The Era of Gods

Chapter 54: Black Water Swamp

Translator: 549690339

Five Star Weapon Card—Standard Fine Iron Sword (Common): Instantly acquire 1,000 standard fine iron swords.

Five Star Resource Card—Sheep Flock (Common): Instantly summon 500 sheep, note: half male, half female.

Five Star Reproduction Card (Rare): Species reproduction rate +300%, survival rate +300%, lasting for 10 years. Note: This card cannot be stacked with other cards of the same type effect, only one can be used at a time.

emmm…

Lin Xiao didn’t even know what to say anymore, out of these cards, only the first Shallow Sea Ecology Card was of good use, the others

It’s not that they are useless, normally speaking, for a student of his level, all five cards would be of use, but for him, they still seem somewhat lacking.

It’s like, they wouldn’t make things worse, but there’s always a feeling of wasting a card slot, what’s commonly known as a ‘chicken rib’.

If it were a regular student, the best approach would be to trade them with other students for cards that suit oneself, but Lin Xiao only had one option, to give them to Golden Finger for disassembly, to see if he could refine some useful materials from them, or directly use them as nutrients to strengthen a particular card.

For the moment, he couldn’t make up his mind, and since the fusion limit of his Divine Realm’s existing cards was already reached, he’d have to wait until next month to fuse new cards. So, he stored the cards in the Creation Magic Cube for now, without disassembling them, just keeping them.

In the following period, Lin Xiao started his drastic reforms in the Fish people tribe.

The first step was naturally to replace the worship of the Sea God with himself, changing the native Fishmen’s belief from the Sea God to himself.

This was fundamental. To fully conquer the native Fishmen, beliefs must be unified.

If the Sea God was a real god, what he was doing would be suicide, perhaps as soon as the Fish people tribe changed their belief, the Sea God would know. Unfortunately, the Sea God was just a Demigod, and even as a High-Level Demigod, he was still a Demigod, lacking in control over his own faith and followers.

The Fish people tribe was far from the Merfolk Empire, and the nearest Mermaid City with a temple was hundreds of miles away. Throughout the year, not many from the Merfolk Empire would come by, and the Whale Knight encountered half a year ago was just passing through by chance. Changing beliefs quietly, it was likely that the Merfolk Empire wouldn’t find out for years.

On the altar’s Holy Proof of the Fish people tribe, Lin Xiao harvested over eight million Faith value, which was more than twice that of the Lobstermen Tribe.

All in all, he now had a total of thirteen million points of other races’ Faith value, equivalent to thirteen points of Divine Power, enough for him to freely squander for a while.

With these unusable Faith values, he could trade, create Cards, upgrade subordinates, etc. He saved his own followers’ Faith values to gather one hundred million points as quickly as possible to condense that bit of Divinity.

Using a set of standard indoctrination procedures taught by the school, coupled with Lin Xiao’s own talent in gathering faith from followers, he only took three months to convert the entire Mermaid Tribe, who abandoned the Sea God and turned to worship the Lord of the Ocean, the deity of Naga and Fish people.

It is worth mentioning that his divine name as the deity of Fish people played a significant role in converting the Fish people.

Compared to worshipping the Sea God, his identity as the deity of Fish people naturally made the Fish people feel closer and more willing to worship him.

Lin Xiao did just that. With every large-scale prayer ritual, he infused the idea into the Fish people that their Deity of the Fish people was a deity enthroned by the Fish people themselves, their own kind. This made it easier for the Fish people to believe.

It’s like when a Human warrior came before two temples not far apart, one for the Human War God, and the other for the Beast-Man War God. Out of a hundred Human warriors, ninety-nine would choose to enter the temple of the Human War God; very few would be willing to worship a deity from another race.

In the days that followed, it was all about consolidating faith and starting to prepare for the next task.

According to the map, the other two task locations were both situated in the Black Water Swamp to the far south. Whether it was the Frog-man Tribe Group or the Snake Tribe, they were hundreds of kilometers away in the Black Water Swamp to the south.

The distance was a bit long. After consolidating faith, Lin Xiao took half the Naga and two thousand Fishmen and set off to establish a new tribe near the Black Water Swamp, just like when they conquered the native Fishmen. They would settle down first, then relocate the entire tribe there after it was built.

The enormous group headed south along the coastline. Compared to the mostly flat sandy beaches to the north of the Fish people tribe, the southern coastline was predominantly rugged stony shores. The terrain by the sea gradually rose several meters, even more than ten meters above sea level, forming a long cliff face. The group moved along the edge of this cliff.

A journey of over a hundred kilometers was quite long for the Fish people, and it took them several days to cover only half the distance.

Midway, at a section of this cliff terrain, he discovered a small river flowing out from a coastal area that towered dozens of meters high. A large amount of nutrients rushed into the sea with the river flow, leading to an abundance of water plants and fish nearby. Here, he found a medium-sized Fish people tribe of about four to five thousand members.

Lin Xiao circled around the Fish people tribe and eventually took a detour to leave. He didn’t have the time to conquer a new Fish people tribe.

It was mainly because it was too small; the time spent was not equal to the gains. If it were also a Fish people tribe of twenty thousand, he wouldn’t mind spending another year or two to conquer it.

Though it would waste two years, with an additional twenty thousand Fish people acting as cannon fodder, he would have the courage to undertake those tasks with a difficulty rating of ninety-five percent or higher.

After eleven more days, they finally crossed the hundred kilometers and reached the two adjacent task locations marked on the map—a wide river mouth a few hundred meters across forming an alluvial beach as it entered the sea.

The vast group stopped at the mouth of the river, and Lin Xiao coiled his snake tail around a large tree to climb up and gaze into the distance. The large swamp known as Black Water was just to the south of this great river, right next to it.

It was called Black Water Swamp because there was an unknown black plant growing within the swamp. As the plants died and decomposed, they released a black ink-like pigment that dyed the swamp water and mud, which is why it was named Black Water Swamp.

In this vast swamp, stretching many kilometers and rich in resources and products, a multitude of other races lived.

Besides the Frog-man Tribe Group and the Snake Tribe, there were also the commonly seen Fishmen, who seemed to be everywhere. Even in inland freshwater rivers or lakes, one could spot them.

About a mile or so from the mouth of the river that could tentatively be called Black Water, there were several alluvial islands of varying sizes. Vegetation was lush on the islands, with plenty of seagrass surrounding them. The nutrients from the river accumulated nearby, nourishing a vast number of plump fish and shrimp and attracting a large number of predators to gather in the vicinity.

So even though the area around these small islands had an abundance of food, no race chose to make their home there.

Lin Xiao also dared not. His main purpose was to exterminate the Frogman and Snake Tribes, not to fight for territory. Settling here meant facing a constant struggle with the hunters of the sea, leaving no time for other tasks..