The Era of Gods

Chapter 413: Chapter 413: Shocking News Upon Returning Home

As soon as the new core was placed, a rich flow of Life Force gushed forth, allowing the core to meld within the ancient tree originally there, which began to crystallize outward as the Life Crystal Light enveloped it. The ancient tree started to be assimilated.

The new core combined the advantages of the Creation Ancient Tree and the Unknown Life Ancient Tree, directly making up for the deficiencies of the Creation Ancient Tree.

As the Creator, Lin Xiao knew clearly that after integrating the enhanced Unknown Life Ancient Tree, the species created by the Creation Ancient Tree could be born with Extraordinary Abilities. In other words, the originally created species only had basic physiques and strength and lacked Extraordinary Abilities. Now, they could create species capable of casting various Class Spells.

Lin Xiao immediately took control of the Creation Ancient Tree to extract the stored Blood-flesh Essence and genes, and began to formulate a creature from his imagination.

A ceaseless stream of energy converged, and on the most central branch of the ancient tree, a crystal-like fruit began to grow, swelling more and more as energy and nutrients were poured into it.

Lin Xiao’s will sank into the ancient tree, watching the formulation process with great interest.

In the Totem World, Lin Xiao, as an incarnation, took out the crystalline tree heart from the Creation Rubik’s Cube, opened his mouth wide, and with a fierce inhalation, a mist of lustrous fog surged out and entered his mouth, and the crystalline tree heart slowly disintegrated in his hands.

When all the tree heart had completely broken down into a glimmering fog and been swallowed, Lin Xiao slowly closed his eyes, and a faint breath of life began to emanate from him, growing thicker and denser.

Seconds later, he abruptly opened his eyes, and the surging fog of life exploded into a ring of life, shooting through the walls and reaching hundreds of meters away.

Behind the church, the priests and believers who had been praying with closed eyes all opened their eyes and looked towards the depths of the church, their eyes filled with shock and excitement.

As the ring of life burst into bloom, all the believers felt as if a spring breeze had passed through every pore of their bodies; it was an indescribable sense of comfort. Particularly, a few soldiers with wounds felt an itchy sensation where the life ring passed through their bandaged injuries.

The itching intensified, and soon they couldn’t bear it and tore off the bandages, only to see a faint shimmer running across the surface of their wounds, which were healing at a visibly fast pace.

“My god, in the name of the great God of Life and Wisdom, this is a miracle!”

Almost in an instant, Lin Xiao felt that hundreds of threads of Power of Faith became thicker in this brief moment.

Normally, he would have gone out to meet the believers himself, to solidify his faith to the greatest extent, but at that moment he had more important things to do, which was to be promoted to an Official Totem Master.

All five talents of the Totem Talent Tree had been activated, and the next step was to prepare enough Deity Indwelling Power, to merge the Totem Model with the five talents into one, and then to merge it with himself, turning the intangible into tangible.

The totem was still intangible; he only possessed the Strength and the power of the five talents granted by the basic Totem Model. If he were to blend the totem with himself, turning the Totem Model tangible and integrating it into his body, then he would be the totem, and the totem would be him, inseparable from one another.

In other words, the essence of life of an Official Totem Master changes at that moment, transforming toward a totem.

Put simply, after becoming an Official Totem Master, he would be The Golden Ancient Tree, and his body would transform into The Golden Ancient Tree.

If the Snake-faced Monster was chosen as the Totem Model, upon becoming an Official Totem Master one would gradually transform into the Snake-faced Monster. This is the path of ascension for an Official Totem Master; whenever the essence of one’s whole being transformed into the totem, then one would become a Totem Lord.

It’s worth mentioning that the strength of the chosen Totem Model does not affect one’s ability to become a Totem Lord. Even a Low-level Demon chosen as the Totem Model, could be called a Totem Lord as long as the transformation of life essence is complete.

As for the strength of such a Totem Lord, it goes without saying that it would be exceptionally weak.

But even the weakest is still a Totem Lord, having undergone a change in life essence. Most importantly, the authority of a Totem Lord to absorb the Power of Faith to strengthen oneself remains unchanged. They can still draw upon the Power of Faith to enhance themselves and potentially elevate from a Low-level Demon to a Middle-level Demon and even a High-level Demon.

The step of merging oneself with the totem was simple; it merely required a large amount of Deity Indwelling Power to combine the Totem Model with the five talents into one, and then to merge with oneself.

This step did not require any other materials, just a large amount of Deity Indwelling Power to make the totem tangible. The stronger the totem, the more Deity Indwelling Power was needed.

Considering the level of The Golden Ancient Tree, which was comparable to that of a Super-level Demon, the amount of Deity Indwelling Power required was staggering. Suffice it to say, if not for plundering the accumulated Power of Faith from three major cathedrals, the Power of Faith from Dier Cathedral alone might not have been sufficient.

With an ample supply of Power of Faith, the progression from Totem Master Apprentice to Official Totem Master was merely a matter of time.

For Lin Xiao, it was just a question of time. Other Totem Masters would have to face the risks of spiritual Branding and physical Metamorphosis from the residual monster spirits within previously integrated Deity Indwelling Power. He replaced Deity Indwelling Power with the Power of Faith, with the spirit thoughts of believers completely refined by the Creation Rubik’s Cube, completely devoid of these risks that troubled many Totem Master Apprentices. His journey to merge the Totem Model was smooth-sailing, and he successfully advanced.

The moment he ascended, his body rapidly turned into pure Gold, and he swiftly transformed into a pure golden figure, with a ring of life slowly spreading from his feet.

He extended his right hand, and pure golden branches rapidly grew and stretched into the Void. With a thought, the energy in the Void was drawn in by his talent toward his hand, condensing into a flame. With another thought, the flame quickly turned into a cold mist-enshrouded water sphere, which, upon another thought, became a light breeze that whisked away.

Looking down at his feet, countless tiny pure golden roots grew and pierced through his shoes into the floor below, easily penetrating the solid flagstones as if they did not exist.

His thoughts stirred again, and from the branching roots, even finer golden filaments sprouted, beginning to devour the hard stone slab beneath his feet. Soon, a large chunk of the stone slab had been riddled with holes from the voracious consumption. Then he extended his left hand, and a golden bulge swelled in his palm. The golden skin parted, revealing a stone sphere and many tiny grains—different material components extracted and refined from the stone slab.

This talent could not very well assess its own strength, so he pulled out a magical longsword from the Creation Magic Cube, and strands of gold thread from his hand penetrated the blade.

He had specifically tested this magical longsword, choosing one of high quality, with extraordinarily sturdy material. Yet, under the power of his talent, it was as fragile as tofu, easily riddled and devoured.

This talent was not specifically targeted, but it also meant that it was not limited by any counter, able to devour and refine anything. In theory, he could directly devour and refine an opponent weaker than himself, which was quite domineering.

After the magical longsword was easily decomposed, a dozen or so golden fruits of different sizes formed. Within them were all the materials added to the magical longsword, including some valuable magic materials like mithril used in the enchantments.

After assessing his Totem Talent, Lin Xiao had a clear understanding. His palm, now heavy with fruits of various sizes, clenched, the fruits shrinking and merging into his palm to rapidly revert back to human form. The golden hue faded, and he returned to his human appearance.

As for the fruits, they had been devoured and integrated into his being to strengthen himself.

This was the derived talent of his status as an Official Totem Master. Once all talents were unified with the Totem Model, and a massive amount of Deity Indwelling Power was used to merge the model with himself to advance to an Official Totem Master, a talent akin to a life’s calling would be born.

This life’s calling talent had to do with the Totem’s own talents, and his talent was the ability to integrate the essence of whatever he devoured and refined into himself to strengthen his being.

This required an immense amount of resources, giving the impression of containing all things within.

Without a doubt, they still needed the military to provide enough resources.

Fortunately, the next step was the critical one for advancing to a Totem Lord, which was also the key to whether his plan would be successful or not. The military would definitely not skimp on providing resources.

Time flew by, and as the military continued to provide the resources he needed via the Creation Magic Cube, his strength kept growing, and his Totem Power became stronger, rapidly progressing toward becoming a Totem Lord.

Additionally, the Church’s power was also growing rapidly after assimilating three provinces. Considering the population of the three provinces, the Church could now command an army exceeding five thousand. The process of converting and spreading the Church’s faith was going on in an orderly fashion.

An army of five thousand, each at least at the level of a knight, was frankly enough to easily sweep through the entire kingdom with surplus force.

But Lin Xiao was not overly pleased by this; on the contrary, his expression grew more somber.

Because as time went on, the fluctuations of the Element Tides were becoming increasingly severe, and the Plane Will seemed to be awakening faster. Some of the Holy Church’s Fanatic Believers were now able to wield Superhuman Power on their own.

This was a very dangerous signal, indicating that the Holy God could be born at any moment.

He did not know if the acceleration of the Plane Will’s awakening was due to his own increasing strength or other reasons; in any case, it was outrageous.

Fortunately, he now had a decent foundation. Of the fifteen provinces in Neuer Kingdom, he occupied three, and his military might was now strong enough to sweep the kingdom. The only issue was that there were too few people to occupy a larger territory.

According to the plan Afonso and his staff had devised, once the existing territories were assimilated and the troops were trained, the next step was to take over another three provinces. This would be nearly half of the kingdom’s territory, and after digesting the new territories, they would have sufficient strength to mount a full assault on Neuer Kingdom.

In these hectic preparations, one day, Lin Xiao suddenly received a report from his subordinates that someone claiming to be his friend wished to see him.

After looking at the token, he met with the visitor at Dale City Cathedral of Life—a human Descender he had seen before descending to this plane.

The human Descender, known by the codename ‘Xinhua,’ upon seeing Lin Xiao, exclaimed with a thumbs-up:

“Brother Rore, you’re amazing—conquering three provinces’ territories in such a short time. All of us put together probably don’t hold as much territory as you.”

He chuckled and said,

“Just luck.”

“You’re being modest, you’re being modest.”

Xinhua praised him, not dwelling on the subject, but with a solemn expression continued,

“I’ve come today to tell you something.”