I Don't Agree to the Terms

"Yo?" Little White looked at Gu Shanhai, puzzled. Why so soon this time? It thought another Divine had to be captured.

"Go, go, go, stop causing trouble." Gu Shanhai waved his hand, indicating for Little White to scram and cool off somewhere else.

Little White didn't come to cause trouble and directly found a quiet spot to cool down on its own.

"Just grab a sea citizen for use." Gu Shanhai randomly selected a lucky one to act as a test subject.

"You're lucky, this is the top-level Transcendent ability; you got it cheap."

Gu Shanhai wasn't stingy; there were more Transcendent abilities to come, as long as he could survive and become a superior person by relying on these abilities.

"Upgrade patch?"

After successfully transplanting the Sea Demon Dragon's Scale, the subject's body immediately transformed; it didn't feel to Gu Shanhai like evolution or strengthening, but more like after the corresponding data was implanted, the subject updated itself.

During the process, there seemed to be no corresponding consumption, just a direct enhancement.

Of course, there had to be some consumption; otherwise, why enhance just a little bit instead of becoming infinitely stronger.

The consumption was paid by the Divine or, more simply, by the world.

As the skin writhed, the subject's skin gradually vanished, turning into scales like those of the Ten-winged Sea Demon Dragon, although no other features emerged.

"What if acquiring enough Divine feedback could evolve it into a Divine?"

Gu Shanhai suddenly thought of this, as if he had discovered some oversight.

As for why nobody in this world had developed in this direction, there certainly were; it's just that the cost was extremely high.

Taking the Ten-winged Sea Demon Dragon as an example, he was able to obtain the Transcendent ability of the Sea Demon Dragon's Scale using Red Sea Beef of a dominant level; if he wanted to manifest this Transcendent ability again, the offering of Red Sea Beef would have to be ten times greater, or it would result in other abilities.

If he obtained all the abilities and became a miniature Ten-winged Sea Demon Dragon, it was just the beginning, all abilities were in their most initial form; if the quality and quantity used were insufficient, then the feedback would become something else, more importantly, the feedback might not even be Transcendent abilities but could also be items or consumables.

Therefore, truly assembling a Divine's Transcendent abilities and elevating them to an extremely high level would require expenditures that perhaps even major powers couldn't afford.

Gu Shanhai suspected that perhaps someone had succeeded.

Right, those Quasi-God Sea Beasts likely were special forms developed after some focussed on worshipping a particular Divine.

"What if you really assembled a complete set... could you be possessed by a Divine?"

The Transcendent abilities obtained from worshipping a Divine also varied; abilities closer to deification and non-human transformations were top-tier, like the Sea Demon Dragon's Scales turning human skin into scales.

Whereas lower-level Transcendent abilities wouldn't manifest changes, hence sea citizens became stronger the less human-like they appeared.

This situation wasn't impossible to solve, one could just find an island, kill the Royal Family, and lose the Transcendent power to revert back to human.

"It might be worth exploring in this direction, but first, I need to gather some Red Sea Beef."

Red sea bulls weren't anything rare, but finding those of a dominant level wasn't so easy.

Moreover, Gu Shanhai didn't want just one; he needed at least around a hundred.

These Sea Beasts lived in the deep sea, often encountered fortuitously.

"Let's divine first."

It didn't matter if he couldn't find them; Gu Shanhai could simply spend lives.

"Only seven dominant-level Red Sea Bulls left, definitely not enough." Gu Shanhai looked at the results, feeling somewhat helpless for a moment.

Seven were already quite a few; being of a dominant level, their size was surely not small.

Forget about hundreds of overlords; where would we find so many? If they were that common, other sea beasts would also exist in large numbers.

With hundreds of overlords, humans wouldn't stand a chance. The ocean itself probably couldn't sustain them—it's like asking for ecological disaster.

The amount of food a single overlord consumes daily is staggering.

As for things like Mana or Magic Power, this world doesn't even have those. The Transcendent abilities can only be gained by offering tribute to the Divine, and the strength of a sea beast comes solely from its own growth, which makes eating all the more important.

"But with seven heads," Gu Shanhai said, "we should be able to gamble away all the Transcendent abilities of the Ten-winged Sea Demon Dragon."

The tribute doesn't necessarily result in Transcendent powers; it could be something else. It's like drawing cards—except Gu Shanhai uses prime Red Sea Beef as tribute, so there are no N or R cards, only the top-tier rewards.

Of course, once these top-tier rewards are drawn, they either add more or drop to the next level down.

"Little White, head in this direction..." Gu Shanhai relayed the coordinates to Little White.

"Yo." Little White glanced at the coordinates and took over the task.

With that, he floored the accelerator, transforming the Five Elements Sect vessel into a blur, kicking up spray across the sea surface.

"Next time, let's modify it. Turn the Five Elements Sect vessel into an airship... wait, if it flies, wouldn't it be more of a Floating Island?" Gu Shanhai suddenly realized the oversight, since the vessel was originally transformed from an island.

But that would have to wait until he had finished his research on the Ten-winged Sea Demon Dragon.

Then, he could also explore whether any sky-related forces existed.

Otherwise, making the change now would be of little benefit.

After estimating the speed of the Five Elements Sect vessel and figuring it would take about a day to arrive, Gu Shanhai turned his attention to the lucky one.

"So far," he mused, "the Divine Blessings on sea folks seem similar to the adventurer system, except this feedback is far too random."

"It seriously lowers the sophistication of the Divine even though anything offered as tribute gets a return."

The overall transformation process is akin to using Divine Power for creation.

The tributes are recompiled into Transcendent abilities or items, with the distinction that deities sculpt belief with relics, while in this world, the Divine transformations are fueled by tributes.

The former is a positive cycle of continuous growth while the latter is more like wool on a sheep; you get back what you offer in quality, with some loss likely in between.

Technologically speaking, the Divine transformation method still holds the edge—it primarily arose to tackle the great calamity focusing on self-salvation.

As for this world... there probably isn't some cataclysmic apocalypse looming. It lacks a main character, of course, but that doesn't rule out scenarios like the Daoist Soldier World with no fixed protagonist.

But from the looks of it, it's highly probable there's no protagonist.

Gu Shanhai isn't some harbinger of disaster, causing havoc wherever he goes—in the Daoist Soldier World, despite things like the Abyss Demon Dragon and system-equipped transmigrators or those reborn after a hundred thousand years, it's not like the world got totally ruined.

"This... is really an anomaly," Gu Shanhai felt a bit uneasy. If he kept digging deeper into these hidden threads, stirring up all those legacy families could indeed lead to trouble.

"Ah well, the world has its issues, but what's that to me? There are other players around; they can turn the tide."

Gu Shanhai figured there wasn't anyone in this world he particularly cared about. If it blew up, so what? He might even benefit from the fallout.

"Little White, how's your sky escape technique coming along?" Gu Shanhai turned and saw Little White playing around like it was about to ascend to heaven, which left him rather speechless.

"Yo." Little White indicated it would practice more tomorrow while speeding along.

"You'll practice tomorrow? Set the Five Elements Sect vessel to autopilot. If you don't master this skill, you can look forward to eating unprocessed Spirit Plants," Gu Shanhai said with a sly grin.

Little White shuddered; it definitely didn't want to consume those unprocessed Spirit Plants. Not only were they unpalatable and hard to digest, but their vitality was so robust that they could stay alive in its stomach—even move around—until digested.