Chapter 20: Invasion

Thanks to his connection with Sylvera, Liam could spend hundreds of thousands of faith points to create an incarnation.

Those faith points were not lost, and he could recover them whenever he wanted.

This incarnation could make attacks of rank 5 and 6, but each movement would use thousands of faith points.

It was more of a guarantee to protect his troops.

Mr. Idder had been very clear on the matter. If he personally completed the quests, he would be disqualified. Worse yet, the plane's will would automatically detect any movement from rank 4 beings.

So unless facing the extinction of his believers, he would do nothing.

Even though Liam and his incarnation did not share the same senses, they could communicate with each other.

There would be no problem with communication.

While Sylvera organized his men and prepared for war, Liam browsed the list of quests that had just opened:

1-star Quest | Shark Group | 10 points: Hunt a group of eight sharks terrorizing the surrounding areas (the strongest is at the peak of rank 1)

1-star Quest | Thieves Camp | 15 points: Eliminate a group of 11 Drakos thieves looting a busy road (the strongest is at the peak of rank 1)

1-star Quest | Lost Xiro | 13 points: Find Mrs. Piraka's lost companion xiro, a crow woman (the xiro is a rank 1 beginner but is skilled at hiding)

...

2-star Quest | Goblin Camp | 173 points: Wipe out a goblin camp attacking a small Drakos village (Fifty rank 1 goblins, three rank 2 beginners, and one confirmed rank 2)

2-star Quest | Medusa Tribe | 184 points: Hunt a group of medusas occupying a small area of the ocean (about twenty rank 1, four rank 2 beginners and one confirmed rank 2)

...

3-star Quest | Firefly Grass | 1086 points: Bring back the firefly grass to the hidden Valyr mage (guarded by a peak rank 2 peacock)

...

6-star Quest | The Lost Princess | 1,000,000 points: Find the lost princess of the Valyr royal family, dead or alive (protected by a rank 4 mage)

6-star Quest | Kraken | 1,000,000 points: Hunt the great kraken in the southern part of the ocean (The great kraken is a confirmed rank 4 beast)

In summary, there were six levels of quests.

1-star quests involved dealing with first-order existences and earned between 10 and 20 points.

2-star quests involved beginner or confirmed rank 2 existences and earned between 150 and 200 points.

And so on.

For 6-star quests, one had to deal with intermediate existences, so it was a definite no.

After some deliberation, Liam chose a 4-star quest:

4-star Quest | Beach Crabs | 12 300 points: Take care of a group of beach crabs. They reproduce too quickly and threaten the local fauna. (There are three hundred rank 1 crabs, 15 rank 2 crabs, and 1 beginner rank 3 crab.)

When his incarnation informed him that everything was ready, he spent nearly a hundred thousand faith points and created a permanent spatial channel between his divine realm and the lower plane.

...

Above the demi-planes, a dozen professors discussed among themselves, observing the spatial channels establishing with the plane.

Mr. Idder watched the invading armies landing one after another.

"Not bad, about ten students have saints this year, more than double from last year."

All were pinnacle demigods and were very sensitive to faith energy. They immediately knew who created an incarnation just from the energy fluctuations in the void.

Mr. Voinier nodded.

"Yes, especially those five kids: William, Levandovski, Adler, Barito, and Smith. They have potential."

The other professors from Elite Class No. 1 nodded. All recognized the talent and hard work of these five.

"Humpf, just because they can fight doesn't mean they have what it takes to become good gods. Even if they have saints, so what? Look at that guy Barito, he only has level 2 believers, and they are just kobolds."

Another professor from Elite Class No. 2 added.

"True, Smith is the same. No, I'd say she's worse since her believers are just mere goblins."

The professors from Elite Class No. 1 frowned.

"And what? Believers can be cultivated, but saints only appear at the beginning. If they don't have them from the start, it's almost sure they won't have them later. And I haven't seen many gods without saints."

The practice professor from Elite Class No. 1, Mrs. Chang, rolled her eyes. It was the same every year. Professors from both classes would insult each other for days before calming down.

Mrs. Chang sighed, thinking about the five rank 8 students in Elite Class No. 1. After this test, a new session would open, and she would finally teach them relevant things.

It's not that she couldn't teach them anything; it's just that as a teacher, she had to guide the whole class, not just the best.

Well at least, the others pretended to listen to what she said, but one of them, Liam Adler, directly meditated during her class, which annoyed her a bit, but she couldn't say anything.

Thinking of that kid, she looked at the plane, trying to find where he landed.

Suddenly, her eyes widened.

"What is this?!"

Her surprised cry alerted the other teachers. They stopped arguing and turned their gaze to the plane.

...

A river flowed into the ocean, forming a wide delta.

At that location, space undulated and distorted, quickly forming a spatial channel of a few dozen meters.

The surface of the portal trembled, and a large silhouette went out.

Liam's incarnation emerged from the channel and drew symbols in the air.

Since Liam was a cultivator, he naturally knew some basic formations and talismans.

He spent about ten thousand faith points and condensed a sealing talisman, which he placed above the portal.

Although it was still visible, all energy fluctuations had disappeared. This would be enough to conceal the spatial channel from the scanning of the plane's will.

After that, he sent a prophecy to Sylvera, who led the troops into the portal.

The first to come out were the rank 2 nagas, who established a security perimeter around the portal.

When they were sure there was no more threat, one of them went back into the portal, and the rest of the nagas and novarians came out.

When invading another world, the priority is not to start massacring the natives but to hide from the will of the plane and create a stable anchor point in this new world.

The invaders were not going to bother opening and closing a portal all the time.

Not only did it consume a lot of energy, but it would also increase the chances of being discovered.

Once the will of the world had discovered the invaders, it would either send endless hordes of enemies, or it would attack directly.

In either case, it would be really problematic for the invasion.

So, Liam did not rush towards the crab group. He had ten years to hunt them, and they wouldn't fly away.

The absolute priority was to secure the spatial channel.

This time, he put everything into it. Only children, pregnant women, and those too old stayed in the divine realm.

All his armed forces came to the plane.

He sent several hundred novarians to disperse in the surroundings and look for supplies.

At the same time, he instructed everyone to start building wooden huts and defenses around the spatial channel.

It would be their outpost and shelter for the next few years, and they needed to start reinforcing it from the beginning.

A few hours later, the exploration team returned. 

They searched a few kilometers around and found several groups of beasts and monsters, but most did not exceed rank 2 and were not a threat.

At the same time, some mortal novarians died, devoured by wild beasts.

Liam didn't flinch. He already expected to suffer losses during this journey.

Moreover, novarians reproduced very quickly, so it wasn't a big deal to lose a few.

Since there were no imminent threats, it was time to move on to the next step: plundering.

He didn't come to this plane just to complete quests.

He intended to improve the environment of his divine realm.

Currently, the tribe had reached the limit of what the realm could support in terms of food.

His divine realm was not small, but the problem was that big animals were still too few.

The basic ecosystem was very developed. For example, the number of small fish easily reached 500 000.

However, they were not enough to feed the tribe. Each novarian would have to eat about ten or twelve per day to be satisfied, so they couldn't support prolonged hunting.

Only gig fish and land animals could truly sustain a large tribe.

Liam thought his divine realm could accommodate between fifteen and twenty thousand people if big animals where enough.

The basic ecosystem was developed enough to support a complete food chain.

The portal was located at the edge of the forest, a few meters from the sea. There would be no problem bringing back fish alive.

He quickly formed about forty teams, each led by a naga warrior and consisting of a dozen novarians.

He sent half into the ocean, and the other half to the continent.

Some teams were tasked with hunting, while others had to bring back various small animals alive.

At the same time, he sent the rest of the novarians to dig and bring back soil, grass, and bushes into the divine realm.

As long as they brought them in small quantities, the divine realm would accept them very quickly.

In the worst case, there won't be a problem to surcharge the divine realm a bit as long as he waited some time before merging another divine pearl.

That's also why Liam wouldn't plant mature trees in his divine realm; only small trees and bushes.

A large tree would easily take as much time as fifty young trees to be accepted by the realm. Since the trees would grow, he preferred taking many young trees than a few mature trees.

...

In the void, the teachers observed the red-moon nagas with curiosity.

"Does anyone recognize this race?"

The teachers shook their heads.

"They look a bit like the dark-scaled nagas in the Mahaya crystal wall, but there are still noticeable differences."

Mrs. Chang nodded upon hearing her colleague.

"True, but they are far from reaching the level of such a race. Dark-scaled nagas have an open path to supreme existences. I scanned these guys earlier, and although they are very powerful for inferior races, they are destined to remain like this for some time."

Another professor added.

"That's true. Most of them are not flexible enough in their minds to become mages or arcanists, and without an organ to store spiritual energy, they can never follow the path of cultivators or experts."

Other teachers could only agree, but Mr. Voinier seemed to have a different opinion.

"That's true, but this race has latent potential. As long as the sublimation problem to become an intermediate life form is solved, they can easily transition to a rank 4 life form, maybe even rank 5. After some time, most of the children will reach the peak of rank 3 as adults. Such a race is truly impressive for someone who has just opened his divine realm."

As a combat professor, he could see at a glance that the red-moon nagas had decent potential.

Mr. Idder added.

"That's true. Young Adler has chosen bloodline and anatomy classes as his specialty. I think he is clearly aware of this issue. Plus, this kid is quite hard-working. I think he may solve this problem in a few months."

A professor from Elite Class No. 2 snorted and disagreed.

"So what? At the end of the year, all students will have low-tierintermediate races under their command. It's not a big deal. The real difficulty is reaching rank 6 and above."

Apparently, Mr. Idder was not convinced, and the heated discussion resumed above the plane.