2: Chapter 2: Everything Can Be Taken, Starting with a Broken Stone

Lin Yuan smiled and patted his best friend on the shoulder in thanks: "Thanks, Fatty. Don't worry, I can handle it."

The moment he turned around, the loneliness on his face vanished.

An initial area of 300,000 square kilometers, plus the SSS-rank talent "Creation Extraction."

As long as he played it safe and developed, reaching the pinnacle of the gods was by no means a delusion.

Not only that, he also had to figure out a way to repair his godhead.

After the awakening ceremony ended, Lin Yuan politely declined the hypocritical dinner invitations from several classmates.

Walking out of the academy, he swiped his card to board an old maglev train, heading toward the Slums on the outskirts of Jiangcheng.

The carriage was filled with the smell of sweat and low-quality machine oil.

Lin Yuan leaned against the train window, watching the scenery rushing backward outside.

Jiangcheng was a fortress city.

At the edge of his vision, a pale blue energy shield, like an inverted bowl, enveloped the entire city.

Outside the shield, the gray abyss mist churned endlessly.

As the train passed the outer city wall.

Lin Yuan clearly saw that the hundred-meter-high alloy city wall was covered with dark brown claw marks dozens of meters long.

Dried black blood remained in the crevices.

Humanity was not at ease in this world; every day, gods fell, and every day, defensive lines were torn apart.

Without power, one could only be cannon fodder.

Forty minutes later.

In the Seventh Outer District of Jiangcheng, there was an old apartment building with peeling wall paint.

Lin Yuan pushed open the creaking iron door.

A strong smell of low-quality alcohol rushed toward him.

In the living room, a middle-aged man with graying hair and wearing a worn-out undershirt was sitting in a wheelchair.

His right leg was amputated from the thigh, connected to a rusty metal prosthetic limb.

The man was staring intently at the news on the holographic TV in front of him.

On the TV screen, a Star Domain Main God was delivering a speech on the front lines of the abyss defense, shining brilliantly.

Hearing the sound of the door opening, the man finally snapped back to reality.

Old Lin stuffed the wine bottle into a hidden compartment under the wheelchair with astonishing speed, rubbed his cheeks vigorously, and put on an energetic appearance.

"You're back?" Old Lin turned his wheelchair, his gaze resting on Lin Yuan with obvious anticipation and nervousness. "How was the awakening? How big is the area?"

Lin Yuan put down his schoolbag and walked to the water dispenser to pour a glass of water.

He did not hide it.

"The area is 300,000 square kilometers."

Old Lin's eyes widened instantly, and his hands gripped the wheelchair armrests tightly: "300,000?! A genius! What about the initial environment? Is it a plain or a forest?"

"The initial environment is Scorched Earth." Lin Yuan took a sip of water, his tone calm. "The talent rating is F-rank, Wasteland Descent. The comprehensive evaluation is F-, extremely dangerous."

The living room fell into a deathly silence.

Only the news broadcast sound from the holographic TV echoed.

Old Lin's fingers gripping the armrests stiffened, and his originally straight back bent little by little.

300,000 square kilometers should have been a god-tier opening where one would transform into a dragon upon meeting the wind and clouds, but it was paired with a guaranteed-death Wasteland environment.

He remained silent for a full half-minute, his eyes turning slightly red.

Afterward, Old Lin suddenly raised his head and laughed out loud with a wide grin.

He slapped his metal prosthetic limb hard, making a dull clanking sound.

"Good! Very good! Being a mortal is good!"

Old Lin moved his wheelchair in front of Lin Yuan, reached out with his rough hand, and pressed down hard on Lin Yuan's shoulder.

"You see how glorious I was back then? Ignited the divine fire, but what was the result?"

"My godhead was bitten and shattered by monsters on the abyss defense line, all my subordinates died, and I turned into this ghost of a person now."

Old Lin's voice was loud, yet it carried a hint of hoarseness.

"Being a mortal means you don't have to face those monsters on the front lines. You can find a job in the rear, get married, and live a stable life."

"The pension and welfare money Dad has saved all his life is enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life."

After speaking, Old Lin turned his wheelchair, dragging his mechanical residual limb, and moved toward the kitchen.

"Today is a good day. Not having to go to the battlefield is a good day. Dad will heat up two substantial dishes for you, let's have a drink!"

Looking at Old Lin's somewhat hunched back and listening to the friction sound of the mechanical prosthetic limb dragging on the floor, Lin Yuan felt his throat tighten.

In this era where everyone is a god.

Being a mortal means forever being relegated to the bottom, potentially turning into dust in some abyss invasion at any time.

Old Lin was just using his own way to protect the last bit of dignity of this adopted son.

"I will not be a mortal." Lin Yuan thought silently in his heart.

After dinner, Lin Yuan returned to his bedroom.

He pulled the curtains and locked the door.

He sat on the bed, opened the god terminal on his wrist, and logged into the Alliance Government Network.

Ding.

[Notification: Your initial awakening welfare resource package has been issued. Based on your F- comprehensive evaluation, the quota is as follows:]

[Faith Points: 1000]

[Initial Kin Card: Grey Goblins (Quantity: 100, Black Iron One-Star)]

[Random Material Card: Damaged Building Card * 1]

Looking at these meager resources, Lin Yuan couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

The Alliance is extremely realistic when it comes to resource allocation.

With a Wasteland opening like his, everything given was the lowest-tier trash.

Grey Goblins.

The bottom of the low-tier races.

Timid, cowardly, with combat power almost at zero, the only advantage is that they eat anything.

As for that building card, Lin Yuan opened the details.

[Damaged Building Card (Junk): A broken gargoyle wing recovered from the periphery of the abyss battlefield. No divine power fluctuations, no building attributes, recommended to be crushed and used as paving material.]

Hopeless.

If it were before today, seeing this ration, Lin Yuan would also have despaired.

But now it was different.

Lin Yuan closed his eyes and focused his mind.

His consciousness was instantly pulled out of his body by a force, crossing the boundless starry sky, and falling into his own divine domain.

Gray and oppressive.

Lin Yuan's consciousness floated in mid-air.

Below was the vast, boundless 300,000 square kilometers of land.

Not a drop of water, not a trace of greenery.

All that met his eyes was cracked, scorched black soil.

Gray-black embers drifted in the sky, and a faint, sickly green toxic gas permeated the air.

This was not just a Wasteland; this was a dead zone.

Here, let alone breeding kin, even bacteria could hardly survive.

Lin Yuan pulled out the [Initial Kin Card] that emitted a faint white light from the terminal.

He held the card between two fingers and gently threw it downward.

"Descend."

The card shattered in mid-air, turning into a hundred gray streams of light, crashing onto the scorched, cracked land.

The light dissipated.

One hundred creatures, less than a meter tall, with gray-green skin and emaciated bodies, appeared on the Wasteland.

They had pointed ears, held old wooden clubs in their hands, and were wrapped only in a few rags.

As soon as they landed, before they could even pray to the great existence above, a sudden change occurred.

The sickly green toxic mist surged into their lungs along their respiratory tracts.

The high temperature of the scorched earth beneath their feet burned their fragile skin.

"Chi—Gua!"

A relatively thin Grey Goblins let out a scream, threw away the wooden club in its hand, gripped its own neck tightly with both hands, and began to roll in agony on the scorched earth.

Afterward, the second, the third.

In just over a dozen seconds, all one hundred Grey Goblinss lay on the ground convulsing, foaming at the mouth, and black toxic spots began to appear on their exposed skin.

[Warning! Your kin, the Grey Goblins, is suffering from extreme environmental erosion!]

[Warning! The Grey Goblins's vital signs are dropping sharply; large-scale death is expected in three minutes and twenty seconds!]

Lin Yuan watched the struggling kin below with cold eyes, without the slightest panic.

He flipped his wrist and materialized the [Damaged Building Card].

Boom—

A huge, five-meter-long, grayish-brown stone covered with traces of weathering smashed onto the scorched earth, kicking up a circle of dust.

The outline of half a bat wing could vaguely be seen on this stone.

Without any vitality, it was a dead object.

Lin Yuan took a deep breath.

Success or failure depended on this one move.

He raised his hand, his palm aimed at the broken gargoyle wing below.

The power dormant deep in his soul was awakened.

"Extraction."

Hum!

A distant bell chime seemed to ring in the void.

Lin Yuan's consciousness erupted with a blinding dark golden light.

This light ignored the laws of the divine domain, ignored the distance of space, and turned into a dark golden chain, wrapping around the gargoyle wing.

An incredible scene appeared.

The immensely hard giant stone, which had experienced the devastation of the abyss battlefield.

Under the strangulation of the dark golden chain, it did not shatter, but began to melt rapidly like ice meeting the scorching sun.

The matter was completely pulverized, and the concept was forcibly stripped away.

The giant stone turned into sky-filling ashes and drifted away.

And in its original position, a light orb only the size of a thumb, emitting a heavy gray faint light, floated in mid-air.

Lin Yuan grabbed into the void, and the light orb flew into his palm.

A sense of perfect integration welled up in his heart.

[Notification: Law ignored, extraction successful!]

[You have obtained the Black Iron-rank concept entry: Stone Skin.]

[Entry effect: Bestow upon a target object (believer/building), causing its skin to petrify, permanently increasing defense by 300%, and gaining immunity to weak toxins.]