Of course, I would be making updates to the system later. For example, I could add in those items that had been sacrificially offered to me. I could even call it the Item Shop, or something similar. I planned to allow non-combative users to create magic potions or even donate gold to purchase dragon points. In fact, one of the spells from the Aegis Libram would be perfect for this. It was a ritual in which even non-spellcasters could use it to sacrifice something as an offering to a god.

However, I would need to overcome one problem with the ritual. My first thought was to use the Planar Mansion ritual from the Aegis Libram. However, I still hadn’t achieved a high enough spellcasting level to cast the ritual. I also wasn’t sure that it would count as my divine realm. The spell would send the offerings to the god’s divine realm. I didn’t have a divine realm yet, unless I counted the Twilight Zone. That started me thinking. Could I use faith points to expand my personal dimensional space? Curious, I started infusing the Twilight Zone with faith points.

I had to resist the urge to squeal in joy when I noticed that my idea worked. Then I had to wince when I realized just how many faith points it was taking to expand my personal dimensional space. While the Twilight Zone was increasing in size, I also made two other discoveries. Maintaining the size of my divine realm required faith points as well. The bigger the size, the more faith points it would require to maintain its size.

Another discovery that I made was that I could choose to greatly increase the size of my divine realm if I chose to do so, but that this would also exponentially increase the cost of maintaining the divine realm. Needless to say, I chose the first option. I would rather expand the size of the divine realm slowly so that the maintenance cost later would be reduced. Unfortunately, I could already tell that the faith point cost in creating and maintaining a divine realm was staggering.

I shook my head, took a deep breath, sighed in disappointment, and continued to send waves of faith into increasing the size of my divine realm. Once I decided it was large enough to start accepting offerings, I stopped. Afterall, I still needed a lot of faith points to set up the Dragon God System.

After I was satisfied with the size of my divine realm, I pricked my finger with one of my teeth. I then used telekinesis to make the tiny ball of blood hover in front of me while I inserted faith points into it. After that, I created additional balls of blood, each one carrying my twilight bloodline. After that, I began to infuse them with the power of faith.

Faith points were the power of the divine and could create miracles. It was really only limited by a few restrictions. The more powerful the effect, the more faith points the effect would need. Also, whatever the god wanted to achieve by using faith points needed to align with the god who was using the faith points. While a fire god could use faith points to create an ice storm, it would require many more faith points than it would for almost any other god. As for an ice goddess, she would be able to create the effect with fewer faith points.

I started to get concerned with the number of faith points I was burning through to create the Dragon God System. My faith points were rapidly decreasing. The only consolation I had was that I only needed to create the system one time. After that, I could easily insert it into my blood with only minimal cost. However, I soon began to worry that I would run out of faith points before the system was created. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, though I did drop dangerously low on faith points.

Finally, I breathed a sigh of relief after I finished the system. Then I closed my eyes and shook my head. Even though I had tried to keep it simple, there was a big problem. While it was true that I was a god, and that my intelligence was off the charts, if I wanted to maintain the system, I would have to spend a lot of my energy listening to the users.

Listening to prayers was a lot like listening to a group of people who were whispering around me. While I could focus my attention on one or two people, I couldn’t listen to everyone at the same time. Of course, as my divine rank increased, I would be able to listen to more prayers at the same time. Obviously, there was one certain way mortals could make sure their voice stood out among prayers, and that was by following a ritual or making an offering.

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Now I felt like throwing a tantrum. While I had known I was trying something new, and that there might be some problems, I had hoped that everything would turn out alright. As it was, the system had a major flaw. I would eventually have to “answer the prayers” of a lot of users. However, until I had a large number of people using the system, it actually wouldn’t negatively affect me too much.

However, even as a god, there were only so many users I would be able to pay attention to at any moment. That was when a ding appeared, along with a popup window.

YOU HAVE CREATED A PLATFORM CAPABLE OF FORMING A MENTAL CONNECTION WITH MORTALS.

* Do you wish to utilize points from your intelligence attribute to oversee contracts created with mortals who are using the system? The number of intelligence attribute points needed will increase as the number of system users increases.

* Do you wish to sacrifice point a from your intelligence attribute to create a sentient system who will oversee contracts created with mortals who are using the system? The intelligence of the sentient system can be upgraded by using Faith Points.

My first impulse was to start cursing my system. Of course I didn’t want to use my intelligence points. Would a beautiful girl want to be uglier? Then I paused, took a deep breath, and started weighing the pros and cons of the suggestion. The first option said that I could “utilize” intelligence points. I wouldn’t be sacrificing them. Therefore, the intelligence points would still be there. I just wouldn’t be able to access them unless I temporarily shut down the system for an upgrade or some similar excuse.

Unfortunately, I would have to start using more and more intelligence points as the number of mortals using the system increased. I could easily imagine myself at some point as a god who sat drooling on my throne while all my thoughts were spent mindlessly meeting the needs of the system. Just the thought of that sent shivers down my spine to the end of my tail.

While, initially, it didn’t sound too bad, it could also cost me a lot in the future. Of course, I seemed to be gaining attribute points by leveling up my class and my divine level. I could always spend those points on Intelligence. As for the other option, I would actually permanently lose at least one intelligence attribute point. That hurt a lot. In effect, I would be giving myself a lobotomy. Just the idea made me want to run away screaming.

From what I knew about intelligence, I would definitely have to use more than one intelligence point for the first option. With only one point of intelligence, a person would be incapable of reasoning. That person would be worse than an animal, since most animals could be trained. Many animals could even be trained to respond to words. Most animals had at least a minimum of three for their intelligence, although some had higher intelligence attributes.

However, I really only needed to spend enough intelligence attribute points to ensure that a simple routine was followed. The system would only need to be able to follow a few simple directions. It needed to be able to use the Identify spell on magic items, although even that wasn’t really necessary. Afterall, magic items would mostly likely only rarely be offered. I could take care of that.

That left appraising the value of offerings. Just following a basic list of how much most items cost would allow the system to provide the correct number of draconic points to the user. Then the system could allow the user to follow a simple flow chart to spend the points they were given. I could also tell the system to add individual quests as needed. If necessary, I could just heavily invest faith points to increase its capabilities.

Neither choice appealed to me. However, trying to do everything myself just wasn’t an option. Reluctantly, I chose the second option. I limited the sacrifice to one intelligence attribute point and then planned to use faith points to make up for the difference. Until the sentient system was smart enough, I could even help it out. It almost felt like I was creating a child.

Actually, was I creating the first artificial intelligence in Guthheimr? Or was I already using artificial intelligence? Was I following in the steps of another god who had given me a system? Had that god given the system to other people as well? Did that mean there might be other people who had reincarnated from my old world? Any other questions were driven away as a piercing pain stabbed through my mind, ripping away at my intelligence.