The Era of Gods - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Chapter 2 The Golden Finger is Activated

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“`

“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.