Chapter 17: New Class

The same way as a planet remained more or less round, a demi-plane, just like a plane, will keep the form of a disc.

Liam's divine realm had currently reached the rank of intermediate demi-planes and was nearly 26 kilometers radius.

Liam didn't distribute the rocks uniformly. He placed more near the continent and fewer in the ocean.

In the center of the divine realm, the thickness reached the kilometer, but it decreased as one approached the edges.

The radius of the demi-plane remained the same everywhere, but the thickness was different. At the edge of the continent, near the spatial barrier, there were about 200 meters of rock, while there were only 150 meters at the ocean level.

As the demi-plane he found didn't contain water, the sea level in the divine realm had significantly dropped.

The continent also expanded a lot, and the beginning of relief appeared on it.

The ratio changed. The demi-plane was two third land and a third shallow seas.

Eventhough, the majority of the continent was either newly added bare rocks or the old seabed.

Liam immediately sent a prophecy to the novarians and the red-moon nagas to recover the stranded marine fauna and flora.

For fish, they needed to act quickly and put them back into the water.

For plants and corals, it was less urgency. Once they rescued the fish, they would move them to the newly added areas of the ocean.

For the continent, he could only ask them to move a few trees and bushes. He would have to wait to add soil and small animals to truly expand the terrestrial ecosystem.

Make a demi-plane advance wasn't complicated at all and almost everyone in the elite class would have a top-tier demi-plane or a plane by the end of the year.

It was only after that that things started to get more complicated.

Even so, it was a significant step forward.

Liam smiled, happy.

Now that his divine realm became a mid-tier demi-plane, he could merge another 1-star pearl every month.

Thus, he had now an available slot, but he ran out of pearls.

Nevertheless, he wasn't in a hurry; the merging slot would not disappear and could be preserved.

Liam didn't stay any longer and returned to Earth.

It was Thursday morning.

School would resume the next day.

Tomorrow, he would meet his new teachers and new classmates.

Teachers would likely take the opportunity to give them a list of things to prepare for classes.

There wouldn't be actual classes. It would be more of a discovery day.

Classes would truly begin on the following Monday.

Since Liam no longer needed to sleep, he planned to spend the remaining hours to make researches on different races.

It would only take a few months before his divine realm evolved into a plane. By then, he had to find a way to upgrade the red-moon nagas into an intermediate race.

Knowledge had no price, and genuinely relevant information wouldn't be available on the internet.

Fortunately, Liam was a complete beginner in anatomy and natural sciences. It would take him a while to exhaust the resources of the internet.

…

Time passed quickly when one worked hard and soon enough, it was already the next morning.

In front of Merflow High School, spatial rifts opened one after another, and students kept arriving.

They followed the signs and headed to their respective classrooms.

Liam arrived in a large classroom and found an empty table to sit in. He was about centered; neither too much in front nor too much behind.

When his watch displayed exactly 08:00, a middle-aged man of about 1.70 meters high opened the door and walked towards the teacher's desk. Out of politeness, the students stood up.

He wore tight jeans and a polo shirt that accentuated his big belly, but he seemed surprisingly agile for someone of his weight.

He leaned on the desk and began to speak.

"Good morning, everyone, please be seated."

He waited for everyone to be settled before speaking again.

"My name is Mr. Idder; I will be your head teacher from now on. I will be in charge of the general class. You've already had it last year, so you know the concept. I will ensure that you can develop your religion as much as possible, and I will teach you various techniques to effectively invade a world."

He clicked his watch, and all students received a notification.

"You've all received a form. Besides the three main classes, which are my class, combat-class, and practice-class, you can choose between 2 and 5 specializations. Choose carefully because this choice is irreversible. For the practice-class, you also need to provide information about the power systems you're practicing and your rank in each power system. You have five minutes."

Liam opened the holographic form and filled in his personal information.

He quickly reached the specialization choices.

There were about a hundred, such as alchemy, forging, four elements, illusion, dream, bloodline, and many others.

After reading them all, Liam selected the four elements, spear arts, bloodline, and anatomy.

The four elements and spear arts classes were directly related to his auxiliary power systems as a cultivator of the condensation realm and a spear king.

Bloodline and anatomy were for him to quickly upgrade the red-moon nagas into an intermediate race.

He didn't take a fifth specialization because none of them suited him.

He clicked "finish" and submitted the questionnaire.

A few minutes later, everyone had filled out the questionnaire, and the teacher resumed the class.

"Well, now I will distribute your schedules. Generals classes will be held as a whole class, and you will be mixed with elite class n°2 for specialty-classes."

He noticed some students frowning and took on a more serious tone.

"If some of you have a problem with that, you are free not to attend classes, but if you come, I expect total respect in class."

He disregarded their reaction and tapped a few buttons on the watch again.

Liam and his classmates received a new notification.

"The school will provide you with a blue-quality bead every month, and you can specify the type. Of course, this is only your basic allocation. There will be several challenges and tournaments organized at different times of the year. And by the way, the first one will start next Friday and last all weekend. Be aware that this test will be jointly held with elite class n°2. If any of them performs excellently, or if any of you is mediocre, we won't hesitate to reshuffle the classes."

A tense atmosphere settled in the room, and the students caught in the latter part displayed anxious expressions.

"As every year, we will send you to a lower plane. We don't ask you to conquer the plane. At least half of you don't even have a pinnacle rank 2 believer, and I think only a few of you have a saint to bring down an incarnation. There will be special quests delivered by the school and you will have to complete them to earn points before the will of the world notices you."

"You will stay in this plane for ten years. Even if the will of the world notices you, you can stay in the plane, but it will be at your own risk. In any case, your score will stop there. I will develop the topic in more detail next Friday."

Mr. Idder took a short pause, waiting for everyone to digest the information.

"Well, as it's the first day, the classes are a bit different from the normal schedule. Today, you will have one hour with each teacher. We have only 45 minutes left, so let's begin."

He pointed to a random student.

"You, at the board."

The student pointed at himself. He was completely taken aback.

"Yes, you. Come on, hurry up."

The student got up from his chair and went to the board.

"Your name?"

"Mario Barito, sir."

Liam recognized his name. Like him, Mario had exactly completed four waves in the test and was ranked 38th, tied with two others.

"Tell me, Mr. Barito, why does time flow differently on Earth and in divine realms?"

Mario put on a confident expression.

"It's because of the restrictive relativity."

"Do you know who discovered this theory?"

"Uh... I think..."

Mr. Idder shook his head.

"It won't make it, Mr. Barito. When you come to the board, it should be a ping-pong of questions and answers. It should be ping, pong, ping, pong... Not ping and one eternity later, pong. So I'll ask the question again. If you don't know, just say so; it will be faster. Who discovered this theory?"

"I don't know."

"There you go, that's better."

He turned to the class, leaving a blushing Mario at the board.

"This theory is hundreds of thousands of years old; it was discovered even before the recovery of the aura by a great man named Albert Einstein. You need to realize that, at that time, sending a man into space was already an achievement, but this man managed to unravel such a phenomenon. The least you can do is knowing his name."

He turned back to Mario, who just wanted to dig a hole and disappear.

"Well, can you at least give us the outline of this theory, Mr. Barito?"

Mario nodded weakly. His confident expression had disappeared long ago.

"The presence of a mass curves space and time around it. Near a significant mass, time passes more slowly than in areas of lower gravity. The more massive an object is, the more it engendes a significant curvature of space and time nearby. Thus, the temporal dilation effect is related to mass."

The teacher nodded.

"That's correct, but then tell me, a top-tier demi-plane is about 200 km radius, while a low demi-plane is around 25 kilometers radius and a low plane measured at least 500km radius There is no difference between a low demi-plane and a top-tier demi-plane, but there is a huge temporal flow difference between an low plane and a random top-tier demi-plane. Why?"

Mario hesitated.

"Because it joins the main void?"

The teacher shook his head.

"No. You have a second chance."

"Due to... spiritual energy?"

Mr. Idder rolled his eyes.

"Thank you, Mr. Barito, for that brilliant answer. Yes, the only thing that changes between a demi-plane and a plane is that it welcomes spiritual energy and generates an origin stone; I think everyone knows that. Then, what does that imply?"

Mario lowered his eyes and stammered.

"I... I don't know..."

The teacher sighed and pointed him back to his seat.

"And here we are; the year just started, and you're already three trains behind. Go sit down."

Defeated, Mario returned to his seat while Mr. Idder continued the class.

"As your classmate mentioned, the time flow difference is related to the emergence of spiritual energy in the planes, as well as the formation of the origin stone. When a pinnacle demi-plane condenses its origin stone, it connects to the universe's laws and begins to filter chaotic energy from the void into spiritual energy."

"Spiritual energy begets everything. It will slowly reinforce everything in the plane, thus increasing its mass. Take any wood stick lying on Earth and put it in a plane; it will be an invincible weapon. Why? Because its density is extremely high and because he has been strengthened by a lot of pure spiritual energy."

"However, even though it slowly increases the overall mass of the plane, that's not the main reason for creating such an intense time gap. As soon as a demi-plane becomes a plane, it will start to establish its own fundamental rules."

He pointed at Liam.

"You, tell me what the four fundamental forces of the universe are!"

Liam didn't take long to think and replied.

"They are the gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear interaction and the weak nuclear interaction."

Mr. Idder smiled.

"Exactly. The strong nuclear force directly strengthens atoms' shock resistance and prevents rank 4 beings from triggering a nuclear explosion at each attack. The weak nuclear force increases the atomic diversity and stability of the plane. The electromagnetic force establishes a whole bunch of underlying properties of matter, such as the theorems of Biot-Savart, Maxwell, Faraday, or Gauss. It provides the basis for most other laws to function, but we'll see that another day."

"As for the gravity, it enables the proper functioning of the universe, such as the rotation of planets or the formation of galaxies. In some extreme cases, it leads to the formation of singularities like black holes."

"When a plane strengthens its gravitational rule, it distorts the web of space-time more and more, producing the temporal flow difference."