Chapter 6 Renewed Faith

In the nature’s shrine situated on the trunk of the World Tree, the elven saint Alice and old priest Samuel knelt in front of the headless effigy, feeling a little bit uneasy. They lowered their heads with expressions of pure joy while feeling a deep shame as well… It seemed that some inexplicable change had occurred within Alice’s body at that moment, as she was exuding a lot more pronounced sense of holiness and sanctity within her. The elderly priest, who had regained his normal state, also seemed to have undergone some subtle changes. The Oak Guardian Berserker stood aside, watching it all like a sculpture with a serious and fanatical expression etched onto his face. “Did I go too far in deceiving them?” While still inside her own Celestial Domain, Eve swallowed her saliva in anticipation while looking at the number of followers in her Status Screen. 〘 🙏🏻 〙 [ Total Believers (3)] 【 Saint ‘1’ Fanatic ‘2’ Devout ‘0’ Shallow ‘0’ 】 It seems that her timely choice of actions had a far greater impact than she had initially calculated. The previously devout Saintess Alice not only rekindled her faith after the turmoil, but also surpassed her prior level of fanaticism, becoming the only saint, as shown in the data! And the elderly priest, who was saved from the brink of death, had also become a fanatic believer just like the Oak Guardian! Evé still couldn’t forget the sight of the old priest falling to the ground as he berated himself while bawling out like a child, once he realized what had all transpired. Their endless anticipation, paired with ultimate despair, cascading together for which hope appeared at their most dire moment, brought about an extraordinary effect that they will never forget in their lives. “No wonder Gods even in my old world like to make their believers suffer first before helping them. It seems the reactions are far stronger after some kind of tribulations…hmm, could this be considered Stockholm Syndrome of some sort?” Eve nonsensically sighed before checking her divine power reserves. 【Divine Power: 20/500】 This result greatly exceeded her initial expectations. Originally, Evé only had around 10 points of divine power left, and to heal those two elves, she had to use 01 point of DP. But when the two of them recovered their faith, these believers instantly provided her with a whopping 6 points of divine power in exchange! The returns were too exaggerated, with among them, 04 points were provided by Alice alone, who was promoted to a Saintess. Not only that, but killing more than twenty Beastmen with War Sacrifice skill, Berserkerhase also provided her with another 05 points of divine power. In summary, her divine power not only didn’t decrease, but instead increased to 20 points, even higher than before she revived the Oak Treant! Looking at her current divine power reserves, Eve fell into a deep thought. She had calculated early on that by increasing the number of believers she had, she could provide herself with a constant supply of faith that could be transformed into divine power, thus making her recovery faster. However, what she didn’t expect was the amount of faith brought by this incident alone. Nonetheless, she also knew that this kind of thing cannot be forcefully replicated, furthermore, the two elves were already her believers who persevered for a long time. This also indirectly indicates that they already had great potential for faith to begin with; after all, not everyone can become a devout believer in an instant. Thus, Eve proved one thing through this incident: strengthening her religion is the correct path for her at the moment! However… Remembering the 05 points of divine power that the Oak Guardian provided for her just now, Eve felt a bit strange in her heart. A whole 05 points of divine power! If the transformation of Alice and Samuel surprised her, then Berserker’s situation was also nothing short of shocking, to say the least. He sacrificed to her the vitality of all twenty Orc mercenaries, whose average strength was merely around Low to Mid-Iron rank. This, however, er gave her around 05 points of divine power, which is rather surprising. Forget about 05 points, she was only expecting around 01 point in return. However, just now, those 05 points of divine power didn’t seem to be entirely transformed from the vitality of the Orcs all, one, but ratseemedeems like there was something else as well… After consulting the inheritance of the World Tree, Eve came up with a certain speculation. Those Orcs were most probably seasoned elf hunters. They accumulated countless grievances from their victims, and as the patron god of the elves, killing these guys fulfilled the wishes of those haunting souls slain by these mercenaries. The more powerful and intelligent a creature is, the stronger its grievances are after death. Elves, on the other hand, are long-lived and wise creatures, born with an innate magical capacity. The grievances gathered from countless elf victims over thousands of years are not a small number to scoff at. Evé surmised that grievances are also a type of spiritual energy, with a similar effect to the power of faith. The victim’s deep-seated grudges will linger with their killers even if the victims die and their soul enters the underworld. With Eve finally killing these slavers, her actions had inadvertently fulfilled the duty of the “Patron Deity of the elves”, so these accumulated grievances were thus transformed into gratitude, for which sublimated into the power of faith, and ultimately came across the void to feed back to Eve in the form of divine power. This… was a big surprise for Eve. “So, in addition to strengthening my religion, I can also rebuild the glory of the elven race and regain my power by eliminating the enemies of the elves and gaining recognition from the spirits of the deceased. Moreover, the skill war sacrifice seems to have significant potential to indirectly provide me with power as well…” Eve came to this conclusion. But after some deliberations, in the end, she felt like it was not a good strategy to implement… “The elf enemies that I can deal with should mostly belong to the hunting slavers category. The number of these slave hunters is rather limited. Even if I eliminate them all, I’m afraid I still won’t be able to recover much energy with this method. As for those hidden enemies which are the real culprits, I am currently still powerless to deal with them at the moment…” “If I want to rebuild the glory of the elven race, I must first gather enough forces of my own, which means I must unite the remaining elven people together. In addition, I require a huge population so that these believers could provide me with divine power through war sacrifice as well…” “But calculating the numbers, I’m afraid it has to be at least within the tens of thousands, or perhaps even millions to make it all feasible…” What a dilemma. “Anyhow, how many elves remain to this day?” Earlier, Eve overheard Alice and Samuel’s conversation and had a different understanding of the current situation of the elven race. In general, once the world tree had fallen, most elves had scattered throughout the world, and over time, less than ten percent of the population remains, with most of them also hiding everywhere. The once glorious civilization has been decimated…and is on the brink of extinction. “Seems like gathering all my people is a must if I want to restore my religion to its past glory, but alas, such an undertaking will consume a lot of time, and there’s not a shortcut to it…” “Furthermore, it will be even more difficult if I want to rebuild the elven civilization back to its heyday, as a significant population base is required for a fully functional civilization to work.” The more she thought about it, the more disappointed Evé felt. “I’m still far too weak. If only I were like the World Tree during its prime, then I wouldn’t need to worry about population issues at all. I could just directly use divine power and produce Primordial Elves by myself.” The Primordial Elves are the first generation of the Elven race. They didn’t evolve from animals but rather created by the World Tree itself. “But then again, if I had the power to give birth to Primordial Elves, then there would be no need for me to rely on rebuilding Elven civilization to restore my power at all!” Thinking of this, Eve felt helpless. The amount of divine power required to create Primordial Elves is far too great. More precisely, the consumption required to produce the soul required by Primordial Elves is far too great. Even if Eve has the Divinity of “Life” and the ability to create souls, she still cannot use this power at this time. Not to mention giving birth to souls, even reviving Berserker’s soul consumed five points of divine power! Yes, ‘revive’ rather than ‘create’ the treant's soul. Among the five points of divine power used to revive Berserker, the vast majority were used entirely on his soul. The DP consumption to give the Oak Guardian a Silver strength power accounted for so very little… Creating the soul of the Primordial Elves out of nothing would require even greater DP consumption. If she only produces the bodies alone, then the consumption would not be that high. But without a soul to operate the body, it's merely an empty vessel with no further use whatsoever. “Haa, ah so in the end, do I still have to rely on slowly gathering my people and restore faith at a turtle's pace just to enhance my power? In that case… it may take what, several decades or even centuries?” That’s far too long! Moreover, it’s not like she doesn’t have any enemies. After inheriting the World Tree, Eve also inherited the enemies of the previous World Tree; those old cunning foxes are also gods, as we, well, no doubt! The body of the World Tree persists to this day, even after a thousand years have passed since the end of the Heavenly War, due to the former World Tree using a last resort protection spell on itself. It cast a spell so powerful that no one could harm its body, and only its believers could touch it. The world tree consumed most of the magical powers of the mortal world to cast this protection spell for which also inadvertently depleted the mana supply within Saigües up to this day. Due to these circumstances, the passage between the heavenly realm and the mortal realm has been temporarily closed, and the Gods could no longer descend easily to the ground, while some Demigods who are stuck in Saigües have chosen to slumber instead to conserve their power… However, her sudden appearance had broken the protection spell. Currently,y Evé still doesn’t have enough power and is still in a quasi-death state. In the likely event that the World Tree’s old enemy does come, then Eve herself may be in grave danger. “It would be nice if there were a way for me to find a large number of souls. Speaking of which, if there are already readily-made souls, then I could just focus on producing the body and create Elves in a shortened manner… The population problem would be solved, then I’ll just continue gathering all the Elven trib, thus making my recovery quicker…” But… where to find ready-made souls? Because of the existence of religion, almost all souls in this world already have the protection of their patron deities! She would dlert her enemies if she tried to snatch one, and she cannot enter the underworld as well… Moreover, even if Eve can find usable souls, the other party must be willing to worship her. “It’s too difficult.” Eve exhaled in frustration as she boredly surfed the internet within the Celestial Domain for any inspiration. She idly watched all the users on the popular social media sites converse with each other when she suddenly thought of something. “Wait a minute…” Evé trembled in excitement as she stared intently at the lively netizens of her former world, as a sudden bold idea began forming within her mind. “It seems like there is a way…”