The Era of Gods

Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Lin Xiao lay in bed for a while before getting dressed and heading out, planning to treat himself to something tasty in celebration of earning first place on the monthly test for the first time.

He summoned a taxi through an app, and when he opened the door, a silver-white aircraft was parked at the entrance of the 123rd floor of his building.

The apartment where he lived wasn’t owned by his family’s clan; it was one that his parents bought in Dongning City. The building had over five hundred floors, and he resided on the 123rd floor. The aircraft stopped right at the entrance of that floor.

In this era of ultra-fantasy and ultra-sci-fi, which was tens of thousands of years beyond his previous life, skyscrapers like this one were commonplace everywhere.

Lin Xiao was still on Earth, but he didn’t know if it was the Earth of tens of thousands of years after his previous life, or an Earth from a parallel space.

About over two hundred thousand years ago, the Divine Realm game appeared out of nowhere. Initially, everyone thought it was just a regular game. But when the first player achieved Divine Enthronement and uncovered the mysteries of the game, it became clear that this was no ordinary game, but a real Divine Enthronement game.

Players logged into the game, established their own realms in subspace, developed them, invaded the Crystal Wall Systems in the Chaos Sea of Void across the subspace, plundered resources, vied for beliefs, seized Divinity, and ultimately, the great divine power became their own, ascending to become The God Above.

In this current era, the Divine Realm has influenced every aspect of civilization. After graduating from twelve years of elementary school, all citizens undertake a comprehensive assessment, which includes theoretical knowledge, psychological tests, and more.

Those who pass get a chance to open their Divine Realm. Successful applicants become official Enshrining God’s Players and enter schools designed to nurture deities.

Those who fail don’t get a second chance and can only attend regular high schools to study various professional knowledge; after graduation, they can only become ordinary people.

So, not everyone in this ultra-fantasy civilization is a deity; over ninety percent are still ordinary humans, cohabiting with Divine Enthronement players.

There is a class division between gods and mortals, which is inevitable. The ruling class of the Federation consists entirely of deities, with little chance for ordinary people to enter.

However, this is, after all, an ultra-modern civilization, and the Human Federation’s slogan is ‘equality for all beings.’

While it’s inevitable that deities have privileges, ordinary people aren’t without opportunities to rise up. The Federation’s constitution stipulates that any offspring of ordinary people are eligible to participate in the annual comprehensive assessment. If they pass, they have the chance to open their Divine Realm.

Whether or not they can successfully create a realm is one matter, but the opportunity is there for everyone.

Many deities now, whether it’s been hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years ago, all started out as ordinary people. Whether you can become a member of the privileged class depends on your own skill and luck.

It’s precisely because of the constitutional guarantee of upward mobility that, despite the clear privileges of the deity class, the structure of civilization remains as stable as Mount Tai.

Lin Xiao was very lucky in this life, born directly into the privileged class. The most obvious indication of this was—

No tuition fees, generous living stipends every month, and even half-price fares for transport. Not to mention other priority rights.

For example, mating priority rights. When chasing girls alongside ordinary people, success rates start with a bonus +99% and then some.

The aircraft flew between the skyscrapers of the bustling city, arriving at a thousand-story skyscraper. A huge poster of an impeccably beautiful goddess was displayed on a giant screen on the central wall of the towering building.

This beauty was well-known to Lin Xiao—her name was Leng Qingxuan, one of the Human Federation’s top ten songstresses. She also held godhoods in music, dance, femininity, and talent, with a God Level reaching twelve, a true Medium Divine Power goddess.

The Federation’s top ten songstresses each possessed godhoods in areas such as music, at the very least reaching the status of True God.

In this age, just being beautiful wasn’t enough to stand out without talent.

The aircraft entered the huge building, which covered hundreds of thousands of square meters, and after traveling down a long corridor, it came to a stop at a station-like berth.

After paying the fare, Lin Xiao snapped his fingers with a ‘pop,’ and a flying board detached from one of the hanging slots on the edge of the platform, flying over and hovering beneath his feet. He stepped on it, and the board automatically floated up and flew forward.

Exiting the station, he was greeted by a supremely bustling commercial street, brimming with people and colorful neon lights.

Lin Xiao expertly ducked into an alley off a side street that led to a snack street, where he found a shop with a sign that read “Level 2 Brother Beef Noodles” and sat down. The chef who was making noodles smiled and held up a finger as he saw him:

“The usual?”

“The usual.”

Looking around, the business was booming.

Soon a large bowl was placed in front of him. He grabbed a chopstick full of hot noodles and stuffed them into his mouth without a word.

“Delicious!”

With a piece of beef as long as half a palm, the flavor was exquisite. Ever since he discovered this place, Lin Xiao would come by almost every week for a meal.

After gobbling down the bowl, which was almost as big as a small washbasin, he wiped his mouth, paid the bill, bid farewell, and left.

He loitered around the street for a while longer, strolling through the bustling area. Most of the people on the streets were ordinary humans, with very few divine beings like him, and occasionally entire families of demigods were out enjoying themselves.

These were mostly individuals who had graduated and entered society, unable to become resident demigods within the Different Crystal Wall Extra-dimensional plan and having to find jobs in reality, placing their hopes on the next generation.

Those with the potential to become demigods or who were already demigods rarely lingered in reality. They were mostly located in the Crystal Wall Systems of the Chaos Sea of Void, on planes referred to in modern terms as the Outland.

Like Lin Xiao’s parents, they were currently in a plane cluster within the Crystal Wall System AX-14, where their clan originated. It was the clan’s foundational territory within the Chaos Sea of Void, with two True God elders of the family usually residing there, and most of the clan’s members living in that plane cluster.

Lin Xiao casually heard from the elders when he was young that the clan was trying to conquer a large extra-dimensional plane with several Indigenous Gods. He wasn’t sure if they had succeeded by now.

These matters were still a bit distant for him. His main task for the current phase was to study well. Only if he failed to get into university would he return to the clan’s plane to become a demigod with the help of the clan’s resources, after which his duty would be to serve the clan.

Currently, Lin Xiao was only in his first year of high school. If he continued to perform well after moving up to the second year and showed potential to reach True God status, he would be eligible for the clan’s support and gain access to a vast number of extremely rare Cards to boost his strength.

That’s the benefit of having backing. As long as you show your potential, resources will naturally be allocated to you.

This was crucial for Lin Xiao, for even though he had a Golden Finger, without Cards, he would be like a skilled chef without any rice—an inability to make a move.