Today, they too are going to their deaths.

The Serpent Worship Cult is a large sect. Although it has a short history and few lineages of believers, it has managed to have high-level believers spread across all walks of life by relying on its easy-to-learn serpent magic and high-quality extraordinary education resources.

However, this rapid pace of development also caused it to neglect conventional sectarian management and fail to fully utilize its advantages.

The loose structure further exacerbated this problem, making Cui Xun's destination even more difficult.

The Snake Worship Cult has no concept of collective income and expenditure!

They neither raise funds from believers nor have any businesses affiliated with a sect. Some group activities are entirely funded by the organizers, with interested individuals contributing a small fee. Bishops gather believers purely based on their reputation and by offering rewards themselves.

Aside from faith, the only thing believers can definitively obtain from the Serpent Worship Cult is supernatural power.

The assistance that the Snake Worship Cult can provide can be simply understood as, "We are all members of the Snake Worship Cult, so let's help each other out."

As for how exactly to help? There's absolutely no set procedure. Only high-ranking believers, with their extraordinary powers, can generally become nominal servants under believers with businesses, living off them for free. Everything else is decided by the believers themselves.

Compared to the Serpent Worship Cult in Cui Xun's original world, which could influence elections in major countries, owned numerous businesses, cooperated deeply with several giant corporations, and had private armies in peripheral countries, truly achieving a fusion of military, political, business, and religious power, the Serpent Worship Cult in this world was simply something a country bumpkin would come up with on a whim.

However, this kind of extraordinary organization, which was decided on a whim, also gave Cui Xun a lot of room to maneuver.

"Let me summarize briefly. Ryan, Sterling, Declan, Coleman, and Emil are all capitalists with their own industries, having made some investments in mining, textiles, metallurgy, fishing, tea, and sugar, but they are still far from becoming the new aristocracy."

"Jack, a merchant ship captain holding a letter of marque, can become a pirate simply by changing the flag. He has extensive sailing and combat experience and knows two rare safe routes."

"Kieran, author; Graham, renowned traveling chef and gourmet; Adrian, priest at the local Sun Church, primarily responsible for confessional matters; Ezra, professor of archaeology; Joel, professional bodyguard; Darcy, a self-organized grassroots worker, commonly known as the mob..."

"Furthermore, Horatio, Valentine, Carver, Crow, Sutton, Montagu, Sullivan, Parker, Rhodes... you are all freelancers who are paid in name only."

The believers, now back in their seats, felt a surge of admiration as they looked at Cui Xun, the senior believer who had taken the place of host of the food tasting event, who was now seated at the head of the table.

They had just been asked by Cui Xun to say their names, jobs, skills, and experiences at the same time. Even they themselves felt that their voices were extremely chaotic and they could hardly hear what they were saying. However, the respected "mentor" was able to hear everyone's voice clearly and remember everyone's name!

Although they hadn't witnessed Cui Xun's other abilities, this move, combined with their previous strength, made them instinctively feel that Cui Xun possessed extraordinary leadership skills that could make them even wealthier.

Cui Xun did indeed possess some methods that allowed them to become rich quickly.

Although he hasn't yet delved into the differences between the two worlds, most things should be universal in principle.

He should be able to replicate the flash smelting technology for non-ferrous metals and steel, as well as the sugar production technology based on carbonation, enzymatic hydrolysis, and membrane separation, in no time. Replicating concepts like standardized and indexed cultivation won't be difficult either, and he can readily discuss factory safety knowledge right now.

Even if he cannot directly suppress them with technology, Cui Xun is confident that he can suppress them with the concepts of the information age and achieve a leapfrog development.

But none of these have anything to do with supernatural powers or the most core and unique technology tree in this world.

In the eyes of high-ranking followers of the Serpent Cult, and indeed all those with extraordinary abilities, supernatural power is a marker that distinguishes them from ordinary people. Having acquired supernatural power means they will never engage in normal labor again; they are completely separated from laborers.

Allowing the poor to receive education from the superhumans through loans might be a good way to expand the Serpent Worship Cult, but this is completely contrary to Cui Xun's goal.

This approach will only cultivate new high-ranking believers.

In Cui Xun's view, the extraordinary power of the snake's secret arts, which can be popularized, should be something that is more deeply integrated into life and more ordinary, rather than a mystery enjoyed by a few individuals.

In Cui Xun's view, building thick barriers with power and intelligence gaps to firmly grasp a certain popular force is a boring and cowardly thing to do, and being unwilling to use it for labor production is an utterly foolish thing to do.

Cui Xun asked the believers, "Who can heal serious illnesses and injuries using the secret arts of snakes?"

The believers present looked at each other in bewilderment. Finally, the pirate captain explained to Cui Xun, "The secret art of the serpent can be used to treat minor injuries and temporarily stitch up wounds during battle, but it is of little use for some terminal illnesses and fatal wounds. At least believers below the bishop level are not qualified to talk about those things."

"Furthermore, if you, my mentor, want us to develop medicine, then we will inevitably have to compete with medical schools around the world and with the Royal Society."

"Patients who deserve our spiritual effort to treat often choose to buy a bottle of the Royal Academy of Sciences' panacea. But for common ailments, which can be handled by regular hospitals and are not worth much money, it is a complete waste of our spiritual effort."

The believers nodded in unison; they clearly did not feel they should expend their spiritual energy to heal the poor, especially since they might not be able to cure them.

Cui Xun didn't like their attitude, but he understood that it was only natural; extraordinary people would never sell their labor cheaply, which was within his expectations.

However, Cui Xun never expected that they would mention the panacea.

What is meant by "panacea"?

One believer answered first: "It is the medicine that can cure all diseases."

"The Royal Academy of Sciences created it about two years ago. Initially, it was only sold to the wealthiest individuals, but six months ago, the price of the panacea plummeted. Recently, there have been rumors that the Royal Academy of Sciences has decided to establish a panacea factory."

"At the last food tasting event, a follower of the Serpent Cult who came from afar mentioned it to me, claiming that it was a creation that, like steam life and Frankenstein's monster, went against nature and blasphemed the gods."

"He claimed that the main ingredient of the panacea is human beings."

The pirate captain shrugged. "I've drunk the panacea. It doesn't taste human at all. It's definitely a lie. And even if it really was brewed with human flesh, if you can't taste it, it doesn't contain any human flesh, right? Those sweatshops are much more ruthless when it comes to eating people than they are to eating people directly."

"Of course, it wouldn't be surprising if people were really used as raw materials. Replacing people with efficient machines and then making use of those inefficient people is very much in line with the ideas of the lords."

A factory owner, a believer, coughed lightly and reminded them, "We still have some moral bottom line."

"Ha!" The pirate captain couldn't help but laugh, then immediately straightened his posture.

The joke was hilarious, but he couldn't be too presumptuous when his respected "mentor" asked him questions.

Cui Xun didn't mind the pirate captain's rudeness. He simply glanced around and made a note of the believers who were horrified and nauseous when they heard that the raw material for the panacea was human.

They may not have the mental fortitude, but at least they have compassion.

Then, Cui Xun changed the subject back: "It's not appropriate to talk about the panacea now. Let's continue discussing the secret arts of the snake."

"Tell me how you usually use the Snake Technique. I'd like to get some inspiration."

Cui Xun's first thought was to use the secret techniques of snakes to clean up garbage, repair river channels, and dredge pipes. However, these tasks would have to be done in public, which would go against public perception and might attract attacks from people who wanted to maintain the mystery of supernatural powers.

The pirate captain spoke first: "I use it a little when I'm working, and I also play around with it when I'm at sea and have nothing to do. It's mainly for reconnaissance, infiltration, concealment, interference, and stitching up wounds."

The others, lacking the pirate captain's unbridled spirit, found themselves quite awkward when faced with Cui Xun's questions.

By mastering the secret arts of snakes and becoming high-ranking believers, they have already achieved a class leap and entered the middle circle of the Snake Worship Cult.

In their view, anyone who treats the secret arts of snakes as their primary skill and fights every day is definitely insane and will one day die on the street. Truly intelligent people skillfully utilize the power of capital and only use magic at crucial moments.

Even if they wanted to become bishops, what they needed was to accumulate knowledge and spirituality, and prepare ritual materials, rather than to painstakingly hone their combat skills.

Unless you treat it as a hobby, who would enjoy practicing every day until they're exhausted? Besides, the improvement an average person gets over several years is less than the improvement they get from carrying a rifle or hiring more thugs.

Only those old fogies who joined the Serpent Cult early on, who frequently engage in deadly battles with other supernatural organizations, and who still talk about basic tactics and are out of touch with the times, would be so fond of the secret arts of snakes.

Oh, the "mentor's" benefactor—Ms. Doreen, seems to be an old woman.

However, contemporary believers still use the serpent's secret arts to some extent.

The author said shyly, "When I write a book, I use the secret art of snakes to activate the ink, letting the ink snakes fall onto the paper on their own to replace writing."

This method cannot replace the printing industry, but it can allow writers to write faster.

The chef recalled, "The secrets of snakes can be used to process ingredients, especially for preservation. By wrapping the ingredients and then casting a 'hibernation' spell, the ingredients can be kept in their freshest state at the cost of a small amount of spiritual energy. In addition, you can bring the ingredients to life and let them arrange themselves, which is much more convenient than me plating them myself."

If there were enough spiritual resources and manpower, it might be possible to transform the food transportation industry. But clearly, having that scale of spiritual resources and manpower is less advantageous than simply seizing control, and it doesn't offer any significant advantages over chilled technology.

The archaeology professor exclaimed excitedly, "Yes, it's especially useful for preservation! If we dig up something that would weather at the slightest touch, we can put it into a dormant state first. Moreover, I can even activate things in enclosed spaces through walls, observe them for me, and then cast spells through the walls."

The believer, whose left arm had been shattered by the knight and who had been kneeling and weeping in pain, had just been rescued. He slammed his right hand on the table and exclaimed, "Wow, so that's a move! If I had known that back then, I would have ambushed that knight from my room! You'll have to teach me later."

The archaeology professor chuckled and said, "Of course, if you want to learn, I don't mind teaching you, but it requires some skill and wisdom, and quite a bit of time. Besides, let's discuss this now."

The one-armed follower looked around and noticed that the others didn't seem interested in continuing the conversation. The "mentor" also frowned, so he immediately stopped talking and became more obedient.

Cui Xun waited patiently for a moment, but still heard no one else speak. He narrowed his eyes, his voice turning cold: "So, this is how you usually treat hard-won extraordinary power?"

In Cui Xun's view, there is no distinction between superior and inferior power. Extraordinary power is no different from one's own natural limbs. Using power at will is the right of the extraordinary. However, he dislikes people who idle away their extraordinary power.

To not contemplate the nature of power, not study its application, and even not use it at all, treating it merely as proof of identity, is nothing short of a mockery for someone previously trapped in the cold, rigid laws of physics, only able to glimpse extraordinary power in their imagination.

This power could greatly enhance people's ability to change the world, allowing them to unleash their passion even when detached from society, transcend the limitations of flesh and blood, continuously create more miracles, break limits time and time again, and touch the unknown, yet they remain at the most basic stage.

But perhaps this is the limitation of ordinary people.

The believers immediately lowered their heads, looking bewildered like students being trained. Only one unemployed man argued, "The secret art of the serpent is just a stepping stone. Who would deliberately forge a stepping stone into something indestructible?"

"Hmm?" Cui Xun made a nasal sound, and the idle man immediately shut up in fright. The believers were even more afraid that Cui Xun would really get angry.

To ease the tension, a freelancer decided to offer a suggestion: "Sir, the secret art of snakes may not be competitive in the medical field, but it can cleanse the dead and be sold to medical schools."

"The slums are full of dead people suffering from terminal illnesses. These diseases, which are normally incurable, have become so rare that the Royal Academy of Sciences decided to stop wasting time researching them because of the invention of the panacea. As a result, the corpses of the poor are not worth any money at all. And yet, they are the people who die the most easily, and no one cares about them after they die."

"This is a tremendous waste, not only for them and the Royal Academy of Sciences, but also for patients who may need to have their bodies used to make a panacea."

"I think we can travel around and purify corpses for free, then take a cut. The current market price for a normal corpse is twenty small gold coins, but we only charge 18. Two small gold coins are enough to make the poor grateful."

Cui Xun didn't know what to say, but one thing was certain: if clean, healthy corpses were truly provided on a large scale, the price of these corpses would not still be the same.

The current value of corpses is an inflated price driven entirely by demand and legal constraints, possibly also involving political maneuvering. Disrupting this equilibrium could not only lead to a price crash but also risk incurring the wrath of stakeholders.

But this also served as a reminder to Cui Xun.

He asked, "If there were some kind of treatment that could continuously heal a person, would you be confident in pulling the lesion out of the patient's body?"

The freelancer who had just made the suggestion asked, puzzled, "Do you want one of us to keep the patient alive while the other draws out the lesion? But our ability to keep someone alive is really not that strong. If it's something else, then we might as well just sell that kind of treatment substance."

Cui Xun shook his head: "I won't sell that kind of thing to outsiders, because it's my blood."

His blood had previously saved the lives of children in the slums, allowing him to perform a surgery based entirely on superhuman abilities, and even giving the children the possibility of regaining their health.

Moreover, this is not ordinary health, but super health where there is absolutely no need to worry about nutrition, exercise, acquired damage, or common toxins, and the body always develops at its most extreme state.

In other words, in addition to health, he also comes with strength and longevity, satisfying most people's pursuit of extraordinary power all at once.

Besides being used as medicine, his blood could serve as a general equivalent among extraordinary individuals.

Cui Xun had to admit that his idea of ​​using his supernatural powers for labor was still immature, and his idea of ​​directly involving the followers of the Serpent Worship Cult in labor was even more of a mistake.

Even if you were to spend a lot of money in the conventional sense, apart from those who are already interested, lazy people would never personally spend a lot of time educating useless poor people.

Only treasures of his blood, at this level, can fully ignite the passion of high-ranking believers.

So, how much blood does he have?

If we consider the human body as a machine, then it's reasonable to take some parts from the machine and make a production line, right? Ordinary people don't have that kind of massive size, nor can they effectively assemble their own bodies.

But the blood flowing through Cui Xun's body now is different.

Cui Xun calmly cast a spell, causing a wine glass to fall to his side. Then he cut his wrist to bleed until the glass was half full.

The blood throbbed and trembled in the glass, then suddenly leaped up.

The blood that had not yet been wiped off the ground immediately transformed into blood snakes, flowing into the cup on its own.

The blood in the cup rose a few degrees.

As the believers gazed at the strange blood, they were once again filled with the same emotions they had felt when witnessing the serpent's secret arts.

They recalled their curiosity and longing.