7 Chapter 7: Baseline Test Begins

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Wu Hai announced the news with an impassive face, and then, with a flip of his hand, a stack of cards emitting a faint golden light flew out from the palm of his hand and spread out before him in a line, saying:

"The difficulty of this baseline test will be somewhat higher than before, but it should be largely within your ability to cope. Considering some students currently have a gap in their strength, if you feel unable to pass during the test, you may contact the teacher to give up. However, if you give up, it means the test stops there, and I'll score you based on your performance up until you quit."

After a pause, he took out another, thinner stack of cards from his pocket and spread them out, continuing:

"Because we've increased the difficulty for this baseline test, the rewards will be additionally increased on top of the usual ones. Those ranked eleventh to twentieth in the class will receive a designated one-star card, the top ten will receive a designated two-star card, the third place will receive an additional three-star card on top of the two-star card, and the second place will receive an additional four-star card on top of the two-star card."

At this point, he paused again, his gaze moving over the surprised and expectant eyes of many students, and he said:

"For this baseline test, the first-place winner will receive a designated five-star card, which will greatly enhance your strength. So, my students... strive hard!"

Lin Xiao noticed that the teacher's gaze fell on the few top students who were habitually ranked within the top five of the class, directly skipping over those like him who ranked in the middle or below.

As expected, poor students are not valued!

Although he was accustomed to it, being ignored still felt infuriating.

This made Lin Xiao more determined to perform well in this test. Whether the teacher paid attention was one thing; the main prize was the five-star card that could be designated, which was something valuable.

You should know that for divine lives like them, who had just opened the Divine Realm and were not yet Demigods, the highest level of cards they could use was five-star cards. Cards above five stars were known as Demigod cards, while True Gods typically used Divine Cards.

Every student is limited in the number of cards they can use during their high school stage, and it's only by using high-level cards that one can maximize their strength.

At this time, the class teacher's voice rang out again:

"The rules for this baseline test are the same as before, and now you may return to prepare."

After speaking, with a flick of the sleeve, Lin Xiao only felt a strong force surging towards him, involuntarily flying out of the hall. Before leaving the hall, he vaguely saw a few students who didn't leave like he did; Wu Hai and Zheng Wenzhuo were still inside the hall.

"The teacher really shows favoritism!"

He faintly heard a student complain.

He shrugged his shoulders but didn't respond.

According to the usual testing practice, the teacher will start sending test enemies to invade the Divine Realm the day after the announcement, so students can enter the Divine Realm to prepare immediately, or they can go the next day. But essentially, everyone enters the Divine Realm immediately to get ready as soon as possible.

Lin Xiao thought the same and immediately entered the Divine Realm Login Device to start connecting to the Divine Realm.

Having arrived back in the Divine Realm after a while, he saw that ten or so new Fish people had been added, but an equal number of old Fish people had died. Overall, it evened out, yet he had lost a few believers.

Fortunately, as the new generation of Fish people were born and educated in the tribe's faith from childhood, newborn Fish people would possess at least some level of faith once they reached adulthood, with about a third of them possessing true faith and becoming True Believers.

As these individuals aged, all True Believers gained the pre-loaded Salted Fish Charge Skill, significantly boosting their strength. This greatly stimulated the less devout, and a considerable number of them increased their faith to become True Believers as a result.

As of now, the tribe had a total of 654 Fish people, including 19 Fanatic Believers, 68 Devout Believers, 116 nominal believers, and the remaining 451 were all True Believers.

This ratio was already quite impressive; after all, Fish people have short lifespans, living only ten plus years, not even reaching twenty. There's no chance to gradually strengthen faith, and reaching the level of True Believer was usually the limit.

A standard nominal human believer could offer 0.1 point of Faith Value per day, but the Fish people, a weaker race, could only contribute one-fifth of that offered by humans.

Therefore, a nominal Fish people believer could provide only 0.02 points of Faith Value each day, which was almost negligible.

True Believers could offer 0.2 points, though still a meager amount; at least there were many Fish people and they proliferated quickly. Currently, the 451 True Believers could provide Lin Xiao with 90.2 points of Faith Value per day.

A single Devout Believer could provide 1 point of Faith Value per day, and with 68 Devout Believers in the Fish people tribe, they could offer 68 points of Faith Value daily.

And Fanatic Faith could provide 10 points of Faith Value per day. With 19 Fanatic Believers, they could offer 190 points of Faith Value per day—providing the most with the least number, which is why high-quality believers are a Deity's most valuable wealth.

All in all, relying on this group of Fish people, Lin Xiao could harvest around 350 points of Faith Value each day.

However, that's under ideal conditions. In reality, he consistently harvested approximately 270 to 280 points of Faith Value daily.

Mainly because in order for believers to provide Faith Value, they must pray sincerely following the Church's prescribed rituals for the effect to be maximized, and everyone knows the inherent nature of Fish people: getting them to pray seriously according to the prescribed rituals is harder than ascending to heaven. This is their nature and it's unchangeable, so the Faith Value Lin Xiao harvests daily could only be between sixty to seventy percent of theoretical potential.

Even so, accumulating about two hundred seventy to eighty points per day, plus what was collected previously, his total accumulated Faith Value had now exceeded five hundred thousand.

Seems like a lot, doesn't it? Yet it barely suffices.

Setting aside trade among Divine Territory Players, which aside from bartering, is done using Faith Value, as well as the costs of upgrading the Clan and other expenses, this five hundred thousand points of Faith Value doesn't go far. It's not even enough to be converted into a single point of Divine Power.

According to the conversion rate from Faith Value to Divine Power, one million points of Faith Value can only be converted into one point of Divine Power; so these five hundred thousand points are not yet enough for one point.

Yet, although still below one point of Divine Power, these five hundred thousand points of Faith Value, in the context of new divine lives who have just opened their Divine Realm for less than a year, are considered quite good.

Indeed, once the Golden Finger was activated, he was set to soar.

Before, it would have taken over a hundred years to accumulate a single point of Divine Power, but now, in less than seven or eight years, he had accumulated half a point. The speed of accumulation was many times faster, and this rate would only increase as his Divine Realm developed. In two more years, by the time he was ready for the college entrance exam, it wouldn't be impossible to reach one point of Divine Power per year.

After reflecting briefly, Lin Xiao invigorated himself and spent 654 units of Faith Value to issue a Divine-mandate, which is about one point per believer.

The expenditure was not too great now, but it would increase significantly as the number of believers grew. With hundreds of thousands or even millions of believers, a single Divine-mandate could cost tens or hundreds of millions of Faith Value.

So by that time, any Divine-mandate would typically be conveyed through the chosen people.

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