NOVEL NEXT Chapter 78. Stop Sucking My Precious GP!
Returning to when the ant group led by the Level 1 giant ant has just killed a dwarf.
Cedric watched some NE spew from the dwarf's corpse and get absorbed into the giant ants.
The NE generated by the dwarf mostly went to the Level 1 ant, with only slightly more than half shared with other ants.
For a dead dwarf to spew NE after being tortured and then killed isn't news for Cedric. What gathered Cedric's attention was the amount of NE generated by the dead dwarves.
For dwarves that have died normally or been suddenly killed, the amount of NE they generated is normal. Some are even lower than the average human and can barely be seen.
But the amount of NE generated by the dwarf that has been tortured is utterly insane.
Compared to a human that has been similarly tortured before dying. The amount of NE generated by that dwarf is approximately three times higher!
Cedric scratched his head in confusion.
Before he even asked anything, the System suddenly gave him the answer.
[The amount of NE generated by a creature's death is affected by their life level, despair, age, and many other things. Basically, the more despair and resentment they felt, the older they were, the stronger their life level was, and the higher their intelligence. The more NE will be generated upon their death.]
Cedric felt enlightened and nodded.
'I guess, the NE generated by the dwarves increases because they're just a group of innocent metal-loving nerds. Their innocence means when they feel despair, it will be amplified several times because they rarely felt pain in their daily life.'
'With the fact that they have double the lifespan of humans and that they're extremely intelligent when it comes to metallurgy. Everything combined probably contributed to the insane amount of NE they generated.' Cedric guessed while staring at the dwarves that were captured by the ants.
'Sigh… I hope those dwarves will be successfully rescued or at least have an easy death.' Although Cedric thought so, he knew it was almost impossible for the group of dwarves to be saved by others.
Just like the dwarf that was mutilated before he died, they'll most likely meet a gruesome end too.
Even so, he decided to watch their last moments.
No matter what, this is still the result of his decision to push the dwarf and elf to be on equal footing with the humans.
"This is just the beginning, and it already pains me to see so many creatures being captured by demons and tortured for their NE. But this must be done to balance the three intelligent races in the Crystal Cube world as soon as possible."
[You sounded like a shameless hypocrite just now.]
"I kinda agree more with you." Cedric shrugged.
"You know, after I experienced life in the Crystal Cube world through my clone, I started to see the people there as real people instead of NPC or drama characters. But this makes me feel weird and uncomfortable instead. Especially when I am sacrificing the creatures for my plan."
"It even made me doubt whether the greater goods I planned are worth the sacrifice."
[You'll eventually get used to it. That mixed emotion is pretty good because one of the best states of mind for a god is to love all beings while giving them tests to push their growth.]
[The System just isn't sure whether the emotion you felt is indeed love for every creature or simply guilt for pushing many of them to their death.]
Cedric fell silent.
Soon, the captured dwarves are brought to the massive ant queen. She commanded a few giant ants to stab the dwarves several times before making them die from blood loss.
Their death generated thick NE that Cedric could easily sense with the help of Divine Sight.
Cedric frowned when he saw it, "This time, the amount of NE generated by the dwarves has increased even further."
Even after calculating the extra NE generated by a dwarf with Level 0 blessed power, the amount of NE they generated has almost reached four times of average humans.
'Is it because the dwarves that got killed this time are older? Is this what the System means when it says age will also be a deciding factor for NE?' Cedric moved his mental power from the bloody sight in the nest while lost in thought.
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Suddenly, he paused and opened his eyes wide. "Wait a minute! The older a creature is, the more NE they'll generate!"
He quickly controlled his mental power to leave the dwarven territory and moved toward the elven territory.
There, he easily found elves that had lived for more than two hundred or even three hundred years.
Most of them are currently living in bliss while being ignorant of the disaster that they'll face shortly.
While feeling nervous, Cedric asked the System, "How much NE will a despairing two hundred years old elf generate?"
[Five to ten times of average humans.]
Cedric asked another important question, "How many elves can die in despair before a demon king appears in my world?"
[After calculating your world's resistance to Negative Energy, A demon king will most likely appear if around 5.000 elves get killed within a short time.]
Cedric rubbed his forehead. '5.000 elves is equal to ten big elven villages or twenty to thirty small villages. Meanwhile, there are ten Level 1 demons that I doubt a random elf village can defeat, and dozens of Level 0 demons.'
'If each Level 1 demon targeted a big village, a demon king is guaranteed to spawn.'
After some contemplation, Cedric looked at the mountain range that split the continent.
He moved his mental power and observed the dragon group with 10 Peak Level 1 dragons and more than 50 Peak Level 0 dragons.
"I guess it's time for the dragon's first trial run."
Cedric opened the System shop and bought a Divine Intervention: Urge.
[Level 4 Consumable Divine Item, Divine Intervention: Urge.
Cost: 10 GP
Details: Give an urge to do something to a creature. The complicatedness of the urge is limited. There is a certain chance for the target to ignore this urge. The higher the item's level, the more complicated the urge that can be set and the more irresistible it is.]
Holding the octahedron crystal-shaped Divine Intervention: Urge, Cedric searched for the dragon king among the group of dragons living in the southeast area of the mountain range.
Just like how he designed them to be, the strongest dragon has been chosen as the group's king.
So, all Cedric needs to do is observe which of them are the strongest.
Soon, he quickly found the dragon and activated the Divine Intervention: Urge in his hand.
With Cedric's command, the energy inside the crystal turned active.
For the effect of Divine Intervention: Urge, Cedric initially wanted to set it so the dragon king would bring his minions to attack some NE infected demons.
But, he suddenly recalled that the dragon king might not know which creature is a demon and which creature is a normal one. Especially since demons have different shapes and forms depending on their initial race before they're infected by NE.
After some thought, Cedric decided to send an urge to the dragon king to move toward the elven territory and protect the elves.
He also added the urge to make the dragon return to the mountain if they lose the urge to protect the elves.
Cedric added this just in case the dragon suddenly went into a rampage after the effect of Divine Intervention: Urge ran off.
As it's the first time he used Divine Intervention: Urge, Cedric didn't make the urge too complicated to test the effect.
With the help of his mental power, Cedric added the command he had prepared. He also added information about elves, like their general appearance, how they walked, etc, to the energy within Divine Intervention: Urge.
Once everything is ready, he controls the energy inside Divine Intervention: Urge to move toward the dragon king.
Inside the Crystal Cube world. The dragon king that resides in the southeast part of the mountain range suddenly roared to gather the surrounding dragons.
Once all of its followers had arrived, the dragon moved toward the location where the elf resided.
When Cedric saw his attempt had succeeded, he thought for a moment before continuing to observe the dragons while occasionally checking the humans and the dwarves.
Several months quickly passed since he sent the dragons to the elves, and the event in Crystal Cube world continued to progress.
While studying how to create a more intelligent race, Cedric constantly busy himself with observing the situation in the world.
During these months, the humans have already started to expand their territory up north.
The desolate land that's caused by Cedric's expansion of the world's space has also started to be filled with more animals and some humans.
Now, there are already a few small human villages located close to the mountain range that separates the continent.
Meanwhile, in the south, some human ship has found the islands where a dragon resides.
But due to the dragon's curiosity, it bit every ship it saw and caused them to sink. After all, the size of a ship in the human world is still pretty small. Depending on the place that's affected, the most a ship can handle is five bites from a Level 1 dragon before it starts sinking.
It's not like the dragon hated every ship or felt the ship tasted delicious. But the human ship comes in varying shapes and forms, which made the dragon curious about every ship it met.
Without any witnesses alive to tell the existence of the dragons, it seems it'll take a bit more time before the humans find out about them.
During these few months, Lacius has also advanced to Mid Level 3 after investigating the mountain that's said to suddenly appear near Silver Hope city.
During his investigation, Lacius has luckily found a small magic ore vein in the mountain range. Although the magic ore mine is small in size, the mana density contained inside is incredibly high.
Lacius has only advanced after spending some faith power to boost his training speed while training for months inside the ore mine.
By the time he advanced, he had sucked most of the mana inside that ore vein. It's doubtful whether the mine can grow any more magic metal.
Honestly, Cedric felt a bit of pain when he saw that.
He has spent 6 GP and more than 1 percent world stability to create that magic metal ore vein while his world was previously in the process of upgrading.
Except for the ore vein that Lacius has sucked dry, there is only one more equally precious small ore vein that Cedric is inside the mountain range for people to discover.
He hopes the next one to discover it won't be Lacius or another earth element blessed that'll brutally dry that ore vein.
After Lacius finished training, he went to visit Silver Hope City and coincidentally met with Merthyr.
Lacius has even borrowed the Book of Forgotten History from Methyr's hand.
Once he read the book, Lacius merely looked thoughtful before closing his eyes for a moment, "That feels nostalgic."
Cedric felt relieved when he saw Lacius didn't try to destroy the book.
Although he made the Book of Forgotten History with the strongest and most flexible metal in the world, Cedric isn't sure whether or not that metal could survive Lacius's serious attack.