Chapter 770: Start Snatching Recruits

"Nothing. Nothing."

Prison searched the entire shrine but found nothing. All of that god's belongings had been taken away. However, a lot of the things here still had lingering traces of a god's aura, proving that just recently, a god had been residing here. Yet now he was gone.

The other god analyzed the traces. "From the godly power, this should be a minor god."

Prison was furious. "Since it's a minor god, why was he brave enough to kill my apostle?"

"Mhm..." The other god gave it some thought before shaking his head. "Nobody can answer that question."

Prison raged. "Search for him! I refuse to believe that I can't find him!" He was filled with anger, but he was unable to find an avenue to vent it. Therefore, he summoned his apostles and believers and had them search. Alas, they ultimately failed to find even a single clue. That god had seemingly vanished, leaving behind only some traces of godly power on the corpses here. Apart from this, no other clues were found.

In the first place, this territory was in the outermost border of Mountcarve City. Not far away was the territory of a different god. Due to the struggle for faith, the relationship between these gods of different territories was definitely not good. As such, it would be fundamentally impossible for him to get the help of the gods of the other territories in his search.

Moreover, nobody had a clue as to where that god had escaped. If he decided to stop using his godly power and focus purely on concealing himself, apart from the great Sin God, no other gods could find him.

"The day will come when he appears."

Prison gnashed his teeth. In his hand was the tiny amount of that god's godly power that he had gathered. With this, the moment that god showed himself, he would know immediately. So long as he sensed a similar godly power, he would be able to locate that god.

Naturally, even more important was the fact that this god had taken away the thousand-plus tribes surrounding Mountcarve City. There were so many life-forms; how had that god been able to bring them all along? Or perhaps he had a destination in mind?

Suddenly, the other god spoke. "I have a bad premonition. Could this perhaps be the work of the gods of the nearby cities? They may have wanted to expand their pool of believers and thus stole the tribes from our territory?"

Prison shook his head without hesitation. "That is not possible. They would not do such a thing."

Since none of those gods would dare do such a thing!

That was because doing something like that was equivalent to severing one's foundation. It would bring about a major grudge. If they did that and were discovered, a huge battle would ensue. At that time, a true war between the gods would erupt, and they would become mortal enemies. After all, it was impossible for any of the cities near them to conceal the number of missing tribes.

"Who could it have been, then?"

"I don't know. The believers of the nearby cities have all said that they have not noticed any exceptions."

"How can more than 1,000 tribes, with several million tribesmen, vanish into thin air? Who exactly was that god? And why did he do this?"

Prison could not understand this. The same could be said of his companion. All the gods of Mountcarve City spent a long time contemplating this, yet they failed to figure out the reason. None of them could have guessed that their line of thought was totally wrong. All of this was in fact not the work of that god; he had merely been made a scapegoat.

"Continue the search. We must determine the reason. However, we must also focus on a different issue." Prison sighed deeply. "If we fail to find the 1,000 missing tribes, what should we do?"

This was the most heart-wrenching issue. More than 1,000 tribes had gone missing. They were the foundations of Mountcarve City. Without them, in the coming decades, Mountcarve City would not have any new believers. This was the scariest issue.

"What should we do?"

This was what they had to focus on. After returning, Prison and the other god discussed with the others. They spent several days in discussion, and after confirming that it was impossible to find the missing tribes, they had no choice but to use their backup plan.

"Let's start recruiting."

"Recruiting?"

"Yes. Offer better terms secretly to the tribes nearby and get them to move over voluntarily to become part of Mountcarve City."

In short, they were going to steal recruits from other gods.

"This... is not very good, right?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"No."

"Us providing a better offer is simply healthy competition. With the unique circumstances we are in, we have to use unique methods. We must replenish the lost tribes as soon as possible. Otherwise, Mountcarve City will definitely fall in the not too distant future."

"Understood."

"Sacrifice short-term gains for long-term gains. This shall be our current focus."

"Understood."

"We don't even need to give too good an offer. We don't have to steal all their tribes. We only need to steal a bit from each city. That will be sufficient."

"Understood."

"Remember, do not recruit too excessively. We do not wish to provoke the gods of all these cities."

"Understood."

And thus, soon after, the news of the recruitment noiselessly began to spread. And with that, some tribes truly started secretly moving over. As for the gods of the other cities, they all noticed this development as well.

"Mountcarve City has crossed the line."

"However, they have been careful to not do anything that might trigger a war between gods."

"Even so, they can't do that, right?"

"I advise you guys to not get involved in this. I heard that something recently happened to them. More than 1,000 tribes went missing, and their outer region has been completely emptied. That is why they are doing this."

"Is that for real?"

"Of course. Therefore, do not place too many restrictions on them. Otherwise, if they really fail to recruit even a single believer, they will probably start to go crazy. At that time, a true war between the gods will erupt."

"Hiss. Fine, forget it. However, we can't allow them to continue doing this, right?"

"Dealing with this is easy. Put out some preferential offers as well and aim the offers at those with the potential to be apostles. Give them the best resources and treatment so as to retain the gifted ones. As for the rest... Well, those lacking ambition or talent can be given up at any time."

"That will do."

The gods of the other cities all reached a decision.

Their ultimate decision was to retain the gifted ones with preferential treatment, while the lacking ones would be allowed to freely travel to Mountcarve City. This was in fact a different method of filtering out the undesirables. Toward this, Mountcarve City was helpless.

At present, the outer region of their territory was completely empty. As such, they had to take what they could. Even those deemed undesirables could not be rejected. To deal with the preferential treatment the other cities were offering, they had no choice but to sacrifice more and spend more resources to recruit the better-quality ones. However, the vast majority of the gifted ones, those with the potential to reach the apostle realm, were not willing to move.

Just like this, a cold war started. Unexpectedly, this instead resulted in peace among these few cities, who would otherwise still have had minor skirmishes every now and then. As for now, it was a pure battle for resources. At this time, Chen Feng and the rest, who were fleeing together with the god, also heard this news.

All the major companies have started fighting over recruits. This was Chen Feng's first thought when he heard. Due to the abrupt bankruptcy of a certain training and recruitment agency, Mountcarve Company was now lacking in talent. Helpless, they had no choice but to start recruiting from the other companies. As for the other companies, they had started to increase the pay to retain their own talent. This was what Chen Feng saw.

And this... would be the perfect chance for him.