Chapter 17 Fist of the Gods

Fictional Divine Kingdom.

Shang Lin paid extra attention to Professor Halley's actions, and this time he recited his own divine name, so Shang Lin witnessed the moment when he was up to his old tricks again.

"Pixel Art! This old mage is truly a rare talent!"

Normally, such unintentional skill showcases and grandstanding are things a story's protagonist should be doing, but the old mage actually used his own stuff to show off... The effect was great!

Those who chant my true name in samsara, I shall grant you a game console.

"I'm absolutely sure this guy will bring me endless surprises!"

By now, Shang Lin had fully understood something.

In many stories or events, some deities favor seemingly irrelevant passersby, bestowing blessings upon them frequently, while they ignore the devout followers of their own churches.

It turned out that these ordinary people's behaviors resonated with gods, their unwitting actions aligning perfectly with certain deities' characteristics.

Then looking at those churches in the stories or events, there are either fanatics shouting about heresy trials all day, popes and bishops busy with chanting or engaged in political struggles, landlords and the wealthy exploiting the church's name to amass fortune, or missionaries with firm heads adhering rigidly to the church's laws and regulations without flexibility.

How could you cultivate faith with this bunch!

You need to be adaptable, preaching with force is the lowest form of evangelism, you have to make people understand why they should believe in you, what benefits they will get from their faith! That's how all the gods of this era do it! Shouting about blasphemy and heresy all the time, even The God of Sacrifice isn't as extreme as you are!

Shang Lin initially wanted to perform Enlightenment Runes, but then he remembered that mages seemed to have a natural magical barrier, generally impervious to divine enlightenments, meaning that gods making a call (divine enlightenment) would be blocked. Consequently, Shang Lin prepared a formal letter with due seriousness, planning to have the adorable Miss Malt deliver it to the old mage. The initial content of the letter was:

"Professor Halley, you are quite the thinker, why not become my lackey!"

After writing this, Shang Lin realized he should be more tactful, as mages have a certain aversion to gods, after all gods demand value from mortal beings, while mages believe that value is only in the individual's hands, loathing the idea of giving their value to gods.

However, there are socially awkward mages, like the traditional tower mages found in various worlds, and there are still quite a few of them around.

"Dear Professor Halley, I truly hope you can join our Fictional Church. Your actions have already brought me great faith value, and I admire your talent... I'm looking forward to you joining our team. Yours sincerely"

Once Shang Lin had finished writing, he immediately received a faith bonus. The painting master had already taken a taxi to the sixth district of the third market area at breakneck speed, found the metal box, and immediately sat down on it to begin his gaming time.

[Faith from the Painter +50.]

"It seems that this painter is indeed fascinated by Pixel Art," thought Shang Lin, who was confident that by offering game trials, there would be even more people doing stunts, and the games he was copying before were also ready for an update.

Aside from Raiden, one of the highly praised early electronic games must be the fighting game genre.

However, simply copying characters from known fighting games is a bit dull, so Shang Lin made sweeping changes to the character content. After all, the content and form of early fighting games were all similar—just create a bunch of characters and have them fight each other.

"Let's call it 'Fist of the Gods'. Although the name feels a bit old-fashioned and cobbled together to me, it should be quite novel for the mortals of the various worlds, right?"

"Deities held in high esteem reincarnated as playable characters, fighting with their unique abilities, is sure to attract a lot of popularity!"

As for whether other gods would be infuriated by Shang Lin's actions, or even feel it tarnished their image... if they truly cared about their image, they wouldn't be causing trouble all over the various worlds.

It's the same old saying, as long as there is faith and value, you are my brother from another father and mother. That's just how gods are, and after this game was introduced, rather than bring about any negative impact, Shang Lin believed it would actually cause a surge of faith among the gods.

Furthermore, the battles between gods of different faiths in the future might just transform from physical altercations to "You control your deity, I control mine, let's have a life-or-death PK in defense of our faith. Best of three, no time limit! Fist of the Gods, activate!"

As for character balance... no worries, players would help test out which character was overpowered.

Moreover, creating these fictional likenesses of the deities was another verification of Shang Lin's own authority.

"If we attract the true forms of the gods to play this game, maybe it will replicate the incident with the God of Death... I'll gain a mass of divine traits!"

So, let's set a small goal for now, to charge toward the achievement of full divine immunity!

And these virtual god characters might also develop some strange connections with the gods' true forms, for after all, the things crafted by the Enlightenment Runes can generate real value, which means those things, even that world itself, are part of the real world at least to the extent of being a "projection" of some sort.

The limit of the Enlightenment Runes is still unknown to Shang Lin, so he needs to continue learning about the rune, unlocking its abilities. Right now, he was just in the beginner phase; using it to create games was a waste of its potential, truly like using a bull to kill a chicken.

But logically speaking, if it weren't for the intelligence of a god to learn from... this thing would be much harder to understand clearly than "C language."

No wonder the original God of Deception made an operational error, the starting procedure was probably guessed at random.

Shang Lin's gaze shifted beyond Divine Nation, where the massive star operated silently, slowly revolving.

"Survived another day."

....

In front of the arcade game, a blonde young man wearing a black top hat was playing a game when suddenly, a notification popped up on the top-left corner of the screen, displaying the message "New Game Updated."

"A new game?"

As usual, the arcade was surrounded by many people, always waiting for their turn. So this major update was seen by all the players.

But many people still hadn't fully grasped Raiden, and now a new game had been updated out of the blue, which surprised everyone.

Because the divine tokens of the gods usually had rather singular functions... they had always thought that Raiden and this tin box of an arcade game were bound together.

Could there really be a new game?

Thus some were already impatient to start the new game.

And the God of Death was no exception, the young man with golden hair and black eyes pressed the button, opening the new game named "Fist of the Gods."

When he reached the character selection screen, his eyes lit up in an instant!