I did not dwell on the matter excessively. ‘Perhaps the low ranking truly stemmed from a scarcity of participants,’ I mused. ‘At this point, I could only cling to that hope.’
She then led me to the living room. “This is a rare opportunity,” she remarked. “Let’s take a stroll around the campus.”
I nodded in agreement, though one detail still troubled me. “Don’t gods typically move mountains and fill seas with a single strike?” I asked. “How terrifying would your battles be?”
She considered my words for a moment before a realization dawned on her. “Ah, I completely forgot you ascended from a lower world!” she exclaimed. “Our laws, when we were in the lower realms, were superior to their highest precepts, allowing us to command them like a superior ordering a subordinate.”
“However,” she continued, “here in the God Realm, our laws are on par with this world’s own. The extent to which one can manipulate them depends entirely on an individual’s skill.”
I understood her explanation, but another point needed clarification. “Xilinka is a lower-tier god, isn’t she?” I inquired. “Why then is she ranked so highly, at second place?”
She patiently elaborated, “The upper, middle, and lower divine tiers are merely assessments of divine power reserves, not actual combat prowess. Xilinka’s reserves are less than ten million units of divine power.”
“Yet, despite my thirty-five million units, I was utterly dominated by her, defeated in less than three minutes,” she admitted with a wry smile. “However, in terms of sustained combat ability, she is certainly inferior to me. Her limit for casting divine spells is also far below mine; she can unleash spells up to the million-unit level, while I can cast those in the ten-million-unit range.”
“Thirty-five million?” I repeated, astonished. “What about me?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
She studied me for a while, her expression slowly shifting to one of peculiar disbelief. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Two hundred and thirty million units of divine power, yet you chose to be an Illusion God? If you had chosen to be a Mage God, the destructive power…”
She paused, a clear note of regret in her voice. Realizing her words might be inappropriate, she quickly offered reassurance. “Still, becoming an Illusion God certainly has its prospects.” Despite her attempt at comfort, the underlying sense of pity was palpable to anyone.
Her words instantly soured my mood. I had previously felt my resentment towards the Agent, who had forcefully made me an Illusion God, diminish somewhat, believing it was due to the rarity of such a divine path. Now, that fleeting contentment vanished.
Yes, Illusion Gods were rare and undeniably important. Yet, if divine specializations could be chosen freely, why were there so few high-tier Illusion Gods? The reason was quite simple.
Consider a typical game: a highly talented player knows that support roles are crucial and skilled supports are scarce. Why, then, do most still resolutely choose a damage-dealing position?
The reasons are twofold:
First: Humiliation. Anyone could harass you. You couldn’t out-damage the enemy’s offensive roles, and typically, you couldn’t outrun them either. If you couldn’t fight and couldn’t flee, then once isolated, you’d be utterly helpless against an attack.
It was like a little sister dragged into an alleyway, able only to scream and hope for a police officer’s intervention. Even if your skill vastly surpassed your opponent’s, you could still be ruthlessly suppressed. How many were truly willing to endure such a stifling sense of humiliation?
Second: The absence of that thrilling, ostentatious satisfaction. As a damage dealer, you could sometimes wipe out an enemy team with a single combo, or unleash a burst of power at a critical moment to turn the tide of battle. Most supports simply lacked this capability.
Imagine the exhilaration of striking a decisive blow when the enemy confidently believes victory is theirs, earning the cheers of the entire crowd and ascending to the peak of your career. Supports, on the other hand, typically had to play steadily and methodically (though exceptions exist, like unexpectedly defeating a top esports pro). They slowly built their reputation.
While they could still achieve fame, it rarely compared to the sheer thrill of instant renown from a single, glorious battle. Moreover, the spotlight invariably shone on the damage dealers; supports were perpetually relegated to supporting roles, their contributions often serving only to make the main offensive players shine brighter.
However, one crucial aspect diverged from the gaming analogy: Illusion Gods in this God Realm did not rely heavily on divine power. With enough effort, and excluding the unique abilities of certain gods—such as the Life Goddess’s unfairly powerful resurrection spells—seven or eight Illusion Gods could collectively function as a single, ordinary high-tier Illusion God.
Conversely, seven or eight ordinary Mage Gods likely couldn’t rival a single high-tier Mage God casting a ten-million-unit divine spell. Furthermore, this was not a game; in actual warfare, there was no concept of “many bullying few” or regulated numbers. Thus, a high-tier Illusion God without any special innate abilities was truly nothing exceptional.
I truly felt awful, exceptionally so. After learning all this, I realized my divine power reserves were sufficient to rank within the top hundred in the entire God Realm, perhaps even higher. While that might not sound incredibly high, one had to remember there were tens of billions of gods, both great and small, in the God Realm. To be in the top hundred was already incredibly formidable.
If I were a Mage God, I could thoughtlessly unleash high-damage divine spells, and most ordinary gods wouldn’t stand a chance against me. On the battlefield, I would be an absolute weapon of mass destruction.
But alas, I was an Illusion God. My role was to provide buffs, offer minor healing, cast a few illusions, and, given my personal attributes, perhaps even “act cute.”
I pictured myself wielding a staff, countless divine spells raining down upon my opponents. At that moment, I felt like murdering the Agent.
“Oh, right,” she said, stopping and turning back to face me. “What category of Illusion God do you belong to?”
“Illusion Gods have categories?” I asked, genuinely surprised. ‘Aren’t they all just support? There are subdivisions?’
“Of course,” she immediately replied. “Mage Gods are divided by elemental affinities, and War Gods by divine physique and divine spirit. Guardian Gods are categorized as Divine Shield-bearers and Divine Body-enhancers. Illusion Gods, however, have the most intricate classifications.”
“There’s the Sacred branch, specializing in healing; the Phantasm branch, focusing on illusions; the Arcane branch, mastering space and time magic; and finally, the Astral branch, which specializes in potions and prophecy.”
I felt a little dizzy absorbing all this, and instinctively asked, “Are there more?”
She tilted her head in thought for a moment, then clapped her hands. “Oh, War Gods also have categories based on their divine artifacts. That’s a much broader topic, so I won’t list them all now. And among Illusion Gods, there’s also a rather useless Linguistic branch, it seems.”
“It’s no use explaining all of this to you now anyway,” she added. “Later, a teacher will guide you in choosing your specific branch.”
“Ah, speaking of which,” she said, clapping her hands again. “Here.” She then retrieved a small bottle from a spatial rift.
I picked up the exquisite, crystal-clear bottle, less than five centimeters tall. “What is this?” I asked.
She explained, “This is ‘Purification,’ crafted by Nymph, the Goddess of Nature. It can eliminate unpleasant odors and certain impurities that even Holy Light cannot cleanse.”
“I originally thought you might need it to thoroughly clean your room after moving in, but it appears unnecessary now. Still, please accept it as a gift.”
I nodded, then extended my hand. ‘[Divine Art: Spatial Chapter – Draw]’ I intoned, and the exquisite little bottle vanished into my personal spatial dimension.
Her eyes widened. “So you’re a Linguistic Illusion God!” she exclaimed.
“Linguistic branch?” I echoed, puzzled.
She nodded. “Yes, the Linguistic branch. Just now, you combined divine language characters to form a sequence and release a divine spell. However, I don’t quite understand why you didn’t pre-arrange the characters, instead combining them slowly, one by one.”
“Typically, Linguistic Illusion Gods compile their commonly used spell sequences in advance. When needed, they simply trace a specific trajectory according to their memory. Ah, but the Linguistic Illusion God is truly a regrettable divine lineage.”
I generally understood her explanation, but why exactly was it considered regrettable?
She continued, “Theoretically, Linguistic Illusion Gods can cast divine spells of all elemental affinities. However, this is only in theory. Many divine spells require exceptionally complex sequences, so practitioners typically pre-arrange a limited number of spells.”
“During an actual battle, they simply trace the memorized patterns. One could say, the Linguistic Illusion God is both the most flexible and the most clumsy. Due to the inherent characteristics of divine beings, the types of spells that can be cast in a single battle are limited.”
“Once an opponent discerns a spell’s sequence, the Linguistic Illusion God is essentially finished. While they can often catch opponents off guard, this doesn’t mask their fundamental flaws. Consequently, not a single outstanding Linguistic Illusion God has emerged in six hundred million years.”
To put it plainly, being a Linguistic Illusion God was akin to spelling out words. One would activate scattered divine language sequences in the air according to a specific order to cast a divine spell. Most Linguistic Illusion Gods employed a small “cheat,” much like remapping keys in a game.
They would arrange skills that originally required frantic, multi-position presses into a specific shape. For instance, drawing a circle on a keyboard might unleash a shockwave that otherwise demanded numerous left and right presses.
However, after a moment of thought, I realized that while this method undoubtedly accelerated casting speed, it drastically limited the variety of divine spells that could be unleashed. This, then, was the reason for its obsolescence, and it certainly made sense.
Suddenly, a thought struck me. While ordered sequences might limit the number of divine spells activated by specific movements, it didn’t mean one couldn’t manually activate each character individually. The divine language of the God Realm comprised a total of 132 characters.
If we were to compress each character and arrange them in a fixed order, wouldn’t it essentially become an oversized keyboard?