THE GOD EATER

After complaining about the extravagance of the Apex God, he looked at his remaining lifespan and saw it had just crossed the 10 billion-year mark. This made him furrow his brow and say, ”At this rate, this guy would make me go bankrupt.”

He was only half serious about this. In reality, he was still far from going bankrupt. However, offering more benefits to mortals would become counterproductive.

He had previously calculated that even with strict population control, the profit threshold was 300%. Any more than that, and the business model would fall apart.

Beyond 300%, cultivation would become a Ponzi scheme, where he would need to take life from new believers to pay old believers. Then it would fall apart when he ran out of new believers, or the pressure from old believers became too much to manage.

”This can’t go on. Clearly, this guy is determined to fight me to the death. I need to do something that will make him surrender immediately when he sees no hope of victory.”

”I need to crush his spirit,” he said with a sudden flare in his eyes.

”Yes, that’s what I should do. But how can I do it?”

”These Gemini younglings have a lot of advantages that I can’t afford. So I need to do something that relies on an advantage that only I possess.”

Just as he was wondering what to do, an idea came to him. The idea was so good that his eyes lit up.

He even said proudly, ”I don’t know how I do it, but I keep coming up with these good ideas. I must be a genius or something.”

After patting himself on the back and inflating his ego beyond normal proportions, he got to work. The so-called work he was doing was changing a particular Branch Metac so his Supreme Metac would help the mortals activate it.

He got the idea from some of the Metacs of the Money Pathway. In particular, it was the Life’s Worth Metac, both the Life Ability and the Divine Metac versions, that served as his source of inspiration.

Any money cultivator with the Life’s Worth Life Ability could determine the value of someone’s life at a glance. Then the money cultivator could kill the person, regardless of their power, as long as they had enough money to spend.

Therefore, in practice, most of the power of the Life’s Worth Life Ability was independent of the power and cultivation of the user of the Life Ability. Most of the power was dependent on the Supreme Metac because it was the one doing the job.

In the same way, he wants to help his cultivators gain lifespan in a way they normally can’t on their own. He intends to help them gain lifespan so he won’t have to give them his.

When he finished his modifications, he clapped his hands and said, ”There, I’ve done it.”

”I should have done this a long time ago. Not only will it help me win this bidding war, but it will also help establish my pathway into the world faster. Why didn’t I think about this solution earlier?”

Then he deployed the new Branch Metac into the Supreme Metac.

The Supreme Metac received the Branch Metac and notified the mortals of the new addition to their repertoire. Next, he waited for the impact of his actions to take root.

After so many back-and-forth exchanges between the Olympic Sect and the other Gemini establishments like the Apex Sect, the Blessed Heaven World had long become a paradise for mortals.

The Dao Lords were racking their brains and worrying about what to do to gain a larger share of the population, but the mortals were having a nice time because the competition between the two sects was a boon to them.

But not every mortal was happy. A rank 3 mortal in the Earthly Battlefield named Greg was rarely ever happy. He was always complaining about something, so no one was surprised when he started complaining about the latest cultivation methods.

”It is a shame,” he said, shaking his head. ”These sects came too late.”

He was complaining into the communication channel of captains on the Earthly Battlefield, so every captain could hear him. Usually, they would ignore him, but this time, most of them agreed with the sentiment.

”Their arrival is truly too late,” someone lamented. ”I wish I were rank 2 right now so that I could switch my pathway. I wouldn’t mind having to start over if I got extra lifespan for doing so.”

Greg nodded in agreement. ”I heard that not only do they get lifespan for using the pathway, but they also don’t have to pay the awakening fees.”

”Apparently, any mortal anywhere can become a cultivator by dropping their blood on the Core Metacs. And they don’t have to owe their sect any awakening fees. How unbelievable is that?” he asked in awe.

His boss, Rank 4 Amelia, said, ”It is real. I heard that the initiation programs of various sects have basically been killed.”

”I am not surprised at all, actually. The new sects don’t have a minimum requirement for potential. They don’t ask for money for awakening mortals, and they don’t make the initiates kill each other like we had to do.”

”Basically, mortals can awaken anywhere at any time. After hearing about it, I wasn’t surprised when the influx of recruits dried up.”

Greg sighed and said, ”Things have gotten so bad that Rank 2 cultivators have basically disappeared from the sect. We haven’t received new soldiers for over a week now. Is the Four Directions Sect done for?”

”Be careful what kind of questions you ask, you loudmouth,” Amelia said in rebuke. ”Don’t you know that the sect is always watching? Do you want to get us killed?”

But Greg didn’t take her caution to mind. He snorted and said, ”Do you believe in that conspiracy theory that Dao Lords are all around us and are always listening?”