“What did you do?”
Meng Lei wanted very much to know what exactly that unethical and underhanded fellow had done to cause the people of the Dragon God Empire to give up their faith in the Dragon God in such a short amount of time and believe in him instead.
“It’s pretty simple, come to think of it!”
A laughing Puhaman said, “It’s usually the easiest to build faith in people during their most hopeless, most fearful, and most helpless moments.
“Therefore, I created some man-made disasters such as an invasion of the Undead and even instructed the Counter-Dragon Squad to create some chaos. Not only can this damage the Dragon God’s reputation, but it can also trigger panic and chaos, thereby killing two birds with one stone.
“What I did was to let the people of the Dragon God Empire know that the Dragon God whom they worshiped has already abandoned them, and only by worshiping Master can they attain eternal life.
“Of course, the spread of faith requires an approach from two different angles. I also created a few miracles in Master’s name so that the people can witness Master’s strength.
“So far, the effects have been pretty good!”
“It has indeed been pretty good!”
Meng Lei nodded lightly. Excluding Puhaman’s cruelty to the Dragon People nobles, all the other empiric matters had indeed been handled in a clear and orderly manner. This greatly pleased Meng Lei.
“Anything else?” Meng Lei asked.
“Lastly, their riches and assets!”
Puhaman brought out a spatial ring and said, “Master, this ring contains all the riches that I’ve seized and levied from the Dragon People nobles during this past year and more.”
“That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you!”
Meng Lei was very gratified at his words. Then, he was stunned by what he saw.
“There’s so much?”
Meng Lei couldn’t help but gasp.
“Master, the Dragon God Empire’s true riches weren’t actually hidden in the imperial treasury. Rather, they were with those nobles.”
Puhaman smiling and said, “Every single noble is a huge, dirty rat. They hoarded vast amounts of wealth, and every one of them could rival a country in terms of wealth. Of course, the key here is that there were simply too many of them!”
“Is this what the proverb ‘Hiding wealth among the people[1]’ means?”
Meng Lei could see why. Even if each noble had only one gold coin, multiplying that by 100,000,000 would make that 100,000,000 gold coins!
Was it possible for the Dragon People nobles’ wealth to only come up to one gold coin each? Obviously not!
That was how the vast riches in this spatial ring had come to be!
Without a second word, Meng Lei transferred all the gold, gold coins, and Laws of Nature Origin Crystals inside into the system. His Wealth value began to spike sharply right away.
The whole process lasted a minute before it ended. The current Wealth value flabbergasted and deeply astounded Meng Lei.
Wealth: 688.82 million Laws of Nature Origin Crystals
“Riches of 688.82 million Laws of Nature Origin Crystals! That’s actually ten times the amount from before! Incredible! Unbelievable! I made a pretty fierce killing this time!”
Meng Lei suppressed the excitement in him and looked at Puhaman. He asked, “You’ve made a great contribution this time, Puhaman. What kind of reward would you like?”
Puhaman waved repeatedly and said, “Reward? How dare I ask for rewards for doing my best for Master?”
Even though he had been very indignant about submitting to Meng Lei in the beginning, Meng Lei had ultimately rescued him, after all.
Rather than hiding in that prison at the bottom of the ocean, unable to see the light of day, he’d rather submit to Meng Lei.
Therefore, he didn’t think that Meng Lei owed him anything.
Subsequently, Meng Lei had even tasked him with heavy responsibilities and allowed him to govern the entire Dragon God Empire. Moreover, he had given him absolute trust and had never once dictated his actions. This made Puhaman feel as if Meng Lei had recognized his talent and capabilities, so he only had gratitude for Meng Lei now.
Thus, he did his best in everything and indeed had never once thought about wanting any rewards for it.
“Merit must be rewarded and wrongdoings punished. How can I not reward you after you’ve made such a huge contribution?”
Meng Lei brought out a divine core with a wave, a heap of half-divine weapons, and some true god remains. He said, “Take your pick from these things here. You can take everything you take an interest in.”
“So many treasures?”
Puhaman was dumbstruck. Every one of these treasures gave off strong, surging power of divinity energy fluctuations, and every single piece of the true god remains held terrifying might.
The divine core, in particular, gave off fearsome divine power energy fluctuations and made him incredibly fearful.
Puhaman knew that it was definitely a true god’s divine core right away. On top of that, it was no ordinary true god divine core, either.
He asked carefully, “Is this divine core also within the selection range, Master?”
Meng Lei smiled and said, “Of course!”
“I’d like this divine core!”
With a white-hot burning look in his eyes, Puhaman said, “I’ve been stuck at the half-deity stage for as long as over 50,000 years. It’s impossible for me to become a true god within this lifetime. So—”
“Take it if you like it!”
With a smile, Meng Lei then pointed at the half-deity, and true god remains—which numbered up to 100 of them—and said with a smile, “Didn’t you like to craft Undead Knights? These things should be very useful to you, right? I’ll give them all to you.”
“This... Is it
