Chapter 725 - 81: Divine Text
Su Changxing quickly affirmed one thing: the connection between him and the statue originates from the plague.
Because he can directly control the plague, the Divine Spirit allowed the object of these people’s worship to switch to him, then absorbed faith via the statue.
He also gained a portion of faith due to the plague.
This was a win-win for both him and the Divine Spirit, at least so far.
However, he didn’t dare gamble and take the risk of helping this unfamiliar Divine Spirit expand its followers.
He wasn’t sure of the current status of the Divine Spirit, but it seems unable to directly interfere with the world and can only indirectly influence it through the statue.
But getting the Divine Spirit more faith? He didn’t dare imagine what the outcome would be.
Moreover, how would a Divine Spirit allow a human to share its faith? Once the Rat God Cult grows stronger, it will undoubtedly find a chance to eliminate him.
This path is certainly not feasible!
[Broken Ratman Statue: An extremely ancient item, the idol of the Rat God Cult, seemingly also a Mysterious Item, with traces of Divine Power attached...]
"True Knowledge" also cannot fully analyze the information of this item.
Su Changxing also had an unorthodox idea and prepared to analyze the structure of the Ratman Statue within the Pocket Galaxy.
This concerns Divine Spirits, and he might gain some incredible knowledge from it.
Then.
Su Changxing said to the people still kneeling beside him: "Stop kneeling, stand up, go and bring Mike up here."
Upon hearing Su Changxing’s words, the naked men kneeling on the ground finally reacted, slowly standing up, but still keeping their heads down, not daring to look directly at him.
In their hearts, Su Changxing was a living god, a Divine Spirit walking among mortals.
They didn’t know why they thought this way, as if a voice kept reminding them in their heart, repeating and deepening this impression subconsciously.
After a while, Mike came up from below, his mental state much better than the others, yet with reverence and worship on his face, "Divine Spirit, what are your orders?"
Su Changxing found this address quite awkward, "No need to add the words ’Divine Spirit’ to the address."
"Alright, sir," Mike responded.
Su Changxing looked around the environment and slowly said, "Take these people and clean up this place, throw all the bodies out and burn them. The rest of you can put on clothes, no need to stay naked, I’ve already cured the plague for you."
"I’ve also left some food here, distribute it among everyone, no need to stay hungry."
No one felt surprised or questioned what Su Changxing said. Whatever the Divine Spirit does or says is right, they just follow.
This is the most devout group of followers, blindly following in the truest sense.
He didn’t intend to kill the remaining members of the Rat God Cult, as these were the most devout followers, capable of continuously providing Mysteriousness.
What is Mysteriousness?
To him, Mysteriousness is the foundation of power. The more Mysteriousness, the stronger the power. Reaching a certain amount could even allow self-progression.
"Do not disturb me unless necessary."
Su Changxing watched as Mike and the others started cleaning the abandoned factory, then turned and walked into the small room at the top of the factory, closed the door, sat cross-legged on the ground, and began analyzing the Ratman Statue within the Pocket Galaxy.
The object was unexpectedly hard, and after much effort, he managed to chip off a fragment.
The statue was only half intact, yet still functional. Su Changxing determined it was an entire Mysterious Item, composed of countless homogeneous smaller units.
In other words, even a fragment of the statue could exert the same effect, albeit much weaker.
Quickly.
Su Changxing found that the small fragment he broke off was still very hard. Forcefully disassembling it would destroy the overall structure, making it difficult to analyze its characteristics.
He then brought in the data stream Xiaoyi to further break down the small fragment, slicing it horizontally in half.
Then continued breaking down the even smaller fragments, performing the same operation.
The fragments became increasingly smaller, and the difficulty in splitting them grew larger, eventually requiring him to guide Xiaoyi little by little to avoid complete destruction.
He repeated this operation hundreds of times, until further splitting was impossible.
It had become something invisible to the naked eye, detectable only through Perception, smaller than dust, even smaller than an atom, possibly reaching the nuclear level.
A three-dimensional pyramid shape, chaos-spinning rapidly around its center.
Su Changxing utilized his Control Power to restrain it, slowing it down until it completely halted in mid-air.
He saw the surface densely engraved with unreadable symbols, impossible to understand their meaning.
This was related to the Divine Spirit. Even though he couldn’t understand it, he tried to carefully memorize everything but found that after one glance, it was forgotten.
So he looked a second time, a third, fourth, up to hundreds and thousands of times, gaining only a vague impression in his mind.
During this process, his Spiritual Power was being drained like a water pump, quickly reaching its limit.
Every hundred glances, he had to take intermittent breaks, and then resume his observation.
However, the term "observation" is quite inaccurately applied here.
This is learning.
During his process of observation, Su Changxing acquired a vast amount of knowledge. Such knowledge is logically sequential, yet its meaning remains elusive.
However, with repeated observation, he gradually understood the meaning of some individual symbols.
The meaning of a single symbol could require millions of words to explain, complex and profound.
It was only because his Spiritual Power reached this level that he could learn bit by bit.
For ordinary people, direct observation would cause mental devastation, turning them into fools or lunatics.
Even extraordinary individuals would likely experience mental distortion upon viewing it.
This knowledge belongs to the domain of the gods, but Su Changxing believed it could still be explained as extraordinary, as he could bear such knowledge.
This greatly suggests that so-called gods are merely Higher Tier extraordinary individuals.
The Saintess said that among players, the highest is only Tier Three, so it is very likely that going beyond Tier Three is the domain of the gods, unreachable for mortals.
Finally, after observing tens of thousands of times, he reached the limit of his understanding, and there was no point in watching further.
Fortunately, he had fully memorized it in his mind, and with his continuous growth in power and Spiritual Power, he would gain more knowledge.
The engravings on basic units are called Divine Texts, which can breach the boundaries between illusion and reality, transforming spiritual worship into real faith.
It sounds quite mystical, but roughly this is the principle.
Su Changxing couldn’t comprehend most of these Divine Texts, only knowing that overall it serves such a function,
However.
He understood the target of this entire Divine Text, a circular mark, and upon seeing this mark, he could grasp its meaning and silently recite the name in his heart.
"Karis."
This is the name of that Divine Spirit.
But he merely recited it silently in the Pocket Galaxy, fearing that uttering it outside might indeed elicit a response and bring punishment to him as one who desecrates the gods.
His actions undoubtedly constitute desecration of the gods.
A mortal attempting to comprehend the divine itself is the greatest offense.
"If the markings related to Karis on this statue can be completely erased, then it becomes a masterless idol, probably unable to absorb faith."
"And if I alter the target indicated by the Divine Texts on the statue to myself, then I become the master of this idol, and all the faith it absorbs will be mine."
Su Changxing contemplated for a long time, suddenly enlightened, yet uncertain if this method is feasible. To erase Karis’ markings from the Divine Texts is inherently a daunting task.
He could not complete it by himself, he must rely on Xiaoyi, using it as a carving tool to accomplish it.
This was quite a tedious task; even on a single basic unit, there are hundreds of markings related to Karis.
He needed to erase all those markings and avoid touching other Divine Text symbols.
His first experimental piece quickly failed; erasing Karis’ markings directly destroyed the entire basic unit.
The thing is too small and fragile; even a slight increase in force could damage it.
During this process, he expended all his Spiritual Power in controlling Xiaoyi’s actions.
After several failures, Xiaoyi seemed to understand what to do and began cooperating with him.
However, subsequent attempts no longer destroyed the whole basic unit, but when erasing Karis’ markings, other surrounding Divine Text symbols were easily erased along.
Su Changxing did not understand those Divine Text symbols, leaving him unable to replicate them, and the time and effort required to replicate such Divine Texts were unimaginable.
Thus, this basic unit was considered scrapped, and he could only continue on the next basic unit, repeatedly experimenting, failing time and again until he succeeded.
Finally, on the eighty-fourth attempt, he successfully erased all Karis markings on a basic unit.
This was a milestone victory, which thrilled him, seeing the glimmer of success.
Next, he only needed to alter the target indicated by the Divine Texts to himself.
"But how should I use Divine Texts to express my name, just like Karis."
"It requires a special symbol that precisely points to me, or else it will cause faith diversion."
Su Changxing pondered for a long time without result. His understanding of Divine Texts was limited, and naturally, he did not know how to express himself using them.
He was now like a complete illiterate, plagiarizing someone else’s thesis, having erased their name, and contemplating how to write his own name.
Writing his own name sounded simple, yet for a human being, it was the most challenging task.
To write down a name, he must first possess a name.
He was an illiterate without a name, besides writing his own name, he first needed to give himself a unique name.
But creating a unique name is by no means a simple affair.
Su Changxing halted his operations in the Pocket Galaxy; if he couldn’t accomplish this, then all his previous efforts would be futile.
Before that, it would be better to seal the Ratman Statue in the Pocket Galaxy, to prevent further absorption of faith.