Chapter 80: One hundred divine force points!
Manipulating the avatar, Eve quickly left the battlefield under the cover of holy light.
And only after she did so could she breathe a sigh of relief.
She had shown herself after a lot of careful consideration.
She had a gut feeling there were going to be some unexpected developments back when she gave the order to hunt down the orcish hunting party. At the time, she had planned to use her avatar in case of emergency, but she never thought she would actually end up using it.
When things turned south, she had originally planned to wait for the players to fail the quest. Then, after the half-orcs had expended their trump card, she intended to wipe them out disguised as one of Hela's followers.
No, she definitely wasn't thinking of denying the players their insignificant experience and contribution points. It was because she wanted to retain her sense of mystique and safety!
But upon hearing Al's vow, she changed her plans.
She believed that this might be an opportunity to start changing the mindset of the original elves in Sagas.
Al's full name was Al Moonlight.
It was a very old surname among the elves, as the Moonlights used to be a branch of the royal family of the elven kingdom.
After the fall of the kingdom and the complete extinction of the elven royal line, the Moonlight surname became the most influential name among the elves.
So Eve thought that if she could win over Al and use him as some sort of banner to rally the original elves under, she would have an easier time convincing them through him. This would speed up the process to get rid of their silly, subservient benevolence.
Another reason to personally descend was to gain attention. If she handled things well, she could set off a wave of popularity among the players.
This popularity could not be underestimated. As a former online gaming veteran, Eve understood the mindset of players very well.
Leader figures could garner a lot of affection, especially if they were cool and dazzling, not to mention handsome or gorgeous. If they preferably also had some touching background story and the ability to bring benefits to players ... gamers would definitely go wild and give their hearts to such an existence.
Eve was the only faction leader in "Kingdom of Elves". If she could increase the number of fans among the players, they would also work harder.
Touching backstory? Eve had it.
Benefits? The quests were mostly issued by her.
As for her appearance, she couldn't be blamed for bragging, right? There was currently no existence that surpassed her avatar.
She just had to look the part and made sure she gave off a majestic appearance.
Hmm … How come she had the feeling she was on the path towards becoming an idol? Eve shook her head.
In any case, it was after a lot of pondering that she had decided to descend as herself undisguised.
As for the dignity that a true God had to uphold and so on ... She was a weak divine power on the verge of death, what good would dignity do her? Besides, she was not a true native God, but a former earthling who had somehow sneaked across and been thrown into the job of a God.
Except for certain red lines that she would never cross, she would do anything that benefitted her.
Moreover, there were many shameless gods in Sagas. It was said that there were some who secretly disguised themselves as ordinary people to experience the mortal world. As a result, their Demigod offspring were probably as numerous as several football teams ...
Of course, even if they descended, true Gods were unable to remove their dominating aura.
But Eve's current avatar only had Gold-level strength, so she had to pay a certain price to keep pretenses and appear cool in front of the players.
Especially since the avatar had been a long distance away from her true body, outside of her area of control.
She had to spend divine points to create special effects to bedazzle everyone, such as the blooming flowers, the green leaves, the radiant light and the ethereal hymns.
She had pushed her avatar to the brink to achieve the best results.
But with the avatar's current strength, these special effects could be broken by poking at them. Still, they had been just enough to fool the spectators.
Furthermore, Eve had given Al the mark because her avatar had been at her limit. She needed all her abilities simply to maintain the special effects on the field as well as to keep restricting the half-orcs.
If she had had to finish off the half-orcs by herself, her fa?ade would probably have crumbled.
The good thing was that as Eve was increasingly one with the World Tree, her divine power control was getting stronger and she was getting more and more efficient at using it.
The AOE healing had only cost her one point of divine force, which was vastly more efficient than the point of divine force she had used up to heal just two believers when she first started out.
The reason why the healing had still cost so much was partly because of the long distance, and partly because healing someone was different from creating stuff. The latter relied on the instinct of the World Tree and consumed much less divine force, while healing was completely based on divine force expenditure.
As for the special effects and the crowd control, it had not cost her even one point.
The results seemed to have been very good.
The half-orcs had been annihilated and the players had been wowed. If she had also increased the players' favourability of her, that would be a great boon.
Not only that, but she had also gained a new fanatic believer! Someone who had voluntarily given his soul and mind to become a divine follower! Al's vow implied that he had given his entire being to her, which meant that he had become a being similar to an oak guard! Such opportunities did not come often.
Moreover, few people would be willing to completely devote themselves to a true God, and even if they were, few had the necessary qualifications to become a divine follower! It just so happened that Al, who had a hint of royal blood running through his veins, had those qualifications!
That was not all. Al had not yet fully adapted to the faith of nature very well and still needed some time. Eve believed that as he continued to grow, so too would his faith. Sooner or later, he would become a saint on par with Alice.
"With Al in the picture, he can now also take on a part of Alice's and Berserker's NPC work."
Eve was very satisfied.
She withdrew her avatar and her consciousness returned to her main body.
Now, she began to check her harvest.
Unsurprisingly, this time too she had obtained a load of divine force points! The annihilation of the half-orcs had brought in a total of 8 divine force points, the vast majority of which came from the lingering resentment of dead elves.
And Al, who had become her divine follower as well as a fanatic believer, had provided 1.5 points.
The half-orcs only amounted to 8 points ... The low harvest was a bit unexpected.
Compared to the time when Berserker killed the half-orcs that were chasing Alice and Samuel, this time far more half-orcs had been felled, including a low Silver. Yet the divine force gain was only three points more than that time.
But Eve soon figured out why this was the case.
"There's a limit to the resentment of elven souls.
At the very beginning, the divine force gain had been substantial. But as I am becoming stronger, the resentment accumulated over the millennia is becoming more and more sparse. It's also less and less effective."
Of course, Eve didn't expect to merely rely on the grievances of the dead to strengthen herself forever. As long as she could get out of her near-death state, it would suffice.
She took a look at her divine force value. After substracting the points consumed and adding the bits of points gained after the engagement, she now had a total of 94 points.
She still needed 6 points to get out of her dying state!
Then, Eve took out the bone fragment she had taken from Blackstone.
Unlike the World Tree leaf that she had gifted to Samuel, which had a one-time effect, this bone fragment was reusable.
This also meant that it still had divine force stored in it!
Eve sensed it cursorily… "10 points?"
She was surprised.
Overjoyed, Eve did not hesitate at all and chose to absorb it! 10 points of divine power were immediately extracted, and after a rough conversion, she received fewer than 7 points of natural divine force.
Eve's supernatural power finally broke through the 100-point ceiling!
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