Chapter 364: Preparations
“Join us?”
“I’ve never seen you before. Are you new here?”
The man who opened the door still seemed somewhat wary.
Xu Zhi nodded.
“Yes. I just arrived here. I heard people saying that joining the congregation can grant extraordinary powers. I want extraordinary powers.”
Xu Zhi guessed that the Cup’s standards for selecting followers would not be particularly strict.
At least, not in a place like the lower district.
And the “quality of flesh and blood” possessed by her Spirit Body was obviously first-rate. Someone like her would be far more valuable than ordinary scavengers once converted into a believer.
It would be difficult for this priest to refuse.
As expected, the bloodshot eyes of the man before her immediately turned greedy, as though he could see through her skin and directly into the flesh beneath.
After a moment, he nodded with feigned composure.
“That’s fine. Come in and we’ll talk.”
The door opened wider.
A strong smell of blood rushed out from inside.
Xu Zhi’s expression did not change in the slightest as she stepped through the doorway.
The interior was arranged somewhat like a small chapel.
The gathering had already ended, and a man dressed in black priestly robes was tidying up the room.
Hearing footsteps, he turned around.
A trace of confusion appeared in his eyes when he saw Xu Zhi and the man who had opened the door.
The doorman was a thin middle-aged man.
The priest, however, looked relatively young, perhaps only a little over thirty.
Their conditions were somewhat strange.
They did not resemble the low-level believers Xu Zhi had encountered before.
Yet if they were not followers of the Cup, how could they help others become extraordinary beings?
Still, Xu Zhi quickly noticed something unusual about the skinny man.
The madness characteristic of the Cup was extremely obvious on him.
Seeing the priest’s questioning gaze, the man took the initiative to explain.
“She came here on her own and wants to join us. I think her… aptitude is exceptionally good.”
Aptitude?
More likely she smelled delicious.
The priest walked over after hearing that.
He carefully examined Xu Zhi.
Despite his efforts to maintain a mysterious and unfathomable demeanor, Xu Zhi still sensed a trace of greed in his eyes.
“Mm. Her aptitude is indeed quite good.”
“You’re an ordinary person? Not an extraordinary being?”
The priest sounded doubtful.
The Spirit Body smelled far too enticing.
Could an ordinary human’s flesh really produce such an alluring scent?
He was suspicious.
And wary.
“If I were an extraordinary being, I wouldn’t be here.”
A hint of mockery entered Xu Zhi’s voice.
Unfortunately, that did not reassure the priest.
“I’ll need to run a test.”
Quite cautious.
There were probably other members hidden somewhere inside the building. Otherwise, they would not have dared to let her in so easily.
“That’s fine. But if I pass the test, I hope you’ll allow me to join and become an extraordinary being as soon as possible.”
Xu Zhi made her own condition.
“Of course.”
The priest nodded.
“Your aptitude is excellent. If there are no issues, I’ll arrange for you to participate in our ritual as soon as possible. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
That suggested they could not convert ordinary people into believers whenever they pleased.
There seemed to be restrictions—perhaps quotas.
Which made sense.
Back in the Federation, ordinary people could spontaneously transform into Cup followers because the air itself was saturated with extraordinarily dense Cup-attributed energy.
The real world naturally lacked such conditions.
“I’ll need a few drops of your blood.”
A few drops, he said.
In reality, after Xu Zhi cut her finger, the priest greedily kept watching and never once said “that’s enough.”
Only when Xu Zhi herself asked whether it was sufficient did he suddenly snap back to reality and nod repeatedly.
Judging by his behavior, he clearly was not a high-ranking believer.
At the very least, he could barely conceal his craving for high-quality flesh and blood.
At best, he was merely a low-level Absolved One.
Compared to the ranks of ordinary extraordinary beings, he was probably not even at the Longevity stage.
Then again, that was only natural.
Where would the lower district find quality blood sacrifices?
The scavengers here were physically weak.
Most survived on what amounted to industrial waste.
Many relied on cheap prosthetic implants simply to stay alive.
To believers, such flesh probably tasted bland and unremarkable.
The blood test quickly confirmed the Spirit Body’s status as an ordinary human.
The priest seemed oddly disappointed.
“So you really are just an ordinary person…”
What?
Disappointed because he couldn’t simply kill and eat her?
For the first time in a long while, Xu Zhi once again felt that familiar stupidity and greed unique to fanatical believers.
“Tomorrow night at eight, we’ll hold a ritual for you and pray for the god to grant you extraordinary power.”
“Until then, stay here.”
“It’ll also give you an opportunity to meet the other members of the congregation beforehand.”
The priest did not even phrase it as a question.
He clearly intended to keep her there by force.
Fortunately, Xu Zhi had no objections.
This priest, who controlled admissions and presided over the congregation, was likely the strongest member of this small Cup-affiliated cult.
The Spirit Body was a completely ordinary human without a trace of extraordinary power.
If a fight broke out, there was no way it could win.
If she insisted on leaving now, she probably would not be allowed to leave anyway.
Even if something happened and the Spirit Body was destroyed, the loss to the real Xu Zhi—currently in the Lost Land—would be negligible.
She still possessed spare cores.
Her approaching followers were also carrying cores gathered through hunting in the Lost Land.
Combined with the abundant extraordinary energy there, she had no need to worry about the Spirit Body’s survival before it became a Cup believer.
Yes.
One of Xu Zhi’s goals was to try turning the Spirit Body into a believer.
Without question, it was an outrageously bold idea.
Any reasonably sane companion would probably ask whether she had gone mad.
But Xu Zhi had always made crazy decisions.
She truly wasn’t here to cause trouble for the Cup.
She really had come to join.
In the real world, she had no trustworthy connections whatsoever.
That meant she could only rely on herself.
The structure of the Cup’s believers was unique.
The moment someone joined the Cup, they instantly became a completely trustworthy insider.
One reason she had constructed such a powerful Spirit Body was precisely so that her starting level would be higher after becoming a believer.
As for the corruption she might suffer during the process of falling into the Cup’s influence, Xu Zhi had already made preparations.
After all, the Spirit Body itself was a Lamp-attributed extraordinary ability.
During the conversion ritual, she intended to use her Authority in advance to command the Lamp within her body to protect her true consciousness.
The moment she detected any signs of contamination spreading toward her main body, she would immediately sever her connection to the Spirit Body.
In other words—
She would force her extraordinary ability to commit suicide.
Furthermore, she still possessed the lingering aura of the fragment within her body, as well as the thunder from the Great Dreamscape.
If necessary, she could always give her own brain a little shock therapy to stay conscious.
It could be said that Xu Zhi had made every preparation she possibly could before deciding to carry out this insane plan.
“Then I won’t stand on ceremony.”
Smiling pleasantly, she agreed to the priest’s arrangement and prepared to meet the other believers living inside the small building.
