So in the following days, the villagers began to worship Zhang Mu again.
As the protagonist of the event, he witnessed everything and had long anticipated this outcome.
Humans are strange creatures. If you don't teach them a lesson, they'll take your kindness for granted. And if one day you stop showing them kindness, they'll think it's your fault.
As the villagers continued to worship Zhang Mu, Zhang Mu also activated some of his abilities.
The villagers felt they had inexhaustible energy again, and now everyone was devoted to them.
People flocked to offer incense and prayers.
Zhang Mu was very satisfied and began to absorb the power of the incense offerings to cultivate the method of becoming a god.
As the days went by, Zhang Mu saw that they were almost his followers, and all he needed to do was use his final trick.
"The drought problem needs to be addressed, but it shouldn't have too widespread an impact. We need to let these villagers know that while the weather is favorable within the village, everything outside remains the same."
Zhang Mu muttered to himself and began to unleash his abilities.
In the past, his strength would certainly not have been able to interfere with the weather, but after more than ten years of cultivation, his abilities have become stronger and stronger, and such weather intervention methods are nothing more than trivial matters.
Within a few days, the villagers discovered that their crops had regained their vitality, with each ear of wheat full of plump grains and a significant increase in yield!
Moreover, they discovered that this phenomenon only occurred within the village!
"The willow tree has shown its power!"
"Idiot! 'Willow tree'? Call it the Willow God!"
The villagers began to worship Zhang Mu with great enthusiasm, and the continuous incense offerings made him feel his strength increasing rapidly.
Zhang Mu was very satisfied; his painstaking efforts had not been in vain.
With Zhang Mu's protection, the village's life got better and better.
While the rest of the world was suffering from a severe drought, their region enjoyed favorable weather and abundant harvests, leaving many migrant workers astonished by the sight before them.
The villagers took them in because they felt sorry for them. Anyway, there was plenty of food now, so having more people would be good and would speed up the village's development.
Within a few years, the village experienced rapid development.
From a small village, it gradually grew, with a continuous increase in population and a significant improvement in productivity.
Houses rose up one after another on the land.
A few years later, the small village had grown into a large town.
Zhang Mu's massive body stood tall in the center of the town, and under his protection, the place was like a paradise.
No one dies from disease, no one dies from hunger. This place is far from the flames of war, there is no deceit or treachery, and no oppression from the gods.
The village's reputation spread far and wide, attracting more and more people to settle there.
Zhang Mu was happy to see this, but he still needed to speed up his cultivation.
This time, with his intervention, the village developed too quickly. If the gods notice anything amiss, a struggle is inevitable.
"I wonder how powerful those gods are... It's impossible to compare them just by looking at the simulated text... Just how powerful are they..."
Zhang Mu pondered, unable to ascertain the enemy's strength, and could only continue to build up his resources during this time.
"Let's set up a protective barrier first..."
To be on the safe side, let's play it safe for now.
Soon an invisible barrier covered the town, thus blocking the gods' prying eyes and concealing their presence.
He is now enormous, standing hundreds of meters tall, and his unique features can be seen from afar.
Several days later, the residents also discovered the existence of the barrier. It wasn't because they were strong enough to discover it, but because they couldn't see the town once they left it.
Opinions varied widely.
"Could it be that something is protecting the town?"
"Idiot! Don't you even know that? The one with such abilities is naturally our Goddess Liu!"
"That's right, it must be the power of the Willow God. Now that the town is getting bigger and bigger, some gods will come to abduct us when they find out. With this cover, we can live a peaceful and stable life."
In this world, gods will stop at nothing to steal believers; forceful abduction is commonplace.
Those gods don't care whether you sincerely believe in them or not; they just need you to keep offering them incense and prayers.
Some people might ask, "Isn't it just the power of offering incense? It can't cause any harm to humans."
That would be a mistake.
This world is special; the power of incense burns the spirit and vitality of the worshipper, something very ethereal.
It's just an occasional offering, and it will recover in a few days, so there's nothing to worry about.
But the gods don't care about these things. They don't care about your energy and spirit. You must offer yourself to them once in the morning, noon and evening every day, in order to obtain more incense power for their cultivation.
Over time, the worshipper's vital energy will be depleted beyond repair, causing their health to deteriorate, but they will not die in the end.
Once one's vital energy and spirit are depleted, they cannot be restored, and the body will become numb and lose all emotions, becoming like a puppet.
Those gods would make these worthless humans continue to do hard labor until they were exhausted to death.
Of course, some deities know that one cannot exhaust the resources of a resource, so they will slowly nurture humanity to give them a chance to breathe.
Allowing it to rest for a few days when it reaches a critical point before continuing to offer sacrifices is simply turning it into a money-making machine, completely devoid of humanity.
Therefore, compared to Zhang Mu's life, it was worlds apart. Of course, they didn't want to become believers in those gods. They preferred to live a secluded life in this paradise.
They had no ambitions, nor did they want any. There was a lot of war outside, and some gods would fight each other to steal each other's believers for the sake of incense offerings. Even the slightest aftershocks were enough to kill them several times over.
Time flies, and another ten years or so have passed peacefully.
The simulated second major drought has arrived.
Many migrants, having wandered around due to the severe drought, stumbled into the town and, upon seeing this scene so different from the outside world, thought they were dreaming.
But after the townspeople gave them a warm welcome, they realized that this was not a dream.
The town has developed rapidly in recent years and has already reached the initial scale of a city.
Zhang Mu also enjoyed the benefits brought by the population growth. The continuous stream of incense offerings made his cultivation very exciting. This feeling of being able to improve his strength just by sitting down is why those gods would risk their lives to snatch believers.
"These are all my treasures, I can't let those guys steal them."
Zhang Mu felt as if he were floating on air, enjoying the power of the incense.
With the support of both the breathing technique and the incense-based ascension method, his strength continued to surge, with no bottlenecks whatsoever.
In addition, there is the development of his own spatial willow body.
He also awakened his innate supernatural power, spatial control, and gradually explored the laws of space, and is currently cultivating in this direction.
Once he masters the power of the laws, there is no space in this world that he cannot control!
This is a huge boost to their combat power. If those gods dare to come, we can torture them to death with the laws of space.
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