The Era of Gods

When Lin Xiao returned to the Divine Artifact Platform from the Divine Realm, a day had already passed.

By then, most of the students had already made their choices; many, like him, had returned to their own Divine Realms to prepare. Only a little over a hundred students remained on the Divine Artifact Platform, chatting in small groups to pass the time.

Lin Xiao’s appearance caught the attention of a few nearby students, who nodded at him in greeting.

As the third-to-last student to return, he had already made a certain impression on the other students.

He smiled and nodded back, conjured a chair at the edge of the Divine Artifact Platform, sat down, and pulled up a light screen with a sweep of his hands, tapping lightly on it with his fingers.

He opened a frequented novel site and immediately noticed a prompt on his bookshelf. It was clear that one of his favorited books had updated. He clicked and saw that a novel titled “In the Beginning, a Universe in the Palm” at the top of his shelf had been updated by the author ‘One Night to Dao’, with almost nine hundred thousand words.

“Hmm, this one’s got enough flesh on it to butcher!”

He opened the novel and reclined in a comfortable position to read.

As he read on, he became utterly engrossed, feeling extremely envious of the protagonist’s Golden Finger.

Comparing his own Golden Finger to the protagonist’s universe in the palm, it was clear they weren’t on the same level. If only his own Creation Magic Cube could turn into a universe in the palm, that would be awesome.

With a casual wave, he could unleash the Light of Annihilation that could destroy a star system, or a two-dimensional foliation reduction strike at the beckon of his hand, or even summon a star battleship powered by a star itself. Tsk tsk, with such a toy, Powerful Divine Power would be nothing special…

As he fantasized, he couldn’t help but drool.

Just as he was about to wipe away his saliva, he suddenly felt something, looked up, and saw Yuan Hong sitting nearby, sipping tea. He probably just happened to look up in time to see Lin Xiao drooling, and his face clearly showed undisguised disdain.

“Dammit, could the timing be any worse!”

Lin Xiao turned his face away expressionlessly, feeling as though he had lost all face.

Fortunately, the novel was captivating enough that he quickly immersed himself in the story, forgetting the recent embarrassment.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he felt the platform tremble slightly, and a prompt popped up on the light screen in front of him: “Respected student, the platform has reached the Outland and is docking with the task dimension. Please wait…”

He closed the light screen and stood up. The other students around him had also received the prompt and were getting to their feet. Following a booming ‘rumble’, streaks of gold descended once again, materializing into ten homeroom teachers and the vice principal. Xu Yundong, with a stern face, announced loudly,

“We have arrived at the designated dimension. You have one hour to prepare for your projection to the task location. During this time, you can reselect your missions. In one hour, if you haven’t departed, you will be randomly placed near the location of the mission you have chosen. If you haven’t made any choice by then, you will be randomly assigned and sent to one of three random tasks.”

After finishing his announcement in one breath, the vice principal left again, but the ten homeroom teachers hadn’t left yet. They clapped their hands to gather their students.

Lin Xiao and his classmates walked towards their homeroom teacher, Wu Hai. Although they wouldn’t be classmates after the final exam, they still were for now.

Wu Hai scanned all the students and said,

“I’ve already said what needs to be said a long time ago, so I won’t repeat myself. Just a reminder—be cautious. It’s okay to withdraw if you feel overmatched. Don’t try to be a hero. If you suffer too much loss, you’ll regret it in next term’s classes.”

After speaking, his gaze lingered on Lin Xiao, Yuan Hong, and Wan Chuan for a moment, then shifted to Meng Hui and continued,

“The four of you stay back. The rest can go prepare.”

The students looked enviously at the four and walked away.

“The few of you have the chance to be selected for the elite class. Based on the current rankings, as long as you complete a task scoring between 75 and 80 points, you’ll basically be selected for the elite class. You all know the benefits of joining the elite class, so give it your all!”

After finishing, Wu Hal’s figure slowly faded into transparency and disappeared, leaving the four looking at each other.

XXX

Yuan Hong was the first to turn around and leave.

Wan Chuan chuckled and left as well.

Lin Xiao exchanged a look with Meng Hui, cupped his hands together in respect, and also took his leave.

Even though they were classmates, their relationship was more like that of disciples from different sects in novels—competing for resources and even harboring enmity against one another.

Lin Xiao had nothing in particular to prepare. He glanced at the four tasks and chose to start with the destruction of the Fish people tribe.

The overall difficulty of the four tasks was similar, but for him, the Fishmen were the easiest to kill. He could use Slaughter to accumulate experience by killing a large number of Fishmen and first level up the six hundred Naga in the Divine Realm.

The level cap for his Clan was Level 4, but at present, they were mostly at the initial First Level, with a little over a hundred at Level 2. They had barely begun to tap into their potential.

The strength of a Level 4 creature is far superior to those of Level 1 and 2. He would first kill Fishmen to level up; with a higher level, the other two tasks would become easier.

Having made his decision, he communicated with the Divine Artifact and tapped a location on the map. A prompt from the Divine Artifact appeared:

“Please confirm the number of Clan members to transport.”

“All of them!”

“Please confirm the method of your Descend.”

“What modes of Descend are available?”

The Divine Artifact Platform immediately responded:

“True-Body Descend, Incarnation Descend, Projection Descending, Saint Descend!”

After pondering for a moment, Lin Xiao said:

“Saint Descend mode!”

“Saint Descend mode confirmed. The Descend will commence in fifteen seconds. Please wait.”

The so-called Saint Descend mode is when one’s consciousness descends into one of their own devout followers and uses this follower as an Incarnation to Descend, just like Lin Xiao previously did with the Fishman Leader—that was the Saint Descend mode.

The downside is the lack of combat power since nothing is brought along except for consciousness. The only additional advantage is that the Avatar receives a boost to all attributes according to the Divinity owned by the individual.

For example, Lin Xiao only had a bit of Divinity, so after the Descend, the vessel that housed him would receive an enhancement of +1 to all attributes.

And that’s it.

If it were a True-Body Descend, even a Divine Being with a slight amount of Divinity like him would be a little superman with a +10 to all attributes upon descending into the Outland, far stronger than the lower-level species.

However, the advantage of the Saint Descend mode is that there would be no loss upon death.

While True-Body Descend is powerful, a death in that state would mean total eradication, a complete downfall.

Fifteen seconds passed in an instant. Accompanied by an invisible force, Lin Xiao felt the Void he was in collapse and his descent hastened.

In the S-451574 Plane, streaks of Meteors invisible to mortal eyes fell from the sky onto various locations throughout the Plane.

Lin Xiao felt like a Meteor plummeting towards the Earth, surrounded by distorted air, with the ground coming closer and closer. After a few dozen seconds, the vast Earth turned into an endless flat seaside, and a large group of Nagas and Fishmen shrouded in a transparent white light appeared in front of him.

With a thought, he aimed straight for a particularly strong Naga leader and, in a flash, merged into the body of this Apostle he had previously designated..