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"Children, the Great Lord of the Grey Mist, the King of the Endless Tide, the Master of the Seven Seas is watching over us!"
"It's time to show our valor and kill these heretics!"
On the broad shallows, Lin Xiao, standing about one meter seventy-eight tall, forcefully pushed off the ground, kicking up a ring of fine sand. He leaped high, each hand clutching a bone knife with a wooden handle, nimbly twisting midair to dodge an incoming bone fork. He then fiercely plunged a knife into the bulging eyes of a Lobster Man before him. His strength, far superior to that of ordinary people, buried the blade deep into the eye socket, cleaving through the shell. Instantly, the Lobster Man's head was split open, yellow and red brain matter splattered everywhere, soon washed into the sea by the rising tide.
With a kick, he sent the Lobster Man's corpse flying. Then, a strange cry came from behind him:
"In the name of the Lord of the Grey Mist, kill these heretics!"
A large group of Gray-scale Fish People, only about one meter twelve in height and resembling children, their bodies covered in fine grey scales... they brandished various fish and bone forks as they rushed past him, charging toward the remaining nine Lobster Men on the other end of the beach with loud cries.
Compared to the child-like stature of the Gray-scale Fish People, these Lobster Men were about one meter sixty-seven tall, their bodies encased in a thick shell. In both size and defense, they utterly dominated.
Unfortunately, they were vastly outnumbered—the seventy to eighty Gray-scale Fish People swarmed them. Even ants can kill an elephant when enough of them attack.
Lin Xiao didn't idle either. After catching his breath, he quickly followed. With a burst of speed, he charged to the front of one encirclement and shouted:
"Make way!"
A few Gray-scale Fish People intuitively parted for him. Lin Xiao used the momentum of his leap to lunge forward, brutally stabbing through the hard shell of a Lobster Man before quickly withdrawing and retreating. The surrounding Gray-scale Fish People swiftly closed in for the kill.
Without taking a breath, Lin Xiao immediately charged toward another Lobster Man. Midway, he suddenly turned, hurling his bone knife from a distance, hitting another Lobster Man that was being attacked and saving a Fishman who was almost impaled to death.
But the injured Lobster Man, in a frenzy, lashed out wildly with its fork, and incredibly struck a Gray-scale Fishman in the head, the bone penetrating more than a dozen centimeters into the skull.
"Fuck! Another one dead."
Lin Xiao cursed inwardly, despairing over the pitiful combat power of his Clan.
But cursing did him no good, and he steeled himself, pressing on with his fight. Leveraging his combat power and skills that far exceeded those of his kin, he killed two more Lobster Men, wounded two others, and rescued his comrades seven times. It took a full half-hour and the deaths of six plus eight more wounded before they managed to kill the remaining Lobster Men.
When the last Lobster Man fell, the many Grey Mist Fish People cheered and pounced on the Lobster Men's corpses. An impatient one grabbed a severed Lobster Man hand and was about to bite into it when Lin Xiao backhanded a punch that sent him flying into the sand.
He paid no mind to the Fishman, instead reaching out to hoist a Lobster Man's corpse high and roared up to the sky:
"The Great Lord of the Grey Mist grants us the strength to defeat our enemies, tonight we shall sacrifice these spoils to the Great Lord of the Grey Mist!"
Immediately, Grey Mist Fish People echoed the shout:
"In the name of the Lord of the Grey Mist!"
This was the big draw, the one with the highest level of faith among all the Clans.
Having said this, Lin Xiao dragged the Lobster Man's corpse towards the opposite end of the beach, while mentally summoning:
"Open panel."
Immediately, a screen that only he could see popped up in front of him, displaying a series of data.
Deity Interface:
Username: Lin Xiao (Citizen ID: txwd542154895147)
True Name: Cyberlex Meyer.
Divine Name: Lord of the Grey Mist, King of the Endless Tide, Master of the Seven Seas.
Divinity: None
Godhood: None
Divinity: 1.
Divine Fire: Unlit.
Divine Power: 1.
Superhuman Divine Power: Tide Call.
Divine Realm: Sea of Grey Mist.
Sects: Ancestral Fish God.
Believers: Grey Mist Fish People.
Occupation: None.
Faith value: 14425 points.
"Not bad!"
Lin Xiao's gaze skipped directly over the first few lines, focusing on the last item regarding faith value, which had increased by roughly seventy to eighty points from the previous 14347 points.
Then, with a thought, he turned to the panel below marked 'Sect Interface,' and with a flash, a second screen popped up.
Sect Interface:
Sect: Ancestral Fish God
Holy Sign: Fishman with a trident surrounded by seawater
Belief: Ancestral Worship (Primordial Religion).
Chosen: Not selected (requires 10 Divine Power points)
Divine Arts: First Level Underwater Breathing, First Level Speed Up in Water, First Level Seawater Essence.
Priest: Not selected
Believers: 1 Fanatic Believers, 14 Devout Believers, 33 True Believers, 59 Casual Believers.
```
"Two more True Believers, not bad."
Lin Xiao smacked his lips as he looked at another racial interface:
Racial Interface
Race: Grey Mist Fish People
Category: Sub-human Species
Grade: Low-grade Race
Profession: None
Talent: Underwater Breathing
Skills: None
Specialty: Basic Swimming,
Constitution: 0.6 (A grown human has 1 point.)
Strength: 0.5 (An eighty-year-old man's momentary burst of energy might surpass yours.)
Agility: 0.4/1.1 (Land/Water)
Spirit: 0.4 (Even with genetic mutation, there's no way to become a spellcaster)
Assessment: An extremely weak aquatic race.
There wasn't much to see in the racial interface; Lin Xiao had seen it countless times, with no changes over the years. However, on the troop statistics panel, there was a pleasant surprise. Out of a total of 107 Grey Mist Fish People, two showed yellow plus signs, indicating that these two Grey Mist Fish People had accumulated enough battle experience to level up.
He immediately focused his consciousness on these two fish people marked with yellow pluses, and instantly, a faint aura of light emerged behind the two fish people, setting them apart from the others.
"I'll promote them once we get back!"
Lin Xiao felt cheerful, which alleviated much of his frustration from the seven losses in his clan.
Life and death are predestined, and wealth is in the hands of Heaven; for such a weak race, dying in battle was commonplace. From initially watching over them carefully, fearing their death, to now treating it as normal, it had only taken Lin Xiao half a year.
Less than a thousand meters away from the battlefield, at the end of a sandy beach, there was a Fish People tribe. The Grey Mist Fish People crushed seashells and mixed them with sand, then added ground fish blood and flesh remnants from their catches to build their houses made of sand structures.
Of course, this was not thought up by the fish people themselves. With the Grey Mist Fish People's pitiful brain capacity, how could they possibly come up with this? This, of course, was the handiwork of the wise, valiant, handsome, and elegant Lord of the Grey Mist, Lin Xiao, who imparted it in the name of a god first to himself, then taught it to these Grey Mist Fish People.
Upon returning to the tribe, the dozens of remaining elderly and disabled fish people joyously welcomed them and carried the spoils back to the tribe. That night, under Lin Xiao's supervision, a 'grand' sacrifice ceremony was held.
"Great Lord of the Grey Mist, King of the Endless Tide, Master of the Seven Seas."
"Creator of all things in the world, the Supreme Being, Spread of Civilization."
"Creator of the Grey Mist Fish People, our Progenitor."
Even though he had read it many times, Lin Xiao still felt a bit of shame when it came to these lines.
But considering it was related to the faith of his clan, he still bit the bullet and continued reading with enduring embarrassment:
"Protect us, the great existence that allows us to survive and reproduce."
"Seborlex."
"Here we offer our sacrifices and our devout faith."
At this point, Lin Xiao's voice suddenly grew louder, and with a booming voice that common fish people could hardly muster, he prayed:
"Oh great Lord of the Grey Mist above, please accept our offering, and grant our brave warriors greater strength!"
With those words, he grabbed the body of a Lobster Man lying next to him and threw it onto the altar. Several more muscular Fish People warriors lifted the Lobster Man's corpse onto the altar, after which Lin Xiao grabbed a Bone Staff and began to fervently perform a self-invented Maori war dance.
Inspired by him, the Grey Mist Fish People around the altar also began performing their familiar war dance.
At that moment, much like a Fanatic Believer, the Fishman Leader, who was dancing zealously, suddenly stopped and returned to normal. However, on an unnoticed level, a golden ray imbued with a profound aura shot into the sky. Above the tribe, it transformed into a golden human silhouette, which resembled a handsome young human male.
This golden silhouette was shrouded by a layer of profound power, indistinctly obscuring the view.
Lin Xiao surveyed the surroundings; being able to see through his Divine Realm, which was five kilometers long, three and a half kilometers wide, and one kilometer high in just one glance. The vast Divine Realm was silent in the night, only this Grey Mist Fish People tribe held some light and sound.
This small tribe of just over a hundred members was all of Lin Xiao's clan, comprised of just twelve Level One Fish People warriors and ninety-five Level Zero Fish People.
Well, there was also him, the Lord of the Grey Mist doubling as Tribal Chief, a formidable Fishman standing at 1.78 meters tall, a giant in the eyes of the other Grey Mist Fish People.
"Open the racial interface!"
The familiar light screen popped up, and Lin Xiao expertly found the troop statistics interface, located the two Level Zero Grey Mist Fish People marked with a yellow plus, and tapped with a finger exuding faint golden light. Two hundred faith points disappeared, and the two Level Zero Grey Mist Fish People were thus promoted to Level One Grey Mist warriors.
This was merely a tap on his part, but in reality, it manifested as two streams of golden light flying out of the Holy Proof in the center of the altar and striking the two fish people cheering around the altar. In the next second, both Grey Mist Fish People emitted a roar, growing visibly larger.
In less than ten seconds, these two fish people grew from 1.1 meters to between 1.2 and 1.3 meters tall, a head taller than their kin, and even more robust with darker and tougher scales on their bodies.
After a brief moment of stupefaction, the two newly-promoted Fish People warriors realized what had happened. They were the first to kneel before the Holy Proof on the altar, representing the Lord of the Grey Mist, and began to utter words of adoration.
Above the Vault of Heaven, Lin Xiao filtered out the adulation he had heard countless times and had grown tired of. He was now focusing on the threads of faith representing these two fish people in his sea of consciousness, which had thickened, transforming from True Believers to Devout Believers, with their faith value contribution increasing from 0.2 points per day to 1 point, a fivefold increase.
Besides that, as they witnessed their own kin empowered by the Lord of the Grey Mist and promoted right before their eyes, fifteen more True Believers and three additional Devout Believers were born.
With that, the number of Devout Believers in Lin Xiao's clan jumped to nineteen, while True Believers reached forty-three, with the daily provided faith value rising once again.
This was the main reason why he didn't promote them on the spot but rather during the sacrifice ceremony. For what could be a better way to bolster the faith of believers than personally displaying a divine miracle?
Although this was no miracle, but a mere promotion of troops, for a professional player of the Divine Enthronement game, such maneuvers had already become instinct.
Satisfied, Lin Xiao closed the panel and took one last look at his own Divine Realm. With a thought, he transformed into a beam of golden light that shot into the sky and vanished.
```
"Hiss..."
A soft sound of air pressure rang out, and the white door of the Divine Realm connection cabin opened. A pale blue mist, with a calming effect, billowed out, revealing Lin Xiao who had just opened his eyes.
He stretched out his hand to remove the transparent crystal ring on his head, massaged his brow, and carefully placed the ring in the cabin's designated storage slot.
This was a specialized device designed to stabilize the mind and buffer mental pressure. Its main function, apart from allowing him to connect to the Divine Realm in subspace, was to alleviate the sensory disarray caused by the time flow speed difference of over a hundredfold between the Main World and subspace, as well as to stabilize his mind so that a new player like him, who had just opened his Divine Realm, wouldn't get lost in the illusions produced by the Divine Power.
After all, as a newly reborn divine life, he was an ordinary person before and was new to Divine Power and Divinity. Without this assistance, it would be very easy to get lost in the powerful force brought by Divine Power.
When the Human Federation first discovered the divine game, there were no such sophisticated assistive facilities, and it was common to hear about people whose personalities drastically changed due to the influence of Divinity and Divine Power. Those with weaker resolve were directly enslaved by the power of Divinity.
Lin Xiao traveled to a very good point in time. By then, after tens of thousands of years of exploration and development, humans had already created stable Divine Realm login cabins, and human civilization had secured a foothold in the Chaotic Void Sea. There were numerous powerful beings in his clan, and millions of deities suppressed many Crystal Wall Systems in the Chaotic Void Sea, occupying countless planes and Crystal Wall Systems.
Having traversed time and reborn into this glorious era of a super fantasy civilization, Lin Xiao was quite satisfied.
He was also very satisfied with the family into which he had been reborn. His parents were alive, and as an only child without brothers or sisters, although his clan had many branches and some internal conflicts, they were mostly harmonious without too much turmoil.
After all, the real True God ancestor of the clan who had ignited the Divine Fire was still alive. Deities had unlimited lifespans, so before the ancestor passed away, the younger generations basically didn't even dream about contending for power. There was no point in fighting.
After coming out of the Divine Realm Login Cabin, he casually washed his face. He heard a 'ding' sound from the direction of the Divine Realm Login Cabin. After drying his face, he walked over to the Divine Realm Login Cabin, lightly touched a button, and a hologram popped up in front of him, displaying:
Dongning City's Fifth High School, Class 1-3, Semester 38th Major Course Report Card, as follows—
Student Lin Xiao:
Individual Performance: 6.2 points.
Clan Performance: 4.4 points.
Overall Score: 5.5 points.
Comprehensive Evaluation: Good-.
Class Rank: 25.
Grade Rank: 252.
Class Teacher's Comment: Individual combat performance is above average, Clan performance is failing.
The report card was very formulaic. Lin Xiao glanced at it, shrugged his shoulders, and knew this already—it was no surprise, as the Clan he had chosen was indeed a bit rubbish.
He knew this six months ago when he first opened his Divine Realm, but he had no choice.
No matter who you are, your initial Clan can only consist of low-level races. Powerful races cannot be sustained by a newcomer's Divinity. You can only choose a more powerful race once you become stronger in the future.
The reason he chose the Fishmen was because his Divine Realm was entirely water, which gave the Fishmen an advantage.
When he first opened his Divine Realm, there were only fifty Fishmen. Now, after six months, which was equivalent to more than two hundred years in the Divine Realm's time—where one day in the Main World equals one year—the Fishmen, with a lifespan of about twenty years and a breeding cycle every two to three years, had only increased to a total of one hundred and seven. With a total growth rate of only 100% over two hundred years, it was a pitiful situation.
The main reason was that the Fishmen were too weak. Although every student started with a weak race, the Fishmen were among the weakest.
Due to their meager strength and the weekly major course battles which caused casualties, and because he hadn't obtained any cards to accelerate their reproduction rate, the half-year-long struggle had been fruitless.
However, what left him feeling helpless was that, with such performance, he was still at an average level in his class. Among fifty students, he ranked twenty-fifth, and among five hundred students in his grade, he managed to maintain a rank of around 250—a surprisingly stable standing for six months.
He rubbed his cheeks, turned off the panel, and opened another message.
It was a group notification sent by the class teacher:
"Prepare for the base test next Monday. This will be the last base test of the semester, followed by the final exams. Then, the school will reassign classes. Everyone knows what this means. This is your last chance. Please make preparations in this final month."
The base test occurred once a month, usually prepared by the class teacher who would release various monster cards to introduce challenging monsters to invade the students' Divine Realms, similar to the major course but with stronger or more numerous monsters.
The base test posed certain risks—lack of caution could cause heavy losses to the Clan in the Divine Realm, thereby affecting development.
But correspondingly, for some outstanding students, it was a good opportunity because students' promotion rates would affect the teacher's performance review, so teachers usually awarded a variety of prizes to well-performing students in major courses. The base test was no different.
Of course, Lin Xiao had not received any teacher rewards in over thirty major courses since he started school. His best performance placed him nineteenth in the class, earning him a word of encouragement from the class teacher.
With some gravity, he closed the hologram. He wasn't worried about the base test, but rather the final exams that would take place in a month.
```
The Human Federation high school system employed a grading system. Freshman year was relatively normal, but once students moved on to sophomore year, the school would reassign classes based on the final exam results from freshman year. This resulted in the division into so-called regular, advanced, and key classes.
Without a doubt, classes like the advanced and key classes would definitely receive more resources and better educational faculty.
As for the regular class, they were more or less on their own, left to fend for themselves.
Even though Lin Xiao had the Golden Finger, he took this class division very seriously, as he certainly did not want to end up in the regular class. With the Golden Finger, it would still be tough to get by there.
It wasn't that the Golden Finger wasn't powerful, but... if one could be in the key class, why settle for the regular class?
This wasn't some fantasy novel where the protagonist starts off as garbage, gets mocked, then rises to power with the Golden Finger and furiously slaps faces, right?
He certainly didn't have time for that.
So, for this baseline test...
His consciousness sank into his sea of knowledge, which resembled a starry sky, where in the center, a crystal Magic Cube radiated a faint light, turning irregularly back and forth; somewhere in the depths, a progress bar had reached its zenith.
"I hope it finishes loading before the test!"
Before the thought had even concluded, the progress bar in the depths hit the top, and then the continuously turning crystal Magic Cube in the sea of stars burst forth with infinite light, like a sun traversing the starry sky.
"My Golden Finger has finally been activated."
Lin Xiao was nearly moved to tears; after seventeen years, he could finally use this thing.
Without hesitation, he extended his palm, and a point of white light shot out, rapidly dancing in his palm to weave a cube made of light filaments—this was the projection of the Creation Magic Cube.
Well, he didn't actually know the real name of this thing. He had just called it the Creation Magic Cube because of its functions.
True to its name, the cube's capabilities were like Creation itself: it could disassemble, refine, extract, merge, and recombine anything placed into it—effectively changing the very essence of all things in the world.
When Lin Xiao first obtained the Creation Magic Cube, he had no idea how to use it, but after entering the game of Divine Enthronement and Opening the Divine Realm, he learned how to maximize the cube's potential.
"Screw waiting around, I need to try this out."
Unable to contain his excitement for another trial, he walked over to his room and opened an alloy safe embedded in the wall, taking out three Crystal Cards.
These were cards unique to the Divine Enthronement game, one three-star resource card, one three-star skill card, and one two-star skill card—all common blank cards.
Three-star resource card—Fertile Black Soil (Rare): Instantly transforms an area measuring 60 meters by 60 meters and 4 meters deep into fertile black land.
Three-star skill card—Piercing Attack (Common): Limited to piercing weapons, rapidly lunges to attack the target, dealing double the weapon's damage and guaranteed to trigger a piercing effect.
Two-star skill card—Severe Pain (Common): Your attacks cause the target to suffer 15% extra damage, with a very small chance of triggering a bleeding effect.
The first of the three cards, a three-star resource card, was given to him by his grandfather when he first Opened the Divine Realm. Unfortunately, he had chosen a marine realm, and the Grey Mist Fish People were not proficient in cultivation, so this precious three-star resource card was of no use there.
The other two skill cards were gifts, one from his grandmother and the other from a cousin. However, he felt it was somewhat wasteful to use them on a weak race like the Fish People. Knowing early on the capabilities of his Golden Finger, he thought he'd save them until he could activate it and then break down those two cards to create a more powerful card.
So, they had been gathering dust in the safe until today, when they finally found their purpose.
Eager to begin, he took out the three cards and, thinking for a moment, he extracted a crystal armband from the drawer of his bedside table. He pressed on it with a finger, and a light screen popped up. After some contemplation, he tapped and drew on the light screen to edit a message:
"To my wise and valiant father and my gentle and lovely mother, your son has had a realization and doesn't want to try hard anymore. I hope my dear mother can transfer the New Year's money and red packets that you've been keeping for me all these years."
After reading the message, he revised it, changing "you" to the more respectful "you," signed his name with satisfaction, and sent it off.
Less than five minutes later, a reply arrived. He opened it to see a light projection emanating from the surface of the wristband, forming the figure of a woman dressed in a pale blue starlight gown.
The woman bore a striking resemblance to Lin Xiao, looking graceful and delicate, almost girlish, her face full of doting love as she gently said to Lin Xiao:
"Xiao'er, have you had a change of heart?"
"Yes, I've had a change of heart."
This was Lin Xiao's mother, Jin Yunzhu, a demi-goddess with authority over the rainy season and growth. This projection was a manifestation of her Divine Thought; her True Body was currently situated in one of the planes of the AX-14 Crystal Wall System, where their clan had a permanent residence.
Like all mothers in the world, Jin Yunzhu doted on Lin Xiao, her only son. Each year on his birthday, she would prepare a gift for him.
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