Guild Wars

Draco knew that his job here was done. He had incited the core members to seek to cause harm, dismay, and agony to the new forces that appeared with the update, and that was more than good enough for now.

Now, it was time for him to do what he was sent out to do, which was grow the Powers of the Evil Trio! They had set up a party between them with equivalent experience and drop share, so even if Draco alone fought, Eva and Shuangtian would receive equal rewards.

So where was Draco going to go to achieve this? After all, the main plane was barren of True Gods right now. There were some scattering of True God monsters, but they were not enough to fill the gaps between his teeth, and he was not yet ready to fight them.

Now that they had True God laws, they needed to practice using them and seeing whether their fanciful ideas would work.

So where could he find an endless amount of true gods and True God monsters which would never fill up his plate?

Of course, the Divine Realm!

The much-hyped and removed world where True Gods called their home and set up their society, away from the filthy mortals of the main plane. Even though it was currently under siege by the grey rot, that rather made things spicier for Draco, allowing him to fish in troubled waters.

The question was, how to get there? In truth, Draco had five ways to get there.

The first was the most natural way, to use a combination of his law and Divine Energy to tear a hole in the void and ascend to the Divine Realm. This was how all newly minted True Gods ascended in the old era and maybe in this era too.

However, given the rarity of ascension in this era - if at all - Draco would stick out like a sore thumb when he did so. That was detrimental to the current him because among the factions in the Divine Realm, the Pantheon of Power were his direct enemies, and the Supreme Pantheon were only neutral towards him.

The second was to use Norma's Goddess Token and identity to ascend. When he did, he would inherit her position and the assets that she left when she died, even claiming a seat on the pantheons high council.

Doing this was even worse than ascending normally because it would turn the only neutral faction, the Supreme Pantheon, into his enemy since they all converted Norma's wealth, while all other factions would gun for him.

Also, it would alert the Origin Gods to his existence which Norma had paid a heavy price to conceal in the past, and they would descend on him regardless of the cost to the universe.

Even True Gods were capable of giving him a headache, then what would Origin Gods do?

The third way was to use the Tower of Babylon. The topmost floor had a passage into the Divine Realm, but the only problem was that the spawn location had been taken over by the grey rot.

That location used to belong to the creator of the Tower of Babylon, but it had long been conquered. So if Draco wanted to use that means, he could. It was undetectable by other True Gods or the various factions, but he would have to deal with Daddy Grey Rot head-on.

That was neither desirable nor wise.

The fourth way was to contact the Church of Light. As long as he paid enough or displayed a hint of his current ability, they would naturally arrange an orthodox passage for him to the Divine Realm as a visitor.

From there, like an illegal immigrant, he could flee and forcefully overextend his 'visa', offending the Church of Light in the process. However, one didn't need to elaborate on how dumb and useless this was.

The fifth way was to use the Orb of Worlds and infiltrate the Divine Realm. Draco naturally preferred to use this method, but he was hesitating. He was not entirely sure that his intrusion would be detected because the Orb of Worlds was at the Divine Rank while the Divine Realm was obviously at the divine Rank too.

So it had no Rank advantages and could be only seen as an equal.

In truth, there was one more method that Draco could use, and it was the one that fit his wants and needs the most. Draco removed a token from his inventory that was given to him by Eva as she had earned it from Dumbass Sunna as reparations back when she initiated that invalid Divine War.

｢Divine Trial Token – Consumable

Rank: Divine (100% effectiveness)

Effect: Activate this token to travel from the Divine Realm to the gateway of the Origin Realm. There, you can partake in the Divine Trial and acquire many rewards!｣

This item carried a bit of risk. It was not for mortals to sue to ascend to the Divine Realm, but a trial set up by the world to allow True Gods who were confident in themselves to challenge this trial and gain rewards that could increase their power towards achieving the Origin Rank.

In essence, this was a 'player' event where you could likely grind for loot and consumables to increase your laws. Since NPCs had to comprehend manually while players only had to accumulate Divine Essence (i.e. exp), it was clear who this was for.

These kinds of things had strict rules and could not be monitored, so it was the best way for Draco to subtly increase his power and test out his various theories before properly entering the Divine Realm.

Without any further thought, Draco activated the token. It rose to the air and then scanned his body from head to toe before certain screens appeared before him.

｢System to Player Announcement

Checking player Combat Rank…｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Analyzing player's chosen Law…｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Analyzing player's Source Origin…｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Verifying player's Token Authenticity…｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Authenticating player's location… ｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Analyzing player's party composition… ｣

｢System to Player Announcement

You have only passed 2 out of 6 criteria perfectly, technically passed 3 out of 6 criteria, and failed 1 out of 6 criteria. You still qualify to take the trial but your rewards will be reduced by 10%!｣

｢System to Player Announcement

You are about to invoke the Divine Trial. For the duration of the trial, you will not be able to contact or access the outside world except your party.

Are you sure you wish to proceed?

Y/N｣

Draco chose yes and the token flashed with a whitish-orange light that enveloped his body and carried him away. Unlike before where he would be clueless, now he could easily sense the spatial coordinates and feel the space tunnel he was in.

In other words, Draco could now open a portal to the location of the Divine Trial using his bloodline whenever he wanted!

Assuming, of course, there were no countermeasures for such a thing.

The tunnel opened up in a large square that was like a lobby within a top-tier establishment. There were top-tier magitech appliances in the form of lighting and machinery, with even a few automatons moving about while tending to the area.

The floor was made of tiles and was extremely polished. From left to right, the lobby was large enough that a normal person could only run from edge to edge in about 2 minutes.

Draco noticed that there were some other True Gods here, and he could tell because they were being served by very familiar orbs. His attention was stolen by an orb that was a black and yellow color.

"Welcome to the Divine Trial, Noble God! My name is the Trial Observance Monitor Ordained with Distribution, Assessment, Conferment, Hospitality, and Instruction. You may call me Tomodachi for short." The orb spoke in a genderless voice.

"As a qualified trial taker, you can challenge any of the set levels for the trials of varying difficulties. The difficulties are split into Easy, Moderate, Hard, Hell, Nightmare, and Impossible. The levels are from 1 up to 50, and more can be unlocked as long as someone crossed that threshold."

"There is a leaderboard ranking in which if you leave your name, you can receive free rewards monthly sent to your inventory or to your estate and chosen heir should you pass away."

"That is it for the basics of the Divine Trial. The rest you must find out and experience for yourself." The orb casually stated before hovering on the spot in silence.

Draco sat there and mused in silence. The information was pretty straightforward and the system was similar to the Tower of Babylon, but far more lucrative.

Why did it feel like the person who created the Tower of Babylon was mimicking this Divine Trial?

"How many attempts do I have?" Draco asked prudently.

"You can challenge any level once per token use, of any difficulty. You are ejected when you fail the level but can select a higher level of the same difficulty or a higher difficulty of the same level if you win." Tomodachi explained curtly.

It was as Draco expected. One token didn't give him infinite chances, or they would be valuable at all. He had one chance and if he failed, he would have to acquire another token from god knows where.

Also, the win benefits were pretty predictable. If he chose say, the easy mode of level 1 and won, he could either choose to go to the easy mode of level 2 or attempt the moderate mode of level 1.

He could not win easy mode of level 1 and chose the moderate mode of level 2. He also could not win easy mode of level 1 and chose the hard mode of level 1.

He could only take one step in either direction.

It felt like the trial was prodding challengers to try the harder difficulties of the same level before advancing. However, there would be an issue with this going by these rules, so Draco asked:

"What if I start with easy mode of level 1 and win all the way to hard mode. When I choose to go to level 2, would I be forced to start at hard mode of level 2 or can I drop down to either easy or moderate mode of level 2?"

"You can select any lower difficulty mode when switching to a higher level, but once you complete that lower difficulty you cannot jump to your previous difficulty but have to climb again." Tomodachi explained patiently.

Hearing this, Draco settled down. It seemed his assumptions were right and this trial was definitely set up for players. Of course, to give it credibility and history, the NPCs could use it too and had been using it, but this was obviously a mechanic meant for players.

Knowing this, he smiled and pondered. He would naturally start at level 1 easy mode in order to gauge the difficulty of the trial and then test the other modes slowly but surely.

"If you fail and return to the trial later, do you continue from where you left off or do you have to restart?" Draco quickly asked a question he had overlooked.

"You will restart." Tomodachi answered simply.

Draco's expression changed slightly. This information was quite important because it indicated that players could freely challenge the harder bits and lose, which was fine.

But now, even players who were cautious and progressed through the easy mode to reach a higher level would acquire the rewards and could be ejected and then come back with another token.

When they came back, they could now attempt the moderate mode of level 1 that they previously skipped using the resources they acquired from continuously challenging the easy mode of various levels to strengthen themselves and progress further.

Since it was like this, Draco could only imagine the rarity and scarcity of such tokens! Dumbass Sunna must have coughed blood for 3 years nonstop after losing hers to Eva.