And just as Luo Yan had predicted, when the players saw the shopping list in the store, they immediately cried out, "Rip-off!"

"Damn! A steel one-handed sword without any enchantment for 60,000?!"

"How is this the same scam as Mount & Blade 2?!"

"It's too much! Too much!"

"MMP! I might as well forge my own!"

Watching the agitated skeleton soldiers, Sarah's face showed fear, looking around for Luo Yan, only to find that he had already fled the scene.

At that moment, she suddenly remembered what Luo Yan had said to her when he left. After hesitating for a long time, she finally mustered the courage to squeeze out a shy murmur.

"Meow..."

Within just a moment, the previously furious skeleton soldiers all quieted down.

Watching the skeletons frozen in place, Sarah blinked confusedly.

Was that word some kind of spell?

However, just as she was thinking this, the skeletons that had been quiet for less than two seconds boiled over once again!

"Aooogh!!!"

"Again! Do it again!!!"

"Louder! My brother didn't hear!"

The raucous creaking sounds resembled firecrackers, the fervor written on their faces unlike any before.

Suddenly, one skeleton soldier stepped forward from the sea of skeletons and jumped onto the counter.

"Brothers!!! I can't stand it anymore! For cat mom, even if it's the Demon King himself, I'll obliterate him for you to see—"

He hadn't finished speaking when a streak of emerald light hit his fontanelle.

Just then, his transparent soul emerged from his body and floated toward the vicinity of the core of the Demon King Territory in less than a moment.

Orc Knight: "Damn! Why is it Lord Demon King's ultimate penalty again?! What the—what the hell did I do?!"

Hu Wan looked at him with a nuanced expression.

"What did you do, you might ask? You jumped onto the counter and stressed out the NPC."

Gou Shi had a cheeky grin on his face.

"Hahahaha! It's you again! Tell me, why is it always you whenever there's a crackdown on vice!"

Watching his remaining jail time, the Orc Knight let out a squeal like slaughtering a pig.

"Bro, I'm innocent!!! Lord Demon King, I won't dare anymore! Let me out please!"

So embarrassing!

The Minotaur warrior shook his head, pretending not to know this guy, and quietly walked away.

...

The miserable wails echoed through the mines, adding a touch of faint sadness to the evil and terror of the Great Graveyard.

Although sympathetic toward his plight, Luo Yan was too busy to bother with him at the moment.

He had more important things to do right now.

After the previous tests, he had confirmed that not only could players gain experience by killing monsters, but he, the Demon King, could as well!

And more than that, gaining experience by grinding monsters was much faster than through meditation!

Back in the Demon King Academy, Luo Yan vaguely remembered it was Egger or someone who mentioned to him that, aside from the extremely high casualty rate, the front line was actually an excellent place to increase one's power.

Oftentimes, demons who survived a major battle could experience more or less growth.

Especially those who slaughtered a town or village, many of such demons evolved into terrifying beings.

While the academic community explained that this was due to the survival instinct stimulating individual potential and because the carnival of slaughter on the battlefield pleased the Demon God Bayele, passively triggering the sacrifice ritual and so on.

However, Linte Isaac's system provided a radically different, harsh and cold explanation—

When an individual with a soul kills another individual with a soul, they can grow!

This has nothing to do with faith.

It's simply a universal law of this world!

Just as gods killing gods can absorb each other's faith, mortals can also plunder the Extraordinary Power from one another!

Even if due to the individual's modest power, this plundering ratio isn't obvious, and isn't quantified in a way that most people simply do not notice, or if they do notice, they attribute it to other reasons.

For example, in a life-or-death duel, one might gain new insights into their strength, or under the instinct to survive, one might unleash hidden potentials...

Actually, it's none of those.

It is purely because a person or creature has become another person's or creature's experience package.

Luo Yan had reason to believe that since the transmigrator predecessors had discovered this truth, there was no reason why the locals like Saint Sis and the Third Generation Demon Gods couldn't discover it... It was just that both sides tacitly chose to hide it and covered the naked truth with doctrines and creeds.

And the reason they did so was not really hard to guess.

From the standpoint of a Lord or a Knight, compared to killing demons on the battlefield, those in power actually had lower-risk strategies... such as turning their blades on weaker internal members.

The same was true for Hell.

Even Hell, inherently a society where the strong prey on the weak, would see high-level demons swiftly slaughtering the lower demons dependent on them if they knew there was such a convenient way to enhance their strength.

In this case, order would be completely lost.

From the standpoints of Saint Sis or the Demon Gods, this was clearly not something they wished to see.

Thus, they would use various means to control the chosen ones and the power hierarchy beneath them, including but not limited to sending down divine decrees, setting laws, strengthening divine authority, and more...

For those who defied their will, whether person or demon, they would not hesitate to eliminate them as an example to others.

After all, no matter how strong a person or a demon was, there were limits.

Moreover, the absorption of Transcendent Power by Transcendent Power itself involved significant losses.

In a way, Luo Yan also benefited from this rule.

If the demons in Demon City used their Transcendent Power without restraint, there was no way he, a human, could have survived until the age of eighteen.

Not to mention, he wouldn't have been able to get past Professor Lillith.

As for why Linte Isaac decided to leak this information to him, it wasn't hard to understand either.

It indeed presented an optimal solution for an individual—wanting to fast-track through the Otherworld, killing was the quickest method.

Using magic to kill increased spiritual power, using physical attacks to kill increased strength... The stronger the opponent, the higher the experience value provided, and the efficiency of increasing strength in this manner far surpassed training and meditation.

Just as accumulating wealth through farming is less efficient than through warfare, the entire experience value system was implying just that.

Perhaps the Catastrophe system couldn't filter players because they preferred "outrageous yet not too outrageous" people to come and stir up trouble, rather than those above neutral and orderly players.

Just as the "Mechanical God" had initially said—

Let this world feel the pain!

He wasn't joking.

He was planning to unleash a real Catastrophe!

However, having said that, Luo Yan was not someone accustomed to being manipulated.

Linte had his own demands, and he had his own thoughts.

Of course, it was still too early to talk about these things.

No matter what he was thinking, for now, he must strengthen his power as soon as possible.

Compared to the daunting Thunder City, the traitors in the labyrinth were obviously an easier target.

Exactly.

He was going to start competing with the players for monsters!

After handing over the NPC shop to Sarah for management, Luo Yan went straight to the depths of the mine, using a relatively open chamber as his Magic Workshop, and hung a "No Entry for Unauthorized Personnel" sign at the entrance.

Having done these things, Luo Yan then ordered Youyou.

"Youyou, find a few players to drag some Earth Cave Spider corpses from the warehouse here. Handle the task rewards as you see fit, the idea for the numbers has been given to you."

The player called "Yiye Zhiqu" had obtained quite a few Earth Cave Spider corpses for him, which were now being put to good use.

"Okay, Lord Demon King!"

Youyou agreed and quickly set up the task, then curiously asked, "May I ask what you need the Earth Cave Spider corpses for?"

They certainly didn't look appetizing.

As he retrieved the crucible for mixing Magic Potions, a silver knife, and a mortar and pestle from his luggage, Luo Yan gently curved his lips upwards.

"It's nothing."

"Just making necessary preparations for grinding the next instance."

-

(Over-slid yesterday and fed the tiger well, only one chapter today, can I count it as a 2-in-1, I am releasing it early and going to sleep now. T.T)

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