3: Chapter 3: A tasteless cancer, but a treasure trove for my keyword stuffing

Lin Yuan looked at the gray ball of light floating in his palm.

The ball of light was only the size of a thumb, emitting a cold, heavy shimmer.

The moment his fingertips touched it, he could sense the rhythm of a pure law.

This was a conceptual origin forcibly stripped away—incorporeal and without impurities.

He shifted his gaze downward.

On the three hundred thousand square kilometers of scorched earth, the hundred Grey Goblinss had stopped screaming.

They didn't even have the strength left to scream.

Toxic gas followed their respiratory tracts, madly corroding their internal organs, while the cracked, scorched earth beneath their feet burned their skin until it split open.

A few goblins with the weakest constitutions had already rolled their eyes back, their limbs twitching unnaturally as blood-streaked white foam spilled from their mouths.

In the textbooks of the Academy of Gods, goblins were explicitly defined as "non-recyclable trash."

Cowardly, weak, small-brained, and with extremely short lifespans. Aside from eating anything, they were utterly worthless.

Even if one was destitute, during the initial stage of massing troops, they would tighten their belts and save money to buy Kobolds instead.

"But what if trash is paired with a Wasteland, and then patched with Laws?"

A sharp glint flashed in Lin Yuan's eyes.

He did not hesitate, moving with a mere thought.

The Divine Realm panel automatically deducted 100 faith points as an energy medium.

He opened his hand and crushed the [Stone Skin] light orb.

Activating Talent—Creation Extraction: Trait Bestowal!

The light orb exploded, turning into a hundred streaks of hazy gray light.

They pierced through the ashen sky and slammed into the bodies of the dying Grey Goblinss below.

A sudden mutation occurred.

"Ji—Gua!!!"

The hundred Grey Goblinss bounced off the ground and began clawing at their own bodies.

Their epidermis underwent a drastic change visible to the naked eye.

The originally sickly green skin shriveled rapidly as moisture was instantly sucked dry.

The surface of their skin cracked in large patches, like a parched riverbed.

From deep within those bloody cracks, gray-black rocky cuticles grew out madly, quickly covering their entire bodies.

Bones stretched and muscles swelled, making tooth-aching cracking sounds.

In just five minutes.

The transformation ended.

Quiet fell over the scorched earth as a hundred entirely new creatures stood upright.

Their originally small bodies, which were less than a meter tall, had been forcibly pulled up by more than thirty centimeters.

Their limbs became thick and powerful, and their bodies were covered in pieces of hard, gray-black rock armor.

Even the worn-out wooden clubs in their hands were encased in a layer of coarse stone, turning into heavy petrified flails.

They took deep breaths of the toxin-laced air.

There was no coughing, no signs of poisoning.

The hard rock skin insulated them from the high temperatures of the scorched earth and the erosion of the toxic mist.

A screen of light unfolded in Lin Yuan's consciousness.

[Log: Your followers have been affected by high-level laws, resulting in an unknown beneficial mutation!]

[Log: Race renamed to—Petrified Goblin.]

[Log: Race rank promoted to—Black Iron 3-Star!]

Lin Yuan immediately pulled up the detailed attribute panel of his followers.

[Race]: Petrified Goblin

[Rank]: Black Iron 3-Star (Low-tier)

[Traits]:

1. Wasteland Adaptation: Immune to weak toxins, greatly reduces negative effects from high-temperature environments.

2. Stone Skin Armor: Epidermis is petrified, physical defense increased by 300%.

Lin Yuan stared at the last line of data and let out a long breath of turbid air.

The rank divisions of followers were extremely strict.

In the textbooks of the world of gods, the rank divisions of followers were extremely strict.

Low-tier is Black Iron, Bronze, Silver; Mid-tier is Gold, Platinum, Diamond; High-tier is Transcendent, Epic, Legend.

Each major rank is further subdivided into one to nine stars.

To make a follower rank up, one either had to let them reproduce for several generations in the Divine Realm to gamble on that extremely low probability of natural bloodline mutation.

Or, the god would have to spend a sky-high amount of faith points to purchase high-level [Bloodline Cards] for feeding.

Ordinary Grey Goblinss barely reached Black Iron 1-Star, let alone ranking up.

But now, just a trait extracted from scrap had allowed them to cross the barrier and leap to Black Iron 3-Star.

Below.

The Petrified Goblins recovered from the intense pain of the transformation.

They felt the power within their bodies and the harsh environment that could no longer harm them.

With their low intelligence, they instinctively understood one thing.

This was divine grace.

Thump, thump.

The hundred Petrified Goblins knelt on the burning scorched earth, hands raised high above their heads, frantically kowtowing toward the sky.

"Great Lord!"

"Praise your mercy!"

Fanatical shouts echoed across the Wasteland.

Strands of pure white faith energy, invisible to the naked eye, drifted from their heads and gathered deep within Lin Yuan's consciousness.

Lin Yuan floated in mid-air, looking down at this group of reborn creations.

His heartbeat began to accelerate, and his blood flowed faster.

He finally realized where the most terrifying aspect of the unique SSS-grade talent [Creation Extraction] lay.

No limit on uses.

No upper bound.

Today he could give the goblins [Stone Skin], and tomorrow he could give them [Berserk], [Reproduction], [Great Strength], and [Bloodlust].

As long as he had enough resources, he could infinitely stack traits!

He could take this group of bottom-tier cannon fodder, universally recognized in the world of gods, and stack them layer by layer into Titans that could shatter stars with a single punch.

So what if it was a Wasteland start?

Wasteland paired with chimeras—this was a rhythm that would overturn the entire sea of stars.

After the initial ecstasy, Lin Yuan quickly suppressed his emotions and regained his composure.

He checked his mental state; his temples were throbbing slightly.

Extracting and bestowing traits consumed a great deal of mental energy.

More critical were the faith points.

Just now, bestowing a hundred traits had consumed 100 points. Now, his basic account balance had 900 points left.

If he wanted to expand the scale of his followers or bestow higher-level conceptual traits.

He would need a massive amount of faith points and a steady stream of "raw materials."

Where to get materials?

With a thought, Lin Yuan's consciousness exited the Divine Realm space.

Opening his eyes, he was in his dim bedroom.

An old wall clock made a monotonous ticking sound.

He raised his left hand and tapped on the God Terminal on his wrist.

Iris recognition passed.

Logging into the "Pantheon Trading Network," which covered the entire human star sector.

A light screen projected into the air.

The homepage scrolled through various glittering, top-tier resource cards, dazzling to the eye.

[World Tree Seed]—Provides pure natural laws, price: 300 million faith points.

[Platinum Grade: Miniature Elemental Volcano Card]—Changes Divine Realm terrain, significantly increases fire-type follower combat power, price: 90 million faith points.

[Angel Reincarnation Pool]—Extremely low probability to hatch Gold-grade potential units, price: 150 million faith points.

Lin Yuan glanced at the balance in the upper right corner of his terminal: 900 faith points.

He expressionlessly swiped away these top-tier interfaces that tempted one to crime.

Everyone wants good things, but right now, even a glance was a waste of time.

He tapped on the advanced search options.

Among the dense filtering criteria, he scrolled directly to the bottom-tier "Scrap Area."

His fingers tapped quickly on the virtual keyboard, entering several keywords:

[Abyss Battlefield Remains]

[Unpurifiable]

[Unknown Curse]

[Scrap Material]

The world of gods had been fighting the Abyss Void for tens of thousands of years.

Every day, gods fell and countless monsters were slain.

The spoils of war captured on the battlefield were innumerable.

But Abyss energy was highly polluting.

Many high-level monster corpses and broken artifacts were deeply eroded by the Abyss Will.

If one wanted to purify these things, they would need a high-level god to take action, and the cost consumed would far exceed the value of the item itself.

If thrown into the Divine Realm without purification, the Abyss energy would gradually pollute the land, causing followers to go mad or mutate, eventually leading to the collapse of the Divine Realm.

Therefore, such items were known as "tumors" on the trading network.

Tasteless to eat, but a pity to discard.

Most were treated as trash.

But for Lin Yuan, this was absolutely an unmined, endless treasure trove.