We walked away a bit while Herkut rested. "How's the experience," Zolast asked.

"Weird," I answered. "Functions are more or less what I expected, but it feels weird," I answered.

"How so?"

"I don't know. It doesn't feel … natural. The difference is not easy to explain, but if I were to explain, the class System feels flexible and responsive, while the divine system feels more solid. Hard to explain."

"Is it like the difference between a spell and a ward?" he asked.

I paused to think about it. "In a way, but not necessarily," I said. "However, either way, it is a good opportunity to collect experience. I could push to level hundred easily with the new method, particularly if we put together the teams responsible for cleaning the mountain mostly from the new recruit, with elites to protect them if necessary. Combined with the new expert skills, it should work."

"Speaking of expert skills, what's the decision on them?" he asked. "Are we going to let the others use the dungeon?"

"No. Let's say that it has been sabotaged by our enemies, and it's currently under construction."

"Guilds won't like that."

"They will if we transfer their quotas to the new city temporarily," I answered. "Meanwhile, we will arrange a few new teams to farm the dungeon, ideally composed of my new followers. Two birds, one stone."

Zolast nodded, then pulled a silver ingot, shaping it with a spell. "What's that?" I asked.

"A beacon. Imbue it with your mana. I want to see if we can use the indirect recruitment method," he said.

"Good, meanwhile, I can teach Herkut the exercises to awaken his stats and see if it works," I said.

"Do you expect it to work?" he asked. "It didn't work for the others until they joined the heroic party."

"Probably not," I said. "But it might, particularly if my guess about why divine alignment blocks it is correct."

"You still think that it needs to be more aligned with the perception of the divine patron," he asked.

"Makes sense, particularly if you consider the name and the avatar the system generated automatically. Previously we were wondering why weaker gods would limit their followers that much, even when empowering them was to their benefit …"

"But, it's different if they don't have a choice in the matter," he completed. Meanwhile, he finished shaping my new sigil out of silver. I imbued it with my mana. "Any notifications from the System?"

"Nope," I said. "Actually, why don't you create a second sigil, and try using both of them. Maybe the physical representation will be enough?"

"No, back in the church, only the blessed ones worked," he muttered, then he paused. After a slight delay, he sighed. "Which means nothing, because it might be just an attempt to create an impression."

"Certainly," I responded. "Now, why don't you go and try that with other zealots while I teach Herkut the exercises, and see if we could awaken his Strength at a minimum."

Zolast went back to the town, while I went back to Herkut. "Stand up. I'm going to teach you an exercise. It's the secret art of the Shadow Warden, and it will help you control your power," I said. "Follow my moves."

With that, I took my stance, and slowly repeated the moves, letting him practice it for a while, carefully leading him through every move while constantly speaking and sharing my impressions. For the first half hour, it didn't work even when I did my best to convey the exact sensations and mindset through Charisma, which wasn't too shocking.

Then, I received a new notification.

[Potential Follower Detected

Analyze

Offer]

I clicked 'Offer'.

[-10,001 Experience]

[+215,021 Experience]

A new follower, once again bringing more Experience than it took. But, the increase of one extra Experience point was interesting.

At the same time, I communicated to Zolast, and told them that the attempt was a success. He confirmed he used the sigil that wasn't imbued with my power.

I received many more offers, and, with each attempt, the required experience increased by one. Interesting. I couldn't help but wonder whether their second promotion would increase by one … or more. If it increased by more, it would explain why gods were reluctant to let people with weaker classes follow them.

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At one point, the cost would be prohibitive.

Of course, that didn't mean I suddenly empathized with their tactics. Just because I understood the financial reasons why a billionaire company owner would use sweatshops to make his t-shirts didn't mean I had to think that decision was correct.

As such, my ethical disdain toward gods didn't change. They were still merciless and callous beings, treating people as ants. I just understood the cold-blooded, logical reasons for their choices better.

That understanding was important. Sun Tzu was correct when he claimed that by knowing himself and his enemy, he could win a hundred battles. It was hard to predict the enemy correctly without understanding why they did what they did.

Soon, Zolast recruited thirteen more people, each recruitment increasing the cost by one point. I asked him to stop at fifteen. I continued to teach Herkut while Zolast brought them to the dungeon, until a promotion notice arrived. I accepted.

[-1,001,000 Experience]

An interesting number, but I didn't make a direct judgment. Soon, another promotion notice arrived.

[-1,002,000 Experience]

Just to make sure, I asked him to recruit another candidate.

[-10,015 Experience]

That gave me a reasonable preliminary guess. The cost of promotions had a base cost — ten thousand and a million, respectively for first and second promotions — and, a variable count that was based on the number of followers that was already at that stage or lower, with an increasing multiplier.

Interestingly, the difference between base cost for first and second promotions differed by a factor of one hundred, while the variable cost differed by a factor of one thousand. It didn't matter at first, but that difference would have a bigger impact on the more followers a god had.

It was a simple, but surprisingly effective way of managing the relationship between gods. The increasing cost would strongly discourage a god from monopolizing the world.

The impact of the variable cost increasing far faster was easy to understand, even though the strategic benefit wasn't entirely clear. It incentivized the gods not to promote every single follower they had, maintaining a pyramid shape among their followers.

Maybe it was a method of limiting their destructive potential for eventual wars between them, or maybe it had a magical reason that related to the System — as its existence was still a mystery to me, let alone its working principles — that tried to limit the prevalence of higher promotion instances.

Either way, it didn't matter too much to me. The scale of cost increase meant that I could still recruit tens of thousands of people before the cost had reached an unacceptable point, particularly if we armed them with magical weapons and armor, and enhanced their fighting with Expert skills.

"… Try to focus on your Strength. Your muscles are your weapons, ready to be unleashed at the right time to demolish your enemies…" I said, reinforcing the message with Charisma, like I had been doing for almost an hour, when I felt a familiar whisper sensation, only much weaker.

"I … I awakened my Strength," he whispered.

"Very good, young man. It's a miracle. You have potential," I said, sounding better than I felt. Admittedly, helping someone awaken in an hour was a nice benefit. Also, the fact that he could awaken at all confirmed my guess about the unique perspective from the divine alignment restricting awakening.

But, I would have preferred if said awakening happened in minutes rather than one hour of high-intensity Charisma pressure. Especially since, the subtle pressure of Charisma I managed to bring required my absolute focus. I couldn't have targeted two people with my Charisma while maintaining the same intensity, let alone hundreds of people as I had dreamed.

Not a huge setback, as I hadn't been particularly hopeful about that in the first place, but still a bummer.

I brought Herkut back to the dungeon, and took over helping my first sixteen followers level up to sixty — which was surprisingly easy when one had a dedicated dungeon, with a floor without limiters dedicated to leveling up.

But, as they started to hit level sixty, I was hit by another unwelcome limiter.

I wasn't able to trigger the third promotion. The reason: a notification I had received only one other time. But, I was rapidly growing to hate it.

[Insufficient Authority!]

With that latest setback, I realized that my dream of quickly raising a ten-thousand-strong, level hundred army; armed with master skills, magic gear, and Awakened stats had turned to dust.

Instead, I was limited to a well-trained, ten-thousand-strong army, armed merely with expert skills along with excellent magic gear…

I couldn't help but chuckle. I still remembered how strong I felt when the first youngster reached level forties and was able to share some of my burdens. Now, an army of sixty-level soldiers felt like a letdown.

It was easy to get used to luxury.

Still, even as I sighed, I gestured for the sixteen recruits to gather and brought them out of the dungeon. The inability to promote them was not as critical, and might not be too important strategically — as even if I was able to, it was hard to find the source for enough experience to raise their level — but the same didn't apply to morale.

The last thing I needed was for people to start questioning why the Shadow Warden didn't promote anyone over level sixty. Of course, I could always use a few from my hero party by claiming they worshipped the Warden, but only as a last resort. Keeping the heroic party and the followers was the safer option.

Meaning, I still needed an excuse.

"Shadow Warden, in his infinite wisdom, decided to support our holy crusade upon this planet. And, you sixteen are the first ones he chose. From now on, you'll be known as The Sixteen Shades." Their chest puffed. "However, only by proving yourself in the upcoming challenges, you'll be allowed to go above level sixty!"

I expected that to puncture some of their enthusiasm, but it worked the opposite way. They looked even more proud.

Of course, I blamed myself. I just gave a bunch of religious enthusiasts a literal divine mission, one that came with objective proof. It would be shocking if they weren't enthusiastic.

Still, since I had saddled them with a bogus divine mission, I might as well make their life easier. I sent a message to Zolast, asking him to arrange two Master Skills for each — one ranged and one melee — while I prepared to train them.

We still had a day before we met up with the army Mahruss had gathered, which should be enough to Awaken at least one stat for each, and some rapid combat training of my own brand, enough to shore up their fundamentals before I dump them to Mahruss for further training.

They would work well as aspirational new recruits for the new army he was about to put together.

"He still has a gift for you, but you need to earn it with blood and tears," I said even as I picked up a blunted training weapon. "Now, defend!"