Picking Up Attributes From Today - Chapter 216
Chapter 216: Taking Control of The Empire, The New Dragon Island
Puhaman had submitted!
In fact, he had offered up his divine spirit origin energy with nary any hesitation, making the process unexpectedly quick.
Meng Lei had initially thought that he’d have to go through a lengthy coercion-cum-wheedling process before he could subdue the Dead Souls half-deity—after all, he was an evil ancient fiend and a Dead Souls half-deity, so how would he possibly submit to him that easily?
Snap!
Snap!
The Gods-Slaying Spear jabbed forward repeatedly, easily breaking the ten chains shackling Puhaman.
Having regained his freedom, Puhaman burst into loud, excited laughter as he exclaimed, “Kekeke! I’m finally out!”
It was just a shame that his laughter didn’t hold even a tinge of might. Instead, it sounded incredibly eerie, as if it were the wailing of vengeful spirits from hell!
Eerie, sinister, and terrifying, it sounded awfully creepy!
“Let’s go,” said Meng Lei dispassionately. Then, he turned and started to walk toward the exit. Thaniel hastily followed after him as he maintained a certain distance from Puhaman—he simply couldn’t help but feel unsafe being in the same space as that evil ancient fiend.
“Yes, my honorable Master, keke!”
Puhaman cackled strangely and followed Meng Lei and Thaniel out of the cave.
At this moment, an Eighth-Grade Magical Beast, the Bloodthirsty Violent Shark, happened to swim over.
At the sight of it, Puhaman made a grabbing motion.
Bam!
A huge verdant green withered claw appeared out of thin air and grabbed the Bloodthirsty Violent Shark toward him, upon which Puhaman immediately opened his mouth and sucked forcefully.
Lush green life essence drifted out of the Bloodthirsty Violent Shark and was absorbed into Puhaman’s mouth.
The Bloodthirsty Violent Shark started to visibly dry and shrivel up. A few moments later, it had turned into a piece of dehydrated skin.
Turning one’s gaze back to Puhaman, they would see that his dry, withered skin had plumped up a fair bit and gained a hint of rosiness.
“Kekeke~ The taste of blood truly makes one nostalgic!”
Puhaman licked his lips in such high spirits that he raised his head and burst into loud, raucous laughter.
“Master, that fiend is too evil!”
Thaniel’s voice shook as he shivered and shuddered, totally creeped out.
“Is that Dead Souls Magic?”
Meng Lei was unaffected. Instead, he even developed a keen interest in Dead Souls Magic.
Puhaman replied with a strange laugh, “Keke! Master, I can teach you Dead Souls Magic if you wish to learn it!”
“We can look into it a little when we have some spare time,” said Meng Lei with a slight smile.
“It’s rare to see someone interested in Dead Souls Magic. On top of that, he’s even my Master!”
Puhaman remarked as he cackled. Then, he started on his frenzied “devouring” feast.
None of the marine Magical Beasts they encountered along the way were spared.
He himself also began to plump up rapidly. By the time they were out of the bottom of the ocean, he looked like a completely different person.
A strong, ample, well-built body, crystal-clear skin, glossy jet-black hair…
Which part of that was a skeleton from the bottom of the ocean? It was clearly a graceful and gentlemanly middle-aged noble!
If it hadn’t been for the fact that they had exited the bottom of the ocean together, even Meng Lei and Thaniel wouldn’t have quite dared to believe their eyes.
Was that guy really Puhaman?
A smiling Meng Lei complimented, “That looks a lot more pleasant to the eye now!”
Puhaman was the picture of a mild-mannered and refined gentleman as he did a graceful nobles’ bow in response. “You may not know this, Master, but before I’d begun to cultivate Dead Souls Magic, I was a human king.
“Unfortunately, my country was destroyed later on. For the sake of seeking revenge on the Dragons, I had no choice but to switch to cultivating Dead Souls Magic and ended up a monster that was neither human nor ghost.”
At this point, Puhaman cast a glance at Thaniel. His eyes carried a look of malice, causing Thaniel to tense up all the way to his anus and become all creeped out.
“Little did I think that you’d have gone through something like that. That’s surprising!”
Meng Lei said with a laugh, “I happened to have just destroyed the Dragons and am intending to take over Dragon God Empire. Since you’re experienced in this aspect, you should be able to be of assistance to me, right?”
“Keke, I’m glad to offer my services to you, Master!”
Puhaman was awfully excited. “Don’t worry, Master. I had reigned for over 40 years back then, so I have great experience in governance. I should be able to provide you with some suggestions!”
“I hope so!”
A gratified Meng Lei nodded. He had previously been troubled over Dragon God Empire’s matter—after all, the Dragons were gone, and he had slaughtered all the court officials.
A moment of carelessness and the juggernaut that was Dragon God Empire might just collapse anytime.
When that happened, chaos ensuing would be nigh impossible to avoid.
The ones to suffer would still end up being the common people—this was something that Meng Lei didn’t wish to see.
As such, how he should go about taking over Dragon God Empire peacefully while avoiding strife was something that Meng Lei needed to think about.
If possible, he would also like to spread his faith along the way and get the empire’s citizens to believe in him. That would be even more ideal.
However, Meng Lei knew that this would be an extremely difficult task.
Taking control of the empire wasn’t that bad; the level of difficulty wasn’t very high.
What was difficult was to spread faith!
Having been established for over 40,000 years, Dragon God Empire’s faith in the Dragon God had long since become ingrained and deep-rooted.
Getting the citizens to abandon their faith in the Dragon God and switch over to worshiping him was definitely no easy task!
Meng Lei had also considered this problem previously. He had thought of a few ideas, but he ultimately still found them too unreliable.
Now that he had taken Puhaman in, he could, however, discuss this with him. That old fiend had once been a king, as well as even an evil god; surely he could provide some assistance in that respect?
“Where do we go next, Master?”
At the sight of Puhaman gaining Meng Lei’s trust so quickly and even vaguely seemed as if he’d be given great responsibilities, Thaniel panicked somewhat.
He’d clearly been the one that had submitted to their master first, so why was that fiend edging him out now?
After a moment of consideration, Meng Lei replied, “Let’s go to the Imperial City!”
“Alright, Master!”
After responding, Thaniel flapped his wings and flew toward Dragon Island’s exit.
Upon departing Dragon Island, as Puhaman overlooked all the sights outside, he became so worked up that scalding tears filled his eyes, and he fell to his knees before Meng Lei.
“I’ve finally seen the light of day again after being sealed for 50,000 years! I am grateful to my great, noble master! Thank you for saving my life!”
Isn’t that reflex arc of yours a little too slow? Why didn’t I see you thanking me when I saved you from that cave just now?
Meng Lei grumbled inwardly, though outwardly, he said, “Congratulations on regaining your freedom, Puhaman!”
“Thank you! Thank you, Master!”
Puhaman cried tears of joy as he sniffed the air intensely, an expression of intoxication all over his face.
“This is the smell of Heaven’s Vault Continent! It’s truly too wonderful and too nostalgic…”
“Let’s go!”
Meng Lei patted Thaniel on the back.
“Yes, Master!”
Then, Thaniel flew toward the Imperial City.
“Puhaman, I’d like to take control of Dragon God Empire. Do you have any suggestions?”
“I’ve been sealed for too long, Master. Therefore, I’m not very clear on Dragon God Empire’s current situation. May I trouble Master to give me a simple explanation first?”
“Alright!”
“…”
“Little did I think that Dragon God Empire would still be this much of a loser even after 50,000 years have gone by.”
Then, an emotional Puhaman said, “Master, if you wish to take control of Dragon God Empire, you can do it in four steps.”
“Four steps? Tell me about it,” replied Meng Lei with great interest.
“The first step is to take control of the empire’s court administration.
“Now that the Dragons’ high-end combat power have all been wiped out by Master, the remaining Dragons are not much of a threat anymore.
“The matter of highest priority now is to take control of court administration and control the steering rights of the giant ship that is Dragon God Empire, so as to stabilize the overall situation and prevent chaos from ensuing.”
“That makes sense. Go on,” Meng Lei commented with a nod.
“You can’t take control of court administration if no one’s there.”
Puhaman asked with a sinister smile, “Master, you previously mentioned that you’ve slaughtered all the court officials, both civil and martial, but I don’t believe that. If my guess is right, you’ve actually only killed the high-ranking or important officials, right?”
“I think so.”
Meng Lei’s brows furrowed slightly.
“That has to be it!”
Puhaman snickered and said, “Officials qualified to enter the conference hall to discuss state affairs are typically either the chief executives or their deputies from each department.
“Officials whose positions are too low aren’t qualified to step into the conference hall. Therefore, I dare make a bold guess that all you’ve killed are just the high-ranking officials and those in important positions.
“As for the lower-level officials and civil servants in minor positions, they should all be well and alive. These people are the key to us taking control of Dragon God Empire!”
“Go on.”
“As long as you can take control of them, it would be tantamount to you taking control of Dragon God Empire’s court. And there’s nothing more suitable to control them than my Dead Souls Magic!”
Puhaman gave him a sinister smile as a bloodthirsty look came over his countenance.
At the sight of his visage, Meng Lei knew his intentions at once. “It’s better to take a gentler approach to humans who are willing to submit. As for the stubborn ones and the Dragon People nobles, you can do as you see fit.”
“Don’t worry, Master. I know what I should do.”
Puhaman patted his chest as he reassured him again.
“Tell me about the second and third steps.”
“The second step is to promote and elevate the human elites into higher positions and wipe out the Colossal Dragon nobles.”
Puhaman went on. “Once you’ve taken control of the court, it’ll be tantamount to you having taken control of the wagging tongues in the empire.
“At this point, Master can alter the country’s laws and regulations and dismiss the Colossal Dragon nobles from position.
“Those that refuse to accept the changes are all to be killed!
“Whoever dares to revolt are also to be killed!
“Kill them all! And let the blood flow! When that happens, we’ll see who still dares go against Master!
“Now that the Dragons have lost their half-deities, I believe that a group of ordinary Colossal Dragons can’t amount to much at all.”
“…”
“The third step is to deal with the affiliated kingdoms at the borders.”
“…”
As Thaniel listened to Meng Lei and Puhaman’s conversation as they made plans to take over Dragon God Empire, he felt an infinite amount of grief and sorrow.
Should they really carry out whatever Puhaman had said, the entire Dragon God Empire would completely change hands.
There would no longer be any place in Dragon God Empire for the Colossal Dragons!
Dragon God Empire would completely become dominated by humans!
With the humans’ reproduction rate, who would still remember the Dragons after dozens or a hundred years?
An alarmed and fearful Thaniel wondered, “Will the Dragons die out…?”
Meng Lei’s magic communication device suddenly rang at this point.
It’s President Fred?
After a moment of hesitation, Meng Lei chose to pick up the call.
“Meng Lei!”
President Fred had a complex look on his face.
“President,” Meng Lei responded with a smile, just like always.
“Where are you now, Meng Lei?” asked President Fred in a low voice.
“I’ve just left Dragon Island and am about to return to the Imperial City,” replied Meng Lei truthfully.
“In that case, you’ve already…”
At once, the look on President Fred’s countenance changed, and his voice shook somewhat.
“Out of the nine Dragon half-deities, aside from Elder Amolin and the Tempest Colossal Dragon that got away, the other seven half-deities have all died. The ordinary Dragons have also been wiped out.”
Meng Lei respected President Fred, so he didn’t wish to deceive him in matters like this. Neither was there any need for him to—he believed that the news would spread in no time.
“It’s over! It’s all over for the Dragons!”
President Fred staggered as if his soul had left him. He said, “I’ve imagined various outcomes, but never did I ever think that the outcome would be one like this!
“Out of the nine Dragon half-deities, you’ve actually slain seven. Without the half-deities’ protection, the Dragons’ destruction has already become destined. In fact, the Dragons no longer have the power to control the entire empire anymore!”
Fred let out wry laugh after wry laughs. “Forget it! Forget it! Now that it has come to this, what more can I say?
“Meng Lei, what do you intend to do next? What are you going to do about each kingdom’s royalty?”
That’s probably what the Fire Dragon King, Flit the 66th, got you to ask, right?
After a long silence, Meng Lei finally slowly answered, “President, on your account, I can look the other way and allow each kingdom’s royalty to take up permanent residency on the Lost Continent.
“If they are willing, the Lost Continent can become their abode. We’ll call it New Dragon Island!”
