The Era of Gods

Chapter 469: Chapter 469: The Final Moment

Savage King Kingdom Royal City, atop the Barbarian King Tower.

Cao Yichen stood with his hands clasped behind him at the summit of the tower, motionlessly watching the clouds swept by the winds constantly changing shape in the sky.

After an unknowable amount of time, a silhouette descended from the sky and landed beside him. After a moment, he spoke:

“How did the contact go?”

Li Ran shook his head and said:

“They didn’t agree, and they even said…..”

“Said what?”

After a long pause with no response, Cao Yichen turned his head to look intently at his teammate. With no words spoken, his gaze made his teammate somewhat uneasy. He said:

“They said you’re too weak, so weak that you can’t even handle a first-year student and yet have the audacity to ask for help, they can’t afford to lose that much face.”

“Bang!”

A stone pillar at the edge of the tower topped with the head of an exotic beast was smashed to pieces by a palm strike, scattering debris over a hundred meters away.

Slowly retracting his hand, Cao Yichen took a deep breath to regain his composure and said in a deep voice:

“Continue, what were their conditions?”

Li Ran nodded and continued:

“They said they could only help you under the guise of the Void Pirates, descending after twenty years. But upon completion, we need to pay ten thousand units of Godforce Crystal within a year.”

“Tell them to descend within five years.”

Li Ran shook his head and said:

“They’ve already stated that the earliest they can come is in twenty years. They don’t want to show themselves to the college leaders too soon. But if you want them to come earlier, for every year ahead of the twenty-year timeframe, an additional one thousand units of Godforce Crystal is required. To descend within five years, it would be necessary to pay an additional ten thousand units on top of the extra payment. In other words, if they are to come within five days, up to forty-five thousand units of Godforce Crystal must be paid.”

Upon saying this, Li Ran’s eyelids twitched.

Forty-five thousand units of Godforce Crystal, even for those with decent backgrounds, felt like a considerable sum.

Although the clan would significantly increase their investment in them post-college, there was still a limit, and forty thousand was nearly half the total investment for a semester.

Ten thousand units of Godforce Crystal is the total amount invested per semester by major families below the first-rate for their members during their college years.

It’s not that they couldn’t give more; for these wealthy families, even a million or ten million could be afforded. The restriction by college was limited, not unlimited. The ten thousand-unit cap was the standard set thousands of years ago for ordinary wealthy households for their offspring.

Wealthy families are divided into two categories: those with Powerful Divine Power are top-tier wealthy families, while those without are ordinary wealthy families.

Ordinary wealthy families have a cap of ten thousand units, while top-tier wealthy families are capped at one million units of Godforce Crystal.

Of course, there is also a distinction between being born from the main branch or a collateral branch of a wealthy family, with the figures mentioned above referring to the main branch, and collateral branches have only half that amount.

Both Cao Yichen and Li Ran come from ordinary wealthy families, and their semester limit is ten thousand units.

Considering that even Super Academy like Radiance awards only one super scholarship per grade each semester, which includes a mere one thousand units of Godforce Crystal, one can see just how substantial the amount of ten thousand is and the pressure it puts on students of ordinary heritage.

This is why, when faced with a demand of forty-five thousand units of Godforce Crystal, it’s clear why Cao Yichen and Li Ran both felt the sting.

However, when put into the perspective of the value of this plane, forty-five thousand units of Godforce Crystal isn’t that significant.

Perhaps the immediate output isn’t that immense, but once the plane is in their hands, not to mention anything else, just the Indigenous Tribes of Humans alone are worth more than this.

There are estimated to be about fifty to sixty million indigenous people on this plane currently. If the plane were to be unified and managed for decades, the population could be vastly expanded. Considering the size of this plane, even in its current primitive era, it could easily reach several hundred million in population. Within a few decades, just the harvested Power of Faith would exceed this figure, not to mention the abundant resources within the plane.

It was with these thoughts in mind that, despite knowing the other side was making highway-robbery demands, they knew they had no choice but to agree if they wanted to win.

After all, at this stage, there aren’t many who dare to do such things right under the noses of college leaders.

He didn’t dare wait a few decades more, when in just this one month, that kid has grown to this extent right under his watch. In another thirty years, it would all be over.

Afterward, Cao Yichen and Li Ran quietly discussed how to coordinate with external support to deal with the other two families. Meanwhile, far in the north of the continent, Feng Ziqi and Qin Rong, two third-year students, were also discussing how to respond to the challenge from younger students.

Being pushed to this point by their juniors, the two of them were not too disheartened; they felt more helpless than anything.

It wasn’t that their strength was inadequate; after all, being an entire grade higher and with no lack of decent backgrounds, the resources they had were not much different from Cao Yichen’s. Having one more year should have made them stronger.

In fact, their overall strength was indeed greater than that of Cao Yichen and the other second-year students. The rather stalemate situation was mainly due to the fact that they couldn’t call upon much of their power from other planes.

Put simply, the planes they ruled over were not limited to this one. In the previous three semesters of college, they had already conquered other planes, so much of their power was tied up in suppressing rebels on those planes and couldn’t be transferred over. They were only able to mobilize a portion of their power, resulting in a standoff.

But they were reluctant to give up control over this plane, as in terms of value, it already surpassed all other planes they had managed before.

They had thought to wait until the major courses ended and then slowly expand to take care of Cao Yichen after the meddling first-year students left.

However, they didn’t expect Lin Xiao to rise abruptly. In just thirty short years, he had developed to the point of challenging them, which put them in an awkward position.

The current situation had now reached a critical point, and they had to consider a difficult issue—how to quickly settle matters.

“`

To be precise, about how to quickly resolve the situation in the short term, the longer it dragged on, the more variables would arise. Losing face was secondary, since the face had already been lost, but the plane could not be lost.

The two of them discussed for a long time, even considering the opinions of other classmates, and finally made a decision, which was…

The Dragon Kingdom, Dragon God’s Temple.

Lin Xiao was surprised to see a familiar face entering the temple, a classmate from Class 17, who seemed to be called Leng Songquan, someone he had seen in class but didn’t know well.

Leng Songquan’s gaze swept across the three people in the great hall, glancing at Shen Yuexin with a flash of amazement in his eyes before settling on Lin Xiao. He got straight to the point and said:

“My name is Leng Songquan. I’m ready to return. Give me a hundred units of Godforce Crystal, and I’ll hand over the totem and over four hundred thousand people from the indigenous tribes to you.”

Lin Xiao exchanged glances with his girlfriend and Senior Chumo, a look of joy appearing on their faces, and he nodded directly:

“No problem.”

Leng Songquan also started to smile.

Next, several other first-year students arrived one after another. They were from different classes, but their purpose was the same: to trade with Lin Xiao, transferring their territories and totems to him, including several who had conflict with him before.

In their words, since they didn’t stand a chance anymore, it was better to give their assets to him than to anyone else.

However, Lin Xiao felt that they just wanted to watch a great drama unfold, to see a spectacle of a first-year student topple second and even third-year seniors, which was why they all supported him.

For Lin Xiao, this was an unexpectedly great opportunity. Although a hundred units of Godforce Crystals wasn’t a small amount, it was still quite worthwhile.

A total of twenty-three students, each with a totem and tribes ranging from a few hundred thousand to six or seven hundred thousand people. They were mostly scattered in remote areas unsuitable for marching, as well as at sea.

It then took about a year’s time for these tribes to gradually move over. In total, there were upwards of eight million people, a number that was beyond his expectations.

With a population increase of nearly half, the tribe’s power surged, almost catching up with the two third-year seniors.

Lin Xiao immediately sent an envoy to the Ancient Dragon Nation, but contrary to his expectations, the Ancient Dragon Nation not only rejected his proposal to join forces and defeat Cao Yichen first; they even detained and killed the envoy.

He sensed something ominous:

“This is a bad sign.”

He quickly stopped the fusion of totems and called his girlfriend and senior to discuss.

After hearing his account, the two women pondered for a moment before Senior Chumo asked a somewhat off-topic question:

“How many totems have you fused now, do you have two hundred yet? What stage have you reached? How far from a qualitative transformation are you?”

Lin Xiao shook his head:

“Nowhere near that many, I have just over one hundred and sixty. But if I go ahead and fuse theirs, I should be able to reach around two hundred. Why do you ask?”

Senior said:

“Given the current situation, it’s very hard for us to defeat them through force. If I’m not mistaken, they must be preparing to call for external reinforcements. Although we could do the same, we’re already one step behind. It’s too late to ask for help now unless you’re willing to pay ten thousand units of Godforce Crystals to speed things up, but that will definitely not be in time, so we must consider another option…”

Suddenly, his girlfriend interjected:

“I’ll provide the Godforce Crystals. I can produce up to a million units of Godforce Crystals now. Can the reinforcements arrive immediately?”

Senior Chumo, still maintaining her previous posture, paused for a moment, surprise evident on her face. It took her girlfriend repeating herself for Senior to snap out of it, looking at her as if she had just met her, and after a silent moment finally said in a subdued tone:

“Are you sure?”

Shen Yuexin blinked her large eyes and nodded seriously:

“Yes, if it’s less than a million Godforce Crystals, I can provide them now. If it’s more, I’ll have to go back and talk to the principal.”

Lin Xiao: …

Senior Chumo: …

At that moment, there was nothing but speechlessness.

“Cough, if that’s the case then we’re in good shape. I’ll get in touch immediately.”

“Right, money is not an issue. The sooner they can provide support, the better.”

“Okay!”

Half a year later, the Savage King Kingdom and the Ancient Dragon Nation declared war on the Dragon Kingdom, and a great war broke out.

With the two great forces combined, the Dragon Kingdom, after holding out for a year, suffered a total collapse, with the remaining forces abandoning the outskirts and retreating to defend the capital region.

By this time, it was the final year of the course, and his girlfriend gave him the Book of All Laws and used the Spatial Waymarker to return. Lin Xiao gave up his course grades and stayed behind.

Another half-year later, the armies of both sides were at the gates of the Dragon Kingdom Royal City.

Standing atop the tall Dragon God’s Temple, the vast Dragon City could be seen in its entirety. More than fifty thousand bloodline magicians, one hundred twenty thousand elite warriors, and three hundred thousand native fighters were garrisoned there.

“`