Revelations

Adam asked the woman with wide eyes "What are you doing here?!" Sofia looked at him funnily and asked "Can't I appear in my own game?"

Adam froze, before asking "So you can just… stop time? What about the other players?" Sofia replied "I have frozen the area around us, including the players. You don't have to worry about them, it's all fine."

Adam nodded slowly, before asking "What are you doing here?" Sofia replied "I think it's time for you to know some things."

Hearing her, he couldn't help but frown as he asked "What do you mean? Searing Light already told me a lot."

Sofia smiled and said "He told me about it, but that's only the tip… There are too many things you ignore, and I think this is the right occasion to tell you about it. Well, not everything of course, where would the fun be in that."

Adam shook his head and asked "Is my quest so special?" Sofia actually laughed in response "In a way, I'm just using this as an opportunity. Anyway, you were told quite a few things about cultivators, right? But do you know of their origin?"

Listening to her, Adam caught onto something and he asked "Their? Aren't you one as well?" Sofia revealed another smile as she said "One thing at a time. About cultivators origin, we have to go all the way back to the formation of the Earth. You know about that, right? And what followed after."

Adam nodded, and Sofia said "Well, wipe everything out of your memory since it's a fabrication, an illusion." Adam was shocked, did she really say what he heard? After a moment he asked "How?"

Sofia replied "Have you never been curious about the name of my company? Gaya Inc… doesn't it ring a bell?"

Suddenly, Adam opened his eyes wide. Sofia saw this and said "You got it then… Yes, my real identity is Gaya, Mother Nature, Earth itself… But you can call me Sofia."

Adam asked "So you are telling me you are a goddess… Then, do the other gods exist too?" Sofia said "They do, but not like you think… You heard about the Golden Idols, right? Well, those are the gods of the legend. One of the advantages of becoming a Golden Idol is immortality. Anyway, they are Golden Idols, but I am the only real God on Earth."

Adam waved his hand and said "Wait wait… Then about the origin of cultivators… of humans, what happened exactly?"

However, she didn't answer his question, and instead began looking around with a strange gaze as she asked "What do you think about Epoch? What do you know about the history of this world?"

Adam replied "Well I like the game, it's fun… As for the history of this world, I guess you can say I discovered the big historical events, or at least some of them."

Sofia nodded and said "Good. Then you must have heard about the War of the Gods that split Epoch in three realms?"

Seeing Adam nod, she added "Well, here's the thing. Epoch is not just a game. It is a real world. And this is where we come from."

As Adam was obviously getting agitated, she said "I am a Goddess from before the War of the Gods, I did not partake in this war, but I had to suffer the consequences… As a result, I was ejected out of the mortal realm too. But I didn't have the best relationship with the other gods, and bringing my Divine Kingdom in the Divine Realm would have been too dangerous. That's why I decided to separate myself from Epoch."

Adam blinked, and said "That's a lot to take in… So, Earth is your Divine Kingdom?" Sofia, or Gaya, nodded and said "It is. After the War of the Gods, I took the members of multiple races with me and left them to proliferate in my Divine Kingdom. Most of the legends of today's society come from this period of time."

"Among all those races, humans couldn't really be considered as very strong, and they almost were annihilated. However, your ancestors used a special technique to win the war of the races, and become the dominating species on the planet, annihilating almost everyone else."

Adam couldn't help but ask "Special Technique?"

Sofia nodded and said "Although the strongest of humanity are Golden Idols… They aren't really Golden Idols either. They did not achieve this level of power through cultivation, but rather thanks to the power of faith. This allowed them to become much stronger in a short period of time, but in exchange it also destroyed their potential and sealed their Gates forever."

Adam said "How come the way to cultivate here is so different from within Epoch?" Sofia replied "Because you are a completely different race from any other human within Epoch. You aren't Northmen, Kartians or Islanders. You are a different branch of humans with a different constitution than those in Epoch."

Adam asked "Then how come we can cultivate like the inhabitants of Epoch while entering it like a game? And how can we be immortal?"

Sofia said "This game actually sends your consciousness into an avatar I create for you. This avatar can be revived thanks to my Divinity, although there are limits. But since I created those avatars with my power, I am also capable of making their body become like the ones of other races."

Adam asked "What are those limits?" Sofia replied "If a God, or even a powerful Legend proficient in Soul attacks, kills you then you will die for real. Also, I can't make avatars too strong. Once your avatar in the game reaches a certain level of power, it will stop becoming stronger or I won't be able to revive it and the player will really die."

Adam asked "What will happen at that time then?" Sofia said "You will have to create your own avatar. At that time, you won't have any second chance, dying in game means losing your avatar forever, and injuring your soul. But you don't have to worry about that for now."

Adam then asked "Why did you let humans kill every other race?"

Sofia sighed and said "For the same reason many gods banded together to banish me… Unlike what you are thinking, I am not the Goddess of the Earth. Instead, I hold a special title, a special Divinity… I am the Goddess of Life and Death. As such, even if almost all the other races were killed, I did not intervene, because it was the natural order of things."

Adam frowned "Goddess of Life and Death? You… Were you the one who…" Before he could finish his question, a sly smile appeared on Sofia's face as she snapped her fingers, and a black book appeared next to her.

Upon seeing this book, Adam was shell shocked. He recognized this book with a single glance, because it was the book that brought Old Adam's soul to this body!

Before he could ask anything, Sofia said "This is my Divinity, the Book of Life and Death. I first used it to send your soul to an alternate reality I created to make you learn the Gates, before bringing your soul back to this world. And you, Adam, are my Champion."