A man among dragons, building a mysterious ancient church.

Chapter 203 Promotion Ceremony, Large-Scale Riot
After the gathering, Xu Lie traveled around sightseeing to adjust the abnormal state caused by his long-term parasitism on Fenrir.

After more than ten days of distraction, he secretly came to the Zhou family in Xiangyang.

Using the butler, maids, and others whom they had previously parasitized and controlled, they easily obtained another set of secondary-generation level potion main ingredients from the Zhou family's treasury.

He was teleported to the other side of the ocean, arriving in a country that was perfect for his promotion ceremony.

In the Thief's Path, the Sequence 4 Parasite, the ritual to advance to Sequence 3 by deceiving the mentor, requires finding and exploiting loopholes in the rules to temporarily disrupt the order of a region without using violence.

The promotion ceremony also has a minimum requirement regarding the size of the area; it cannot be smaller than a village.

Of course, the larger the area affected and the more disordered the area, the better the effect of the ritual.

At that time, all you need to do is take the potion in such a chaotic and disorderly area to complete the advancement.

Such ritual requirements might be difficult to implement in a mysterious world, as there is always the risk of being discovered by the Church of the True God, which could lead to the failure of the ritual and the maintenance of order.

At most, we would choose some remote rural areas, where we would be more likely to succeed.

However, if this were placed in the modern society of the Dragon World, especially in a place like America, there would be absolutely no risk involved; it would be considered a guaranteed admission.

Take San Francisco, where Xu Lie is currently located, for example. It's a beautiful port city where people should be working and living normally, and the order is stable.

But now, unexpectedly, teachers are leading parents and students in marches everywhere, wearing protest headscarves and holding wooden signs with slogans against the protests.

They blocked traffic, affected business, and paraded through the streets in a grand and imposing manner.

Xu Lie learned about the situation from the news. After the 2008 global financial crisis, even large cities like San Francisco suffered extremely severe economic impacts.

This has brought California's finances to the brink of collapse, leaving the state facing a huge budget deficit. After a year of frantic efforts, by the end of the year, it has been discovered that the problems cannot be fully addressed.

Unfortunately, in order to balance next year's budget, the Ministry of Finance has decided to drastically cut public spending, with the first cut being education funding, directly reducing education allocations by hundreds of millions of dollars.

San Francisco was hit hardest, with universities like Stanford and Berkeley being severely affected, not to mention the primary and secondary schools below.

As the old saying goes, cutting off someone's livelihood is like killing their parents. Under the planning of the teachers' union, universities stopped pretending and openly announced in early 2010 that tuition fees would increase by 30% every semester.

Furthermore, they used the internet and media to publish news on a large scale, announcing that the government would not allocate funds, that expenditures must be cut, that a large number of faculty, teaching assistants, and school staff would be dismissed, and that most courses would be canceled.

It will also close several affiliated laboratories and cut all student services.

This has stirred up a hornet's nest. From students to parents, and even unemployed campus staff, from top to bottom, from big to small, no one can accept this lousy arrangement.

Raising tuition fees is something that people hate, especially when it's a 30% increase.

They were angry and dissatisfied, so it was only natural that they organized a large-scale demonstration.

This kind of thing is all too common in America. If there's anything you're unhappy about, you can march and protest, or just start yelling.

Xu Lie had originally planned to buy a drink and some snacks to watch a show, but the massive march involving nearly 10,000 people blocked every place, making it impossible to walk through.

You can also hear shouts rising and falling: "They want to cut education, so we must fight back rationally!"

"Ensuring the quality of education and the work of faculty and staff!"

"Tuition fees can't go any higher! Do you know how many US dollars a semester costs? That many US dollars would fill a horse-drawn carriage, and I mean, my son's toy carriage wouldn't be able to hold them all!"

Originally, the march was alright because it was a march with a relatively high average level of civility, with most participants being faculty, staff, parents, and students.

Everyone was quite rational and wouldn't choose to escalate the situation or act recklessly. Even if most students wanted to cause trouble, the combined pressure from teachers and parents prevented it from happening.

After all, they were only trying to get back education funding, not to create chaos.

Unfortunately, Xu Lie, an unscrupulous individual, infiltrated the parade. Xu Lie remembered the special requirements of the promotion ceremony: no violence.

Relying solely on his approachable charm and his eloquent deception, Xu Lie went around chatting with people his own age: "Dude, this won't work. Those finance officials won't pay any attention to you."

"Hey boy, this won't work. How can you get the results you want without going through a struggle?"

"Because you haven't caused them any trouble, they don't feel any obstacles, so they will still carry out the established plan and cut education funding."

"Oh? Me? I came here to study, and I couldn't stand it, so I joined you in the march and protest."

Xu Lie has a youthful appearance, so he strikes up conversations with people his own age or middle school students, and many young men have an epiphany upon hearing his words.

Yes, how could such an ordinary march possibly achieve the desired results? How could it possibly get what they want?

Continuing with peaceful marches and protests is pointless!
Just as this student from the East of unknown nationality said, those high-ranking finance officials couldn't feel their anger at all!

"Hey buddy, what do you think we should do?"

"Yeah, bro, you've got a great idea, tell me about it?"

Xu Lie quickly gathered a large group of 'friends': "It's easy, just do more things that cause financial pain, and they will feel the pain and sense your anger."

"Only then will they truly consider your demands, in order to avoid the painful things that happen to them again."

The group was still a little hesitant, with many saying things like, "The teacher warned us before the protest," "Our parents don't allow it," and "We'll be arrested and jailed."

Xu Lie had already come up with reasons for them: "Think about your teachers and parents. Only by making the finance officials feel pain and getting back the funds that are rightfully theirs can it truly be meaningful."

"Only then will your teachers and fathers be truly happy. You are no longer children; you are now grown men who can make your teachers and parents proud."

"As for getting arrested, what's there to be afraid of? Aren't you minors?"

What a contradiction! One sentence says, "You are no longer children," and the next sentence says, "You are minors."

Xu Lie said all the good and bad things, but that's not important.

The important thing is that, as ordinary people, ordinary students who are not even mixed-race, are simply no match for Xu Lie's deceptive eloquence.

Being a Sequence 4 user and further enhanced by the Source Castle, its ability to deceive is far superior to that of a Sequence 8 instigator from the Witch Path.

These young men, already full of youthful vigor, had complete faith in Xu Lie.

They all felt that Xu Lie, their brother/elder brother, was the lighthouse guiding their way in the ocean of life, and the guiding star illuminating their future path in the confusing starry sky.

They all agreed that Xu Lie's words resonated with them; some wanted praise from their teachers, while others longed for their parents' approval.

As a result, the march, which had been barely maintaining order, suddenly descended into chaos.

The young men, along with their friends, broke away from the gaming group and started a violent outburst!

They used stones, sticks, and the protest signs they were holding to smash the shop windows and glass doors along the way.

The shop workers were truly unlucky, exclaiming that "God" had run away. They dared not clash with the rioters in the protest; they were just employees, earning only a small monthly salary. How could they risk their lives against rioters?
Xu Lie, mingling with a group of 'good brothers,' took the lead in the zero-yuan purchase: 'Tsk tsk, how much can this sell for?'

"This is more than my family's monthly income."

The deceptive words mingled among them ignited the young men's greed, and the situation spiraled out of control, escalating from basic vandalism to rampant looting and vandalism.

What was originally a well-behaved, high-quality march was transformed into a large-scale riot by Xu Lie's few words.

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(End of this chapter)