Greed: All For What? - Chapter 1737: Tainted But Cheap.

Warshaw used a bowl to collect some of its blood and sprinkled it on the altar. Then she bowed and worshiped her new god.

Her efforts were not in vain. The entire black bull turned into motes of golden light that dispersed and disappeared. Her offering had clearly been accepted.

Legion received the notification to mark their progress.

-Congratulations Your shrine has been established. You have become a local god with a foundation of worship.

-You have unlocked Title.

-You have gained access to Divine Abilities.

-Your Oracle Warshaw has sacrificed to you. You have received her prayer and her offering.

+4DE.

-You Have gained a new believer. +1 Authority.

Warshaw’s prayer and her acolytes prayer gave them 1 Divine Energy each. The whole bull gave them 2 Divine Energy. It is clear that both sacrifice and prayers can provide them with Divine Energy but prayer is sustainable while sacrifice is a one time boost.

But they still asked their angel just to be certain of what they should prioritize. After all, Divine Energy is a very important resources for them. If they lose all their Divine Energy, they will die.

“Which is a better source of divine energy, sacrifice, or worship from believers?”

One of their angels replied, “There is no better source. But there is an efficient source and a cheap source. Faith from believers is efficient in its transmission. It is also sustainable and easily converted into divine energy.”

“As for using sacrifice as a source of divine energy, it has the advantage of being easy and cheap to acquire. You don’t need a sacrifice to believe in you, but it will be better if it does. So you can use it to gain divine energy from non-believers.”

“The transmission and conversion are also not efficient because the source of faith is tainted with death, hatred, fear, and other negative emotions. So it is not encouraged to use sacrifice as a source of divine energy unless you are in a pinch and have too few believers to sustain you.”

They considered the answer while paying attention to where the Divine Energy went. They noticed that it was distributed to all nine of them.

Since it wasn’t up to 9 DE, 5 of them didn’t get any. It is of little consequence since they can share divine energy among themselves through the divine network that connects them.

Warshaw was praising them and singing. Meanwhile, Legion absorbed the notifications before moving on to making decisions about their future.

First, they had to choose a title that they would be known for. It will be the name of their religion and how their believers view them in the future. It will even affect how their Divine Network divine ability works in the future. They can either each get a separate title or use one for all 9 of them.

The former means that the previous situation where all 9 of them were limited to 1 Oracle won’t happen again. They will be able to get nine separate Oracles, and they won’t have to share the sacrifices that come their way. But it also means that they won’t be able to share any increase in Authority together.

Because they were considered one, Warshaw added one Authority to all of them. That means they gained nine Authority in total instead of one from a single believer.

Sure, they would be able to gain some leeway if they could choose 9 oracles, but being considered one by the divine network will cut down on how much effort they have to put in to gain Authority by 9 times. Each believer that anyone of them gets will strengthen all of them. As it is, they all have 3 Authority each, for a total of 27 instead of just 3.

The decision was easy for them because Authority makes them stronger while Oracles don’t. Oracles are just channels between the gods and their believers, and while having more is good, having 9 Authority for each believer is better for them.

-You Have Set Your Title Has The 9 Crowns.

-Do You Confirm?

-Congratulations. You Are Now The 9 Crowns, The God Of 9 Dominions.

-May your religion prosper and cover all of the mortal realms.

This title confirmed the direction they wanted to take their divine network ability. The next

thing they had to acquire was divine spells. Unfortunately, they can’t get that without acquiring more believers. The system that ruled this world pointed them in the right direction with a new quest.

(Main Quest: Become One Of The First 4,000,000 Godling)

(Second Step: Establish Your Religion)

(Reward: Ascension To The Divine Realm)

(Description: The path forward for a local deity is not in the mortal realm)

One of the clones asked the angel, “How do we establish a religion?”

It was as helpful as always. It answered quickly, “It is simple. You need 100 believers and a temple consecrated in your name.”

That answer made them turn their attention towards the kneeling Oracle and their new believer.

They said to her, “Your sincerity pleases us. We have decided to bestow upon you and your tribe the blessing of worshipping us. You can build a temple in our name and proclaim our names to all your people.”

Warshaw raised her voice in appreciation, “All power belongs to you, Oh 9 crowns. It is our duty to serve you with all our lives.”

The acolyte by the side couldn’t see them, but he witnessed the disappearance of the bull. That meant the offering was accepted. That meant gods existed. That meant that the stories he grew up hearing about the ancient Orc Empire and their gods were not exaggerated lies.

It is, as they say, seeing is believing. He has seen, and now he is a believer. The existence of the gods also explained why the old shaman was able to hop about like a grasshopper. So he wasn’t so adverse when the Shaman dragged him towards the encampment of the tribal chief to proclaim the glory of the 9 crowns.