A New Way to Get Rich

In the crowd, a commotion broke out among some people—it was unclear whether they were the Pope's plants or individuals genuinely affected by Ren Yi.

"Look! Look at the Son of God!" a soldier was the first to react, grabbing his companion's arm and pointing toward Ren Yi.

Someone nearby began to shout in agreement: "Yes! I see it! The Son of God is protecting us! That crystal is a gift from God!"

The cries of these individuals instantly drew the attention of the surrounding soldiers.

Some followed the direction they were pointing. Although they couldn't see the vision of the "gap being filled," they could clearly see the faint light swirling around Ren Yi and the sphere of light, unlike anything of this world, hovering in his palm.

Those influenced by the illusion became increasingly excited, and some began to pray fervently toward Ren Yi.

The contagiousness of collective emotion was on full display at this moment.

It began with only a few people praying, but as more and more people affected by the illusion joined in, the atmosphere of devotion spread rapidly, and the surrounding soldiers gradually began to waver.

They looked at their devoutly praying comrades and then at the otherworldly crystal in Ren Yi's palm; the panic in their hearts was slowly replaced by curiosity and a faint glimmer of hope.

"They say they saw light filling the gap... is it because I'm not devout enough that I can't see it?"

Whispers spread through the crowd as more and more people actively moved toward Ren Yi, following the example of the others and bowing their heads in prayer.

This was the "strength" of the Holy City folk... a devotion etched into their very bones, allowing them to easily believe in the existence of "miracles."

Gawain, standing closest to him, stared intently at the pillar of light shooting into the sky. His eyes widened suddenly, and his breathing became rapid.

As someone who had been constantly by Ren Yi's side, he had naturally been granted an illusion seed long ago and was currently immersed in the shock of "witnessing a miracle."

In the crowd, the Pope watched Ren Yi silently, without saying a word.

Ren Yi felt the increasing number of positive emotion light specks on his arm, but his heart remained unmoved.

He knew very well that this single move might not completely appease everyone.

But it was enough. His goal was never to "save" these people; he only wanted them to temporarily suppress their panic and become "tools" to help him catch mutant beasts.

More importantly, he took this opportunity to officially debut the energy crystal in front of everyone.

Plans often failed to keep up with changes. He had originally intended to use the Pope to help test the effects of his "flesh-enhanced" energy crystal, but now that seemed redundant.

He closed his eyes to sense his surroundings. In addition to the positive emotions toward the "Son of God," a surge of positive emotion toward the "divine object" had also appeared.

And this stream of positive emotion was actually being slowly absorbed into the crystal in his hand.

Ren Yi tinkered with it for a moment and soon figured out the principle behind it.

As a part of his body, the small sliver of flesh contained within the energy crystal also possessed the instinct to sense and absorb positive emotions.

Currently, his own absorption progress had reached its limit, but this crystal, formed from aggregated energy light particles, could act like a sponge with an electromagnetic field, sucking in the positive emotion energy dissipating in the air.

When he reclaimed this part of his body in the future, he could "squeeze" out the energy stored in the crystal at the same time.

What was this? An energy crystal version of a "clone energy collector"?

Just as the thought occurred to him, Ren Yi suddenly realized that besides acting as an "external energy collection device," this method seemed to have other uses.

His gaze turned to the illusion-based Ability Crystal in his hand.

The reason an illusion-based Ability Crystal was more difficult to produce was that, besides condensing energy, a "Rule Array" had to be inscribed inside the crystal.

Only then could pure energy be transformed into a specific illusion ability during use.

Although the production process was spectacular, the ability of this illusion crystal was actually quite simple.

It could plant a single-use illusion that affected only the vision of one target within a three-meter range who had not yet been planted with an illusion.

Note that this was "planting an illusion" rather than "planting an illusion seed."

In other words, the content of each illusion crystal was fixed and had to be set before use, and it could only be used once.

However, the user could freely choose when to trigger the illusion.

This was different from Ren Yi using his ability himself; the illusion seeds he planted personally could be used repeatedly to create different illusions. The illusion within this crystal was a one-time deal.

But the key point was that the logic for using the crystal was: select a target within range, set the illusion content, and then adjust the Rule Array to the "active" state.

Once used successfully, the energy would be exhausted, and the array would have no support, causing it to self-destruct after a period of time.

But as long as the trigger condition was not met, the crystal would not be consumed.

In that case, if he also injected a part of his body into the crystal...

"The flesh continuously absorbs positive emotions to replenish energy, while the crystal only activates after locking onto a target. Wouldn't that mean it could be used infinitely?"

To put it simply, the crystal's ability would change: as long as there was energy replenishment, it could continuously broadcast the same delay-triggered illusion to those around it.

A one-time active effect directly transformed into an infinite passive effect?

Was this even still an energy crystal?

What exactly had he created?

An Anomaly Artifact?

Do Anomaly Artifacts require using one's body to create?

Well, that certainly was anomalous.

Did this mean he could get rich in the future by literally "selling his body"?

Of course, this was just a thought.

First of all, this crystal definitely couldn't be considered a true Anomaly Artifact; at most, it was a severely nerfed version. The limitation of fixed content was simply too great.

Furthermore, while losing a tiny bit of his body could be slowly recovered, if he lost too much, it would be difficult to make up for it later.