45 - Life Change

My strategy was set.

My current focus would be to accumulate Divine Power points to defend myself against the possible attack of the God of Fear, while also gathering some of that Divine Power to develop an attack.

I could use a million Divine Power to develop a fire attack and try to destroy Eldoria's capital, but I'm not sure how destructive that would be...

Another alternative would be to accumulate all the Divine Power I would use for the attack and put it all into an iMonster, which has a slightly lower Divine Power cost because it uses some of my own Divinity.

The biggest cost for iMonsters was making their body and "consciousness," once that was done, I could put as much Divine Power into attacks as I wanted, and it would get cheaper and cheaper.

If I made an iMonster with the power of an Archmage in the form of a dragon that could fly and blow fire as powerful as an Archmage's magic, but had a Blessing of Courage that made it immune to fear, it could become a definitive weapon against the God of Fear.

So that became my focus.

I wouldn't rush to attack the God of Fear, I would simply let Rosalind expand the Internet in Eldoria while I accumulated Divine Power on a daily basis.

This accumulated Divine Power would remain in a reserve of defense for the kingdom until the moment I felt it was time to attack... at which point I wouldn't have to be satisfied with just attacking Eldoria...

...

=== Joe POV ===

I'm Joe, just a simple farmer living in the Barony of Verdoak in the Kingdom of Eldoria.

Our barony has a population of only 478 people, which is a very small number for big cities with tens of thousands of people, but compared to villages without nobles, it's quite a large number.

Since I was born, my life has consisted of a set routine.

I woke up every day just before sunrise, worked on the farm until just before dusk, rested for a while with my family, and when it got dark, we went to sleep because we didn't have the money to buy candles or light stones.

Although it sounds simple, this routine was very satisfying to us.

As long as nothing bad happened to the harvest, we had money to pay the taxes and a few coins left over to buy various spices brought in by the trade caravans.

But this simple routine changed when the White Hawk caravan from Arcantor arrived.

The products they brought to sell were not very innovative, except for a few magical things that only the Baron could buy.

Just seeing the products we could never have was interesting enough.

But the most surprising thing was the books that everyone in the caravan was carrying.

Seeing those books change their covers in front of us shocked many people.

But no one dared to ask about it, thinking it was something only nobles or magicians had access to.

Surprisingly, on the last day of the caravan in our village, a caravan guard said a confused prayer in front of some people and made the book appear in his hand, perhaps thinking that no one would pay attention to it.

No one commented, but after the caravan left, a young boy from the village tried the prayer and a book identical to the guard's appeared in his hand!

Frightened, the boy thought he had stolen the book from Mage Rosalind's guard and ran to the village healer, old Hector, for help.

Listening to the boy's explanation, Old Hector also became very concerned about the boy and wondered what he could do.

To test this prayer, he also repeated the prayer the boy had said, and another identical book appeared in his hand.

When they saw the two books in their hands at the same time, they both sighed with relief, and the next day this prayer spread through the village like wildfire.

What's more, when old Hector, who could read, found out that if he invited other people to say the prayer, he would receive some coins to use on the Internet, he secretly spread the word and within a day everyone knew about it.

When the Baron found out, we all thought he would be furious and have old Hector killed, but on the contrary, old Hector was hired as an employee of the Baron to give him access to the most expensive books he could buy with his Internet Coins!

The only instruction the Baron gave was that no one could tell anyone else in the kingdom about this, because if others found out, it was very possible that other nobles would come and destroy their village.

When we heard that, we all got scared and made sure we didn't tell anyone.

From that point on, my routine of just waking up, working, eating, and sleeping changed to something much more interesting.

Every day, I'd wake up while it was still dark, use the Internet for an hour to learn to read and write on the [School] application, go to work, use the Internet for another hour at lunchtime to play some cards on [CardMasters], work for the rest of the afternoon, and use the Internet for another hour at night before going to bed.

Learning to read to understand the news in [Carrier Pigeon] was very interesting.

The topics we talked about before the Internet were just gossip from a few people in the village, but now with the Internet, people who could read better could tell us about all the news from around the world!

Gossip from other villages in Eldoria, or even gossip from villages and cities in Arcantor!

These small changes made our village much more lively and fun.

Even though the Baron had started demanding that we feed the iMonsters he created to protect the village, no one complained because everyone knew how powerful these creatures were and how useful they were in protecting Arcantor from our army's attack.

It wasn't good news to hear that our army had lost the invasion of Arcantor, but knowing that we would have access to the same magical creatures as the citizens of Arcantor was great news for everyone.

Since the Internet came into our lives, things have been better, unlike when the emissaries of the God of Fear came through town demanding that we pray to him once a week without giving us anything in return.

If it weren't for the threat that the God of Fear would know who didn't pray and curse us, I'm sure no one would have prayed to the God of Fear.

So even though we loved the God of the Internet, we still prayed to the God of Fear once a week.

But considering that we prayed to the God of the Internet twenty-seven times a week and to the God of Fear only once, I don't think the God of the Internet would be angry with us, right?

Even though my spiritual strength was exhausted, I prayed to the God of the Internet once more before going to sleep, just to show my gratitude for making my once gray and dull life as interesting as that of a nobleman in a big city.

"O God of the Internet, Lord of magic wires and digital paths, grant us fast connections and digital wisdom, let your wisdom run through my body. May our thoughts travel like lightning through your virtual domains, guided by your cyber light on the path to glory. In your grace, protect us from viruses and hackers, and may our downloads always be complete, amen. I prayed quietly and closed my eyes next to my wife, who had just done the same, and hugged her to sleep.

Even though I still don't understand many of those words, old Hector and the Baron told us that they were just requests for protection and blessings from the God of the Internet, so I started praying like that every night.

And just like me, hundreds of people in our village did the same.

=== Adrian's POV ===

Seeing the lives of the citizens of Eldoria, a huge smile appeared on my face.

Feeling the people's gratitude for me was priceless.

Knowing that I was using my power to change people's lives for the better was something that gave me even more inspiration to continue on my path.

Just as there were billionaires in my previous world who donated a lot of money to help people's lives, there were billionaires who used their money to kidnap people and end their lives as if they were disposable.

I saw myself in the position of a god who wanted to improve people's lives, while the vast majority of other gods saw themselves in the position of mortals who were disposable.

I don't know how the most powerful gods dealt with the kingdoms they had controlled for millennia, but I was determined to do the right thing by my followers, especially since I knew that treating them well would make me stronger and stronger.

And seeing how much divine power I had gained over the past few days, I smiled even more as I imagined the reaction of the God of Fear when he knew who was going to attack him.