Chapter 17: Ch 17 : The Merchant God and the Elves

"Can't I help many other Gods manifest anything, and ask for Faith points in return?" Sunny pondered, a novel and highly ambitious idea sparking in his divine mind.

"If the price and margin are balanced, this will be a very profitable business," Sunny mused aloud, already envisioning a colossal influx of Faith.

He saw an endless ledger, tallying divine currency.

"Every minute counts," Sunny exclaimed, a sudden burst of urgency driving him.

He promptly opened the God Chat panel, his fingers hovering over the virtual keyboard.

Cosmos: "My fellow Gods, I, God Cosmos, have started a service that you all will surely love.

From now on, you can directly PM me regarding any request for a non-living thing that you wish for me to manifest.

You just need to provide me with its design and usage.

The prices will be given according to the production cost."

The cosmic silence that usually preceded major announcements was shattered by an immediate, cacophonous burst of chatter.

"Oh my God, the bigshot is truly magnanimous! Sharing his talent with us like this!" typed one God, awe dripping from every virtual letter.

"He is clearly a profiteer! He will take a huge chunk of Faith points as his service fee. We don't even know what the production cost is!" clarified another God, their skepticism cutting through the praise.

"Taking a share is just part of a business. We can't do what God Cosmos can. It is natural for him to gain his profits," another God, perhaps one struggling with their own world's development, defended Cosmos, sparking an immediate and heated debate in the God Chat.

"A service? What audacity! Is our divine power to be commodified?" scoffed a traditionalist God.

"Rubbish! If it saves me years of trial and error on my world, it's worth every point!" retorted a pragmatic God.

"Perhaps this 'Manifestation' title isn't as grand as it sounds. Maybe he can only make trivial things," whispered a subtly envious voice.

"Don't be a fool! The System gave him a unique title! There's no 'trivial' about that!" another argued.

But Sunny was utterly oblivious to the divine squabble, his attention already consumed by the sheer volume of inbound communication.

He already had more than 1,000 private messages flooding his inbox, requests pouring in from across the vast divine network.

Sunny's underlying goal was not that simple; he didn't only want to hoard a large amount of Faith from his customers.

His primary objective, hidden beneath the veneer of commerce, was to acquire knowledge—the invaluable, diverse knowledge possessed by all these Gods.

He knew many Gods would undoubtedly ask him to manifest complex blueprints: nuclear weapons, advanced weaponry schematics, and countless other technological devices from their own highly evolved worlds.

On the other hand, the requests from those overseeing magic-infused worlds could prove even more fruitful.

They might ask for a perfect copy of a revolutionary medicine discovered in their realm, or perhaps even the precise structure of a heaven-defying elixir.

Now, Sunny was not just thinking through his heart, which was still utterly fascinated by the raw spectacle of magic.

He was thinking with his mind, his strategic intellect honed by years of solitude and meticulous planning.

He understood, with absolute clarity, that if magic and technology could both be evolved together in his world, or, even better, if they could be intricately combined, the potential for Veridia would become limitless.

He envisioned fantastical creations: mana cannons that fired bolts of pure arcane energy, spaceships powered not by mundane combustion but by harnessed mana stones, automated cities built with magical precision.

Because, in the grand scheme of things, his primitive humans, no matter how physically powerful, would not be able to spread their influence or territory across the cosmos faster than technologically advanced, or magically-fueled, spaceships.

His vision for Veridia was not merely a strong planet, but a dominant force in the universe, a beacon of combined might.

Sunny began to go through these requests one by one, methodically sorting through the torrent of private messages.

As he had half-expected, the very first legitimate order was for a weapon.

However, it was neither a nuclear warhead nor any form of advanced weaponry.

This particular God, whose world was evidently still in its nascent stages of development, simply asked for a single basic bow and a hundred arrows.

"I guess at this time, no God will be needing a nuclear weapon or any advanced weapon," Sunny mused, a faint smile touching his lips.

He was not heartbroken by the simplicity of the request, because he knew it was just a matter of time before more complex and intricate designs would inevitably arrive.

With a surge of Faith, Sunny meticulously manifested two identical bows and 200 arrows.

The bows were crafted from a fine, resilient wood, entirely smooth to the touch, their strings made of a hard, perfectly elastic rubber.

Sunny manifested two pairs because he wanted a spare set for his own nascent lifeforms on Veridia.

Sunny's pricing strategy was simple, yet audacious: his charge was two and a half times more than his calculated Faith cost for manifestation.

On the Blue Planet, such a markup would be unashamedly called a scam, as many consumers could easily guess the production cost using the raw ingredients or by directly consulting a worker.

But here, in the ethereal marketplace of Gods, no one knew about the true, minute production cost of these divinely manifested items.

The specific order for the bow and arrows only costed Sunny a paltry 8 Faith points to produce.

For this, he directly asked for 20 Faith points.

The God on the other side of the trade was visibly hesitant at first, the pause in communication a clear sign of their internal debate over the price.

But their hesitation quickly dissolved, and they promptly confirmed the trade after looking at the item's System-generated description.

[Item name: Basic Bow (Cosmos)]

[Grade: A]

[Description: A bow manifested by the God of Manifestation using his Faith as a source. Due to the use of a God's Faith, this bow is filled with extraordinary power.]

Sunny was already intimately aware of these detailed descriptions; they were System standard for items manifested with Faith.

The spear he had made for Thorn, for instance, had been an S-Grade artifact.

And the bow he was going to eventually gift to his humans was also of S-Grade, having been manifested directly by him with higher intent.

Though their inherent grades were high, implying immense durability and effectiveness, they didn't inherently hold any specific combat skill.

This was a current limitation: Sunny was not yet able to imbue a weapon with an active, learnable skill.

He gazed down at Veridia, his divine attention lingering on his human tribe.

He desperately wanted to find someone with a natural talent in archery or marksmanship, someone who could truly maximize the potential of these newly manifested weapons.

He meticulously scanned through his human population, searching for any tell-tale signs of such an innate ability.

To his disappointment, he found no humans among them with this specific talent.

"Sigh! These guys are really talentless when it comes to ranged combat," Sunny sighed, a fleeting moment of frustration.

"Even if the cooldown of my SSS-Grade Skill-Resonance finishes, it wouldn't matter much for this specific purpose."

His gaze then lingered at other, unexplored parts of Veridia.

The sheer size of Veridia was truly immense, a sprawling landmass five times that of Earth, now holding an abundance of untouched, fertile territories.

Sunny's eyes widened, a flicker of surprise passing through him.

He noticed a new group of agile, human-like creatures inhabiting a different continent within his vast world.

There were currently five distinct large islands (which were effectively continents) making up Veridia: one massive landmass in the middle, and four smaller ones positioned strategically on its four cardinal sides.

(His primary human tribe was currently thriving on the Southern island.)

As to why Sunny described them as "human-like" but not entirely human: it was because of their distinct, immediately noticeable features. They possessed elegantly pointy ears, delicate yet distinct gazelle-like horns curving gracefully from their foreheads, an innate and profound agility, unparalleled graceful movements, and a notably gentle disposition compared to his more rugged humans.

They were currently running through a dense, verdant jungle, their movements fluid and silent as they tried to find some food.

Sunny immediately considered gifting this bow and arrows not to his humans, but to these "elves-like" creatures.

His divine analysis confirmed his intuition: he was currently seeing that many of these newly discovered "elves" seemed to possess innate talents specifically related to eyesight, perception, or marksmanship. This was a stroke of incredible luck, aligning perfectly with the very weapon he had just manifested.

Sunny didn't just descend into Veridia casually like before, with barely a thought to the cost.

Now, he needed to manage his Faith points meticulously, acutely aware of every expenditure.

Due to the emergence of these elves, who were innately intelligent and inherently strong—perhaps even more so than his humans at this stage—this next trip would surely cost much more Faith than his previous, brief intervention.

The stakes were rising, and Sunny knew every decision counted.