Chapter 28: Ch 28 : Anaske’s Devotion

"Master, I have completed my search in the hundred thousand kilometer radius of the portal." Nova said to Sunny through the instantaneous connection between them.

This exhaustive search had not even taken a few minutes of Nova's precious time.

Due to its powerful magic affinity, the effects of any magic or abilities used by Nova were manyfold more potent than ordinary.

Thus, accompanied by the already incredibly powerful Eye of Truth, the perception and scouting capability of Nova was truly astonishing, covering vast distances in mere moments.

"Don't harm the lifeforms of other Gods and take the treasures from the faraway places only." Sunny instructed Nova, his divine thoughts clear and precise.

He didn't want the other Gods to perceive Nova as a direct threat or a rival, potentially putting his valuable dragon on their collective hitlist.

Sunny was not afraid of the retaliation of one single God, as his own power was formidable.

However, if all the Gods collectively felt a profound fear or threat from Nova, they could easily combine their vast reserves of faith to create a much stronger demigod specifically to counter Nova, a scenario Sunny wished to avoid.

The reason behind taking the treasures only from far places was also strategic: Sunny didn't want to deplete the valuable resources immediately near the portal to Veridia.

Those resources were destined to be helpful to his own lifeforms once they eventually reached the Realm of Advancement.

Noticing that even in a hundred thousand kilometer radius, the curvature of the earth was still flat, which clearly denoted the truly enormous size and vastness of this new realm.

Sunny stopped paying such close, constant attention to Nova's ongoing exploration and started to fully immerse himself in his manifestation talent, eager to push its boundaries.

As Sunny was deeply immersed in his groundbreaking experiments, the God chat was still as lively and chaotic as always.

Some Gods were expressing profound distress, crying out due to what they termed the third misfortune to befall their worlds, indicating recurring calamities.

Others were intensely busy, consumed with thinking about and devising elaborate plans for the transportation of their lifeforms to where the elusive portal was located, a significant logistical challenge for many.

Many established alliances, like the Wisdom Alliance of Strategist, the Timeless Council of Kairos, the Builder Union of Builder, the Merchant Union of Mercator, and many other smaller, less prominent alliances, were also intensely busy in collecting vast amounts of faith.

This collected faith was then primarily provided to their respective alliance leaders and to those select members possessing high-grade talents, ensuring the growth and strength of their collective.

All the members were doing this not out of fear or out of blind reverence towards their alliance leader, but purely due to a clear understanding of mutual benefit and shared prosperity.

For example, the faith points diligently provided by the members of the Timeless Council was generously given to Kairos, their leader.

Kairos, in turn, would strategically use this concentrated faith in his own world, thus significantly enhancing the growth and prosperity of his civilization.

In return, Kairos could provide many good and invaluable things to the members of his council, such as advanced magic techniques developed in his world due to the influence of his unique 10x time ability, a benefit immensely valuable to their own divine endeavors.

Sunny, however, was not lacking in faith points; his own reserves were substantial, thus he hadn't asked his own alliance members for any faith points.

Otherwise, he could have easily garnered an additional half a million faith points, a testament to his alliance's loyalty and numbers.

The effects of Sunny's continuous experiments were beginning to show promising results.

He could now successfully imbue various artifacts with specific talents, specifically those talents with whose working principles he was intimately familiar.

However, for talents whose internal workings Sunny was not yet familiar with, such as the mysterious God's Eye or Nova's unique Eye of Truth, Sunny was not yet able to manifest those upon artifacts.

"A mosquito's leg is still meat, I guess." Sunny mused, paraphrasing a common saying, indicating he was not overly downcast upon the partial failure of not yet being able to manifest the most complex talents like God's Eye or the Eye of Truth upon the artifacts.

Being able to manifest the talents he knew and understood was still a tremendously good thing, a significant breakthrough in itself.

For instance, he could now reliably create artifacts that could dramatically increase a lifeform's mana capacity or enhance the mana flow within their bodies, or even create items that tangibly increased the physical strength of any lifeforms who wielded them.

Sunny stopped paying more attention to this specific line of experimentation; he had already been intensely experimenting for more than 15 continuous hours, a testament to his divine focus.

He was still, however, paying a lot of attention to the ongoing developments on his world Veridia. He observed the steady creation of large wooden ships, vessels designed for longer, more ambitious journeys across vast seas, and the continued development of spells and arrays related to medium-grade teleportation, which could now reliably teleport a magician or a small group 1000s of kilometers away in a single bound, a monumental leap in travel.

Apart from these technological and magical advancements, there was also a significant change in human leadership.

Thorn's 21st child, a young man named Anaske, had now ascended to become the human leader, a testament to his talent and the tribe's evolving structure.

Due to its rapidly expanding population, the human tribe had now successfully developed into a burgeoning kingdom, complete with three major, thriving cities and one central capital, a true mark of sophisticated civilization.

Anaske himself was now an impressive A-Grade body-strengthening fighter, a formidable warrior, and he needed just a final push to reach the illustrious S-Grade.

Thus, he was truly looking forward to venturing into the realm their God had mentioned, eager for the opportunities it might hold for his own advancement and that of his people.

Even though he was merely a newborn, a tiny infant, when Sunny had first descended to Veridia in his divine form, but due to his inherently high talent, or perhaps simply the captivating and awe-inspiring form of Sunny, he was never able to forget that momentous encounter.

Even though at that time Sunny's body was covered in a mysterious black cloak and his face was concealed with a mask, those cosmic, all-seeing eyes were all that it took for anyone to fall into his divine grace, to be utterly captivated by his divine presence.

From that moment, Anaske was not fearful towards this almighty, powerful being.

He felt nothing but utmost reverence towards Sunny, a profound and unwavering devotion, and his lifelong goal had since become to see that divine form again, to once more bask in the presence of his benevolent Creator.