Chapter 480: Crystals of Faith

“Thank you, Prince Donald, for your help! Xize is deeply grateful!”
As soon as King Celt VII was able to move freely, he immediately thanked Donald, who had been by his side the whole time. Whether it was King Charles of the Northlands being elevated to a god, his new body, or the opportunity to ignite the divine flame—all of these came from Donald. It was no exaggeration to say that Donald was Celt’s lucky star. Even those who had watched him grow from a poor nobleman to his current great status could not deny this!
Without Donald’s timely proposal for an alliance and plan, facing the invasion by the Church of the Dawn, their best outcome would have been to perish along with the invaders. Without their powerful forces, Celt would have been at the mercy of others, falling under the control of that extreme true god, the Lord of Dawn—a scenario neither of Celt’s kings would ever want to see!
“Since we have chosen you as allies, we are all in this together. Naturally, we must wholeheartedly work for our own people! Congratulations also to future Prince Xize—within half a year, Celt will have another demigod!”
Hearing Donald say this, King Celt VII could only keep his gratitude to himself.
At this point, Donald brought up the issue of distributing the remaining spoils.
After hearing about how Donald had made the most of Bigel and Kara, the former orc true gods, by stealing faith power from the orc race, both former Celt kings, Charles and Xize, wore strange expressions. They looked at the two former orc deities standing motionless with hopeful eyes, as if farmers watching hens lay eggs.
“As expected of Donald—even something like this comes to mind!”
They could only marvel at this ally who was good at creating miracles!
If a true god did not engage in any activities that continuously drained their divine power, the faith power obtained from believers each day—aside from what was converted into divine power to sustain themselves and given back to the priests—would remain.
Since this excess faith power couldn’t always be converted into divine power, it could only be stored in two ways: either by keeping it in one place to prevent it from leaking out, or by allowing it to accumulate over time in large quantities, forming crystals of faith, also known as faith gems.
Such items could be considered the most universal medium of exchange among the gods. To some extent, crystals of faith were the common currency in the world of true gods.

The second method is to store it in the form of divine energy reserves. However, depending on the rank of each deity and their domain of power, the concentration, purity of the transformed divine energy, as well as the inherent laws it contains, vary. For example, demigods and newly ascended gods can only condense divine energy into a liquid state, so their divine energy is measured in drops. Starting with lower-tier gods, due to increased conversion efficiency of their divine essence and the support of rules in their divine realms, true gods can transform and condense divine energy into a crystalline form. This new unit is known as divine energy crystal or simply crystal, often referred to as god crystal.

Compared to this, the value of the god crystals produced by lower-tier gods, mid-tier gods, and high-tier gods also differs. For lower-tier gods and true gods below them, obtaining a god crystal from a more powerful true god allows them to temporarily unleash strength far beyond their normal capacity. Thus, deities with lower divine ranks are more eager to acquire such powerful god crystals.

Powerful beings above lower-tier gods prefer pure faith crystals. If they obtain divine energy or god crystals from deities of a lower rank, they lose some of their faith energy during the secondary conversion process—a loss that could otherwise be avoided! This is because, under normal circumstances, faith energy exists in a gaseous state like steam or mist, while divine energy becomes liquid after being transformed and condensed by the rules of a true god’s divine essence. God crystals, on the other hand, are solid forms where divine energy is condensed into a stable structure.

Typically, a lower-tier god crystal with a perfect structure and standard volume contains approximately 97 drops of divine energy, but it requires hundreds of drops of divine energy to create. The amount lost is the loss incurred during the conversion process. A mid-tier god crystal, on the other hand, can contain at least 997 drops of divine energy, requiring thousands of drops from a mid-tier god to form. At the mid-tier level, the loss of faith energy during conversion is extremely minimal, though it still adds up over time—though not much for a mid-tier god.

High-tier gods, with their powerful and perfect divine essences, have an almost 100% efficiency in converting faith energy. Each high-tier god crystal is equivalent to tens of thousands of drops of divine energy, with a loss of less than 0.001%, a difference that mid-tier and lower-tier gods cannot match.

Apart from the differences in conversion efficiency caused by the gap in divine hierarchy, different gods also have varying effects when using their divine powers. Divine powers containing certain attributes of true gods are difficult to be absorbed by other true gods whose authorities are unrelated or relatively distinct; even if conversion is possible, some energy is wasted, making it less convenient and simpler than using pure faith crystals.

Therefore, most true gods use pure faith crystals without any additional power attributes as bargaining equivalents, rather than divine powers or divine crystals. However, this does not hinder the Book of Truth, as it is not a true god itself but a high-level artifact that masters numerous rules across the three universes—Earth, the other world, and the main world. The universe in which it was created possesses the most complete system of laws, which serves as its divine core. Additionally, since the multiverse of the main world shares similar rules with that universe, the Book of Truth also masters most of the superficial laws and a small portion of the core laws there. As for the universe of Earth, which it can only briefly access, its rules are even more ancient and complex, with only some basic laws below the demi-god level having been deciphered so far.

Yet even this small portion brings significant benefits to the Book of Truth and its owner, Donald. The ability to freely convert divine powers into various levels of divine crystals is merely one of its less powerful functions. As Donald collects more domains of divine authority, the Book of Truth gains more complete sets of laws from the Codex of Gods, gradually enhancing its capabilities and improving the organization of the legal systems in the multiverse of the main world. Perhaps one day it could even reach the level of a supreme artifact!