Daily Intelligence: From Water Snake to Jinghe Dragon King

Chapter 172 A temple was built at the Snake Pool, its incense burning brightly; the power of a ninth-rank river patrol officer was immense.

Fearing that the incense offering clone would cause a stir and be besieged by the bloodthirsty river demons and gods, it had no choice but to temporarily give up, thus losing the descendant of the Goddess of Absolute Goodness, the Five-Cornered Red Water Chestnut.

The execution of the Wei River Dragon King, just as the execution of the Jing River Dragon King a century earlier, left the throne vacant, sparking a fierce struggle among various factions within the Wei River region.

Now that a bloodbath has broken out in the human world, it has blinded the Heavenly Court and the Heavenly Way. These forces want to take advantage of this chaos to seize the divine position of the Dragon King of the Wei River and have their fun first.

Liu Qing agreed to the idea of ​​creating a clone of the incense offering and sent it back. As for the Goddess of Good Water of the Wei River, they would discuss it when the opportunity arose.

The incense-burning clone, following the original's arrangement, left some of the lower-level sparrow demons' corpses from Phoenix Mountain for the Snake Pool.

The rest were all sent to Dawan Lake. Liu Qing received the corpse of the sparrow demon and gave it to Xiao Ya to cook. She ate it every day to nourish herself, and her cultivation improved rapidly.

Furthermore, the incense-offering spirit also mentioned that after rescuing the Li family's tenant farmers, Li Shimin learned of this and personally led people to build a river god temple on the south bank of the Snake Pool.

Every day, the Li family's tenant farmers, or villagers from nearby areas, would offer incense and prayers, making the River God Temple a place of great prosperity.

The Snake Pool River God Temple became the residence of the incense offering avatar, where it received worship, absorbed the power of incense offerings, and transformed the divine power of incense, causing its own cultivation level to rise rapidly.

After reaching the Dao, one enters the Divine Power Realm. Unlike the God of Authority, the Divine Power Realm of the Incense God involves absorbing the incense offered by believers. The more incense there is, the more divine power is transformed, and the faster the cultivation.

If one cultivates at the Divine Power Realm of the Authority God, it is like when one is a demon, absorbing and exhaling the primordial energy of heaven and earth, transforming it into divine power. The more divine power one transforms, the faster one's cultivation will be.

Whether it's a deity of incense offerings or a deity of authority, the method of cultivation is the same at the Divine Power Realm, and even later at the Dharma Realm and Five Qi Realm.

The only difference is that the Incense God absorbs incense when he advances, while the Authority God absorbs the source energy of heaven and earth.

The group of scarecrows bought from the sacrificial altar were also given to one of the eighteen Liu family snakes and pythons, and placed in the sacred field to scare away birds.

These birds are really bold; they dare to peck at the spirit grain planted by Master Liu, a powerful demon.

Relying on their ability to fly and their fearlessness against the river monsters, if it weren't for his status, Liu Qing would have loved to reveal his fiery wings and fly into the air to slaughter all these plague-stricken birds.

Unfortunately, there were many birds, all of them forgetting their mistakes and never learning from their mistakes. Even if Liu Qing flew with fiery wings, exhausting himself, he would still be overwhelmed by wave after wave of birds.

Fortunately, with these scarecrows, since they were placed in the spirit field, there have been far fewer birds, which has given them a sigh of relief.
The rice and wheat are almost ripe and filling with grain. If they are all pecked by birds, the harvest will definitely be greatly reduced. Wouldn't that be heartbreaking?

After finishing all the miscellaneous tasks, Liu Qing began to organize the gains from the sacrificial ceremony to the Dharma Realm and transform them into strength.

The biggest gain was the incense money, a full 380,000 taels. If all of it were converted into power gold, it would amount to 3,800 taels, enough for Liu Qing to evolve into a ninth-rank divine authority.

However, since the incense offerings are plentiful and needed in many places, not all of them can be converted into power and wealth.

First, the four spiritual treasures in my possession—the Yin Jade Spirit Banner, the Thousand Rivers and Ten Thousand Waters Flag, the Yin-Yang Harmony Drum, and the Spiritual Treasure Dragon Palace—are all damaged and require incense and silver offerings for repair.

Having survived the siege of three evil gods, Liu Qing deeply understood the importance of spiritual treasures. Now that he had enough offerings, his first thought was to repair these four spiritual treasures.

If Liu Qing's spiritual treasures had not been damaged when he was besieged by the three evil gods, he would have been able to exert even greater power and would not have needed to unleash his full potential.

With a spit, Liu Qing suspended the four spiritual treasures side by side in front of him. Then, pointing at the incense silver, thousands upon thousands of incense silver coins instantly transformed into silver streaks and flew onto the four spiritual treasures.
The spirits within the four magical treasures each emitted joyful thoughts. Then, the treasure's light transformed into a gaping maw, vying to devour the incense silver, extracting its divine essence to repair the treasures' original forms.

These four spiritual treasures are all acquired. Acquired spiritual treasures can be repaired using acquired spiritual materials or incense money.

If it is an innate spiritual treasure, and the treasure itself is damaged, repair requires innate spiritual materials or power gold.

The four magical treasures were being repaired rapidly, but it couldn't be done overnight; it would take time. Seeing this, Liu Qing decided to leave it for the time being.
With another wave of his hand, he activated his alchemy powers, turning 100,000 taels of silver for incense offerings into 1,000 taels of gold for authority.
With his Authority Divinity already at 45.1%, Liu Qing only needed to absorb a few hundred taels of Authority Gold to push his Authority Divinity to 100%.

In the realm of divine treasure, six new powers and authority began to be conceived.

Once the divinity of authority reaches 100%, the divinity of authority trembles, and like the divinity of incense offerings in the past, it shines brightly and evolves into a divine office.

Like Hong Gu, this divine authority is represented by a jade tablet, light blue in color, representing the ninth rank. It is inscribed with "Ninth Rank God of Authority, River Patrol Captain," and the reverse side displays a pattern of the Jing River system, indicating that Liu Qing is the River Patrol Captain of the Jing River system.

According to the ranks of clergy, this ninth-rank river patrol captain should belong to General Fubo Yuan Datou's command.

However, this was a deity conferred with authority, and although Yuan Datou held a high divine position, he could not control her. Hong Gu, on the other hand, was a seventh-rank deity with authority, and her title was "Goddess of the Jing River, Responding to the World's Wishes."
Logically speaking, based on her divine office or rank, Hong Gu should be able to control herself. Unfortunately, she has never cared about such things, and secondly, powerful gods have a great deal of freedom and are obedient to orders but not to summons.

After Liu Qing attains the divine office, he will no longer need to obey Hong Gu's orders. Besides, in a marriage, the young couple should listen to Hong Gu at home, but outside, they should listen to Master Liu.
The woman is in charge of the household while the man is in charge of external affairs. In public, Hong Gu always gives Liu Qing a lot of face and always puts her husband first.

Of the one thousand taels of power gold, after he assumed the divine authority, he still had more than five hundred taels left.

Remembering the previous characteristics of the Incense God, Liu Qing tried absorbing a small amount of divine essence again. Sure enough, as the divine essence of his authority continued to increase...

The characteristic of possessing the power to generate authority will no longer appear; instead, it will be replaced by the ability to continue advancing to higher-ranking divine authority positions or to evolve into new divine authority positions.
The evolved divine authority can be bestowed upon others, a characteristic identical to that of the incense god.

Liu Qing was secretly alarmed. Looking at the cheat, his guess became clearer and clearer. Could this cheat be a treasure similar to the Investiture of the Gods?
He glanced at the sky. The Investiture of the Gods was supposedly in the hands of the Jade Emperor in heaven. How could a treasure with similar functions appear in his hands?
Shaking his head, Liu Qing was puzzled, but this was his biggest secret. Even if he didn't understand, he wouldn't reveal a word of it. He would just figure it out slowly.

The four spiritual treasures are absorbing incense silver to repair their original forms, and the process is already more than halfway complete. Liu Qing estimates that it will cost approximately 100,000 taels of silver to completely repair the four spiritual treasures.

After calculating, Liu Qing realized that he still had more than 100,000 taels left from the harvest. He decided to absorb all the incense and divine essence inside, thus elevating his rank as the Snake Pool River God from the ninth rank to the seventh rank.

With a single breath, wisps of divine essence from the pile of incense sticks on the ground surged into Liu Qing's body.
The incense's divine power rapidly surged from 24.1% to 100%. Sure enough, as explained, this time, no divine power was generated in the place where the gods resided.

To advance from a ninth-rank incense god to an eighth-rank, one needs ten thousand taels of incense silver; to advance from an eighth-rank incense god to a seventh-rank, one needs one hundred thousand taels of incense silver.

Liu Qing spent 110,000 taels of silver, traveling non-stop, to bring the ninth-rank incense offerings from the God of the Snake Pool River to the God of the Snake Pool.

He was promoted to the seventh rank of incense-offering deity, the river god of Dawan Lake.

If we consider the zenith of the Heavenly Court's complete control over the Three Realms, then Liu Qing, a seventh-rank river god of the Great Bay Lake, could issue a divine decree...

All the river gods, large and small, in the Dawang Lake area must unconditionally obey Liu Qing's orders. Unfortunately, there are only three gods in the entire Jinghe River system combined.

Hong Gu, the Goddess of Power, is too lazy to deal with the trivial matters of her divine duties. Yuan Datou has just taken office on the Jinghe side, while in Dawan Lake, there is only Liu Qing, a lonely god, who can she command?

After evolving into a divine being, Liu Qing, having attained the seventh rank of the Great Bay Lake River God, summoned an incense-burning avatar to assume the position.
Soon, the incense-burning clone arrived. Liu Qing pointed to the divine token representing the River God of Dawan Lake, and the incense-burning clone lunged at the token.
It immediately entered the divine token, and soon the incense's divine power trembled, divine light shone brightly, and incense clones flew out from the token.
At this moment, his original light blue divine official robe of the ninth rank had been transformed into a light green seventh-rank official robe, still bearing a badge on his chest with a snake pattern on it.

Official ranks in the Shinto order were distinguished solely by the color of their robes: ninth rank wore light blue, eighth rank wore blue, and seventh rank wore light green.

Of course, there are exceptions. Hong Gu, a seventh-rank deity of authority, manifests in red robes and red armor. This is because deities of authority have greater freedom. Once Liu Qing's deity of authority reaches the seventh rank, he too can freely change the color of his official robes.

It's fine not to wear it, as long as the jade tablet is there, it represents authority and divine status.

"Thank you for your great kindness."

"We are one, there is no need for thanks."

The incense-burning clone bowed deeply, and Liu Qing helped it up. Looking at it again, he saw that its cultivation level had reached the mid-stage of the Divine Power Realm.

Upon further reflection, it realized the key point: its promotion to the seventh rank had been aided by the divine position, raising its realm by one level.

After the incense clone advanced, its cultivation level increased, and its future usefulness would be even greater. Therefore, Liu Qing's true body copied the scroll he had seized from the Goddess of Good Water and gave it a copy.
Among them, many divine spells passed down from the Heavenly Court, as well as the divine powers that the Goddess of Good Water had comprehended herself, and some insights into formations, were all given to the Incense Avatar.

In addition to the Dragon Palace magic collection previously taught by Hong Gu, it can be said that as long as the incense clone is given enough time, its combat power against enemies will undergo earth-shattering changes.

Since Liu Qing himself resides at Da Wan Lake, and his incense offering avatar is the River God of Da Wan Lake, there's no need for him to return to Da Wan Lake; he can simply be left in the Snake Pool.
There were two reasons for choosing Snake Pool: firstly, there was the River God Temple built by Li Shimin, which provided shelter; secondly, Snake Pool was strategically important, as it was related to the continuous production of salt and was also the place where Liu Qing started his career, so it absolutely could not be left unattended.

(End of this chapter)