The page refreshed.
The holographic screen shifted from pale gold to a gloomy gray-black.
Products marked with skull-shaped warning symbols filled the display.
Lin Yuan swiped rapidly, scanning the dense listings of junk.
A few minutes later, his gaze settled on a damaged card emitting a faint red glow.
[Damaged Bronze-Grade Abyssal Flame Hound Remains].
Description: Most of its body was vaporized by high-grade holy light divine magic. The surviving flesh contains highly active fire toxins and a frenzied Abyssal presence.
No nutritional value. Recommended for use as a specimen in an Abyssal creature collection.
Price: fifty faith points.
Lin Yuan clicked Buy.
The payment went through.
A faint spatial ripple stirred the air in his bedroom.
A streak of light materialized through the terminal's delivery channel and hit the floor.
Half a charred demonic hound's corpse lay at his feet.
Black-red blood still seeped from the torn ends. It hissed as it corroded the floor.
Without hesitation, Lin Yuan activated his talent.
Creation Extraction.
Dazzling dark-gold light burst from his eyes.
It wove several solid chains in midair and drove them into the Flame Hound's remains.
The sound of disintegrating matter filled the bedroom.
The hound's tough flesh and bones, the clinging fire toxins, and the Abyssal presence all shattered inch by inch beneath the chains, becoming black ash on the floor.
Every impurity was removed.
A thumb-sized sphere of frenzied red light hovered quietly in the air.
Lin Yuan took it in his hand. A stream of information entered his mind.
[Notice: Extraction successful. Black Iron-grade conceptual trait obtained: Bloodboil.]
[Trait Effect: Allows followers to burn their vital blood for a short time, unleashing 150% of their physical strength while greatly reducing pain perception.]
Looking at the red light in his palm, Lin Yuan smiled in satisfaction.
In the trading network's legitimate skill section, a [Mass Berserk Skill Card] started at fifteen thousand faith points.
It also had severe aftereffects. Kin would remain weakened for an entire week after using it.
For fifty points and a little mental energy, he had obtained a comparable, if not superior, trait.
Burst damage: handled.
Lin Yuan stored the sphere in his Divine Domain Terminal and returned his attention to the holographic screen.
Next came the ecological cycle of his Wasteland Divine Domain.
With [Stoneskin], his hundred Petrified Goblins could resist weak toxins and withstand the scorched ground's heat.
But they were still creatures of flesh and blood. They had to eat.
Not a blade of grass grew in his Wasteland Divine Domain.
If he didn't solve the food problem soon, the force he had worked so hard to establish would become the first kin in divine history to starve to death.
Lin Yuan adjusted the search filters again.
"Extremely cheap." "Extremely rapid reproduction." "Adapted to high-temperature wastelands." "Toxin-resistant."
Together, those four tags immediately ruled out ninety-nine percent of ordinary Divine Domain plants.
The system's loading ring spun. At last, a dozen highly obscure options appeared.
He eliminated several vines that required specific magical nourishment, then focused on an inferior fungus marked as F-rank junk.
[Ash Spore Mushroom].
Description: A low-grade fungus that grows along the edges of Abyssal rifts.
Price: one faith point per sack (contains ten thousand dormant spores).
Outrageously cheap.
Lin Yuan opened the product details.
Negative reviews filled the section below.
"What the hell is this garbage? I bought it to feed my Orcs. That very night the whole camp started hallucinating and hacked half their own people to death! These things come with neurotoxins!"
"Horrible texture! Dry, woody, and bitter! My elves took one bite and lost loyalty on the spot!"
An ordinary god buying these for their followers might as well be poisoning them.
But the more Lin Yuan read about their growth requirements, the brighter his eyes became.
Growth requirements: no clean water or sunlight needed. Feeds on volcanic ash, battlefield embers, and rotting corpses. Spreads as soon as the wind touches it.
His sky snowed endless ash. His land consisted of three hundred thousand square kilometers of scorched earth.
Add a hundred Petrified Goblins immune to weak toxins.
The finest ingredients often required only the simplest preparation.
In another Divine Domain, these mushrooms were a poison that sparked riots.
In Lin Yuan's wasteland, they were a food source tailor-made for him.
All he had to do was scatter the spores. The hostile environment would be their ideal growth accelerator.
As for hallucinations?
How were his laborers supposed to get through all that backbreaking wasteland work without getting a little high?
Lin Yuan placed the order, spending five faith points on five sacks of Ash Spore Mushroom seed cards.
The bottom of the food chain was in place.
He checked his account. Eight hundred and forty-five points remained.
Since he was building a catastrophe through overwhelming numbers, food and burst-damage skills alone wouldn't be enough.
His kin needed a way to keep growing stronger under normal conditions.
He continued searching the battle-damaged remains section.
A dozen minutes later, a tattered parchment scroll caught his eye.
[Fragment of "Basic Body Tempering Art," Contaminated with Demonic Blood].
Description: Seized from an Abyssal cultist stronghold. Missing the core cultivation methods and heavily contaminated by Abyssal demonic energy.
Attempting to cultivate it will reverse the flow of vital blood and cause the practitioner to explode.
Price: thirty faith points.
It had sat online for three entire years without a buyer.
Who would pay for a suicide manual?
Lin Yuan bought it without hesitation.
Space rippled. The tattered parchment dropped onto his desk.
Dark-gold light shone again.
The scroll spontaneously burst into flames.
Demonic energy and waste were stripped away, scattering as points of light.
[Notice: Extraction successful. Black Iron-grade conceptual trait obtained: Crude Body Tempering.]
[Trait Effect: Bestows an instinct upon followers, allowing them to slowly increase their vital blood capacity through basic physical conditioning, intensive labor, and combat with one another.]
Lin Yuan spread his hands.
The [Bloodboil] trait, the [Crude Body Tempering] trait, and a physical [Ash Spore Mushroom] card.
A complete cultivation framework for low-tier kin. Total cost: eighty-five faith points.
He leaned back in his chair and released a long breath.
Three consecutive uses of his SSS-rank talent had left his temples aching and drained a tremendous amount of mental energy.
Yet the light in his eyes only burned brighter.
Almost casually, he opened the Jiangcheng local section of the Pantheon Forum.
The reply count on the top pinned post kept refreshing.
[Breaking! Su Family heiress Su Yueying spends fifty million faith points on the Silver-grade environment card "Nature's Whispering Breeze" for her starting Light Elf kin! Holy Light Plains upgraded again!]
Below it was an endless stream of envy, jealousy, and praise.
Lin Yuan closed the forum.
Other people played a pay-to-win raising game, pouring vast resources into perfect hothouse species.
He was playing extreme wasteland survival.
He would use Abyssal monster corpses and poisonous fungi to stitch these unwanted garbage goblins, layer by layer, into monsters that made the gods tremble.
Lin Yuan gathered his thoughts.
Time was short. He needed to deploy the supplies to his domain as soon as possible.
He closed his eyes and let his consciousness leave his body.
Passing through the boundless Astral Realm's barrier, he descended once more upon the vast scorched earth.
Time flowed at vastly different rates inside and outside his Divine Domain.
Only a few hours had passed in the main world. Three full days had elapsed in the Wasteland Divine Domain.
Gray-black embers still drifted down from the sky.
Thin poison gas wandered over the cracked ground.
Lin Yuan looked down.
The hundred Petrified Goblins he had endowed with [Stoneskin] lay sprawled across the burning earth.
Their stone skin had kept out the heat and poison gas, saving their lives.
But hunger was consuming their strength.
Three days without water. Not a morsel of food.
Their once-robust bodies had visibly withered.
[Warning: Your kin are suffering from extreme hunger!]
[Warning: Kin morale has fallen sharply. Current faith point production efficiency reduced by 50%!]
[Irreversible organ failure and mass fatalities are projected in three days.]
Red warnings flashed across the Divine Domain interface.
On the scorched earth below, the largest Petrified Goblin struggled upright.
It swung its heavy petrified flail and battered the ground.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The flail gouged shallow pits into the earth.
It was trying to dig up something edible. A root. An insect. Anything.
But beneath the cracked soil lay nothing except more charred rock.
Panting, it dropped the flail and fell onto its backside.
Nearby, several starving goblins had even begun picking up the rocky flakes shed from their companions' skin.
They shoved them into their mouths and chewed, unwilling to spit them out even as their teeth broke.