This Lich is a Better Landlord Chapter 31

In a dim, filthy sewer, an evil lich interrogated a hideous, twisted hag for information about achieving godhood.

The scene had all the makings of a classic supervillain plot.

But in truth, Ambrose didn't get anything useful out of the hag.

She had heard the prophecy from other hags.

"The blasphemous experiment to create a god has finally succeeded. It's hidden in the sewers of the City of Alchemy—a treasure that can manifest the power of a deity. Whoever obtains it will become a true god."

The hag spoke with utter conviction, but after hearing her out, Ambrose could only think how foolish the world was.

If the City of Alchemy had really created an artifact that could grant godhood, would they still be waiting around? And hide it in a sewer?

They would have given it directly to their mysterious Chairman. The City of Alchemy would have solved its economic crisis in an instant. Why would they be struggling so much now?

Besides, becoming a god wasn't that simple. It was purely a mortal fantasy.

If you had to name the people on this continent closest to being gods, it would have to be the Legends.

A Legend was, in essence, a powerful individual who had transcended the mortal coil but had not yet achieved divinity. That was why Legends were also known as demigods; they already wielded a sliver of divine power and could, to a certain extent, ignore the rules that bound mortals.

The Legendary Boon Ambrose possessed was the ability to break rules—to directly create blank souls. This was a power over the rules of reality that only gods should possess.

But even for a Legend, the distance to true godhood was immense.

The whole thing was a bit like getting a government job—there was a fixed number of positions. You couldn't just get one because you were powerful.

Generally speaking, there were only two ways for a mortal to become a god.

The first was to get lucky and earn the favor of the Primordial Creator. This god of gods could appoint any living being—or even an inanimate object—to divinity by granting it a divine spark. There were no prerequisites, no side effects. A single nod from him, and you ascended to the heavens.

Ambrose, however, had never heard of any such lucky soul.

The second path, naturally, was to first become a Legend. This was like passing the first round of the civil service exam for godhood. After that, you just had to wait patiently. If you were lucky, a god might be willing to help you ascend, for instance, by sacrificing themselves and passing their divine spark on to you.

That's right. Under normal circumstances, these were the only two ways.

If the old guard didn't step down, the new gods couldn't move up.

Otherwise, with several hundred Legends roaming the continent, wouldn't they all have ascended to godhood by now?

Of course, there was also the most absurd possibility, spoken of only in whispers: forging a new path entirely, adding a new seat to the fixed roster of gods.

It was rumored that the God of Alchemy was a true new god, one who had carved out a new divine domain and earned the recognition of the Primordial Creator, allowing him to become a deity.

See the pattern? Even if you were badass enough to pioneer a new path, you still needed the Primordial Creator's final approval to become a god.

If he didn't give the nod, it didn't matter how powerful you were. You'd remain a Legend forever.

Mortals held many unrealistic fantasies about gods, which was why they believed rumors about obtaining some treasure and instantly ascending.

But on second thought, Ambrose felt something wasn't quite right.

It was one thing for druids from minor tribes and hags to be ignorant, but the Ryan Empire had plenty of Legends. They shouldn't have fallen for such a rumor. Yet, paladins from the Ryan Empire had indeed appeared in the City of Alchemy and were preparing to explore the sewers. There had to be something in this wretched place.

Seeing Ambrose fall silent, the hag thought he was also scheming for the treasure. "The prophecy has many more details," she said hurriedly. "The time, the place, the various omens... Swear in the name of a god that you will let me go, and I will tell you everything."

Ambrose listened, then said coldly, "Prophecy? Prophecy is bullshit."

The hag stared at Ambrose in shock, unable to comprehend his words. He was a mage of the School of Divination! For him to disbelieve in the power of prophecy was no different from blaspheming the very god he served.

Ambrose truly didn't believe in prophecy. More accurately, he had abandoned the path of the School of Divination.

The reason was simple: his soul wasn't noble enough. He couldn't achieve the unity of knowledge and action.

When you mastered the power of divination, you had to believe everything the prophecies revealed. You couldn't just praise a favorable outcome as "the will of heaven" and then, when faced with an unfavorable one, declare "my fate is my own to control."

The universal laws of magic didn't have patience for that kind of hypocrisy.

And if one couldn't completely accept the arrangements of fate, learning of impending misfortune would make a person anxious, indecisive, and desperate. They would try everything to avoid that unfortunate future, and in their desperate struggles, they would only hasten their demise.

The fear of death was nothing compared to the fear of waiting for death to arrive. The torment was enough to drive anyone mad.

Ambrose had never been the type to calmly accept his fate; otherwise, he wouldn't have sought eternal life so desperately. Perhaps it was because of this hypocrisy in his heart that when he ascended to become a Legend, the boon he received had nothing to do with the School of Divination.

It was this realization that made Ambrose accept his own weakness and resolve to walk a different path.

His transformation into a lich was driven by this, not just his financial pressures. But after centuries of effort, the power of the School of Divination hadn't vanished completely. It was simply frozen at the moment just before his ascension to Legend, unable to advance any further.

This was the main reason Ambrose had become something of a subpar Legend. He had personally discarded his greatest strength. To stand on the same starting line as other Legends, he would need a great deal of time to catch up.

But there was no need to explain these details to the hag. Ambrose simply raised his hand slowly, a small skinning knife appearing between his fingers. "It seems," he said to the hag, "your usefulness has come to an end."

"No, wait!"

Seeing the skinning knife in his hand, the hag's face contorted in terror, and she began to beg for her life.

But Ambrose paid her no mind. With a swift flick of his wrist, he sliced off the hag's scalp, which was sparsely covered with just a few strands of hair.

Foul-smelling blood splattered as the skin was peeled from the top of her head, revealing the pale white of her skull.

In Ambrose's hand, the hag's scalp pulsed as if it were alive, the dense patterns on it writhing like a swarm of insects.

It was a disgusting thing, but it was the most valuable part of a hag.

When a hag's scalp was flayed while she was still alive, most of her power would coalesce within it. With the addition of a few ingredients, it could be brewed into an alchemical potion that permanently increased one's attributes—be it strength, intelligence, or agility, depending on the added components.

Although such a potion only worked on those below the rank of Legend, it was still valuable enough to fetch tens of thousands of gold coins. With the prices of all goods soaring in the City of Alchemy, Ambrose was confident he could sell it for forty or even fifty thousand.

The moment the hag had offered him a mere twenty thousand gold, Ambrose had already signed her death warrant. If she couldn't offer a price higher than the value of her own scalp, why would he ever agree to let her go?

Stripped of her scalp, the hag collapsed to the ground, all her power gone. She was now weaker than an ordinary human. Ambrose didn't even need to lift a finger; the toxic stench lingering in the air quickly invaded her body, sending her into convulsions before she died.

Without the protection of her magic, the sewer environment was lethal.

Ambrose cautiously extracted the hag's soul and, for good measure, turned her corpse into a skeleton puppet. Then, he headed deeper into the sewer.

Though this outing had been a great success, Ambrose hadn't forgotten his true purpose.

He was here to catch slimes. He could only hope the location Naomi had marked was accurate.