The Era of Gods

“Damn, there is an Under World in this plane?”

Lin Xiao instantly knew what was going on; obviously, the underground base he had dug was too deep, and it happens to be quite near the Under World. Then a group of cave people and gray dwarves accidentally broke through the thin stone wall and discovered the underground base.

“Wait, Gray Dwarves!”

Lin Xiao’s face lit up with realization. He quickly gathered all the wood golems, and he launched a fireball into the warehouse, causing an explosion that knocked down many, and then the cave people didn’t dare to come up anymore.

Having discovered the Under World, the work of making stone golems had to be put on hold.

First, he sealed off the exit of the underground base, sent out four golems each holding a bright light ball ahead of them, and observed the surroundings by sharing the golems’ field of view. Finding no danger, he then led a group of golems into the hole.

This was a very common Under World, or to be precise, it was part of a naturally rugged passage that’s commonplace in the Under World. Few creatures frequented it, but the gray dwarves had discovered a black iron vein near this passage and thus, the entire tribe had relocated here. These cave people were a vassal race to the gray dwarves.

Under the vigorous excavation of the gray dwarves, a large area had been dug out, forming a new underground space. There were no veins near Lin Xiao’s underground space; it was an accidental breakthrough by the gray dwarves while they were exploring for more mines.

After understanding all this, Lin Xiao quickly retreated back to the underground base with all the golems, and after blocking the opened breach, he altered his form to match that of a dead gray dwarf, transforming himself into a sturdy gray dwarf.

As a Divine Incarnation, he could transform into any creature, even a dragon if need be.

However, there wasn’t enough divine power to emulate a dragon’s strength, and fluttering about as a high-profile dragon wasn’t his style either.

According to what he had learned in theory classes, the easiest way to infiltrate the ranks of Other Races was to become one of them.

Lin Xiao had been worried about not having capable subordinates, but now, a gray dwarf tribe was right in front of him.

As a renowned blacksmith race within the Chaos Sea All Crystal Universe, both dwarves and gray dwarves were excellent craftsmen. Countless superior equipment pieces were made by their hands, and some ancient dwarf tribes even possessed the ability to craft divine artifacts.

Lin Xiao had been keen on getting a dwarf clan at his service, and now he had one.

Mortals would not be able to see through a deity’s illusion. The gray dwarf tribe was not large, and the absence of any Rank 6 Transcendent Level powerhouses made it even less likely for anyone to detect him.

Lin Xiao invented an identity for himself as a wandering gray dwarf mage. The tribe had never heard of a mage, but they didn’t suspect anything, especially after he displayed formidable casting abilities to kill several fierce beasts near the tribe, easily blending in and acquiring a high status among them.

As a Transcendent Level Grand Mage, it was quite easy to control a small tribe without same-tier powerhouses, especially when he now appeared as a gray dwarf and didn’t arouse their aversion.

In just one month, he had gained control of the gray dwarf tribe and became its protector.

Next, it was natural to overtly direct the ordinary gray dwarves and the cave people slaves to build him a bigger laboratory and workshop, with plenty of metal at his disposal, including various rare metals.

At this point, Lin Xiao’s plans naturally had to change a bit.

The originally planned stone golems didn’t make the cut, but he delegated the task of crafting stone golem bodies to his subordinates.

He first created a standard stone golem model for them to follow. The gray dwarves chiseled accordingly, and he only took care of inscribing the arrays, greatly increasing efficiency.

Simultaneously, he had free access to the gray dwarves’ stocks, melting down the piles of iron ingots in the tribe’s warehouse into steel ingots, and began to manufacture Armored Golems.

What he really wanted was to create Steel Golems that could match Rank 6 Transcendent Level beings, but he lacked the technology.

The construction of the Armored Golems’ shell was also left to the gray dwarves, and he discovered that the smith-loving gray dwarves were even more efficient when building the outwardly more complex shells for the Armored Golems than when they worked on stone golems.

With the help of a tribe of over a thousand gray dwarves and more than two thousand cave people slaves, Lin Xiao amassed a staggering two hundred stone golems and over sixty Armored Golems in just four months.

Along with the previous two months, half a year had passed before he knew it.

The Plane Will’s scan had failed to detect him six times, but Lin Xiao had a premonition that these peaceful days wouldn’t last much longer. As his influence on the plane increased, the likelihood of being discovered increased, and he suspected he wouldn’t last many more months.

Fortunately, even if he were discovered ahead of schedule, it wouldn’t result in elimination, just a deduction of some points.

Moreover, the weighting of the first phase’s score wasn’t high; the emphasis was on the second phase—invading and conquering the plane, where the score weighting was significant.

Half a year of preparation, it was time for him to emerge.

Hmm, it’s time to start expanding my influence.

Beyond the steadily increasing number of golems under his control, the strength of the golems he now possessed had already surpassed that of the entire Gray Dwarf Tribe. The main reason he wasn’t continuing to make more golems was that he was running out of resources—the iron ingots hoarded by the Gray Dwarf Tribe were all used up. He prepared to take the initiative to start a war, to snatch resources from other underground races in this Under World, as preparation for the construction of the interdimensional teleportation array.

While the resources required to create golems and the like were significant, in comparison to the rare and ultra-rare resources required for an interdimensional teleportation array, they were merely a drop in the bucket.

The steel needed just for a simple array foundation exceeded the steel used for all the golems created so far, and this wasn’t merely common steel but an amalgam of various rare and ultra-rare magic materials to form a compound magic metal. The demands…

Let’s just say, by relying on transformation alone, it would take centuries to complete.

The Gray Dwarf Tribe was a native race of the Under World, well acquainted with the surroundings. Lin Xiao had the Gray Dwarves obtain a detailed map, and after reviewing it, he had a portion of the Gray Dwarves lead a large number of golems to defeat the scattered small tribes of other races nearby and then move the entire tribe’s population and storages here in annoyance.

Goblins, Cave People, Underground Dog-headed Men, Underground Orcs, and so on.

Resources for our own use, populations as slaves.

After two months of clearing out the surrounding small tribes, the next step was to begin attacking the largest underground space nearby.

It was an underground space with a diameter of seven or eight kilometers, with a huge domed ceiling covered in stalactites and hung with vines and other underground organisms. Countless glowing insect-like creatures gathered together like a cloud of light, emitting a faint glow to illuminate the Under World.

In this place lived a community of Zorel Elves, who had built a city in this Under World and enslaved tens of thousands of individuals from other races.

The Zorel Elves here were different from the renowned Zorel Elves of the Toriel world; they neither worshiped the Spider Queen Lolth nor were they a matriarchal society. Instead, they had a patriarchal society, and there was no Spider Queen in this world, only a Deity known as the God of Zoel.

Of course, whether the God of Zoel actually existed was debatable, just like the various deities worshipped by the sundry little tribes Lin Xiao conquered. But in reality, after conquest, he found none of it was true. They were either powerful underground beings or fictitious deities.

Of course, even if they were fictitious deities, as long as there were enough believers, a corresponding deity could emerge from nothingness.

But this was very difficult. At least for these small tribes, even a thousand years of accumulated faith wouldn’t be enough to coalesce into anything.

In an unknown plane, Yun Shaoning incarnated as a human and blended into the human society of this plane, rising to the rank of General in one of its kingdoms using his formidable strength and abilities, combined with the military knowledge from the Main World system, becoming a famous General whose renown spread far and wide, and thus was ennobled for his military achievements to become a new power-holding aristocrat.

After entering the noble circles of the kingdom, he quickly conquered the Great Princess of the kingdom using his handsome appearance and elegant demeanor, as well as knowledge far surpassing that of the natives.

Not long after, the old king of the kingdom suddenly died, and as the nobility prepared for the first heir, the Great Prince, to ascend to the throne, a scandal broke out with the assassination attempt on the Great Prince by the second prince.

As a result, the Great Prince was severely injured and soon passed away, and the second prince was killed while fleeing the Royal Capital, leaving only the Great Princess, the third in line, to ascend to the throne.

With the status of King Consort, Ning Shaoyun quickly removed his adversaries, took control of the kingdom’s power, began amassing troops and consolidating his authority.

Half a year later, the kingdom reformed its structure, declaring the abolition of noble rights such as military command and coinage, moving towards centralization of power.

This naturally led to strong resistance from the nobility of the kingdom, with several Big Nobles uniting in rebellion, kickstarting a chaotic war that swept across the entire plane.

The chaotic war ended in less than a year, with the nobles’ united forces being vanquished. The kingdom was officially reformed into an Empire, and after the Queen gave birth to a prince, she abdicated in favor of her consort.

Inside the Imperial Palace, Ning Shaoyun sat on the throne scanning the documents submitted by his ministers with haste.

He showed no joy on his face; as a Divine Being with almost eternal life, he held the power and glory of mortals in no regard. Had it not been for his need to utilize earthly power to achieve his own goals, he would have had no interest in being any kind of king.

Using his powerful abilities as a Divine Incarnation, he easily handled all affairs, picked up the cold juice that had been sitting for a while, and downed it in one go. He then unfolded the map of the plane that lay on the desk.

The plane he had descended upon was a small one, with a limited area, the most populous race being the Human Race, along with a few Other Races.

There were three nations in the whole plane, with the empire he was in being the largest. He planned to unify the entire plane within two years, spend an extra year training troops and stockpiling food; all in preparation for his grand plan.

As an elite with lofty ambitions, his goal was not just the conquest of this plane.

For a small plane like this, even if he did his best, there was a limit; it would be a challenge to set himself apart from his peers and earn the highest evaluation. Therefore, he had to do more, like—conquering planes.

Using this small plane as a base, he aimed to conquer more surrounding planes.