NOVEL NEXT 47 – Great Gift
Although the divine world had not developed fully technological concepts such as electricity, the Internet, and television, it had developed low-tech equipment that used divine power as the energy to run these things.
Because the cost of making such equipment was extremely high, this kind of technology was practically only used by the military or very powerful gods who could afford it.
That's why when the teachers analyzed the Internet that Adrian had developed, the news was so shocking that even Aubrie and Abraham had to report it to their army superiors.
The way the young God was gaining divine power through this Internet and charging for prayers per hour of use was something completely new.
So much so that other gods in the army who received the news tried to replicate this Internet, but with such limited and fragmented gods, they didn't get satisfactory results.
It was impossible to ask a sword god to create something like the Internet with his deity, right?
A god with a broader deity, such as a deity related to light, would even be able to simulate a screen like the equipment they used in the army, but the problem was that linking it all together so that each user could use it in different ways was something they couldn't even understand how to do.
This alone was enough to raise Adrian's value in the army in a way no one could have imagined.
If before he was only valued for having a full blessing, his distinct lack of combat power lowered his value greatly, especially with the high cost of Divine Power for each attack and the low attractiveness of this deity to convince mortals to pray to him.
But by dealing with this low attractiveness to mortals, and even better, by developing a way to receive hundreds of thousands of Divine Power points per day with as few followers as he had, Adrian's value increased many times over in the eyes of the team.
At this point, even if he just continued to evolve in Arcantor without invading other realms, it would be difficult for the teachers to fail him.
Especially since he might be an Elemental God by the end of the test.
"Has he really become a rank 8 embryonic god?" First Sergeant Dillon was shocked when he saw the data on the test equipment.
As the teacher in charge of Adrian's class, he was the person most shocked by how much Adrian was evolving compared to the other students.
Especially because of the discrepancy in his report, where he described Zac and Lucy as the students with the greatest potential and left Adrian in such a lower position than most of the other students.
"Yes, First Sergeant, currently Adrian Innovashine is the student with the highest Divinity Rank, having reached Embryonic Divinity Rank 8 four days ago, followed by Lucy Wavecrest, who reached Embryonic Divinity Rank 7 this morning due to the gratitude of the mortals in her realm, with Zack Gale in third place at Embryonic Divinity Rank 6, and the other students ranging from Rank 4 to Rank 5. Currently, only two students are still Rank 3 Embryonic Gods, as their realms have been destroyed and only a few believers remain to pray to them. A lower ranked teacher politely explained.
Dillon was shocked to hear that Zack was only on third, two spots below Adrian.
"According to Adrian Innovashine's Divine Power estimates, if it weren't for the high Divine Power expenditure he had from the recent battle with Zane Dreadmourne, the likelihood that he would have already risen to Rank 9 Embryonic Divinity is very high, and he might even have enough Divine Power to become a Elemental God in the next few days." Another teacher commented in surprise as he read Adrian's data.
There had been cases in the past where Gods managed to finish the test as Elemental Gods, but those were only Gods who managed to gather Divine Power until the last days of the test and went through few battles.
Adrian was now involved in a war and was able to become a Elemental God before the test was even half over by breaking all the records for this test.
"Sigh... it seems that even if I overestimated his potential, I still underestimated him in the end..." Director Aubrie sighed.
Looking at Aubrie with a smile on his face, Principal Abraham laughed. "I had no way of knowing that he would come up with something like that... but we really underestimated that the God of Creativity wouldn't have such a creative idea to get more believers, hehe."
Hearing what Abraham said, Aubrie could only sigh as he nodded.
They'd had a lot of surprises at the school in the decades they'd served as directors of these young gods.
This intense test, where wars had to be fought and gods had to rise in rank to become stronger in just 30 days, was something that pushed these youngsters to their limits.
Having only 60 days in the mortal world to fight for one's life while conquering one's own followers, having them obey you to the point of dying for you, and even having to conquer other kingdoms in competition with other gods was something that brought out the best in these young people.
Those who didn't have the mentality for battle would not pass the test and would have to be trained and educated for longer in the army, while those who excelled in the test could enter the army without such training and with honors that would facilitate their promotion in the future.
Among the students who showed great potential, Adrian Innovashine shone like no other, showing everyone the potential that someone with full divinity could have.
=== Adrian's POV ===
Looking at the huge dragon in front of me, the smile on my face was gigantic.
Next to me, the three Archmages of Arcantor looked at the dragon with shocked expressions.
I had shamelessly based the dragon's appearance on the villainous dragon from one of the most memorable RPG expansions of my childhood.
The dragon had a body covered in black scales and red energy running through the spaces between the scales, making the whole creature very sinister.
Unfortunately, I couldn't give this dragon the power of an archmage.
The most I managed to do was to spend 1.2 million Divine Power Points, which, even discounting the conversion part I charged to mortals and the discount I got for using my divinity on it, the power it had was that of a novice Sage Mage.
What saved me a lot of money was coming up with an alternative to the power of fear.
Developing a truly intelligent life form would be very expensive, even more so for a creature that had a finite time on earth, because when the divine power in the dragon's body ran out, it would dissolve.
Not to mention, a truly intelligent being might be affected by fear and not follow my orders.
So I just made a simple mind like a program, something that couldn't be affected by fear, and put in simple commands that I could control through my divinity, just like a video game character controlled by a joystick.
I even thought about making a controller like the ones in the video games of my world to control the dragon, but controlling it with the divinity would be much easier for me, so I gave up on that idea.
When the archmages saw the great dragon, the astonishment on their faces was obvious.
"So much potential in one iMonster?" Harry asked in shock, perhaps comparing the Great Dragon to the little green squirrel he had recently summoned.
I looked at him with a smile and said. "That is not the full potential of the iMonster, for this dragon's power is still only at the level of a Wise Mage. As long as the believers pray enough and feed the iMonsters cookies long enough, it's only a matter of time before the believers will be able to summon iMonsters more powerful than this dragon in the future."
Of course, I used the believers' prayers to feed their iMonsters to create this dragon, and if everyone wanted to summon their iMonsters now, I wouldn't have enough divine power to do it.
As I said before, the iMonsters were my way of making money with the kind of service that health club chains benefit from.
Every month, there are 5,000 users who pay $20 to use the gym and make $100,000, but among those users, only 4,000 have to go at least twice a month, and among those 4,000 users, only 2,000 actually have to go at least three times a week.
In this way, only 2,000 users actually use the gym, while I have 3,000 users who pay without using anything.
My profit doesn't come from the 2,000 users who use it, but from the 3,000 users who pay without using it.
This is the same logic as with the iMonsters, the amount of Divine Power they would earn me by using the monsters is much greater than the amount they actually use to summon those monsters.
Under their shocked gaze, I asked, "Have you decided which one of you will fly this bad boy to Eldoria?
After meeting with them, I discovered that the gift for the God of Fear would be better than I could have imagined.
///NunuNote///
It's the start of the month, the best time to become a Patreon!
Read 25+ Advanced Chapters on my Patreon!