Demon Bible

Chapter 86: Increasing Attribute Values

Early the next morning, Nemus arrived at a training ground within the church district.

Most of the Holy Knights and Intern Holy Knights were currently here, conducting their daily training.

Seeing Nemus approach, almost all the Holy Knights saluted and respectfully called out to the Great Knight.

In just a single day, Nemus had proven himself to be a ruthless figure by eradicating Black Viper and personally sentencing his own sister to penal torture.

Without any direct conflict of interest, no one was foolish enough to provoke Nemus over basic etiquette.

Today marked the official beginning of Nemus's career as a Great Knight.

As a Great Knight and the second-in-command of Tail Fin Town, he had quite a few matters to handle.

This was especially true since the Great Knight position had been vacant for half a month, allowing a considerable amount of work to pile up.

After concluding his morning training, Nemus entered his office. Beside him, Krew had already organized all the work documents.

Meanwhile, Purr stood by Nemus's side as his retainer, waiting for orders. Krew had swiftly completed the approval procedures for his new status early that very morning."The cult needs to be investigated further."

"It seems adult forms of the Whale Dung Beetles have appeared over there. We need to dispatch someone to deal with them."

"Promotion approvals for the Intern Holy Knights."

"Regular patrols across various districts."

"Control and restriction of Contraband."

...And so on.

For many of these matters, Bishop Rhine would provide a proposed solution, leaving the execution phase to Nemus. As the Great Knight, it was his job to assign the personnel to carry it out.

Among the seven Holy Knight squads, squads one through six were nominally under the full jurisdiction of the Great Knight.

The seventh squad was the Judgment Squad, reporting directly to the Judgment Hall. It was also the only squad with an official roster of combat Priests.

All Nemus really needed to do was assign people—deciding which squad would handle what, or choosing to intervene personally.

'To accomplish all of this, the first step is to understand the strength of the Clerics in Tail Fin Town.'

There were seven Holy Knight squads in total, containing twelve Iron Rank Holy Knights.

The Priest faction was not divided into squads. There were ninety Official Priests in total, and nine of them were Iron Rank.

In other words, these roughly twenty Iron Rank members of the Church were the ones maintaining control over the entirety of Tail Fin Town.

Of course, one crucial point to keep in mind was that traveling from Sky Spring City to Tail Fin Town via the Air Column took only three hours.

This meant that if a major crisis were to occur, Tail Fin Town could request reinforcements at any time and receive massive support.

"Dispatch squads one and six to intensify their patrols. Step up the investigation into the cult, and have squad three join squad two, who is currently handling the inquiry."

"As for the Whale Dung Beetle issue, use it as a promotion test for the Intern Holy Knights. Approve the promotions of anyone who can resolve it."

"Regarding the Contraband, have squads four and five start making arrests."

Nemus briefly glanced over the documents and the responsibilities of each squad before issuing his orders decisively.

Among the major issues, his primary focus was the Contraband problem. Everything else was simply carried out according to past procedures.

Previously, Tail Fin Town had not faced such a severe Contraband issue. However, over the past month, many signs of a problem had surfaced, mostly connected to the North District.

The cause, naturally, was the chain reaction brought about by Westbin fleeing.

He was the one who had maintained the Contraband trade before. Once he ran away, the demand for those forbidden goods from certain individuals did not simply vanish.

Naturally, people would take the risk to continue the trade.

And without Westbin's cover, they were inevitably discovered.

Previously, the Church had only arrested those acting out in the open, leaving the buyers and the hidden figures behind the sellers untouched.

As of now, they remained uncaught. For Nemus, making arrests was not the end goal; his true objective was to draw out everyone who was already entrenched in this lucrative circle or sought a piece of it.

And then...

'Establish new rules and acquire enough resources.' Nemus was not actually acting out of loyalty to the Church.

His current Attribute Value was increasing at a decent pace, but it could not be considered fast.

Currently, his Value had reached thirty-two points. Before hitting thirty, he had managed to raise it by roughly one point per day.

However, upon crossing the thirty-point threshold, that speed had slowed down considerably.

'Using these figures and judging by an ideal state, I can already calculate the trajectory of my strength progression. Moving forward, every ten Value points will act as a threshold, decreasing my growth speed threefold.'

'From thirty to forty points, it will take three days per point.'

'From forty to fifty points, it will take nine days per point.'

'And once I reach the eighty to ninety range, it will likely take three years to gain a single point.'

'Going from my current state to ninety points will take a total of thirty years.'

'At that point, I will hit a bottleneck. I will have to see if I can acquire new Numbers through various external means to attempt a breakthrough into the Golden Rank.'

'This is the absolute limit of Nels's innate talent, combined with the development of the Saint's Bone and my triple synergistic modifications.'

Analyzing the circumstances of most Iron Rank Holy Knights, when it took several years to increase a single point of Value, it meant their potential was nearly exhausted.

In other words, even under ideal conditions, once Nemus used conventional methods to reach ninety points, relying purely on time to grind further would yield no additional Value points at all.

'Therefore, acquiring various resources to accelerate my cultivation process is absolutely crucial.'

Nemus currently had two core objectives. The first was to establish his own secret Religious Order to gather personal Faith.

The second was to infiltrate the upper echelons of the Precept Church and obtain enough information about the God of Precepts.

And to become a high-ranking official, ascending to the Golden Rank was a necessity.

Too many variables could occur over a thirty-year span. If the God of Precepts were to recover his state within those three decades, any action Nemus took would become incredibly difficult.

'So for me, the best course of action is to complete my advancement within ten years, spend the next ten years stealing secrets, and use the final ten years to usurp the godhood.'

'I must accomplish everything within thirty years!'

'The longer this drags on, the more disadvantageous it becomes for me.'

As Nemus charted out his various plans, he spotted the Dartmenerly Butler he had met yesterday approaching from a distance to pay him another visit.

He approached Nemus through completely legal, compliant, and proper procedures, his face still bearing that mirthless smile.

"Young Master Nels, Miss Xixi was simply being foolish. I wonder if you could let her off this once? She already knows she was wrong." Just as expected, the Butler had come to plead for leniency.

"Rules are established to bind the masses."

"If one can overstep the rules without paying a price, then those rules become nothing more than blank paper, completely meaningless." Without even glancing at the Butler, Nemus spoke while carefully reading a holy text of Church doctrine he held in his hands.

"When an ignorant fool makes a mistake and goes unpunished, it only encourages more fools to appear."

"This is the simplest of principles."

At this, the Butler choked on his words, forced to swallow the rest of his pleas. Otherwise, he would be labeling himself as a fool who couldn't even grasp the simplest of principles.

"Young Master Nels is very resolute in his stance, I see."

"However, the family truly hopes for your return."

"You will witness the family's sincerity!" After saying this, the Butler gave a slight bow and backed away, taking his leave.