It was only the beginning. Liam took his time to explain to the novarians how the technique worked.
Even if they weren't the brightest lightsabers of the galaxy, novarian true believers had the entire technique in their minds.
After some time, most true believers had mastered the technique and used it. Despite gasping for breath on the ground, they still wore foolish smiles while other novarians watched them enviously.
Yet, Liam didn't stop here; he continued preaching, praising the Great Lord of the Azure Abyss.
Seeing their comrades gaining such a powerful technique, the novarians cast envious glances, and then focused on praying harder.
One of them, who had just shifted from pan-believer to true believer, felt his mind empty as knowledge filled his brain.
Thanks to the chief novarian's guidance, he quickly understood how to practice it and rushed towards one of the novarian he disliked.
Under the astonished eyes of his peers, a mere mortal directly defeated one of the tribe's greatest warriors. He delivered an uppercut to the jaw, sending him flying a few meters before falling into the shallow water, unconscious.
He wanted to roar towards the sky to show his dominance but he suddenly felt his legs give way. He collapsed to the ground, devoid of any strength. Even so, he continued to smirk and croak strangely.
Compared to Liam's performance earlier, this novarian's display was even more convincing. After all, he was the tribe's chief. Everyone knew he is very powerful. However, this guy was just like them a few moments ago.
The novarians started cheering for him, and then prayed even more fervently under Liam's reminders, wanting to gain even more power.
"This is the power given by the great Lord of the Azure Abyss, and believing in the great Lord of the Azure Abyss will make us stronger. We will gain strength and great power, so we need to put our lives in his hands!"
It was also one of the few advantages of weaker races. A human would have long realized that something was wrong and would have probably ignored the chief's speech.
For the novarians, while they can gain more strength, no matter where it came from, it's good.
Facts spoke for themselves. It wasn't just two or three novarians; dozens were converting.
In less than a quarter, many novarians became true believers, with only a few still in the pan-believer stage. Moreover, several had become fervent believers, and even a fanatic appeared.
[Believers Interface]
[Religion: tribal cult (primitive religion)]
[Believers: 2 fanatic believers, 35 fervent believers, 68 true believers, 12 pan-believers]
Liam smiled as he looked at the interface projected by his diadem. Now, aside from twelve mortal novarians, all his believers could use the Spurt of the Fishtechnique. The power of the novarians tribe had at least tripled. This gave him even more confidence in passing the test.
Moreover, there were still over 400 novarians lingering in the realm. Once they became believers and undid the seal on the technique, his military power would experience exponential growth.
However, the growth won't be this exaggerated.
They were Liam's first believers. When they arrived, there was absolutely nothing in the divine realm, and Liam created miracles after miracles, developing an ecosystem where they could survive in front of their eyes.
Naturally, their faith increased very quickly. It's not like he was skilled at managing his believers; it's just that everything is simpler at the beginning. Almost all students were in the same situation.
The real challenge would be to convert new members, or even new races. It will be where everything begins to get more complicated.
And this challenge, Liam was ready to take it on right away.
Once the entire tribe had taken a rest and regained their strength, he gathered everyone at the tribe's entrance and spoke loudly.
"Earlier, the Great Lord of the Deep Abyss told me that another group of novarians came to our seas and set up camp not far away from the tribe. It is our duty to welcome them and to bring them into the arms of our all-powerful lord, the Lord of the Deep Abyss."
Hearing this, the novarians began to whisper among themselves, exchanging glances of excitement and apprehension.
Novarians were used to such situations. There is a test once a week, so about every nineteen years in the divine realm. Every novarian has either already fought invaders or at least heard about it.
Liam brought all the adult members equipped with bone knives and headed towards the landing site of the novarian pearl.
Over a hundred novarians, led by a level 2 novarian warrior, rushed out of the tribe aggressively along the beach towards the south.
They soon spotted a group of over four hundred novarians discussing among themselves about what to do.
Even though they were more numerous, those new novarians looked very miserable, with weak and thin bodies. Their only cloth was ragged loincloths, and most of them didn't even have weapons.
Although Liam's novarian tribe was small, at least, food wasn't a problem. Plus, most of them had acquired the Spurt of the Fish technique. They brimmed with confidence and were ready for action.
Just in terms of aura, Liam's hundred novarians completely suppressed the over four hundred newcomers.
Perhaps because they were their kin, the novarians didn't automatically attack. The two camps faced each other, but none wanted to take the first step.
Finally, the novarian chief arrived, and the pressure he consciously released as a level 2 life form was enough to calm the ardor of the bravest.
He stepped forward and began talking with the rank 1 novarian in front of him. Seeing them communicate without any intention of fighting, Liam sighed in relief.
Yup, that's right. Liam had returned the chief the control over his body.
Even if he could have tried to convince the newcomers, in the end, he remained their god. He couldn't always handle everything; his people needed to learn to fend for themselves.
Of course, he stayed ready to take action at the first sign of fight. He also sent a prophecy to the tribe chief, asking him to welcome the new novarians and treat them well.
Since the fight hadn't broken out from the start, it wouldn't break out later.
Under the direction of the novarian chief, the two tribes mixed and began to talk. Some believers wanted to boast and showed their technique, laughing when they fell powerless to the ground.
They naturally drew the envy of the new novarians, who urged them to explain how to do it.
Soon, the two tribes joined, and they returned to the cove. At nightfall, the chief organized a big ceremony to pray to Liam.
As every novarian prostrated under the altar, Liam felt over a hundred lines of faith establishing between him and the novarians.
Although they were all very weak and unstable, it was a good start: around a hundred novarians became pan-believers.
This group had integrated much faster than expected. It's now only a matter of time before all the novarians became true believers.
Time goes by quickly, and in the divine realm, a month went by.
The novarians fished a large amount of fish and shrimp every day. The new novarians had long lost their neglected appearance and were now all healthy.
Under the influence of the original tribe, more and more novarians were converting to the faith of the Lord of the Azure Abyss.
Over three-quarters of the new novarians had established a faith link with Liam and become pan-believers. More than fifty had also joined the ranks of true believers.
It wasn't much, and he was still far from his goal of making them all true believers, but he was satisfied.
After all, Rome wasn't built in one day, and he wasn't in a hurry. If there's one thing he had, it's time.
Every day, the chief led the novarians in a big prayer before nightfall, thanking the lord for the good harvest. Slowly but surely, faith spread in the tribe.
On that day, Liam sent a message to the novarian chief.
He brought several hundred novarians to collect sea sand and all kinds of small stones. He was going to expand the tribe.
After that, he didn't continue to observe. Now that the tribe is stabilized with the smooth merge of the two groups, it was time for him to return.
Liam exited the spatial rift and returned to Mars. From there, he opened another rift to his room, and then lay on his bed, thinking about the situation of his divine realm.
He realized that the tribe would soon run out of food.
It wasn't the case yet, but as time goes by and the tribe continued to grow, the fish wouldn't have enough time to reproduce and may eventually be hunted to extinction.
He used only four pearls not exceeding yellow quality to create the ecosystem of the realm.
It is enough to feed several hundred people, but as soon as the number gets close to one thousand, the famine crisis would not be far away.
Moreover, with their upgraded growth rate, the number of novarians might increase very rapidly.
Naturally, there was always a simple solution to the problem.
Not enough food?
No problem, let's buy a divine pearl containing animals!
However, it wasn't the right time yet. He had almost no money right now. Divine pearls were far from cheap.
The seed of origine can reinforce anything, but it can't create something out of nothing.
Liam also had his own ambition. If the original seed didn't awaken, it will be fine to use a red or yellow quality pearl.
Now, unless it's an exceptionally outstanding pearl, Liam wouldn't use anything below blue quality.
The price of blue-quality divine pearls... Better not talk about it for now.
Even if merging some low quality pearls to make a blue pearl is much cheaper, he still couldn't afford it.
For now on, the best thing to do is to wait for the test results.
As long as he performed well, the school would provide him with a nice reward, and maybe his parents too.
That's where the difference in family background comes in. Everyone has roughly the same number of fusion slots, but is a white pearl the same as a purple pearl?
Of course not. At first, you might not see the difference, but the gap will only widen over time
…
The following days, Liam returned to the divine realm every day. He observed the situation of his tribe and slowly guided the faith of the novarians.
With to the temporal flow difference, one day on Earth is roughly two years and nine months in the divine realm. A week on Earth is almost nineteen years in the divine realm.
Novarians were like rabbits. In general, an adult couple can have five or six children in a lifetime.
(Novarians Growth Cycle: newborn (0 to 3 months), child (3 months to 1 year), adolescent (1 to 4 years), adult (over 4 years))
The life expectancy of mortal novarians is about 25 years, but from 20 years onwards, they would no longer be able to fight.
For the first order, life expectancy reached 35 years, and for the second order, it reached 50 years.
In the outside world, most novarians died before the age of twenty. But in the divine realm, there were several old novarians in the tribe approaching the twilight of their lives.
Thanks to Liam's moral teaching, those old novarians could still eat a normal portion of food, hosted by their children.
Yes, Liam introduced the concept of family into the tribe. It was still in a rudimentary stage, but it is better than nothing.
Everywhere else, if novarians didn't have enough food, it was not uncommon for them to end up eating each other. Not only novarians, but almost all uncivilized lower races had this bad tendency.
Liam had two reasons for this. First, it would gradually develop the novarians' sense of belonging to their family, tribe, and thus indirectly to him.
But perhaps more importantly, every believer is precious, especially the old novarians. They generally had very strong faith at that age. Almost all of them were true believers.
For gods, even if you just eat and sleep, as long as you continue to bring faith energy, you are useful.
However, this policy engendered a huge pressure on the food resources of the divine realm.
After nineteen years, the number of novarians has already exceeded 750, with nearly a hundred old novarians and a hundred and fifty children.
The animals of the demi-plane were starting to deplete, and it would only take a few years for there to be nothing left to hunt.