312: The prototype of the Main God Space

"Holy crap, it's cyber violence!"

Because he had just been thinking about some things, his concentration slipped, and he was suddenly hit by a wave of fragmented whispers.

Realizing something was wrong, Zhou Yan hurriedly withdrew his consciousness, followed by a surge of nausea.

He originally wanted to retch, but seeing that Mo Ran was still by his side, he forced himself to pull it together. He gave a few simple instructions, telling him to go back and pacify the people first, and promised to find a way to let the souls of all living beings rest in peace.

Afterward, Zhou Yan found an empty corner, bent over, and couldn't help but start vomiting.

"Ugh..."

"Man, I want to ask every time—how can you still vomit after becoming an immortal? And this feeling of vomiting Spiritual Qi is just too uncomfortable."

"Why can't there be a Cultivation Technique to optimize this problem away!"

Because of his experiences last time and this time, Zhou Yan had gained a further understanding of this sensation.

This nauseous reaction mostly originated from the impact on the Sea of Consciousness. When it acted on the Sea of Consciousness, it would trigger the 'Primordial Oneness' characteristic of the dao body and feed back into the Physical Body.

Just as a mental shock could cause bleeding from the seven orifices, a physical injury could also make the Divine Sense weary.

The symptom of this nausea manifested in the Physical Body was the vomiting of Spiritual Qi, expelling power that hadn't been fully refined. It was a mechanism that prioritized the exclusion of external forces.

But after becoming a Cultivator, one hardly ate anything, so the stomach was already empty. At this point, one could only damage their organs and vomit out a bit of their Origin.

Although the amount wasn't much, the taste was indeed extremely unpleasant.

Now, Zhou Yan could somewhat understand why Brother Monkey always loved to crawl into people's stomachs. After all, for someone with poor refining abilities, having something actually enter their stomach was truly agonizing.

After calming down, Zhou Yan began to clear the stray thoughts in his Sea of Consciousness.

He first cleared the vast majority of trivial thoughts. Then, he used the Six Desires Heaven to extract the thoughts filled with malice and perversion from his mind, organizing them into a list. He planned to hand it over to Qing Xuan to handle once it woke up.

The remaining part was relatively easy to understand.

Zhou Yan crossed his arms, his expression serious.

"By the way, was that the perspective of a god just now?"

Everyone in the Grace City Pastoral Area was connected to him. After the citizens experienced the war and Mo Ran's adjustments, nearly a third of them had directly chosen to join the faith.

Excluding the other two-thirds, those who only prayed to him or transmitted thoughts already numbered close to two million.

This meant the total population of the city was roughly around five million.

After the war, most people's wishes were for their family or friends to rest in peace, or to return to their side.

Such a massive Power Of Will constituted an even more massive Power Of Faith.

If the new panel was truly as he thought, then combined with this Power Of Faith, everything really seemed possible to achieve.

Zhou Yan opened the System panel, but after looking around, he didn't see the so-called new panel.

Just as he was puzzled, he suddenly noticed a small icon in the upper left corner of the character column. It was a small gray ring.

Because the color was dull and similar to the background, he hadn't noticed it at first.

Upon clicking it, the ring turned gold, and the panel changed accordingly: the 3D character model originally in the center turned into a Taiyi God statue.

The equipment column changed to the Authority column, the title column changed to the Divine Office column, and even the classic red and blue health bars were plated with a layer of golden light.

"Damn! This UI design was definitely made by an idiot. What kind of panel overlaps with the main panel without being clearly marked, and is even hidden in a corner with gray? It's like they're afraid the player will find it, right?"

After complaining a bit about the ethereal designer, Zhou Yan first opened the Divine Office column.

Currently, there were only three seals in the Divine Office column, corresponding to three levels—Large, Medium, and Small: Grace City City God, Grace City Earth God, and Earth Subordinate God.

The seals for the City God and Earth God both had the word "New" in the upper right corner, flashing rhythmically, while the Subordinate God seal showed "Bound."

Zhou Yan knew about this. After all, the Subordinate God referred to Yuan Chenling's Earl Spirit Lion; he had discussed this with him.

But this made him feel a bit strange because the Subordinate God seal had existed before. Once his panel opened, it was actually categorized into it.

In other words, compared to the others, this panel was the first to connect with reality.

The last one with a similar function was the part of the Home System that interacted with recruited companions.

Zhou Yan didn't delve deeper and instead took out the City God Seal directly through the panel.

The moment the seal landed in his hand, a flood of memories rushed into his mind. Simultaneously, the panel changed, showing the City God Seal as "Bound."

The previously empty Authority column now had several new entries: [Protect the City and Pacify the People], [Eliminate Disasters and Resolve Hardships], [The Living and the Dead], [Reward Good and Punish Evil].

After receiving the memories in his head, Zhou Yan finally revealed a smile that said 'as I expected'.

With a wave of his hand, the entire city, which had been deathly silent, suddenly radiated vitality.

This was a change in perception.

Originally, the city lacked bustle because it was empty, creating a strong sense of dissonance. But now, that feeling had completely vanished.

People would simply appreciate the beauty of the city without feeling its loneliness. This was the effect of the [Protect the City and Pacify the People] authority.

Since the main city belonged to Zhou Yan, even if he wasn't in Grace City, this place was designated within his jurisdiction.

With the protection of a god, it naturally felt reassuring.

And this was not the end.

Zhou Yan quickly began to use his various authorities.

He first partitioned the main city, cutting out the reserved Newbie Area and Dungeon Area, while simultaneously creating an independent space beneath the main city.

Soon, a small-scale main city was constructed.

Unlike the main city's style, which combined high-tech and Xuanhuan elements, this small city was entirely in the style of the technological era, though the overall atmosphere was slightly eerie. This was the "Underworld" Zhou Yan had built using his authority.

As early as when he obtained this divine office, Zhou Yan had already started planning.

According to his probing, many powerful figures knew some information about him. But because the figures themselves were restricted, or perhaps because the Major Achievement Decree had taken effect, they didn't directly investigate him but instead performed divinations.

The divination results made them more willing to believe that Zhou Yan was the Reincarnation of an immortal rather than someone possessing a System.

Since that was the case, the System could still be considered his greatest secret, so the existence of the main city should also be kept as secret as possible.

However, if the main city had no people, could it still be called a main city?

But now things were different.

If he built an Underworld beneath the main city and then guided the souls of the dead through his divine office, he could autonomously choose to keep or release people when they died.

Those who stayed could join as NPCs of the main city, equivalent to "ascending to heaven" and becoming warriors of love. Those unwilling to continue toiling could be sent into Reincarnation.

The population could explode in an instant.

If there were only a few people, he might consider whether it could be hidden. But if there were tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, then there was no need to hide it. This itself was the greatest concealment.

Moreover, with the assistance of the [Reward Good and Punish Evil] authority, Zhou Yan could also screen for high-quality talent to keep for his own use, completely eliminating any potential traitors or those with ulterior motives.

Coupled with the temptation of "ascending to heaven," people would have higher pursuits, which would be of great help to the spread of the religion.

He had even found a legitimate path for the development of the main city.

As long as the main city was well-maintained and the souls could level up, kill monsters, and enjoy leisure like players, how was that any different from heaven?

Furthermore, these people who were originally unable to Cultivate could directly improve by gaining experience points. This was a better idea Zhou Yan had come up with after understanding the characteristics of the people in the Eastern Region.

People in the Eastern Region had difficulty Cultivating but could absorb resources. What resource was more suitable than experience points?

Thus, the originally thorny problems of resurrecting the deceased and saving the souls of the dead were instantly transformed into assets.

Zhou Yan could fully utilize the Power Of Faith to construct bodies for the souls and then throw them into the main city, letting them help him kill monsters and gather Materials and experience. He would take a cut and feed some back to them.

This was virtually no different from those novel protagonists who became Main Gods and harvested faith.

What's more, he had a sum of initial capital, making his start much easier than theirs.

If it weren't for the panel gradually becoming more useful and himself starting to exert power, Zhou Yan would have almost thought his "true cheat" had finally arrived.

"Excellent!"

Zhou Yan clenched his fist, full of drive.

He threw himself once again into the construction of the main city and the newly built Underworld. At the same time, he released the group of Core Formation Cultivators he had captured earlier, along with Wilde and the others, to arrange and utilize them.