Chapter 576 - 354: Zog, the King of Subtle Moves

Chapter 576: Chapter 354: Zog, the King of Subtle Moves

Zog had anticipated the server would come to life, but what was resurrected was certainly beyond his expectations.

A more ancient "God."

According to this member of the Divine Race, they are entities formed from faith—or rather, from the coalesced consciousness of other living beings. Life forms that believe in them can obtain knowledge about nature through prayer.

’Sounds like an intelligent database.’

Then, a group of what were once "good students" came to believe the database was hiding something from them—that information about eternal life was being sealed away. So they chose to turn on their "teachers," believing that if they overthrew the original Divine Race, they could become the new one.

Zog didn’t quite understand how they arrived at that conclusion.

’It’s like that old saying, "you are what you eat."’

From there, the story of these newly risen pseudo-deities could be roughly inferred.

They won the war, but they discovered there was no path to eternal life. Faith couldn’t make them immortal. So, they "cleverly" deduced that it must be because they didn’t have enough faith!

And so, a civil war began.

This was the part Zog was familiar with.

So all those years ago, the various races fought to the death simply because of these pseudo-deities’ speculations about how to achieve immortality.

In reality, they were no different from any other living being on the Continent in any fundamental way; they were just immensely powerful.

"Huh?" Zog suddenly had a new question. "If the Divine Remains are their corpses, and they’re no different from us, why can their bones be used as a server?"

"Because faith’s purpose is communication. They had absorbed enough faith to become a platform for it."

’They did indeed gain faith, but its purpose was never what they imagined.’

The Magic Goddess is still alive, so it’s almost certain she’s using Magic to prolong her life. But that method has its limits.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have started a civil war in the first place.

Now, the Magic Goddess must be trying to figure out the true purpose of faith. That’s why she’s allowing all sorts of religious sects to flourish, as long as they gain the Church’s recognition.

She wants the faith of the masses to give rise to a natural deity once more, so she can find a path to immortality.

’Therefore, to defeat this old hag who only cares about prolonging her own life, my only choice is to make her become a being of pure consciousness first. Then, I can use an overdose of faith to make her disappear.’

’Beating her in a direct fight is impossible.’

’To beat her, I’d need to use Magic of the Ninth Ring or higher.’

’But she’s sealed away all Magic above the Ninth Ring.’

’To break the seal, I’d need to use Magic above the Ninth Ring...’

’It’s a classic Catch-22: "You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience."’

Therefore, Zog first had to help the Magic Goddess find a way to become a being of pure consciousness.

’I can’t just hand over the network I worked so hard to upgrade, can I?’

’What if I tell the Church about these beings of pure consciousness?’

’That would be as good as handing it over.’

’Then the Magic Goddess would come asking, "How could you possibly know about this? Has a god already manifested on your network? Do you know something you shouldn’t? You’re a brave one, aren’t you..."’

’I’d be screwed. She wouldn’t just be sending people to toss Scrolls at me then.’

’So, what’s the plan?’

’A being of pure consciousness, a being of pure consciousness...’

’Why does that concept seem so familiar?’

’I’ve definitely encountered it somewhere before. And it was in Feilin...’

’The Soul Ascenders!’

After searching his memories for a while, Zog finally remembered them: the organization obsessed with uploading consciousness and creating artificial deities.

’Those Cult members... they stumbled onto the right path by accident.’

’Although their specific method of uploading a human consciousness isn’t the correct answer, their general direction was spot on.’

So, as long as the Soul Ascenders make a breakthrough first, the Magic Goddess will find out.

As for what comes next—whether her desire for immortality will drive her to become a being of pure consciousness, giving Zog an opening—that’s a problem for later. He would have to take it one step at a time, and this was the first step.

Infiltrate the Soul Ascenders and check on their progress.

"I need a little help. Is there a way to construct or enter a Consciousness Space without using other intelligent beings as raw material?"

Zog had one of the Soul Ascenders’ devices, but it required "Human Flesh Dry Batteries" to be plugged in. The Engineers hadn’t found a way to modify it, so it had been shelved.

’If worst came to worst, I could just grab a few death row inmates and shove them in, but the thought is just too grisly. A method that doesn’t require feeding people into it would obviously be better.’

"Of course. Why haven’t you mastered it?"

"Huh? Was I supposed to have mastered it?"

The God and the Dragon stared blankly at each other.

"Fine, it’s not important. The knowledge I transmitted to you before already contains this information. You can access that content now."

"Oh? That’s fantastic."

Zog was well aware of the massive amount of unreadable, jumbled Magic data still in his brain from the last transmission. If he could finally read it, that was an incredible bonus.

"Goodbye, Internet God. I’m off to study the big knowledge gift pack you left me."

"Internet God?"

"Of course. I don’t know what kind of god you used to be, but since you were resurrected on a network, you’re the Internet God now."

"Very well." The deity didn’t seem to care much about names.

"Oh, one more thing. That Spirit Body on the Divine Remains... does its shell have to stay in that state of being on the verge of shattering? It’s a little uncomfortable to look at."

"That image is a product of your own thoughts."

"My thoughts?"

"Yes. Our forms are not fixed. They are a projection of the worshipper’s thoughts."

"So, you’re saying its appearance is... customizable?"

——————————

Furin finished her day of lecturing, after-school tutoring, grading homework, and preparing for the next day’s lessons.