Dungeon Prowler : One Man Army

Chapter 401: taking the next step

What is the most terrible aspect of effort? It is the most underrated part as well, it is that effort is accumulative, meaning, one man's effort can be enough to dig a grave, but a group can do it as well or even better, efforts have the gall to be additive and cumulative, meaning the more people making an effort, the bigger the achievement that can be made.

This thought lit up the darkness in Yunan's sea of consciousness, that is always how it looked when he meditated on the oversized effort divinity. He always thought that the effort in his divinity was always his own, but that thought took his meditation to a new path.

It became painfully obvious to Yunan that all his efforts were not always solitary, there were many times when he was guided, helped and inspired, all those bits of foreign aid and contribution also helped, therefore, Yunan felt that effort was an amalgamation of many different sources and origins. Another jolt rushed through Yunan as he understood another side of his little reflection. If his effort could be influenced by others, is it possible to influence the efforts of other people, if it were possible, is it plausible that he could feed his divinity with the efforts he influenced?

Going deeper into the rabbit hole of this simple yet mind-shattering idea, Yunan dove even deeper into the meaning behind the effort and for a moment, he saw why it was so overbearing. An effort is beyond simple trial and error, every act and thought towards a goal, regardless of success, is an effort, it is one of the most neutral concepts of them all, it needs neither orientation nor requires a system. Effort is just effort, that is it, deceptively simple yet deep and hard to probe into. It is also why Burkan had no god for effort and hard work, no one on the verge of ascension would choose to work even harder, the little bit of effort needed to take that step is; to some, a hurdle that can never be overcome.

As the owner of the divinity of effort, Yunan worked as hard as ever, not to mention simple understanding of the divinity, what little control it required needed an unshakable will; just to withstand the amount of divinity and faith stored in there. Will and effort went hand in hand, to the point Yunan almost thought that effort and will were the same domain, his will was tested so regularly that he felt a divinity of will forming inside him, thankfully, that feeling only translated to a strengthening of the sea of consciousness, nothing more.

As Yunan grew more in tune with his divinity, he found that it was not as idle as he thought, it was syphoning the efforts of the people around him, especially his wives and pets, the link they had made with the master brand became a two way channel, they grew stronger passively as their efforts were harvested from them, even without stepping foot in the dungeon, they were growing to be as strong as Yunan, depending on how much effort they traded with Yunan, the amount of power gain was determined by the divinity itself.

It took Yunan the better part of 5 years to stabilise and attune into his divinity, control it perfectly, as well as harvest the related faith passively from the ambient energy in the Dreamscape.

Dreamscape has become the main way to contact the outside world for Yunan, it was used as a channel to receive the worship of the masses as well as the faith from dreams and effort, the harder people worked, the more he could gain. Dreamscape was not only a way to Burkan but to all the other planets in the universe, it was closest to Burkan due to the creator himself. Yunan found that humans were not the firstborn of the gods as they always fancied themselves, according to the energies of Dreamscape, Burkan was the latest life-bearing planet in universe Hosana, other life forms are older and more mature in both faith and technology than humans.

The Dreamscape was the domain of the first god, a god born from the first dream the creator had inside universe Hosana, it is the place where the dreams of the creator were stored, and from those dreams, one could see his plans for his creations. To gain access to other worlds, Yunan had to actively seek out the connection, doing so would give him authority over the dreams of the planet he connects to, but it would give the deities of that planet a warning to his existence. Resistance was inevitable, no god would allow a stranger, god or otherwise to just come to their planet and enjoy its faith without repercussions, hence the delay in getting contact with those worlds.

5 years later, all the gods would meet and be exposed to each other, by then Dreamscape would be used as the gate to connect all those worlds, and with all gods imprisoned, no one will stand in Yunan's way if he sought to invade or influence other planets, he could do as he wished, and with only 5 years left, it was time to start making ripples everywhere.

The start was inside Tartarus, breaching the final levels and reaching the control room was too easy, it was recorded in the guild that the highest floor available for adventurers was the 94th, mainly because one needed to be a pseudo deity to pass to the 95th floor, hence leaving the ranks of adventurers, and condensing a divinity shard would immediately let one know they are inside the divine realm of Hephaestus. Most of the pseudo deities end up failing to ascend, and instead of leaving the dungeon, they are offered places to stay and work.

In the divine realm, they can still try to ascend as long as they do not give up, but once they leave, they have to find a faith source just to survive as demigods and that was by no means an easy feat, most demigods die out of age or by war, gods and other demigods would hunt them down, sharing faith was not something deities were known for. This way, most demigods would rather stay in the divine realm as workers, slowly building up faith as pseudo deities, leaving the thrice accursed life of demigods to those who have resigned themselves to it.

THIS CHAPTER UPLOAD FIRST AT NOVELBIN.COM