Zhou Huai fell into deep thought.

Something must be wrong! He hadn't found the proper usage for the "Great Saint" class yet.

What is a Saint?

A Saint is meant to enlighten the world and prioritize the common people.

With this setting, combined with those perverted passive auras for group crowd-control immunity, mass healing, and luck blessing... this seems to be the ultimate team support class!

Having a Saint personally take the field to fight exotic beasts hand-to-hand and engage in close-quarters monster killing was indeed way too beneath him.

To verify his theory...

Zhou Huai summoned the Divine Archer Da Yi, who was far away in a separate courtyard.

Ten minutes later.

Starlight flashed, and Da Yi, robustly built and carrying an ancient longbow on his back, appeared in the wilderness.

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

Da Yi drew his bow and notched an arrow.

"Bang!"

With an utterly plain and ordinary shot, the poor wild boar's head was directly blown apart.

Meanwhile, Li Er, who was standing not far away having done nothing at all without even lifting a hand, suddenly heard a wonderful System notification prompt in his mind!

【You have gained 1 Merit point!】

Zhou Huai smiled.

Hahaha! As expected! My theory was right!

This is the correct way to accumulate Merit points!

As long as friendly units kill exotic beasts around me, I can get Merit points for free! I don't need to actually make a move at all, let alone suffer any backlash from the Words Become Law!

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

He hesitated no longer and sent both Avatars, Li Er and Da Yi, back to the Evernight Guild base.

Since it's a team support, he might as well max out the configuration!

Zhou Huai excitedly began making arrangements.

"Caesar, Moria, Yasuo, all of you come out and be spar partners!"

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

This was a top-tier combat force consisting of three SS-Level Professionals and two SSS-Class Professionals!

With a wave of his hand, Zhou Huai led this team into the highest difficulty teleportation array of the Defend Athena dungeon!

With a lineup powerful enough to steamroll any top-tier difficulty dungeon, using it to farm Defend Athena now was like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

But Zhou Huai didn't care; his goal was simply to accompany Li Er to farm Merit!

The dungeon opened.

Draped in grey robes, Saint Li Er sat upright in the safe zone far in the rear.

Surrounded by Holy Light, he rested with his eyes closed.

In front of him was an absolute, one-sided slaughter!

In Li Er's mind, the System notification prompts exploded like a broken speaker, frantically spamming his view!

【Gained 1 Merit point!】

【Gained 2 Merit points!】

【Gained Merit points...】

In less than half an hour...

Li Er's Merit points rocketed up, breaking through the 2,000 mark!

Golden level-up light flared, and Li Er's Level smoothly reached Level 2.

Awesome! So satisfying!

Looking at the abundant Merit points on the panel, Zhou Huai was overjoyed.

"Over two thousand Merit points... I can finally afford to be extravagant now, right?"

Watching the endless tide of exotic beasts surging forward, a bold and crazy idea popped into Zhou Huai's mind.

Since Words Become Law can alter objective rules, then... can the rules of the dungeon be altered too?

Time to give it a shot!

Zhou Huai cleared his throat, controlled Li Er, and majestically swept his gaze across the entire dungeon space.

Channeling his massive Mental Strength, he shouted in a decisive tone:

"The experience points gained by the team shall be doubled!"

As soon as the words left his mouth...

The entire dungeon space trembled violently!

【Warning! Warning!】

Harsh red System notification boxes flashed wildly in Zhou Huai's line of sight!

【The backlash caused by this Words Become Law skill will far exceed the sum of your current Merit points!】

【If you continue execution, you will be killed by the backlash of Law!】

【Do you wish to continue?!】

Zhou Huai was dumbfounded.

Staring wide-eyed at the blood-red warning box, he couldn't help cursing out loud.

"Holy crap?!"

"What the hell is going on?"

"I just wanted to get these hired hands some extra experience and double their experience gain, how could the backlash be this severe?"

"It'll even kill me from backlash?"

"Why the hell is that?!"

You have to know, Li Er was a genuine SSS-Class Professional possessing a Body of Karma, naturally having extremely high resistance to all kinds of negative effects—one could even say he was immune to all magic.

But now, the System was prompting him that a mere buff command brought enough backlash to cause an SSS-Class like him to drop dead on the spot?

Isn't the side effect of Words Become Law a bit too ridiculous?!

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

He was not someone who merely complained when facing a problem.

Since the System gave a warning, there must be a reason for it.

He stilled his mind and began carefully reviewing his previous actions and thoughts.

"The experience points gained by the team shall be doubled..."

Zhou Huai silently repeated the words he had just said.

Analyzing word by word, he tried to pinpoint the crux of the problem.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit him.

"I get it..."

"So that's where the problem lies!"

He understood now.

Although his sentence sounded simple, he had committed a fatal logical error—he hadn't set a time limit!

"The experience points gained by the team shall be doubled."

Once implemented through Words Become Law, it meant that as long as this team formed by Caesar, Moria, Yasuo, Da Yi, and Li Er remained intact...

This double experience buff would be... permanent!

This wasn't just a simple buff anymore.

This was equivalent to Zhou Huai single-handedly forcibly modifying the underlying rules regarding experience gain for the entire dungeon, and even this world!

And it was a permanent modification!

For a feat comparable to a Creator God, how terrifying would the backlash from the world's Law be?

It would probably act like an endless curse, crushing and erasing him as the instigator incessantly from the fundamental layer of rules!

Damn it, I almost blew it...

Realizing this, Zhou Huai wiped the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead, still shaken by fear.

It seemed that although Words Become Law was powerful enough to be heaven-defying, it required utmost caution and meticulous choice of words when used.

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

However, this also proved just how terrifying this skill was.

As long as it was used properly, it was a divine skill!

Having identified the root cause, Zhou Huai hesitated no longer.

Looking at his Avatars still frantically slaughtering exotic beasts ahead, he gathered his massive Mental Strength once again.

This time, his phrasing was much more rigorous.

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

"Within one hour, all experience points gained by this team shall be increased by two times!"

As his voice faded...

Zhou Huai held his breath, nervously awaiting the System's response.

This time, the harsh red warning box didn't pop up again.

It worked!

Overjoyed, Zhou Huai shifted his attention to the experience point log in the System background.

The numbers tracking experience gain, which had been ticking steadily, shot up by a huge margin at that moment!

Previously, whenever Caesar's swarm crushed a cluster of exotic beasts, the background log recorded roughly thirty thousand experience points.

But now, for the exact same number of monsters, the experience gained surged directly to sixty thousand!

It really doubled!

Hahaha! Awesome!

Zhou Huai was so excited he almost failed to maintain Saint Li Er's aloof persona.

However, before he could celebrate for long, the next System notification followed immediately.

【Deducted 2,000 Merit points to offset this skill backlash.】

Just a few seconds ago, he had over two thousand Merit points accumulated after much hard work, but now only a few dozen remained.

It was practically wiped clean!

Isn't this way too steep?

Zhou Huai's mouth twitched; he felt his heart bleeding.

A double experience buff lasting just one hour actually consumed two thousand Merit points!

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

Although the Merit point cost was immense, in return, the team's levelling efficiency skyrocketed.

Once they reached the Late Stage, the experience required for every single level up would be an astronomical figure.

With this successful test, everyone could reap even greater benefits alongside Li Er in the future.

What's more, this was merely the most basic and conventional usage of Words Become Law.

Countless trick plays involving this skill had already begun emerging in Zhou Huai's mind.

What if... during a fight with an enemy, he suddenly declared out of nowhere: "All your defenses are reduced by fifty percent!"

Or: "All your skills are entering cooldown!"

What kind of terrifying scene would that be?!

It would practically be an unanswerable fatal blow!

Of course, the Merit points required to achieve that level of Word Spirit would likely be an unimaginably astronomical figure as well.

But no matter what, the emergence of the Great Saint class gave Zhou Huai's tactical System a qualitative leap.