The Era of Gods

“Damn, how did my brother-in-law end up here?”

Although the standards for the mid-term exam were high, it surely wasn’t necessary for someone of his brother-in-law’s status to make the effort to come and escort him, right? Was it to protect his own sister?

Xia Yu stared daggers at Lin Xiao, then turned to his well-behaved little sister sitting there. Both of them were sitting motionless, and for a moment, he didn’t know what to say.

It wasn’t that he really disliked him; it’s just that he had only recently learned he had a sister and hadn’t even spoiled her for long before he discovered she was being wooed by some bozo, which inexplicably infuriated him.

He snorted coldly, and his brother-in-law’s voice reached Lin Xiao’s ears:

“Follow me.”

After speaking, he walked out of the room with his hands behind his back. Xia Yu looked up and locked eyes with Shen Yuexin, who stuck out her pink tongue and whispered as she got up:

“Hurry up, or brother is going to get angry.”

As the two stood up, the others around the round table cast surprised glances their way, as they seemed not to have seen the brother-in-law who had just appeared.

Outside the room was a corridor, with a row of rooms at intervals. The two entered one of the rooms with an open door, and Xia Yu was seated inside, seemingly engrossed in something. He smiled at his sister and asked her to sit, but completely disregarded Lin Xiao until their aunt tugged at his clothes to get him to sit down, drawing an ominous gaze from their brother-in-law.

The two sat for quite a while as Xia Yu continued to be engrossed in something, seemingly intending to give Lin Xiao the cold shoulder. But as soon as his sister prolonged the word “brother” in a call, he couldn’t keep up the act.

He sighed, looked up at the two, and finally turned to Lin Xiao with a reluctant spread of his hands, tossing a crystal card branded with a strange pattern to him.

Lin Xiao caught it quickly, its cool and seemingly sturdy material puzzling him, let alone understanding its purpose.

“Alright, you can go now.”

An invisible force made him stand up and leave the room against his will.

Before leaving, he turned back to see his brother-in-law take out a large bunch, probably about a dozen crystal cards, and put them in Shen Yuexin’s hand, saying:

“Hold on to these well. When you enter the Ruins of Myriad, each card allows you to directly choose an initial option, and you can stack them repeatedly.”

Lin Xiao….

“Bang!”

The door closed, and he stood at the entrance with a speechless expression, examining the card in his hand.

Clearly, this thing was an extra starting resource, where one card represented one resource. Thinking about the dozen or so cards in his little aunt’s hands, it was like starting a game with cheats—and not just once, but a dozen times over.

It couldn’t be denied that the resource disparity between someone well-born and someone with a more modest background was simply too vast. At least, Lin Xiao’s clan couldn’t provide anything for him in this situation.

It wasn’t a matter of whether the clan was willing to give but a question of not being able to give at all. This thing was a matter of privilege, and ordinary True God families had no way of obtaining extra permissions from the Ruins of Myriad.

Tossing the crystal card back and forth, Lin Xiao shrugged and tucked it away —after all, one shouldn’t refuse extra starting resources when they’re offered. Without waiting for his little aunt, he walked back to the gathering room, hands behind his back. Just as he neared the door, another room opened, and the homeroom teacher Jin Sisi came out, beckoning to him:

“Come here.”

Then, six more of the same crystal cards were passed into his hands.

“Once you enter the Ruins of Myriad, each card will grant you an additional initial option, which can be stacked repeatedly.”

“Cough!”

A smile immediately appeared on Lin Xiao’s face. He took the six cards and casually inquired while stowing them away:

“Does everyone get these, or is it just me?”

“These are the permissions allocated by the school, as well as my personal permissions,” she said.

As she spoke, her expression grew serious, and she said in a deep voice:

“There is a cost to betting all my permissions on you. If you fail to achieve good enough results this time, the quota of resources I can allocate through the school will decrease, which will affect my evaluation this term, and in turn, will affect the resources you can access in the future. So you must give it your all!”

Lin Xiao nodded earnestly:

“I won’t let you down.”

“Good, go back then.”

When he returned to the original room, Shen Yuexin was already sitting there chatting with the only other girl in the team. The other male students each had their own conversations, but they all stopped when they saw him enter.

Gu Xiaoming and Yun Shaoning nodded to him, a gesture that surprised Lin Xiao; Yun Shaoning had actually managed to squeeze in as well.

Then Li Xiushen and Dongfang Piaoxue also nodded at him. They had talked before, agreeing not to attack each other in the Ruins of Myriad.

Apart from them, he didn’t recognize the remaining eight individuals.

There were a total of fifteen students going to the Ruins of Myriad, including Lin Xiao. Ten were from school quotas—six from the first and four from the second school—while the remaining five slots were personal, which he guessed were allocated by the clans behind them.

All fifteen were going as Avatars in Avatar Descend. Everyone seated was an Avatar; no one dared to use True-Body Descend.

They were all familiar with each other and recognized one another, but Lin Xiao knew none of them.

Once he took his seat, the handsome man with white eyebrows and diagonally swept hair, Dongfang Piaoxue, stood up and said:

“Everyone knows that this time, the participants of the Ruins of Myriad come from the four major forces of the Main World, including the top academies, as well as the descendants of top True Gods and noble families. The competition is fierce. Although we’re divided into Fifth Level and Second Level, we all belong to Radiance, and when the time comes, we must present a united front against others.”

Li Xiushen also stood up and added:

“To outsiders, we from Radiance are formidable adversaries. Precisely because of this, we will definitely face more challenges from our enemies, especially from those in other top non-Chinese Super Academies who will surely be resentful toward us. According to past situations, challengers will definitely appear before we enter the ruins. At that time, we can share the pressure together to avoid embarrassment in front of billions of Main World viewers.” “Billions of Main World viewers?”

Lin Xiao whispered a question to Shen Yuexin, who replied:

“The rules have changed a bit this time. I heard that a True God with the Godhood of gambling and betting has persuaded the Guardians of the Ruins of Myriad to open the event to the public. Moreover, they’ve established an official lottery center, allowing the public to place bets.”

“Ah  ”

Lin Xiao’s mouth hung open in surprise.

“Is that even possible?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s not unprecedented; once every couple of hundred years there’s an event like this. Many have made a fortune from it.”

It was Li Xiushen who explained this. He laughed and said:

“Actually, this is also a good thing for us. If we perform well in the ruins, it will be directly showcased to billions of viewers. It’s a form of credentials. It can greatly benefit our prestige. As long as we’re strong enough, when the event is over we can immediately make it onto the exceptional or eminent lists without the need for cumbersome investigation and verification procedures. Plus, if we apply to college later on, it’s much easier to get sponsorship, whether we’re establishing a Divine System or anything else.”

“Moreover, we can also place bets on ourselves.”

Dongfang Piaoxue raised his eyebrows and suggested to Lin Xiao:

“If you’re confident, you can assess your own capability and bet on your ranking. If you win, it could be a huge profit.”

Speaking of which, a youth with rings of blue Aura contracting in his pupils added:

“It’s said that over two thousand years ago, there was a huge upset. A participant, not particularly strong, bet on himself to take first place. And he actually did it, not only leveraging the first-place rewards to leapfrog into the ranks of the prodigies, but the betting prize money also made his wealth skyrocket, instantly comparable to the total assets of a small Divine System.” “Assets comparable to a small Divine System?”

This example was enticing. Lin Xiao immediately began to think that maybe he could take a gamble on himself when the time came.

Suddenly he thought of something and hurriedly asked:

“Hold on, can we bet on ourselves?”

Li Xiushen shook his head:

“Definitely not. But you can have your family or friends place the bet for you. And don’t even think about exploiting loopholes; you won’t be allowed to bet on your own loss, or when you’ll lose, and so on.”

Lin Xiao:….

With a new topic, the group of young people quickly became engaged in the conversation, followed by everyone introducing themselves:

“Lin Xiao, from Second Level.”

“Li Xiushen, from Fifth Level.”

“Dongfang Piaoxue, from Fifth Level.”

“Lin Huang, from Fifth Level.” “Xu Zhen, from Fifth Level.” “Yun Yi, from Fifth Level.” “Lu Zhou, from Fifth Level.”

Good grief, they were all from Fifth Level—out of fifteen people, eleven were from Fifth Level and just four from Second Level. The gap was a bit large.

The following time was spent in casual conversation among the group. Although Lin Xiao had the least prestigious background, he had proven himself with his own strength, which made them put aside any prejudices. Or to put it another way, in the eyes of these elite youths, Lin Xiao, who possessed such potential, was destined to be on the same level as them, so naturally they got along.

After all, there is an old Chinese saying that has been passed down to this day— “Be he king or commoner, who is not of noble seed!”

The ancestors of many of the youths present all started as commoners, growing step by step until they finally achieved Divine Enthronement and created a vast clan. Even the father of Shen Yuexin, that great being, was originally of common birth.

Fortunately, her father was still around. Had it been another prominent family, Lin Xiao might not even have had the chance to make a courtship attempt.

The Void Battleship they were riding had just left Yan Huang No. 2 Super War Fortress and was heading toward the Crystal Wall System where the Ruins of Myriad were located.

Normally, to reach a Crystal Wall System in the Chaos Sea of Void, one could directly teleport through any of the Super War Fortresses, but the Crystal Wall System where the Ruins of Myriad are located is different. As stated in the materials given by the head teacher, this Crystal Wall System, once belonging to the top academy known as Myriad Images Conquest, used to be directly accessible by teleportation a long time ago.

However, after a cataclysmic event, the Myriad Images God System, which was once considered by billions of Deities of the Main World as potentially the thirteenth Super Academy, was destroyed. Countless Deities fell in that catastrophe, and even the Crystal Wall System itself collapsed, contracted, and crumbled in that earth-shattering upheaval.

Today, almost all of the passages to the outside world, including those to the Main World, have disappeared. Now, to get there, one must first travel to a Crystal Wall System and then transfer from the edge of Myriad to the Myriad Images God Temple. There, through the Divine Power of the remaining guardian Deities of the Myriad Images God System—each over God Level fifteen—one can enter the collapsed Crystal Wall System.

PS: Seeking monthly tickets at the start of the month..