The Power of Faith—Even the God Realm Desperately Needs It
But how to absorb faith power has always been a difficult problem.
Under normal circumstances, the absorption efficiency of faith power is extremely low—most of it ends up wasted.
Even in the God Realm, they typically convert faith power into spiritual energy to absorb it.
Even so, the efficiency of utilizing faith power remains very limited.
Moreover, the faith power in the God Realm isn't as pure as Yali's.
Take the faith power of the Sea God in the Douluo Plane, for example—most sea soul beasts only believe in the Sea God out of desperation.
In the vast ocean, there are very few truly devout followers of the Sea God.
Such faith power contains far too many impurities.
But Yali's faith power is different. Hers is incredibly pure—her believers are all people she has personally saved, people who genuinely feel grateful to her from the depths of their hearts.
Even in the God Realm, few deities can obtain such pure faith power.
Yun Ming's ability to attain the half-god level was due in part to his talent, but Yali's faith power also played a key role.
However, neither Yun Ming nor his teacher, Heaven-blessed Douluo, understood how to properly harness faith power. They could only obtain the faith power within Yali by exchanging life force with her.
Even when Yun Ming acquired the faith power hidden within Yali's life force, he couldn't fully absorb it.
Even the portion he could absorb wasn't used to its full potential.
And yet, despite that, Yun Ming still managed to create a half-god position for himself.
Creating a god position is a completely different concept from simply becoming a god.
To put it plainly, not every god possesses a god position.
Even if they have one, it's often not self-created.
Take the powerful Abyssal Sage King—he has already become a god, possesses the strength of a first-level deity, and even owns a supreme artifact, the Heaven-Holy Rift Abyss. Yet he still doesn't have a god position.
And then there's the famous Sea God and Shura God Tang San, the ancestor of Shrek Academy and the Tang Sect. Despite having the power of a god-king and coexisting as a dual god, his god positions were passed down from the previous Sea God and Shura God—they weren't created by him.
That's not to say Tang San didn't have the ability to create a god position—if he wanted to, he could have done so anytime.
But creating a god position that matches your own divine power is nearly impossible.
The Abyssal Sage Sovereign could create third- or even second-level god positions, but those would be useless to him—on the contrary, they'd only limit him.
Creating a first-level god position? That's immensely difficult.
It's the same with Tang San—he couldn't possibly create a god-king level position from scratch.
Leng Yaozhu, in the process of building her own God Realm, is also pondering over the creation of her god position.
Divine Core Realm—that's the goal she's set for both herself and Leng Yulai.
As for cultivation? That's not even a concern. As long as they keep cultivating the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon), achieving strength equivalent to that of a god-king is simple.
Right now, the most crucial thing is the god position.
God positions are formed from the condensation of universal laws and principles.
By using the rule power embedded within a god position, one can command a specific type of cosmic force for personal use.
The level of a god position depends on how deeply the creator understands that universal force.
No matter how you look at it, faith power is essential for creating a god position.
That's the entire reason the God Realm even exists—to harvest faith power.
If the God Realm were still around, someone would've noticed someone like Yali long ago.
Yali's Prayer Angel evolved and grew specifically by absorbing faith power. But even so, the Wish Angel absorbs it at a very slow rate.
If her Angel could absorb all of the faith power within her, it might have already grown into a terrifyingly powerful existence.
She might even have already become a god.
On Devil Island, after being stimulated by Xia Yi's Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon) , Yali absorbed a massive amount of faith power all at once. Her rate of growth is now no slower than that of Cold Yaozhu and the others.
Although Yali never cultivated the Huangdi Neijing herself—she only knew its energy circulation routes—because Huangdi Neijing is a dual cultivation technique, she naturally benefited from it as well.
All of Yali's faith power comes from humans, and the Huangdi Neijing itself is a supreme human-path technique.
If she were to actually cultivate it, she might not understand it as deeply as Cold Yaozhu does, but the results would be just as effective.
Yali can already feel that Huangdi Neijing is highly compatible with her—she's very tempted.
But she's never asked Xia Yi or Leng Yaozhu for it.
Because she knows what the Huangdi Neijing is capable of. Once she starts cultivating it, she might truly never be able to leave Xia Yi again.
As for Xia Yi… if not for what happened on Devil Island, she might have continued interacting with him just as Leng Yaozhu's best friend.
Even after everything on Devil Island, she still doesn't believe that a single "misunderstanding" would make her fall for Xia Yi.
She's always firmly believed that the only one she could love is Yun Ming—just as Yun Ming only ever loved her.
But the moment in Mingdu—when Zang Xin's thought projection struck her to the core—it broke her heart.
Only she would have the strength to bear that pain and still go disband Shrek Academy.
If it had been anyone else—betrayed by both Yun Ming and Shrek Academy's Long Yeyue—they would've stopped caring about Shrek's students long ago.
But Yali couldn't.
No matter how deeply Shrek betrayed her, she couldn't stand by and watch its students be led to their deaths by Long Yeyue.
In the end, she couldn't help but step forward—disbanding Shrek Academy and giving the students a chance to survive.
That's Yali. Leng Yaozhu understood this well—that's why they became best friends.
She knows Yali. She knows now is the perfect moment for Xia Yi to swoop in and win Yali over—so she encouraged him.
For Yali's sake—and for Xia Yi's too.
She doesn't want Yali to keep suffering. She also knows Yali's faith power could greatly benefit Xia Yi's cultivation.
—
After leaving Cold Yaozhu, Xia Yi found Yali at the old site of Shrek Academy.
She was sitting cross-legged in the center of a lake formed by the explosion of a Twelve-Ranked Godslaying Fixed-Mount Soul Guidance Cannon Shell.
"Xia Yi, why aren't you with Sister Yaozhu? What are you doing here?" Upon sensing Xia Yi's arrival, Yali slowly opened her eyes, looking at him calmly.
"I came to check on you. Can it be purified?" Xia Yi asked—he knew what Yali was trying to do.
Yali was attempting to purify the lingering radiation left by the godslaying cannon shell explosion.
Before this, she had no way to deal with radiation. Only after her breakthrough to quasi-god level on Devil Island did she begin to attempt it.
"Purification is no problem—it'll just take time." Yali smiled and said, "After all, the power of a Twelve-Ranked Godslaying Fixed-Mount Soul Guidance Cannon Shell is enough to kill gods. Even the residual radiation is a huge challenge for me. But if I succeed in purifying it, my cultivation will surely improve again."
"As long as you can purify it, that's good. Zhu'er is already planning to develop this site," Xia Yi nodded. In order to ensure that Long Yeyue has no chance of rebuilding Shrek Academy, Leng Yaozhu planned to directly develop the land where the academy once stood.
That way, even if Long Yeyue wanted to rebuild Shrek Academy, there'd be no place to do it.(End of Chapter)