Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Xi Wei had transmigrated to another world.
Contrary to the popular trend of unlucky fellow transmigrators who became creatures such as goblins and gale wolves, he had become a god!
But Xi Wei did not think that he was all that lucky; in fact if he had the choice, he would rather switch places with those other transmigrators.
Why, you’d ask? Because regardless of whether their souls or bodies were reincarnated, at least they had a physical body. He, however, became a ball of light!
Not only that, the divinity that he had been imbued with as the ‘God of Games’ was already borderline unstable, to the point where after a while he might not even be able to maintain his form as a ball of light.
Utilizing the little divine energy1 he had left, he quickly checked through his Divine Records—his findings making him not know whether to laugh or to cry.
In this fantasy world he was thrown into, there were lots of different deities, most of which were ancient, having existed for long periods of time, with him, the God of Games being relatively new and inexperienced as a god.
In fact, his particular divinity was born in a very unorthodox way—from a past kingdom called Tierra in the mortal realm (the Prime Material Plane). The eleventh monarch of this kingdom, Yakaran the Eleventh was said to be an immoral, self-indulgent ruler, spending all his days addicted to games—be it card games, chess, or games like polo and soccer, without attending to internal affairs. He had always been an atheist, not believing in or liking any religion.
However, in this world filled with different deities, being an atheist in itself was an act of heresy. Even he, as a monarch, would be ill-spoken of and called into question. This trait would be used as an excuse for those who coveted the throne and wanted to condemn him and renounce his claim to the throne.
Stuck with the dilemma of wanting to prevent anything of the sort from happening but not wanting to bow his proud head to any religion, he thought of a perfect plan. He announced that he was a believer in the God of Games, and launched a multifaceted plan to make his people join the religion he created, giving promises and benefits to the aristocrats and by enforcing the law, somehow managing to pull together the church of the God of Games.
Soon after its creation, the religion rooted itself in Tierra, growing stronger in members as the days went by, to the point where more than half of the population of the kingdom became devout believers of the religion.
As the number of believers increased, the combined devotion created a god which had never existed in the pantheon before—the God of Games!
However, games are addictive. And as the religion grew, more and more people became addicted to games (especially gambling) and did not do their roles in society, causing the originally strong Tierra to fall from glory. Yakaran couldn’t even pass the throne to his son before the country was split and taken over by several small countries surrounding the borders of the kingdom.
Having seen the entirety of the rise and fall of Tierra, the surrounding kingdoms all severely rejected and banned the church of the God of Games, restricting all their citizens from joining the religion.
The strong and thriving church fell and disbanded in the blink of an eye—most of its believers deserting the religion.
Being a newly created deity, the original God of Games did not even get a chance to stabilize its divinity before the entire thing went south, causing its less than clear consciousness to dissipate, making way for a soul from Earth to take over its place…
“…and now I have to deal with this mess?”
Xi Wei sighed, feeling a headache coming—even though he did not even have a head in this state.
“My divinity isn’t stable yet, and my divine energy is sparse and weak… this can’t get any worse, can it?”
That being said, Xi Wei did not rush to do anything, but instead tried his best to make heads or tails of the whole situation.
First, he created a way to measure the amount of divine energy left, chalking it up to ten points.
As for why he did not set it as just one point, it was because he found that the divine energy he had left actually wasn’t all that shabby. If he were to convert it all to raw energy and throw it at the Mortal Plane, it would probably be able to immediately disintegrate an army of ten thousand, more or less the power of an atomic bomb.
But if he wanted to stabilize his divinity, he would have to rack up at least a hundred units of divine energy first.
Now he only had a few devout gamblers still believing in him, but the rate at which they generated divine energy was so underwhelming that he’d even believe it if they all converted to the church of the Goddess of Fortune, Lady Fortuna, at the tip of a hat.
“I can’t let it go on like this…”
Xi Wei carefully checked the abilities he currently had.
Deities often had a variety of different abilities, but at the very core, each deity was composed of three basic traits: Divine Grace, Divine Fury, and Divine Order.
To put it simply, Divine Grace was when a deity communicates with their believers in the mortal realm, leaving behind prophecies and sacred items, or imbuing their believers with strength and power. Priests and clergy for the church could also call upon the deity’s power to perform spells and divine feats.
Divine Fury was a deity’s power and rage—a threshold that mortals could not encroach, or even think of tainting. Divine punishment was an extension of this trait.
Divine Order was the basis of a deity’s divinity—a power so great that it was on the same level as the laws of nature itself. For example, a God of Harvest could ignore the seasons and allow crops to sprout and grow, and to control harvests and even control the weather to a certain extent, as long as it is part of their sphere of influence, deities could single-handedly affect the natural laws of the world!
That being said, many deities had overlapping spheres of influence. As an example, three high-ranked deities: God of the Sun Emporio, God of Light Lyante, and Daychaser Yukov, and a whole bunch of lower-tiered deities have influence over the concept of light.
As the God of Games, Xi Wei’s Divine Order was very ambiguous, as he had influence over everything that had to do with games, even the concept of luck and fortune.
While that looks and sounds pretty amazing, if he were to compare the influence he had over these concepts, he would probably do even worse than a third-grade deity.
To put it in another way, Xi Wei could extend his influence to a certain extent as a God of Beasts to control wild animals and even magical beings as animal hunting and beast fighting are considered games. However, if an actual deity of beasts had 90% influence over beasts, Xi Wei’s influence might not even be 1%…
The jack of all trades, but master of none… No wonder his believers deserted his religion so easily. If they wanted specific blessings and gifts from him, they could just as easily gotten the same blessings from other gods, and maybe even stronger blessings than the ones he could have given.
You’re a gambler and you want a lucky streak?
You can worship Lady Fortuna.
You’re a gladiator and you want a stronger body?
You can worship the God of War.
You’re a rider and you want to develop a stronger relationship with your mount?
You can worship Bei Feng.
So why would you need a bicycle…1
“Hmm… maybe it’s not as worthless as I thought.”
If it were a local deity facing the same mess he was, they’d probably only be able to close their eyes and wait for their inevitable dissipation.
But Xi Wei was different. As your standard stay-at-home otaku from Earth, the concept of ‘games’ to him wasn’t as simple as cards, mahjong, and colosseum fighting1 that they were used to in this world.
Games are a crystallization of the efforts and innovation of generations of people, popularized by the internet and built from ground-up, known as the ninth form of art!
And as a pioneer of Earth into this unfamiliar new world, Xi Wei decided to…
First build a system.