No strange things are allowed to evolve!

"Instead, the Royal Court took the lead, and the Adventurers' Guild, the Mercenary Guild, the major merchant guilds, along with the residents of Lie Town, all the organizations and groups that make up the basic framework of the Lie Continent, put pressure on the Temple of Lies, demanding that the rules we set be enforced so that all registered Lie Poets would be subject to restrictions."

"Why is this happening?" Now it was Strawberry Milkshake's turn to ask first.

Jiang Shu nodded in agreement: "Logically speaking, a poet of lies as powerful as him shouldn't need to care about these people's opinions, right?"

"At first, nobody cared; they really couldn't stop the poet of lies from doing what he was doing."

Moore explained:

"But soon, the poets of lies discovered that they were not truly powerless; they were able to resist the poets of lies."

The specific method is that they will refuse to communicate with anyone who does not know the details. Once someone is identified as a "poet of lies," they will be reported and flagged. Before long, warnings with this person's image will appear all over the town of lies, advising the public not to believe anything he says.

In that first marking, thousands of poets of lies were branded with this mark, and from that moment on, the power of lies they expended to alter reality could never be replenished.

"Wait..." Jiang Shu interrupted, "The power of lies can be consumed by altering reality?"

"Yes, you didn't know?" Moore asked in surprise.

Jiang Shu looked at the strawberry milkshake, and she also looked surprised, obviously she had just found out as well.

However, Jiang Shu felt that such surprise was unnecessary.

It's normal that you haven't noticed since you haven't used it.

Turning back, Jiang Shu pondered seriously and said, "That must be because every time I change reality, the increase is more than the usage, so I didn't notice."

"The price has increased more than the usage?" Moore suppressed his surprise and looked at Jiang Shu again.

The power of lies is consumed, and a certain amount of the power of lies is required to influence reality; this is the basic logic of a poet of lies.

This is why lying during the apprenticeship period doesn't affect reality; it only accumulates the power of lies. Only after reaching the first rank can the lies of a lie poet slightly alter reality.

Because it needs the power of lies as its support.

The life cycle of a lie is mainly divided into two stages. The first stage is when the lie takes effect and affects reality. The second stage is when it causes further impact and gains new power as a lie.

However, since the power of lies required to change reality is often greater than the power of lies themselves can obtain, it is actually very difficult to use deception to support deception.

Almost all poets of lies use lies that don't affect reality to gain the power of lies, and then use them to change reality at crucial moments, so that they can break even or have a surplus.

To reach a point where you don't need to work hard before indulging in extravagance, there's only one possibility—

Lies may have little effect on reality, but the consequences can be quite severe.

Although most liars will inevitably encounter this situation a few times in their lives, it is mostly by chance, because no one can be sure how big the butterfly effect a small lie will cause.

It will most likely remain just a little lie forever.

Therefore, Jiang Shu said that this was the case every time, and he had never even noticed that his power of lying had decreased.

Isn't this a bit...?

"What's wrong?" Jiang Shu sensed that Moore's gaze was not quite right.

"Ah, it's nothing." Moore shook his head at first, but then couldn't help asking, "I just wanted to ask, is it always like this?"

"Anyway, it's been increasing over the past few times."

Are you sure you've changed reality?

Jiang Shu recalled the terrified expression on Strawberry Milkshake's face last night, as if she were blind.

"Yes." He nodded with absolute certainty.

Moore didn't say anything more, but he was incredibly excited.

This must be the legendary micro-management master, one in a million with extraordinary talent!

This is truly a stroke of luck.

As long as I can cling to him tightly during his early, less important years, then later...

Seeing his strangely changed expression, Jiang Shu frowned slightly: "What's wrong? Is there something odd about this?"

“Ah, no.” Moore shook his head: “I was just asking because you all seem like novice lie poets, so I’m a little surprised that you can rewrite reality.”

Moore, well-versed in the mechanism of the anti-magic stone, cleverly used the truth instead of a lie as his answer. He planned to keep this secret from Jiang Shu, without letting her know how extraordinary his talent was.

Just like it's best not to let your lover know that you're actually very pretty or handsome, you know what I mean.

"Oh, because of that?" Jiang Shu said dismissively. "Then continue."

Moore nodded and continued.

"Where was I? Oh, the power of lies cannot be replenished."

This resulted in the extremely precarious situation of the "lying poets" during that period, leading to intense infighting.

Although the "Poets of Lies" had faced resistance and internal strife in the past, they were still able to maintain a seemingly prosperous state until that one full-scale boycott finally exposed their greatest weakness and revealed their decline.

After the full-scale boycott began, the high-level lie poets were still alright. Their deception skills were already so sophisticated that they could always find an opportunity to exploit. However, the difficulty of obtaining the power of lies increased significantly, and the benefits decreased considerably.

But low-level poets who lie are in a bad situation. They are used to living a life where they can live comfortably and improve their social standing by deceiving ordinary people. They simply cannot adapt to going from luxury to frugality all at once.

Not only do they have to guard against being deceived by other lying poets, but they also can't find a target. Many people can only resort to deceiving inanimate objects to earn insignificant power of lies. Many others simply leave Lie Town and go to remote places, places where such resistance is less severe, to try their luck.

In short, over time, those capable lying poets fared poorly, while those without ability fared even worse.

But just as ordinary people cannot pose a threat to poets of lies, poets of lies are also powerless against them.

Because the source of the power of lies is so unique that it cannot be separated from people.

Furthermore, this is not a problem that can be solved by simply controlling ordinary people, because the prerequisite is that the other party needs to believe it.

Therefore, not only is it impossible to threaten them or even kill them, but when necessary, concessions must be made.

Finally, after paying a heavy price—nearly halving the number of lying poets in the temple—the anti-magic stone was still erected at the temple entrance, beginning to affect the entire temple and all lying poets registered there.

After listening to Moore's explanation, Jiang Shu asked again, "Then why not just ban them all? Their demand is that they will never be deceived when communicating with the Lying Poet in the temple, but the current situation is that level one and level two lies are not prohibited by the anti-magic stone."

"There's nothing we can do about it."

Moore sighed:

"Actually, before that, there was no classification of lies. Just like you said, they were all lies, and there was no essential difference between them."

Why do we need to categorize lies? Because some lies are unavoidable.

For example, once, a minister of the royal court came to the temple for help because of the monster invasion. The person who received him was a poet in purple robes, who was two ranks higher than me, and in short, he was of a very high status.

Since the minister was a woman, the purple-robed poet instinctively offered a compliment:

'You are a beautiful lady, it is my honor to receive you.'

Then it was directly locked by the anti-magic stone.

The anti-magic stones of that era weren't as gentle as they are now. What you see now is an anti-magic stone that has been adjusted and refined through negotiation. The anti-magic stones of that time...

To put it simply, that purple-robed poet, a fifth-tier poet of lies, was instantly stripped of all his power of lies, and even the mouth of the gods disappeared from him.

The minister became a laughingstock in Lies Town for a long time because of this incident and eventually resigned. Objectively speaking, however, she was a very capable person, and her departure was a significant loss to the royal court.

"It seems that the truth can sometimes hurt more people," Jiang Shu said with a smile.

That's right.

Moore nodded and continued:

"After that incident, the Temple of Lies, which had lost a purple-robed poet, requested an adjustment to the criteria for judging anti-magic stones."

At first, the representatives of other forces were very hesitant. They had finally managed to force the temple to accept the constraints, but now they had to back down immediately, as if it were a very embarrassing thing.

However, the temple poets, who were constantly under this threat, couldn't care less about all that. They protested collectively, saying that if the judgment wasn't adjusted, then they might as well quit and let the profession of "lying poet" disappear completely. In the future, if there were any more monsters or natural disasters, then others would have to figure out their own solutions.

So the representatives had no choice but to back down. It was as if the temple had backed down for the long term, to ensure the source of power. They didn't want to really drive the poet of lies to the brink of despair, because there were indeed many things that needed their help.

In short, after numerous negotiations and adjustments, the anti-magic stone finally became what it is today.

Not only are first- and second-degree lies allowed, but the system only identifies the liars, and as long as they rectify their mistakes after being identified, they can escape punishment. The deterrent effect outweighs the punitive effect.

"Where did that anti-magic stone come from?" Strawberry Milkshake asked curiously. "Something that naturally counters the Liar Poet couldn't possibly be man-made, right? Otherwise, those people wouldn't have to rely on resistance to deal with the Liar Poet."

"It is indeed natural, but it is not a natural restraint on poets of lies."

Moore explained:

"It's called the Anti-Magic Stone, not the Anti-Lies Stone, because it resists all supernatural powers. However, it's not without limitations; a special ritual called 'Ordination' is required for it to be effective against specific supernatural powers."

I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but the highest-ranking red-robed poet in the Temple of Lies was chosen as the representative to receive the ordination. Afterwards, all poets registered with the temple who operated within Lies Town were subject to corresponding regulations, thus maintaining the town's stability to the greatest extent possible.

Jiang Shu asked curiously, "What regulations?"

In response to Jiang Shu's question, Moore stood up and smiled slightly.

"Aren't you all here to register as 'lying poets'? You'll find out once you've successfully registered. Come with me."

Chapter 104 The Trial Locked Twice by the Anti-Magic Stone and Other Evolvers

The Temple of Lies.

Side hall.

Registration hall.

Moore's smile became incredibly stiff.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, when did the registration assessment requirements become so high?"

Through the glass, Moore tapped on the counter.

The person on the other side of the glass looked lifeless, with a distinctly gloomy air about them.

"Ah...I see..."

He rummaged through the messy documents on the table, found a piece of paper, pointed to one of the entries, and showed it to Moore:

"Those who have been locked by the anti-magic stone are considered dangerous individuals, and they may break the rules if they are not careful."

You're a veteran, you should understand that even a registered Liar Poet will be punished if locked by the Anti-Magic Stone. But this guy has been locked twice in a short period of time, hasn't he?

Normally, we could refuse to hire someone like this, but since you brought him here, we can observe him further in principle.

So I still gave him the registration task, it might just be a bit difficult.

"What do you mean by 'a little difficult'... this is considered 'a little difficult'?"

Moore pointed at the document the other person had just handed him, his eyes wide with disbelief:

"Isn't this already a requirement for the Blue Robe's assessment?!"

The person inside the glass shrugged: "There's nothing we can do, rules are rules."

As he spoke, he looked at Jiang Shu, who was rubbing his chin next to Moore, with his dead fish eyes: "Hey kid, you're really something. You broke the rules before you even knew what they were. You're the first one to do that in all these years."

"You're too kind!"

The guy with the dead fish eyes rolled his eyes: "I wasn't praising you!"

To everyone's surprise, as soon as he finished speaking, Jiang Shu raised his hand and shouted in the registration hall, "I'm reporting him! He said I was amazing, but that's not what he really meant. He caused me a lot of psychological harm. He told a level three lie!"

“Uh…” Moore looked at Jiang Shu in surprise, not expecting him to pull this stunt.

Strawberry Milkshake facepalm. What kind of entrapment is this?

Just when she thought she was getting used to it, this guy would make her feel dizzy again.

Dead Fish Eyes paused for a moment, then anxiously protested to the onlookers, "Don't listen to his slander! At most, what I said was sarcasm!"

"Hmph." Jiang Shu snorted coldly, "I was just trying to scare you. The anti-magic stone didn't even react, what are you panicking about?"

"..."

“No one knows more about anti-magic stones than I do,” Jiang Shu added.

"Forget it." Dead fish eyes didn't want to argue with Jiang Shu anymore, and just waved his hand wearily: "Anyway, this is the situation. If you and your companions want to register, you have to complete the assessment on the document."

After saying that, he pulled down the curtain on the inside of the glass, and then a cold laugh came out.

"Goodbye... no, if we're talking about the Blue Robe Assessment, then it should be goodbye forever!"

......

Jiang Shu emerged from the registration hall feeling relaxed, but Moore's expression was grim.

"This is just too unlucky."

He gave a wry smile: