He was imprisoned in Nibelungen for a thousand years, only to find out upon his release that he was

Does that mean Ishtar herself doesn't care where her power is going? Or is it that you don't care, but expect others to care? That's ridiculous.

Besides, if you don't want to do it, then don't do it. Just back down properly. Why suddenly kneel down and perform such a grand ceremony?

You made everyone laugh.

"Pfft."

Francesca, however, didn't have many responsible thoughts; she simply mocked them relentlessly.

"So, you've finally figured it out? You're finally going to kneel down to beg for Master Lu Ming's approval?"

While making sarcastic remarks, she secretly recorded the scene, intending to use illusion magic to repeatedly replay this astonishing kneeling moment in front of Lu Ming and the others when they were together in the future.

"But I have to tell you, even if Master Lu Ming were willing to acknowledge you and impart those precious thoughts and knowledge to you, you would still only be at the bottom of the list. By the way, in Master Lu Ming's ranking, I am actually number one, hehehehehe..."

Upon hearing this, Eileen knew that Francesca was only referring to "the lineage of her master," but she still felt inexplicably uncomfortable.

As for Lu Ming, the central figure in the discussion, he didn't react much. His evaluation of Ishtar... has always had a lot of room for improvement.

Faced with the barbed taunts, Ishtar took a deep breath, pressed her slender hands to the floor, her fingertips turning white, almost digging a noticeable crack into the corner of the floor.

Finally, with great difficulty, I regained my senses.

"Requesting Lu Ming's approval? I don't understand what you're talking about."

Her chaotic mind was filled with thoughts like, "Why did the dragons really come? Lu Ming's conspiracy theory is finally going to succeed," and "Holy crap, it's actually the Mother Goddess who came! This is it." These thoughts left her feeling quite devastated.

It wasn't until she was under everyone's gaze that she suddenly came to her senses.

Ishtar rose gracefully and nonchalantly, dusted off her dress, and combed her slightly disheveled silver-white hair, once again transforming into a pampered and well-mannered goddess.

It was as if the person who had just suffered a series of blows to their mind and collapsed to their knees in panic was not her, but someone else.

In short, it doesn't matter. This embarrassing memory will be sealed and deleted from my mind. Apart from her radiant appearance and great feats worthy of praise, nothing else about the goddess matters.

Well, as long as you're not embarrassed, then it's others who are embarrassed...

By the way, if anyone brings this up again in the future, she'll say that the person kneeling down was the host, Felia Einzbern!

From now on, all mistakes, bad things, and embarrassing moments will be blamed on Felia, while the goddess will always be radiant, beautiful, and graceful!

Wow, I'm so clever!

She cleared her throat and turned her gaze to the person in the main seat.

"Cough cough, I didn't want this to happen either. I've been running around to catch up on the mission. It's all Lu Ming's fault for making things so rushed. My legs went weak, and I almost rolled my eyes and lost consciousness just now."

If you only look at the second half of the sentence, it seems to have a slight ambiguity.

"Oh, is that so?" Lu Ming's words were indifferent.

Ai Lei stood next to Lu Ming, and like a husband and wife, she took turns giving her kneeling rival goddess a few scornful looks. "Stop pretending. The floor was already clean. Do you want to kneel down and wipe it again with your clothes to curry favor? No need."

“Ereshkigal, even if Ishtar doesn’t want to cooperate with your ley line work, you can’t talk to her like that.”

Lu Ming said earnestly, "One thing at a time. Although Ishtar isn't a very capable person and her words aren't pleasant, at least she completed the tasks assigned to her very efficiently!"

"Show me your results. If you do a good job, your performance rating will improve."

Despite receiving rare praise, Ishtar coldly presented the poll results.

The two of you are constantly praising and criticizing each other, playing good cop and bad cop. Even your opera singing is so rhythmic. Who are you trying to impress?

The goddess is rebellious and clear-headed; she won't fall for that.

A moment later, Lu Ming casually tossed out another sentence: "Well done, from now on you'll be in charge of summarizing public opinion surveys... Hmm? Ishtar, you don't look too willing?"

"I am willing!"

Ishtar quickly seized the appointment, seeing it as a prestigious title and a powerful tool that could legitimately help her secretly build cliques, unite the "rational and clear-headed faction," and defeat the "conspiracy theorists."

The goddess hesitated for a moment, then bent her back, ultimately deciding she had to fall for it.

"By the way, let's also assign Haruli to your side as your assistant. Take her with you to all those occasions, so you can take care of her for a bit."

That little girl who's been brainwashed by conspiracy theories is here too!?

Ishtar swayed slightly.

She could already picture how her "objective and impartial" public opinion survey had been turned into a "conspiracy theory rally" by Harulli, and how her long-planned private gathering of clear-headed individuals had been decisively organized by Harulli, who was keeping a close watch on her...

In the end, Lu Ming came out on top in this round.

The goddess gritted her teeth, avoiding his sharp edge and choosing to yield for the time being!

......

"...I can't take it anymore!"

Thirty minutes later, Ishtar crouched in a corner of the hospital, put on a mask of pain, and began to regret her hasty decision.

Haruri, looking obedient, squatted down beside her, blinking her watery eyes. "Goddess... why do you look unhappy?"

Ishtar really didn't want to deal with the child.

Every time I'm with her, nothing good ever comes of it.

What bad luck.

The main thing is that she never expected that just as the new round of work was about to begin, Lu Ming would publicly broadcast the magic video of "a large number of dragons attacking the city" to everyone through the televisions in each ward.

At the same time, he also delivered a rousing speech:

"...Everyone, as you can see, my previous prediction of the dragon invasion has become a reality."

Despite this, I'm not happy. I've never felt happy when a prophecy comes true...

[Because scenes like this are playing out in every corner of the city right now, and the next one could be you, or this hospital!]

Dragons are cruel, ruthless, tyrannical, and cunning; their warlike mentality and the law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak, are deeply ingrained in their very being.

They will destroy our homes, slaughter our resistance, enslave our families, and start a war, setting everything ablaze! Folks, the enemy is upon us; the moment of true life and death is approaching. The city is too vast to accommodate even a single peaceful hospital bed!

[Unless you can make the most important decision of your life! Prove to everyone that you have the strength and courage to stand up to a powerful enemy! ......]

The speech echoed everywhere, and Haluri diligently jotted down every word Lu Ming uttered, her face filled with excitement, as if she wanted to treat it as truth and recite it day and night.

Ishtar's heart trembled. She carefully observed her surroundings... In the ward next door, Wengold was blushing and excitedly saluted the television.

Yes, even the most die-hard loyalists, when pushed to their limits, can become... even more die-hard loyalists.

Looking again, the old man on the hospital bed sat up shakily, recalling the bloody memories of his younger generation being slaughtered by monsters, his eyes burning with a fierce flame of revenge.

She remembered that this old woman had previously been a rationalist, and many older people or intellectuals belonged to this category, but now they had all "betrayed" her! The scenes in other wards and clinics were mostly the same.

"It's all over now..."

The goddess put down the investigation booklet in her hand with a blank expression. She felt that whether she did this work or not, it was meaningless. Her grand ambitions had been burned to ashes by Lu Ming's fire.

Because the result is already obvious—

Public sentiment has been stirred up, and support for conspiracy theories has skyrocketed!

Volume 1: Chapter 95 Genius, merely the threshold to his recognition

"Lu Ming, do you mean we should mobilize everyone in the hospital to fight? Is that even feasible?"

"Why not?"

Faced with the doubts and concerns of his teammates, Lu Ming answered firmly and resolutely:

"We cannot deprive them of their determination and will to resist because of their strength or weakness! The hospital here was attacked by monsters, and the people here lost a lot as a result, but this trial of blood and fire has also honed their valuable fighting experience."

"Suffering is not something to be celebrated, but it will come one after another. Everyone we accept needs to learn to adapt, to survive, and to join this great battle."

Lu Ming could not turn a blind eye to the suffering before him, nor could he abandon his fellow human beings.

But he is not omnipotent and cannot take care of and protect everyone involved.

He approached the management of his core team and the cultivation of his direct subordinates with utmost care and expended a great deal of effort.

In addition, he has to cultivate, become stronger, fight, and plan for the future every day, which takes up almost all of his time.

With the remaining meager time and energy, how could they possibly take good care of the ordinary medical staff in this hospital who have little ability to fight the disease, or even those patients with mobility difficulties?

Today, we must address both the issue of insufficient resources and the need to ensure that the public is no longer a burden or a part that requires our attention and protection.

The only way to achieve both goals is to arm and motivate the people themselves, so that they too can join the fight.

It is better to teach people how to fish than to teach people how to fish.

......

"I'm not talking about mental fortitude, but the key issue is objective conditions... Can we really provide everyone with sufficient combat power?"

Eresh pointed out the key point.

"The spoils seized from Odin's Treasury last time were given to those few dozen policemen first. There were some left over, but there are several hundred people in the hospital!"

Those items were valuable weapons accumulated over time, and coupled with Lu Ming's tactics—often using them as disposable ammunition—the attrition rate was consistently high, and there was no source of replenishment.

No matter how you look at it, there's not enough to go around, right?

"No, there was no need to consider that kind of allocation method in the first place."

Lu Ming shook his head; he had long been worried about and considering the issue of weapon production.

But that matter involves "conceptual weapon" technology, which is considered a supreme technology of one of the seven great kingdoms of alchemy in "Dragon Raja".

Odin's Spear of Eternity, a weapon forged from branches of the World Tree and imbued with the concept of "fate" that runs through causality, is such a product. Presumably, the items in Odin's vault are also made using the same principles.

Lu Ming did not consider himself a genius, and he was not yet able to reach the level of the Seven Kingdoms of Alchemy.

He had been studying alchemy for several days, but so far, he could only modify the Night's Watch's Nibelungen Plan a little and imitate Master Da Ye's martial arts.

He has yet to even begin to grasp the profound alchemy techniques of the Seven Kingdoms, techniques that only dragon kings could delve into.

Clearly, his talent is quite limited, and his current consideration of something as unrealistic as "conceptual weaponry" is purely theoretical.

Besides, Odin's Vault still has some weapons in stock, so it's not the most urgent matter right now.

He turned to the assembled crowd and said, “I have a method that can strengthen our armed forces and give the people the ability to protect themselves without firing a single shot.”

Someone asked, "What plan should we come up with?"

Lu Ming then explained, "We can use modern firearms, along with some etching modifications to the ammunition and guns. Of course, I know this requires a lot of materials, but luckily, we have already collected a lot of them while we were stationed at other outposts."

The materials he was referring to were things like the burial dust and other debris that fell from the bodies of the "Underworld Corpse Guardians".

Lu Ming remembered that the weapons at Kassel College were often equipped with ammunition with patterns etched using alchemical techniques. This kind of thing was much more effective against dragons and dragon-blooded creatures than ordinary weapons.

......

At the conference table, Olga Marie, who was participating for the first time, looked around with curiosity, unable to resist glancing around.

She had participated in countless monarchical meetings back in the Clock Tower, but this was the first time she had ever witnessed such a grand gathering where everyone, regardless of rank or status, sat together.

From Haruri, whose magical rank was insignificant, to the Grand Magician Aozaki Touko, and even those deities who should have been aloof and high-ranking, they all sat among them without any distinction of rank, like a group of obedient quails.

Olga Marie's reaction was hardly to blame. In fact, it was because the Clock Tower's bloodline hierarchy was too strict.

How strict is it?

Those whose lineage lasts less than five hundred years are automatically classified as "commoners." Only those with a lineage of five hundred years or more can be considered lower-level "nobles," while the highest tier consists of families that have existed since the Age of Gods, spanning over two thousand years. From top to bottom, there is a strict hierarchy, and exceptions like Weber are almost never seen in other contexts.

—This shows that America's magic family can almost be considered a "savage" class, not even qualifying as a "remote rural" family in an island nation.

America's exceptionally assertive behavior toward the Clock Tower and her drive to elevate her status and enhance her prestige stemmed from this.

"Using those undead materials to process ammunition... I see, it's necromancy! And combining it with the Norse sorcery 'Gandr' can enhance its power and improve accuracy..."

Olga Marie watched as Lu Ming sat in the main seat, applying powdered bone material to the bullet and etching it to create exquisite patterns.

Having received formal training, she carefully observed the process and quickly grasped its essence.

"Isn't it incredible? Only a genius like this could amaze and impress even several gods."

Olga Marie suddenly heard Orange say something next to her.

"Huh? This kind of necromancy isn't that advanced..."

"Then let me tell you, he's only been learning the Einzbern family's alchemy for a few days. The rest he learned on his own in a few hours."

"?"

Olga Marie was horrified, almost thinking she had misheard.

Generally speaking, even geniuses achieve success in "years" or similar units of time, right?