Chapter 141: Pioneering the New Faith Zone

Sangsang did not press the matter further. She had previously left a mark on the Origin of the Saintess of a Hundred Flowers; it remained dormant while she was alive and would only take effect after death. Although the Saintess of a Hundred Flowers was currently on the verge of death, she would not perish in the short term, so there was no need for haste.

"Never mind, let's talk about it later. You go ahead with your work. I'll rest for a few days and see when the Heavenly Emperor and the others finish their mission."

Xena said, "Very well. The recommendations for exploring the next sphere of faith have been sent to Your Highness. Please take a look when you have time."

In their initial stages, the profession of a saintess was quite similar to that of entertainment celebrities—or rather, they were powerful stars. They had to find ways to increase their exposure, endorse brands, participate in major productions, secure high positions within the chosen media circles of faith, and fight for every possible believer in order to eventually acquire an independent sphere of faith.

From the very beginning, Xena had tailored Sangsang's career planning to be of high caliber. He filtered out most routine matters and never bothered Sangsang with them—such as the overwhelming wave of adoptions, invitations from wealthy tycoons and powerful nobles, requests from news media, entertainment, and film programs, or various commercial endorsements. Everything stopped with him.

Some of those opportunities might seem decent to ordinary intern saintesses or even official ones, but Xena believed that what Sangsang needed was not mere fame, nor fair-weather believers who might switch allegiances at any moment. What she needed was genuine strength, steadfast and devout followers, and most importantly, an independent sphere of faith.

Sangsang had no objections to this. Her current fair-weather believers outnumbered her devout followers by tens of thousands, yet the amount of faith power she harvested from them was roughly the same. The cost-performance ratio was simply too low, making them as tasteless as chicken ribs.

Moreover, she had no interest in becoming a topic of public commentary. When the Saintess of a Hundred Flowers was constantly making announcements, even moderately popular television programs could summon her. Although her popularity seemed immense and her fair-weather believers numbered in the hundreds of millions, they were also the quickest to change their minds when trouble arose. She had failed to properly control her acquired sphere of faith, resulting in a fire in her own backyard, leaving her completely defenseless against the suppression orchestrated by Saint Son Jiankong.

With that past lesson still fresh in mind, she ought to focus on the quality of her believers rather than their quantity. Choosing a suitable sphere of faith was of paramount importance.

According to general laws, the peak strength of a Tier 2 civilization is the Heavenly Tier—much like the Milky Way civilization, where before the advent of the Heavenly Emperor Sangsang, the number of Heavenly Tier individuals across the entire civilization could be counted on two hands. The peak strength of a Tier 3 civilization is the Stellar Tier, Tier 4 is the Void Tier, Tier 5 is the Mysterious Tier...

On rare occasions, exceptions occurred when individuals from lower civilizations left their native domain to break through externally. For example, the Great Sun God Lord of the Seven-Color Civilization achieved the Mysterious Tier within the temple and, upon returning home, elevated the civilization to Tier 4.

For civilizations above Tier 5, starry-sky tiers were common, and the populace possessed the potential to advance to the Mysterious Tier. Once such a civilization became a private sphere of faith, its value would be tens, hundreds, or thousands of times greater than that of a Tier 3 or Tier 4 sphere of faith, making it truly worth pursuing for expansion.

Micro-worlds like the Danxia Painting Realm, which were small in territory, low in population, and lacked high tiers, generated an amount of faith power every day that was merely a fraction of Sangsang's income. Cultivating such a realm was far less efficient than earnestly developing the Milky Way civilization, which at least boasted a large population base. The only advantages of the Danxia Painting Realm were its communicative world will and its proximity to the temple. Once the internship period ended and the Milky Way civilization was officially incorporated into her sphere of faith, the importance of the Danxia Painting Realm would diminish even further.

After finishing the recommendation list for the spheres of faith, Sangsang leaned against a swing made of intertwined flower vines and closed her eyes to rest. As the swing gently swayed, the fragrant aroma of vines lingered around the tip of her nose, and the warm midday breeze felt intoxicatingly pleasant.

Bishop Anthony had likely abused his authority; the worlds on the recommended list were all unowned spheres of faith where one did not need to compete with others for believers. Once acquired, expansion would be much easier, though correspondingly, the initial difficulty of securing them would be greater.

The seventeen worlds were all mammal-dominated Tier 5 or Tier 6 civilizations, categorized under the three mainstream attributes of the current interstellar era: Techno-Martial, Immortal-Chivalric, and Magical. Among them were micro-worlds, remote star regions within macro-worlds, and independent star regions formed when the barriers of micro-worlds expanded to their limits and eventually dissolved into macro-worlds.

The Tianling World, the Heavy Water World, the Zelda Star Cluster, the Black Stone Star Region, the Thousand Thunders Star Region, the Mitsubishi World, the Pegasus Star System...

Each of these worlds had its own merits, and their shared characteristics were that they were large—very large—and possessed massive population bases.

Naturally, people coveted good things, and successive waves of sacred functionaries had attempted to conquer them to turn them into spheres of faith. Yet to this day, these worlds still enjoyed freedom of belief, which spoke volumes about the difficulty of conquest.

The temple professed a commitment to freedom and fairness, prohibiting the forced alteration of others' beliefs. Thus, when expanding a sphere of faith, one could not resort to bloody methods, and divine miracles such as divine coercion could not be used frequently.

The best approach was to cooperate with the ruling authorities. If that failed, one could instigate a coup to help a faction supportive of oneself rise to power. However, this method had a major drawback: every civilization had at least a few political parties that were mutually hostile. Even under an imperial autocracy, complete control over the populace was impossible. The degree of control over a sphere of faith heavily tested the execution capabilities of the logistics team, and once a falling-out occurred, all previous efforts could be utterly wasted.

Xena was well aware of Sangsang's disadvantages—her foundation was unstable. A sphere of faith acquired through cooperation was easily sabotaged by others, and there was an even greater risk of having her achievements stolen out from under her. Competition among sons and daughters of saints was fierce, and many underhanded tactics were not strictly prohibited. Even though Bishop Anthony was about to be promoted to Arch-Bishop, he could not show excessive favoritism. If opponents acted strictly according to the rules, some matters were difficult for him to intervene in, such as Bronwen's previous attempt to contest the space-time micro-world.

Therefore, Xena had made special annotations for the spheres of faith he recommended to Sangsang—

For instance, the Tianling World suffered from excessive resource depletion. Contributing to the recovery of spiritual energy across the entire world would greatly assist in establishing a sphere of faith there.

Another example was the Heavy Water World. Much like the Lord of Danxia proclaiming that whoever resurrected his beloved would claim the Danxia World, over eighty percent of the population in the Heavy Water World agreed to follow whoever could solve their longevity limit problem. Whoever resolved it would receive their devotion.

Then there was the Zelda Star Cluster, populated primarily by beastmen. As long as one could solve their tendency to go berserk after transforming, establishing a sphere of faith would be a breeze.

There was also the Black Stone Star Region, which was extravagantly wealthy yet barren, completely devoid of vegetation and entirely dependent on imports for vegetables and fruits. Whoever could improve the energy structure of their star region would find harvesting faith a simple task...

Sangsang swayed back and forth on the swing, turning the information regarding the seventeen candidate spheres of faith over in her mind one by one.

Windfalls like the Danxia Painting Realm could not be found everywhere. These civilizations had joined the Star Alliance and been incorporated into the temple's jurisdiction for years, yet they had managed to maintain freedom of belief and avoid being captured by sacred functionaries as faith-generating machines. First of all, they were not weak civilizations easily manipulated at will; they possessed independent and formidable strength. Secondly, they had unified governments, clear-headed leaders who refused external instigation, and unwavering resolve against minor temptations. Thirdly, the riddles they posed exclusively for the temple's sacred functionaries were genuinely difficult, and no one had ever fully solved them.

Xena's recommendation list contained very detailed information, even briefly mentioning how many sacred functionaries had previously challenged each civilization, their completion rates, the manpower and resources expended, and the reasons for their failures.

After reading through the list, Sangsang locked her sights on the Black Stone Star Region and the Heavy Water World.

The Black Stone Star Region suffered from an energy imbalance, an excess of metal, and a scarcity of water and wood—particularly wood-attribute energy, leaving virtually no room for survival.

*(PS: Seeking initial subscriptions, sisters don't forget to vote after reading~~ To be continued.)*