, telling him to toss a coin in and try.

Hearing this, the young man looked conflicted. He searched his pockets but found no coins.

An Weiyan paused at the sight. Right, who carried coins these days?

At that thought, An Weiyan searched his own pockets and handed him a coin.

The young man took it and tossed it into the wishing pool.

The coin slowly sank into the pool. Then a silver koi swam out, picked the coin up in her mouth, and swiftly swam away.

The young man beside him stared, a little stunned. Was that a koi just now? How was it so beautiful?

"All right, see whether your luck improves afterward. If it does, come back to the temple to fulfill your vow, and bring more people to offer incense."

Seeing this, An Weiyan waved, indicating that he could leave.

The people around them who had come to offer incense fell somewhat silent.

They felt they understood this Daoist priest less and less, and this temple was becoming rather hard to understand too.

One of the main reasons they had come was that the priest could read faces. They had hoped to have him tell their fortunes.

Yet the priest seemed to have no intention of reading faces now. Instead, he was asking them to make wishes at the wishing pool?

"Anyone with coins can come over and try making a wish. If your luck improves afterward, come back to fulfill your vow. This wishing pool is quite reliable."

An Weiyan had just read that fellow's face, using up another chance. Now he only had one chance left to read someone else's face.

Besides, An Weiyan was often away from the temple. If this koi could help improve people's luck and draw more visitors, the temple's incense offerings would certainly flourish.

At that thought, An Weiyan naturally spared no effort in calling the people nearby over to make wishes.

Seeing this, the people offering incense nearby hesitated for a moment before coming forward one after another.

They then began tossing coins into the wishing pool.

Those with no money on them borrowed some from the people beside them, then used their phones to pay them back.

There were still quite a few people in the temple, and within moments, several dozen coins had appeared in the wishing pool.

Hiding in her hole, Silver Scale watched the scene with wide eyes, looking out beyond the pool's water. She could sense those little traces of the wishes of living beings outside.

"Just what is this place? There's a fierce, ferocious Golden Crow in the sky, and now there are so many pure wishes of living beings here. As long as I can absorb the wishes on these and help improve their luck, I'll make it through this Human Tribulation."

Looking at the coins, Silver Scale wriggled in her hole, her eyes filled with delight.

Generally speaking, when koi like her faced a Human Tribulation, they could help improve someone's luck as a way of passing it. But improving someone else's luck also meant taking on a certain amount of karmic power.

The problem was that the wishes of living beings on these coins were far too pure. She could not sense any karmic power on them at all.

For her, this meant she only needed to help improve their luck, with no worries about consequences whatsoever.

Holding the coin An Weiyan had tossed down in her mouth, Silver Scale thought she would first raise his luck to its utmost. As for those outside, giving their luck a little boost would suffice.

After all, An Weiyan had brought her here. She could distinguish what mattered more from what mattered less.

"Take care. Come offer incense more often when you have time. Offering incense is free."

An Weiyan saw the visitors to the entrance, a faint smile on his face.

As he watched the visitors head down the mountain, he even waved warmly to them.

Hearing An Weiyan's farewell, the incense worshippers suddenly felt something absurd, as though someone were calling out to them from some sort of ancient establishment.

It gave them the illusion of hearing, "Come back and have fun often, sir!"

After watching them head down the mountain, An Weiyan closed the temple gates.

Then he went to the main hall and cleaned out the incense burner. He took out fresh incense and candles and set them out. Looking at the divine statue before him, An Weiyan then vanished from the main hall along with it.

A moment later, An Weiyan appeared before the Earth God with the statue.

The Earth God instantly sensed the incense offerings before him.

All at once, his divine seat trembled slightly.

"What rich power of incense offerings!"

Looking at the statue before him, the Earth God wasted no words and hurriedly began absorbing the incense offerings.

This time, An Weiyan saw with his own eyes the incense offerings, a little pale blue but mostly deep blue-green, emerge bit by bit from the statue before being absorbed by the Earth God.

Then the light around the Earth God gradually grew brighter as well.

An Weiyan watched the scene in silence.

Only a short while later, not the slightest trace of incense offerings remained on the divine seat.

After another long moment, a voice finally came from the Earth God's shrine. "Thank you for your great kindness, my lord. Were it not for you, this humble god would likely have been close to the day when my Dao dissipated and my body perished."

The voice had a little more strength than before, no longer sounding as weak and powerless as it previously had.

An Weiyan heard the difference, and delight showed on his face. "You're too polite. From now on, I'll take care of your incense offerings, Earth God. But you'll have to put some effort into keeping Linbei County safe."

"Naturally. Even without your asking, my lord, this humble god would do his utmost. Besides Linbei County, this humble god will also spare no effort to keep you safe."

Their second collaboration had directly brought the two closer.

The Earth God knew that An Weiyan could obtain extremely high-grade incense offerings, while An Weiyan needed the Earth God to protect him in this world.

This made theirs a mutually beneficial arrangement.

With just a few words, the two established a preliminary understanding.

"By the way, now that you've finished absorbing the power of incense offerings, can we reach Pingshui City?"

An Weiyan asked a question he was rather concerned about. He was not worried about establishing contact with Pingshui City; after all, his position here was entirely legitimate.

If they could establish contact with Pingshui City, they could conduct some trade and earn a great deal of money.

Otherwise, the cost of training personnel would be far too high.

"If this humble god could receive power of incense offerings like this about three more times, I should be able to keep the entire route safe."

Hearing the question, the Earth God thought for a moment before answering.

Three times? That's not much.

Hearing this, An Weiyan immediately formed a plan.

"By the way, that peach tree demon has undergone its tribulation, but it died beneath the lightning tribulation. Now those demons and fiends are coming down the mountain one after another."

Seeing that An Weiyan was about to leave, the Earth God added this.

Hearing that, An Weiyan immediately thought again of the female ghost who had kept watching him before, and could not help feeling a headache coming on.

That one had kept her eyes on him for quite a long time.

Fortunately, the Earth God's divine power had now grown, so things should be fine for the time being.