Zhou Huai began to think.

There must be something wrong! I haven't found the correct way to use the "Great Sage" class.

What is a sage?

A sage is one who educates and enlightens the world, taking the well-being of all people as his foundation.

This setup, coupled with those overpowered passive auras like group immunity to crowd control, group healing, and lucky charms... it seems like the ultimate team-oriented support class!

It would be beneath a saint to personally engage in hand-to-hand combat with those strange beasts.

To verify the guess.

Zhou Huai summoned the archer Da Yi, who was staying at a separate residence.

Ten minutes later.

As the starlight flashed, the robust Yi, carrying an ancient longbow, appeared in the wilderness.

"Go, kill that wild boar that just spawned up ahead," Zhou Huai ordered.

Da Yi bent his bow and nocked an arrow.

"Bang!"

With a seemingly ordinary shot, the poor wild boar's head was blown off.

Li Er, who was standing not far away and hadn’t done anything or even raised his hand, suddenly heard a wonderful system notification in his mind!

【You have gained 1 merit point!】

Zhou Huai smiled.

Haha! I knew it! My guess was right!

This is the correct way to accumulate merit points!

As long as friendly units around me kill monsters, I can get merit points for free! I don't need to actually do anything, nor do I need to suffer any backlash from my words!

Having figured this out, Zhou Huai felt he was a genius.

Without further hesitation, he arranged for Li Er and Da Yi's two clones to return to the Eternal Night Guild base.

Since it's a team support build, let's go straight for the highest settings!

Zhou Huai excitedly began making arrangements.

Caesar, Moria, Yasuo, come out and be my sparring partners!

Several powerful auras descended, and Insect Emperor Caesar, Shadow Demon Lord Moria, and Thunder Sword Master Yasuo appeared in the base hall. Together with Da Yi and Li Er, they formed a magnificent five-person team.

These are top-tier combatants: three SS-level and two SSS-level!

With a wave of his hand, Zhou Huai led the team into the highest difficulty teleportation array of the Guardian Athena instance!

With this setup, which is more than capable of easily clearing any top-difficulty dungeon, using it to farm Guardian Athena now is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

But Zhou Huai didn't care; his goal was simply to help Li Er accumulate merit!

The instance is now open.

The sage Li Er, dressed in a gray robe, sat upright in the safe area at the rear.

Surrounded by holy light, I closed my eyes to rest.

Before him lay a one-sided massacre with no suspense whatsoever!

In Li Er's mind, system notification sounds were like a loudspeaker exploding, frantically flooding the screen!

【Gained 1 merit point!】

【Gained 2 merit points!】

【Gained merit points...】

Less than half an hour.

Li Er's merit points soared like a rocket, breaking through the two thousand mark!

As the golden light of the upgrade shone, Li Er's level successfully reached level two.

Awesome! So awesome!

Zhou Huai was overjoyed as he looked at the abundant merit points on the panel.

"More than two thousand merit points, now I can finally be generous, right?"

Looking at the endless stream of strange beasts approaching, Zhou Huai had a bold and crazy idea pop into his mind.

Since words can change objective rules, then... can the rules of a copy be changed?

Try it and you'll die!

Zhou Huai cleared his throat, controlled Li Er, and scanned the entire instance space with a majestic gaze.

He mobilized his immense mental power and, in a decisive tone, shouted:

The team's experience points are doubled!

The words fell.

The entire instance space trembled violently!

【Warning! Warning!】

A piercing red system notification box flashed wildly in Zhou Huai's sight!

【The backlash from this statement, which is linked to the skill, will far exceed your current total merit points!】

【Continue, and you will be killed by the backlash of ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) the law!】

【Continue?!】

Zhou Huai was stunned.

He stared wide-eyed at the blood-red warning box and couldn't help but swear.

Holy crap?!

What the heck is going on?

All I wanted was for these workers to gain more experience and double their experience points, but the backlash was so severe.

Will it even backfire and kill me?

Why the hell is that?!

It should be noted that Li Er is a genuine SSS-level professional with a body of merit, which gives him extremely high resistance to various negative effects, and he can even be said to be immune to all kinds of magic.

But now, the system is telling him that the backlash from just one buffing word is enough to kill this SSS-level character on the spot.

The side effect of words becoming law is a bit too outrageous, isn't it?!

After a brief moment of shock and confusion, Zhou Huai calmed down.

He's not the kind of person who just complains when he encounters problems.

Since the system is issuing a warning, there must be a reason for it.

He calmed down and began to carefully review his actions and thoughts just now.

The team gains double experience points...

Zhou Huai silently repeated what he had just said in his mind.

He analyzed the problem word by word, trying to find the key to the issue.

Suddenly, a brilliant idea flashed into his mind.

I see......

So that's where the problem lies!

He figured it out.

My statement just now, though it sounded simple, contained a fatal logical error—it didn't set a time limit!

"The team gains double the experience points."

Once this statement is fulfilled through the power of words, it means that as long as the team consisting of Caesar, Moria, Yasuo, Yi, and Li Er does not disband.

This double experience boost will be... permanent!

This is no longer a simple buff.

This is equivalent to Zhou Huai single-handedly forcibly modifying the underlying rules of experience point acquisition for the entire instance and even the world!

And it's a permanent change!

What terrifying backlash from the laws of the world would this godlike behavior encounter?

It's like an endless curse that will relentlessly crush and obliterate him, the instigator, from the level of rules!

Damn, I almost messed up...

Having figured this out, Zhou Huai wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, still feeling lingering fear.

It seems that although this power of words becoming law is incredibly strong, it must be used with extreme caution and careful consideration of every word.

Otherwise, they wouldn't even know how they died.

However, this also proves how terrifying this skill is.

If used properly, it's a divine skill!

Now that he had found the crux of the problem, Zhou Huai no longer hesitated.

He looked at the several clones in front of him that were still frantically slaughtering the alien beasts, and once again mobilized his enormous mental power.

This time, his wording was much more precise.

He controlled Li Er to speak slowly, his voice echoing throughout the entire instance space:

"Within one hour, all the experience points gained by this team have doubled!"

The words fell.

Zhou Huai held his breath, anxiously awaiting the system's response.

This time, the glaring red warning box did not pop up again.

It's done!

Zhou Huai was overjoyed and turned his attention to the experience value records in the system's backend.

The experience points gained, which had been steadily increasing, suddenly jumped up significantly!

Previously, for every monster Caesar's swarm crushed, the backend would gain approximately 30,000 experience points.

Now, with the same number of monsters, the experience points gained have skyrocketed to 60,000!

It really doubled!

Hahaha! Awesome!

Zhou Huai was so excited that he almost lost his aloof and dignified persona as the sage Li Er.

However, his joy was short-lived, as the next system notification followed closely behind.

【2000 merit points will be deducted to offset the backlash from this skill.】

Just seconds ago, he had painstakingly accumulated over two thousand merit points over half a day, but now he only had a few dozen left.

Almost completely cleared out!

This is way too dark!

Zhou Huai's lips twitched; he felt as if his heart was bleeding.

A single double experience buff lasting only one hour actually consumes two thousand merit points!

However, after a brief moment of heartache, Zhou Huai quickly adjusted his mindset.

Although the merit points consumed were huge, the result was a sharp increase in the team's leveling efficiency.

In the later stages, the experience points required to level up are astronomical.

With this success, everyone will be able to gain even greater benefits by following Li Er in the future.

Moreover, this is only the most basic and conventional usage of "words become law".

Zhou Huai's mind was already conjuring up countless ingenious ways to use this skill.

If... during a battle with an enemy, you suddenly say something like: "All your defenses are reduced by 50%!"

Or: All your skills go on cooldown!

What a terrifying sight that would be!

That's an absolutely unbeatable killer move!

Of course, the amount of merit required to achieve this level of power of words is probably an unimaginable astronomical figure. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

However, the emergence of the Great Sage class brought about a qualitative leap in Zhou Huai's tactical system.