Chapter 911: The Root of the Matter (Part 1)
The fact that Satan and Junior had become gods was completely expected by Sui Xiong.
For Satan, it was to be expected. He had spent the last few years preparing to become a god, especially with his will to defeat all the ancient gods. That had given him the final, critical strength to become a god, and this was ensured by Sui Xiong himself. On the other hand, although Junior was not particularly expressive on a daily basis, he still had extremely strong underlying powers. If one wanted proof of his strength, they could reference how he had managed to convert the Great Marsh in Ashes Forest into an awe-inspiring, independent world. He was already stronger than the demigod level. That Great Marsh already had the vibe and structure of a God Kingdom, after all!
“Skeleton Devourer” Junior was one of the strongest living creatures on the Main Plane. This was so despite the fact that he was just a legendary monster and was not even counted as a demigod yet. This was mostly because he was dragged down by his weakness of having low intelligence.
In this world, gods that were low in intelligence definitely existed. However, normally, to become a demigod, let alone a real god, it was better to have higher intelligence. One did not need to be a genius, but they could not be too stupid either. Even if they were rather mediocre, they should at least have the intelligence level of a child back on Earth. If they were really extremely stupid and at a similar intelligence level of Slime, it was not likely that they would advance in rank.
Junior had always been disadvantaged by his low intelligence. No one could deny that he was strong, but yet he was unable to truly utilize his powers to his full potential. Instead, his powers were scattered and messy, akin to a giant, malleable structure. It could be said that its shape resembled that of a giant.
This time, Satan had wanted to purify the entire Ashes Forest and had naturally consulted the various daxies who lived in Ashes Forest. The Snow Elephant King did not have much of an opinion towards this, but he did not wish to be purified personally. He was a careful person by nature and did not like to take risks. He thus chose to travel out into the deep corners of the Bare Mountains and leave the scope of the purification array to prevent any incidents from happening. On the other hand, Junior had chosen to stay and tried to use the purification array’s energy to sort his own powers, hoping to see some positive results.
Clearly, his choice had been a good one.
This “Skeleton Devourer” had previously been burdened by his messy powers due to the main reason that he had been infected by negative energy. This time, with the help of the purification array, the negative energy within him was dissipated, and he managed to retrieve all the intelligence a demigod should possess. Junior then managed to organize his own powers, adjust his state of mind and become a mud giant within the Great Marsh.
That was not all! After Junior converted into a mud giant, he immediately used up all the energy he had gathered from the power of faith to obtain for himself a priesthood of “green swamp patron saint.”
The “green swamp” here was of course referring to this piece of Great Marsh. He had created this Great Marsh and had always been tending to it. He thus managed to successfully gain this title of patron saint due to his previous achievements.
Although this priesthood was not too high in status, it arguably still attained the level of weak Divine Power and was comparable to that of Dragon Tribe’s “red dragon treasure chest’s construction” type of priesthood. However, he was nevertheless still a real god now.
Real gods were immortal. Even if they fell from their position, they could still undergo rebirth through faith.
This was especially so for gods like Junior, who were nature-based and used faith as a supplement. Unless he sought his own death and went to create chaotic news, as long as the land still existed, it would eventually become a marsh again, and he would be able to undergo rebirth here. This was still so even if Junior got destroyed along with the entire green swamp.
Of course, if any deity of higher rank destroyed Junior’s priesthood or if any god with a clashing priesthood absorbed Junior’s priesthood, he would truly fall from his position as a god. Many Nature Gods who had fallen had all fallen in this way.
Satan had made similar choices to Junior. Although he could ride on his achievements in magic or in the Republic’s magic sect to become a God of Belief, Satan decided to become a Nature God after a period of careful consideration.
If they had a choice, a majority of mages would make the same choice to become a Nature God as well.
As compared to Gods of Belief, the downside to being a Nature God was that it was slower for them to increase their strength. However, there was the advantage of having more freedom, and it was harder to fall from their positions as gods. For mages, as long as they could have immortality, nothing else was really as important.
Limited strength? They could just slowly increase it over time.
Limited knowledge? They could slowly accumulate it over time.
In comparison, binding themselves to faith just to accelerate the increase of their powers was actually a rather dangerous and foolish thing to do.
From human to god, one did not just undergo an increase in strength but also underwent changes in terms of life form. Humans were complicated living creatures, but gods were simpler. Once a god had secured his priesthood, he would mostly only be affected by his priesthood. He was not bound by his priesthood but would have changes in his mindset instead. For example, for a god who determined fire energy to be her priesthood, even if she originally did not hate water and could even perform water-related spells, once she confirmed her priesthood, she would hate water then.
Originally, among the four big ancient gods, the first had been God of Fire Elements. He had perished exactly because he had tried to put fire with water and exploded in a giant fireball.
Nature Gods had lesser restrictions in such contexts as compared to Gods of Belief. Gods of Belief were changed by their priesthood and were also influenced and bound by the faith of their disciples. If their disciples generally believed that a certain idea was right and the god had not originally agreed, with the movement of time and the influence of faith, the god would eventually change his own mind.
The previous Goddess of the Ocean was a negative example that could be used here. Previously, she had been brave in war and had had control over all the big tribes in the ocean. After she had consolidated the faith of all these sea tribes, she had gradually become overly influenced by the faith and eventually converted them into hateful races who.
In the end, the reason why she fell was also linked to this conversion in mindset.
From the past till now, there were many, many gods who had been bound by their faith and eventually thrown into chaos and eventually fell from their positions.
It was because of this that Satan chose to go down the path of a God of Belief despite the inconvenience of the added time needed to prepare and the extra dangers.
To this end, he has to go deeper and simpler, reduce the number of times he had social meetings and at the same time, use the state machine to minimize his sense of existence so that the Association of Mages and others would not easily notice him. This was to prevent himself from accumulating too much power based on faith.
Satan had suffered much over the past few years.
However, the fact that he became a god proved to Satan that his efforts had not been in vain.
Being a “god of purification” did not just concretize his status as a Nature God, but was also a rather decent priesthood to have. This priesthood would garner the support of many of the other gods and his good friends as Satan would be seen as a protector of the lives of living creatures.
Furthermore, this world was extremely big, and there were many places that would require purification all the time. Every time a certain area was purified by Satan, he would be able to gather remuneration from the world’s core as well as the gratitude of the people. In the long term, slowly, Satan’s priesthood would definitely continue to improve, and he would be able to progress from weak Divine Power to low-level Divine Power with relative ease.
Such a priesthood was exactly what Satan had wanted!
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