The Era of Gods

Chapter 219: On the Utilization of the Black Dragon

Translator: 549690339 |

After a series of eerily welcoming gestures from their fellow classmates, they met an incarnation of Senior Su.

Senior Su’s true body was within this plane, but they could not see it, for Senior Su’s true body needed to stay at the core of this group of planes, suppressing the hostile Divine System here.

This bizarre group of planes, resembling an octopus with its numerous piecemeal and small planes stacked upon one another, was not the senior’s Divine Realm but an area of planes that the senior was in the midst of conquering. A Divine System formed by several Native Deities had occupied this group, and the senior was contending with this minor Divine System for control over the group.

Using his absolute strength, Senior Su had occupied the central core plane of the group, driving the Native Deities from the main plane to take refuge in the depths of this tentacle-like group of planes.

With the help of countless minor planes, they resisted against Senior Su’s Divine Realm, and the two sides were still at a deadlock until now.

Of course, by now, Senior Su had gained the upper hand, completely dominating over half of the stacked planes of various sizes, with nearly half of the remainder in the process of being conquered.

And the place where they needed to descend was within that approximately one quarter of the group of planes currently being conquered.

In these planes, Senior Su had already sent incarnations to inspect and confirm the absence of Demigods or higher beings, let alone those few Native Deities, so the opponents they would generally face would not be of Demigod level or above, at most Legendary Creatures.

Of course, it was still quite dangerous for a Divine Incarnation with only ten points of Divine Power and a speck of Divinity, but since it was a trial, it wouldn’t be a trial without danger; this was precisely the time to test them.

The senior gave them a simple form with several hundred plane codes, just a list of plane numbers without any other information, leaving them clueless as to which plane each code represented. They had to randomly draw a code, and that would be the plane where they needed to descend.

In terms of fairness, Radiance had done a decent job. It dared not claim absolute fairness but relative fairness.

To enroll in the elite class, besides special admissions, the rest were related to families associated with Radiance; if you had a connection, so did someone else. In such a scenario, if everyone tried to pull strings, no one could outdo the other, so it was decided that no one should attempt it at all. This rule was a part of the admonition personally left by the former headmaster, and now that the former headmaster was still alive, no one dared defy it.

Thus, students like Lin Xiao, who came from a less privileged background as a specially recruited candidate, could grow in Radiance without having every little advantage snatched away by others.

The codes were unremarkable, and Lin Xiao didn’t think too much about it; he casually chose the number eighty-eight and confirmed it, then heard the teacher’s voice in his ear:

“Descent will begin in three seconds, do not resist!”

He relaxed his mind, and three seconds later, a familiar transmission fluctuation came, enveloping and whisking him away into the Void Battleship.

A meteor streaked across the sky, accompanied by a thunderous ‘boom’, a huge crater appeared on the ground.

The meteor’s landing site was a vast plain, rich in vegetation, primal yet desolate.

Stretching southward was a massive marsh area, mostly comprised of large shallow Lake formations, looking more like a series of lakes than a marsh, with clear water, and no black muck or poisonous insects like normal marshes, teeming with various aquatic life forms.

This thunderous boom startled many birds and beasts in the plains and jungles. For a time, various rustling and scuttling noises could be heard.

Simultaneously, strange sounds emanated from the distant marshes. Near the plains, the surface of several gigantic lakes rippled in widening circles as an enormous shadow arched and then submerged back into the water, a faint and peculiar deep growl vaguely carried over, and everything in the direction of the marsh stilled as if nothing had happened.

Time ticked by slowly.

About an hour later, in the crater left by the meteor in the dense jungle of the plain, a strange noise emerged. An attractive young man, naked and with his privates exposed, clambered out from the pit in a sorry state, surveyed his surroundings as he lay on the edge of the crater, and then retreated back in.

Around the crater was a large patch of charred ash, along with the burnt carcass of an unidentified wild animal, likely crushed upon his arrival.

“Damn it, I didn’t expect to descend like this.”

At the beginning, Lin Xiao thought that so-called descent referred to being covertly transported into the plane, especially since the theoretical lessons discussed how to infiltrate a plane without attracting the Plane Will’s attention. He had the impression that it was supposed to be a silent arrival.

But unexpectedly…

He was thrown into this plane so crudely, falling like a meteor, causing such commotion…

Luckily, having lain at the bottom of the pit for so long without feeling anything unusual and not sensing detection by the Plane Will, he deemed it safe.

After a good while, he climbed out of the pit again, scanning his surroundings. The crater, with a diameter of four to five meters, was surrounded by scorch marks spanning over ten meters, with unknown weeds and shrubs half a man’s height a little further out, then an endless wasteland with occasional trees towering tens or even dozens of meters.

He took a deep breath, and a passage of text quickly popped into his mind:

“Humidity 75%, temperature 22.5 degrees Celsius, extremely high oxygen content…”

He also tried jumping once, finding the gravity not too different from the Main World’s coefficients.

“This plane isn’t too bad!”

The conditions of this plane are quite suitable for the survival of intelligent species, and indeed, deducing from the lush vegetation and the faint but audible sounds of life surrounding them, there is no shortage of creatures here. It remains uncertain whether a civilization exists.

Luckily, the location of his descent was quite remote, and judging by the surroundings, it didn’t look like a place where intelligent species would reside. Laying low here for ten years shouldn’t pose a problem.

Of course, the priority now is to find a place to establish a base.

Half an hour later, a handsome young man dashed across the barren wasteland at high speed—with not a stitch of clothing on him. As he sprinted and leaped, his embarrassingly large member swung wildly, injecting an unbridled sense of freedom, exuberance, and wildness into the primitive and desolate landscape.

Youth is all about confidence and vitality.

It wasn’t long before he had crossed what must have been a distance of over ten kilometers and came to a halt in front of a lush, primitive jungle.

This was an extremely lush primeval forest with trees of unknown species. They grew extraordinarily sturdy. Just the outskirts were already over ten meters tall, and the height increased steadily as one looked further in, with the tallest trees in the heart of the forest possibly reaching hundreds of meters.

“What a vast forest!”

Lin Xiao’s first impulse was to transplant such a huge forest into the Divine Realm.

Though there were trees in the Divine Sanctuary within his Divine Realm, none were ancient woods of this scale.

As the Divine Realm expanded, the Divine Kingdom fragment he originally inherited was almost completely merged. His Divine Realm had now grown massive, certainly not inferior to smaller planes, capable of sustaining millions of his Clan.

A complete ecosystem requires diversity, and if he could relocate the entire stretch of forest, that would be fantastic.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t open the Divine Realm just yet, as doing so would immediately alert the Plane Will.

Being discovered right after descending would certainly result in a zero score for the first phase.

Besides, he mustn’t use any of the ten points of Divine Power he carried within him. This power was currently sealed inside his body, reserved for use only in the most critical moments. Any use would also immediately catch the attention of the Plane Will.

The Plane Will is highly sensitive to both Divine Power and the Divine Realm. Other disturbances usually provoke no reaction at all, evident by the lack of response to his crashing fall to Earth, which made quite the commotion.

In other words, as long as he doesn’t use Divine Power or open the Divine Realm, and avoids making significant commotion, he shouldn’t be discovered early on.

Yes, that’s in the early stages.

After all, being a Different Domain entity and not a native deity, he won’t be detected early on. But as time passes, his influence on the plane will grow steadily. Even if he doesn’t actively do anything, his mere existence is an anomaly. The Plane Origin might not notice him initially, but like a body’s immune system, the Plane Will periodically scans the entire plane, and he is like a pest hidden within, with each scan accumulating a level of detection.

Once the accumulated detection reaches a certain threshold, no amount of hiding will help.

So it may seem like all is quiet now, and that he won’t be found out no matter what he does in the early phases, but thinking that means you can be reckless is a grave mistake. It might not take a few years before discovery happens.

So, it’s better to keep a low profile.

Approaching the forest, he faintly sensed a dangerous aura hidden within, a sure sign that fierce beasts lurked there.

Not daring to venture in, he just surveyed the area around the forest and came to a stop in front of a tree with a diameter spanning over one meter.

He touched the tree and curled his fingers to knock lightly against it, tilting his head as if listening closely.

“Thump, thump!”

This wasn’t actually about listening to anything, but rather about closely feeling the subtle feedback that came with each knock on the tree.

Then, through this feedback, he would sense a peculiar rhythm and apply a special spell to the tree trunk.

As his fist knocked lightly against the trunk, an imperceptibly odd fluctuation appeared on his fist and spread into the tree with each knock.

After about a dozen knocks, the tree in front of him suddenly emitted a loud ‘crack,’ and a fissure appeared where he had been striking. He pushed hard, and the tree thunderously fell. Its broken section was jagged, as if it had been bashed apart brutally.

“Amazing!”

This ability was feedback from a follower he received from the Tower of Truth. It was a special trick that a Wise Goblin believer had mastered during their daily life. Without needing tools, but merely by combining spiritual power and mana, they had developed a unique technique enabling them to crack open trees or stones by hand. They would produce various resonances through hitting that could break the object from the inside along a desired angle.

After receiving this technique from the feedback of his followers in the Tower of Truth, Lin Xiao found it highly valuable and intentionally took the time to learn it seriously.