Chapter 2

"Chuckle..."

A slight hiss sounded as the white divine realm connection pod's door opened, and a pale blue mist with a calming effect billowed out, revealing Lin Xiao who had just opened his eyes.

Reaching up, he removed the transparent crystal ring from his head, rubbed his brow, and carefully placed the ring in the dedicated storage slot inside the pod.

This was a specialized device to stabilize the mind and buffer mental stress. Its main function was to allow him to connect to the divine realm located in the subspace, as well as to alleviate the perception disorder caused by the time flow rate difference of over a hundred times between the main world and the subspace, and to stabilize his mind, preventing new players like him from getting lost in the illusions created by divine power.

After all, before he became a divine being, he was just an ordinary person. Without this assistance, it would be easy to get lost in the immense power of divine energy.

When the human federation first discovered the god game, there were no such complete auxiliary facilities. At that time, it was common to hear of people whose personalities changed drastically due to the influence of divine energy and divinity, and those with weaker wills were directly enslaved by the power of divinity.

Lin Xiao's time of crossing over was quite good. At this point, after tens of thousands of years of exploration and development, humans had already created stable divine realm login pods, and human civilization had firmly established itself in the chaotic void sea. The clan was filled with powerful beings, and millions of deities dominated the various crystal wall systems, occupying countless planes and crystal wall systems.

Being reborn in this glorious era of ultra-fantasy civilization, Lin Xiao was quite satisfied.

He was also quite satisfied with his reborn family. His parents were alive, and he was an only child with no siblings. Although the family had many branches, overall it was still harmonious, without too many messy affairs.

After all, the true god ancestor who had ignited the divine flame was still alive. With the infinite lifespan of deities, the younger generations had no real aspirations, and there was no way to compete.

Exiting the divine realm login pod, he washed his face and heard a 'ding' sound from the pod. Wiping his face, he walked to the side of the pod and lightly touched a button. A light screen popped up in front of him, displaying the following:

Dongning City No. 5 High School, Grade 1, Class 3, 38th Major Class Report for This Semester, as follows—

Student Lin Xiao:

Personal Performance: 6.2 points.

Follower Performance: 4.4 points.

Overall Score: 5.5 points.

Overall Evaluation: Good-.

Class Ranking: 25.

Grade Ranking: 252.

Teacher's Comment: Personal combat performance is above average, follower performance is failing.

The report was quite formal. Lin Xiao glanced at it and shrugged. He had already known this. The follower race he chose was indeed a bit weak.

Half a year ago, when he first opened his divine realm, he knew this. However, at that time, he saw that the golden finger he brought with him was about to activate, thinking that with the golden finger, the initial race's weakness could be quickly made up for.

But he didn't expect to wait for half a year. Despite only 1% progress, it took half a year, which was a huge pitfall for him.

When he first opened his divine realm, he had a hundred fishmen. Now, after half a year, which was two hundred years in the divine realm due to the 1:100 time flow rate, the fishmen, who had a lifespan of about twenty years and could reproduce every two to three years, had only increased to 107, a growth rate of less than 10% over two hundred years, which was a significant pitfall.

The main reason was that the fishmen were too weak. Although all students' initial races were weak, the fishmen were among the weakest.

Their weak strength, combined with the weekly major class combat damage, and the lack of a card to accelerate reproduction, resulted in this poor state after half a year.

However, what left him speechless was that his performance was still in the middle tier of the class. Out of fifty students, he ranked 25th, and out of five hundred students in the same grade, he ranked around 250th, which was quite stable over half a year.

Rinsing his mouth, Lin Xiao closed the panel and opened the next message.

It was still from the teacher, a group message:

"Prepare for the baseline test next Monday. This is the last baseline test of the semester, followed by the final exam and the school's reclassification. Everyone knows what this means. This is your last chance. Please prepare well in the last month."

The baseline test was held once a month, usually prepared by the teacher, who would release various monster cards to invade the students' divine realms, similar to the major classes but with stronger or more monsters.

The baseline test was somewhat dangerous, and a moment of carelessness could result in significant losses to the followers in the divine realm, affecting development.

However, for some outstanding students, this was a good opportunity. Since the students' promotion rate would affect the teacher's performance evaluation, the teacher would often reward students who performed well in major classes, and the same applied to the baseline test.

Of course, since entering the school, Lin Xiao had not received any teacher rewards in over thirty major classes. His best performance was ranking 19th in the class, earning a verbal encouragement from the teacher.

Closing the light screen with a serious expression, he was not worried about the baseline test but the final exam a month later.

The human federation's high schools operated on a tiered system. Freshman year was relatively normal, but by sophomore year, the school would reclassify students based on their freshman year final exam results, dividing them into ordinary classes, advanced classes, and key classes.

Undoubtedly, advanced and key classes would receive more resources and better teachers.

As for ordinary classes, they were basically left to fend for themselves.

Even with the golden finger, Lin Xiao took the reclassification very seriously. He did not want to be placed in an ordinary class, as it would be difficult to excel even with the golden finger.

It wasn't that the golden finger was weak, but... why go to an ordinary class when you can go to a key class?

This wasn't a fantasy novel where the protagonist starts as a nobody, gets ridiculed, and then rises with the golden finger to humiliate everyone.

He didn't have that much time to waste.

So, this baseline test...

His consciousness sank into his mind, where a crystal cube, glowing faintly, was flipping irregularly in the center of the starry sky. A progress bar had reached its maximum.

"I hope it finishes loading before the test!"

Before he could finish his thought, the progress bar reached its maximum, and the crystal cube in the starry sky emitted infinite light, like a sun spanning the sky.

"My golden finger is finally activated."

Lin Xiao was almost in tears. After waiting for seventeen years, this thing was finally usable.

He immediately extended his palm, and a white light flew out, quickly forming a cube of light threads in his palm. This was the projection of the Creation Cube.

Well, he didn't know the real name of this thing, but he named it the Creation Cube because of its function.

As the name suggested, the cube's function was like creation itself, capable of decomposing, refining, extracting, fusing, and reorganizing anything placed inside, with the ability to fundamentally change the essence of all things in the world.

When Lin Xiao first obtained the Creation Cube, he didn't know how to use it, but after entering the god game and opening his divine realm, he knew how to maximize its potential.

"Let's see if it works."

He couldn't wait to try it again. He went to his room, opened an alloy safe embedded in the wall, and took out three crystal cards.

These were special cards in the god game: a three-star resource card, a two-star skill card, and a one-star skill card, all of which were ordinary white cards.

Three-star resource card—Fertile Black Soil (Rare): Converts a 60-meter by 60-meter by 4-meter area into fertile black soil.

Two-star skill card—Thrust (Common): Limited to piercing weapons, rapidly advances to attack the target, causing double weapon damage and a guaranteed piercing effect.

One-star skill card—Severe Pain (Common): Your attacks cause 15% additional damage, with a small chance of triggering a bleeding effect.

The three-star resource card was given to him by his grandfather when he first opened his divine realm. Unfortunately, he chose a marine divine realm, and the fog fishmen were not good at farming, so this rare three-star resource card was useless.

The other two skill cards were given to him by his grandmother and a cousin. He felt it was a waste to use them on the weak fishmen. Knowing the function of his golden finger early on, he decided to save them and later combine them into a more powerful card.

So, they had been stored in the safe, gathering dust, until today when they finally had a use.

He eagerly took out the three cards, thought for a moment, and then took out a crystal wristband from the bedside drawer. He pressed a button on it, and a light screen popped up. He thought for a moment, then edited a message on the screen:

"Dear Father and Mother, your son has recently decided not to work hard anymore. Please, Mother, transfer the New Year's money and red envelopes you've been keeping for me over the years to me."

After reviewing the message, he changed 'you' to 'you' (formal) and signed it with satisfaction before sending it.

Less than five minutes later, he received a reply. Opening it, a light screen popped out from the wristband, forming a projection of a woman in a light blue starry dress.

The woman looked about 70-80% similar to Lin Xiao, appearing gentle and beautiful like a young girl. She looked at Lin Xiao with affection and said softly:

"Xiao'er, have you made up your mind?"

"Yes, I have made up my mind."

This was Lin Xiao's mother, Jin Yunzhu, a demigod of the rainy season and growth. This was a projection of her divine will, while her true form was in a plane cluster of the AX-14 crystal wall system, where the family was based.

Like all mothers, Jin Yunzhu was very doting on her only son. Every year, she would prepare a gift for his birthday.