After waking up, the first thing I did was look at my status screen and see how much Divine Power I had received that day, since it was my first day as an Elemental God.
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| Character Status
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| Name: Adrian Innovashine
| Titles: God of Creativity, God of the Internet
| Level: Elemental God rank 1
| Number of believers: 1,685,811 -> 1,736,385
| Average usage per user: 4 hours
|------------------------
| Available deities: Creativity, Waves.
|------------------------
| Divine Skills: Blessed Prayer.
|------------------------
| Divine Power: 3,641,208 / 12,800,000 -> 7,990,363 / 25,600,000 (+5,209,155, -860k transferred to Lucy)
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The number of believers I receive each day is dropping, but that's understandable since I already received most of the believers from each kingdom with the outreach the nobles did to get more users to feed their iMonsters.
So seeing this drop didn't affect me at all.
However, when I saw that I had received 5.2 million Divine Power Points in a single day, I had a big smile on my face.
If I continued at this rate, I would be able to become a rank 2 elemental god in less than five days, which was a very good achievement.
Of course, this was only assuming that my Divine Power costs would remain at the current level, which wasn't the case.
As the number of believers exploded, reaching almost 2 million, the need for an AI became greater and greater.
I didn't need an AI as advanced as if it had the intelligence of a real person, for now I just needed an AI that was intelligent enough to read the data that users posted on the Internet and gather relevant information about it for me.
Even though it would reduce the amount of Divine Power I would receive on a daily basis, the benefit in the long run would be immeasurable.
Especially considering that my efficiency in using Divine Power would only increase over time, this was a great investment for me to make after dealing with Zack.
With the plans decided, I used my consciousness to return to the mortal world and went to meet Lucy so that we could make our invasion.
Seeing Lucy waiting for me at the same place we had met the first time, the border between Arcantor and Novera, was very different this time.
Now Lucy and I were much closer due to our constant chatting over the Internet, as well as our partnership in sharing a pantheon.
This meant that unlike the first time we met, where we were both very cautious and afraid to open up to each other, this time we met with a smile on our faces.
"Hey Adrian!" Lucy smiled as she waved her hand as she flew towards me. "Are you ready for battle?"
Smiling, I waved back at her and replied. "Yes, I have almost 8 million Divine Power Points for this battle, I think that's more than enough to deal with Zack this time."
Lucy nodded. "Yes... 8 million is no joke, with that amount of Divine Power, it's possible that you could even defeat him without needing my Divinity."
Hearing this, I thought about it and realized that it might even be possible, but it would be an extremely exhausting battle.
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I would have to expend all of my divine power to be able to compete with him by replicating Lucy's divinity with the knowledge I had gained by leaving my body to study that divinity.
That would be possible, but completely unnecessary with Lucy by my side.
"Are we going to Aetheris?" I asked.
She nodded at me and we took off towards Zack's realm.
=== Zack Gale POV ===
Damn it, why... why did Adrian fucking Innovashine manage to beat me so easily!
I was always the best student in the Divinity School, the student everyone was sure would have the best chance of passing the test at the end of the course, the student who would be able to move up the ranks in the army the easiest.
Now, for some random reason, Innovashine has managed to beat me in such a humiliating way!
And the worst thing is that even though I made him use a lot of Divine Power to deal with my attacks, so that I could escape without him being able to counterattack, according to what my uncle told me, the speed at which he received Divine Power from his followers was very high.
Even though my uncle didn't say how much Divine Power he received per week, for my uncle to say that he receives a lot, I think he must receive at least 4 million per week, which means that by the end of the trial, he will probably become an Elemental God and achieve the feat that only the greatest geniuses of all time have achieved.
And I, who have always been the greatest genius in our class, will now be relegated to perhaps not even achieving that?
I couldn't accept that.
So I decided to force my followers to pray for me every day.
Even though I knew that this could damage my reputation with them and cause me to lose potential believers in the future, just as the teachers said would happen, believers that I would have to work to win back in the future, I didn't care.
On the first day I received 500,000 Divine Power Points with these prayers, on the second day 450,000, on the third day 420,000, on the fourth day 400,000, and on the fifth day 380,000.
Just as the teachers said, I lost a lot of believers in those five days, to the point that even if I won the battle against Innovashine, I'd still be screwed if I tried to become an Elemental God in the next few test days.
But as long as I got a place in the top 5, I would be satisfied, because my chances of getting a higher rank in the army after graduation were much higher, even more so after eliminating Innovashine.
So I just focused on how to improve my attacks and how to get more Divine Power.
Even though I spent 100,000 Divine Power points to test my attacks, I still had 2.2 million Divine Power points, a number that I know must be very close to how much Innovashine must have.
So when he came to my realm to try to deal with me, I could surprise him with my Divine Power and deal with him instead!
Hahaha, you're going to be so screwed when you come to Aetheris, Adrian Innovashine...' I thought excitedly.
Suddenly, I felt a very powerful deity approaching me.
I felt another deity, and I was sure that this god was Innovashine.
I was a rank 7 embryonic deity, because I knew that it was better to be a rank 7 embryonic deity with 2.2 million Divine Power points than a rank 9 embryonic deity with 300,000 Divine Power points.
The power I felt from the god coming towards me was the power of a Rank 9 Embryonic Divinity!
With the way Innovashine dealt with me in our last battle, even if I had felt traces of a rank 9, I'm sure the Divine Power he used was rank 7, so if he used his Divine Power to rise to rank 9, it would only increase my chances even more!
That idiot spent nearly 2 million Divine Power points to level up before he came at me... hahaha, I'm going to have a lot of fun with you, Innovashine, and then I'm going to go to your kingdom and show the mortals how weak and useless you are! I thought excitedly as I began to fly in the direction where I felt the Divine Power.
This Divine Power was a few kilometers away from the capital of Aetheris, which made me happy because I wouldn't have to fight it and I wouldn't have to worry about losing my livestock.
The weak mortals could go on living and worshipping me, being as useful as they could be, that's much better than them being dead.
Knowing how weak Adrian was in Divine Power, I even used some Divine Power to fly faster to him, causing the sound of thunder to travel for miles from where I passed.
After a long time, I finally arrived at the place, but to my surprise, even though I felt the Divine Power of a 9th-rank Embryonic Divinity, the Divine Power wasn't coming from Innovashine, but from the woman next to him.
The woman? Lucy Wavecrest, a beautiful girl who I had tried to build a good relationship with on my uncle's recommendation, even trying to develop something romantic between us, but she never treated me as anything more than a colleague, so I just gave up and went back to focusing on my life.
But when I saw her next to Adrian Innovashine, the anger inside me started to bubble up.
That bitch ignored me to team up with Innovashine in the test and bring me down?!
Did she think that just because she got top 2 in the test and teamed up with Innovashine in the test that she'd have a chance against me?!
Since she was rank 9, I knew she had little Divine Power, which would give me the chance to eliminate both her and Innovashine in a single battle!
At that point, I would regain all the believers I had lost, and I would even get a bunch of new believers!
"So, have you two come to die for me?" I asked mockingly, thinking of how weak they were.
But they only looked at me for a second until Innovashine raised his hand and snapped his finger.
Seeing him perform that action again, the same action that made me so desperate a few days ago, made my heart flutter.
Even more so when I noticed that my surroundings had fallen silent, I opened my mouth to try to sneer some more until I realized something.
Not only could I no longer speak, but I also realized that I couldn't feel Innovashine's divine power until he snapped his fingers...
It was like he was just a mortal next to Lucy until he snapped his finger, and what I felt when he did that made me realize that I could be in a lot of trouble right now.
It made me turn and look around to see where I could run to!