74 – Decision

As I flew back to Eldoria, I thought about how necessary it had become to have an AI that would warn me about important things appearing on the Internet.

If I had an AI that could constantly analyze the Internet data and warn me of any anomalies appearing among my followers, I would know immediately about the demons appearing in Eldoria, and I could leave Lucy to deal with the people in Aetheris and quickly fly back to Eldoria to deal with it more quickly.

Unfortunately, this meant that the God of Fear might use this opportunity to attack Eldoria and try to win back the people as his followers.

Even though I had faith in the Internet and believed that only a small portion of the population would actually become Fear God believers out of gratitude for him saving them, I still didn't feel comfortable with it.

Knowing that another god was cultivating believers in my territory didn't make me feel comfortable, it was like possibly keeping cancer cells in my body, hoping that those cells wouldn't get worse and kill me at any moment.

So I went back to Eldoria, ready to deal with the God of Fear for good.

Even though I had little Divine Power compared to how much I had before I went to Aetheris, those 2.2 million were more than enough to deal with Zane.

So I returned confidently, even spending a little Divine Power to use Lucy's divinity to speed up my flight even more, so that within a few minutes I arrived at the place where people said the Demon Power capsule had crashed.

And just as I imagined, there was a Rank 4 Embryonic Divinity hovering over that area, not even trying to hide its presence, which left me a little confused.

What kind of confidence does it have to show itself in front of me when it is only a Rank 4 Embryonic Divinity? I asked myself in confusion.

He was still at the same rank as the last time I fought him.

I approached cautiously and saw Zane floating there, looking at me in surprise, but not shock.

Possibly after sensing that I was now an Elemental God.

Surprisingly, Zane was quite similar to how I imagined the God of Fear.

Since I didn't have much contact with him in Divinity School, I didn't remember his appearance very well, so I just based it on the stereotypes I could think of for the God of Fear, and Zane fit most of them.

He was slim and tall, with extremely pale skin to the point of being almost paper white, long black hair that slightly covered his eyes, while he wore a baggy black suit, slightly hunchbacked and with a slightly insecure expression that gave the impression that he was an emo boy from my previous world.

If I from my previous world had imagined a God of Fear, I'd probably have imagined an old God with a skull face, no skin, just bones showing, with the most terrifying appearance I could imagine, but living in this world for a few days, absorbing Adrian's memories of this world for so long, I got used to the idea that Gods were just normal people.

Sure, the purple aura that hovered around Zane was a great indication that he was a god and not just an ordinary human, and the more powerful he became in the future, the more conspicuous his divine quality would become, to the point where it wouldn't be impossible for him to get skull armor just like I imagined.

But for now, Zane was just an emo boy.

When I approached him, I noticed that he wasn't shocked by my power, but he was still nervous about my presence.

"I knew you were the God of the Internet, Adrian..." Zane said embarrassed, but with a little pride as he stared at me. "I just didn't think you'd become an elemental god by now..."

I nodded at him, not answering his comment, but asking him what I wanted to know. "Why did you show up in Eldoria again, Zane?"

Since he hadn't treated the old Adrian badly, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt, unlike Zack and his friends, whom I would attack first and ask later.

Hearing my question, Zane was clearly embarrassed and leaned forward even more, his hair covering his face even more. "I was curious... I wanted to see what you had done better than me, how you had conquered your population so quickly and what I could learn from it..."

My eyebrows raised in surprise. Accustomed to dealing with overbearing and arrogant gods, especially since Zane had acted that way in the past, I was surprised that he had managed to change his personality so drastically in such a short time.

"And what did you observe during this time?" I asked curiously.

Zane didn't have to think long before answering excitedly. "From what I've seen of your use of the Internet, how you act to keep believers engaged in it, how you actively improve their lives to awaken their gratitude for you... these are all fundamental factors in your growth that I can certainly use in the future to improve my development when I come into contact with another small world, even if I can't replicate the Internet with my divinity..."

I nodded my head in agreement. He had really analyzed the factors that made me grow, putting aside the arrogance of a god and looking at it objectively.

"I was just wondering... Has Lucy Wavecrest surrendered to you?" He asked, showing genuine confusion.

Since this information was not confidential, I decided to answer him honestly. "She has not surrendered to me, but we have formed a pantheon, the Internet Pantheon. She grants me access to her divinity so I can use it to improve the Internet, and in return I give her a percentage of the divine power I gain from her divinity."

At my explanation, Zane's eyes went wide as he lowered his head and began to mutter in a low voice, but being an Elemental God, I could hear his muttering easily enough.

"That would be at least 70k Divine Power Points a day just for surrendering to you..." He said.

"She didn't surrender to me, we have an equal contract, she can leave anytime." I corrected him, making him look up in amazement, but I didn't correct the amount of Divine Power he thought she was getting, because he was already amazed at the current amount.

When I noticed the mind thinking at high speed, I looked around and saw that instead of attacking my territory or trying to get people to become his followers, Zane was just protecting the people while applying fear to the demons and gathering them in one place, away from the population, which was better than I imagined, which made him win points with me.

Thinking about his divinity, just like Lucy, I could see some points where I could use it in more effective and creative ways than he could have thought of himself.

Ever since I'd met Zane in the mortal world, he'd only used his domain to instill fear in his enemies or remove fear from his soldiers, nothing more.

Although I could think of several ways he could use it.

For example, if he could instill fear in his enemies, was it through mind control? Illusions? Incantations? Any of these ways could cause his power to evolve into a whole new tree of development.

Mind control could allow him to influence decisions in ways other than inducing fear, albeit at a possibly higher cost since I was still close to his divinity, but it gave me a great chance to understand "minds" in an easier way to help me develop my artificial intelligence.

Illusions could allow him to make real holograms, both for scary creatures and for anything else, since he controlled fear, wouldn't fire creatures be afraid of water? Wouldn't plant creatures be afraid of fire? As long as something was afraid of something, couldn't he create illusions of that thing? That might solve part of my problem with playing videos on the Internet, right?

Or the most powerful possibility, the ability to summon people's fears into real physical forms that could fight and terrorize enemies, or in my case, reduce the cost of summoning iMonsters...

All three of these possibilities could be very useful to me directly, not to mention the possibilities of developing apps based on his divinity, which would make believers even more interested in the Internet, with the variety of apps and the different uses it could have...

At times like this, having the Mastery of Creativity really helped me think about what I could do and different ways to use deities that the gods themselves couldn't think of.

With the way Zane handled the problem, the personality change he had after his defeat, and the way he acted in front of me, I would have had no problem helping him in his time of need.

Sure, I wouldn't trust him 100%, since we were rivals before, so he would still be in a trial period in the Internet pantheon if he really wanted to join us.

But when I saw the way he looked at me, I had to stop myself from smiling, knowing that he was about to make a big decision.

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