Game of the World Tree

For any gods of faith that are reawakening, their believers serve as both anchor points for their revival and tools to locate their long-lost divine kingdoms.

Every divine kingdom is built upon a sophisticated network of faith, so even if it is shattered, this network can still persist in some capacity as long as the deity still has a sufficient number of believers.

Therefore, when a slumbering god reawakens, they may be forced to create a new divine kingdom, having lost their connection to the old one. However, through their believers, who serve as living nodes within the faith network, the god can gradually re-establish contact by harnessing the collective resonance of their believers prayers, so that they can locate and reposition themselves relative to their lost divine kingdom.

The principle behind this lies in the connection between believers and the faith network.

Whenever a believer prays, a resonance of faith energy is formed, which utilizes the remnants of the faith network tied to the lost divine kingdom to pinpoint its location.

However, this method imposes stringent requirements on the believers.

The foremost requirement is quantity.

A significant number of believers must pray simultaneously for such resonance to work.

If measured by human standards, the baseline would probably require around 300,000 to 500,000 believers, with at least half being devotees.

In the case of elves, even 10,000 elven believers with 5,000 devout ones should suffice.

Those with elven blood fall somewhere in between.

Evé estimated that for the hybrid elven humans living within the demi-realm, approximately 100,000 believers with 50,000 devout ones would suffice to establish a functional faith network capable of supporting divine resonance.

This means that to meet these conditions, Evé would need to cultivate at least 80,000 new believers within this demi-realm while elevating the number of devout believers to around 50,000.

Although this might sound like a large number, compared to the total population of the demi-realm, it’s actually relatively small.

As the new ruler of the demi-realm, Evé had learned the approximate population of the hybrid humans living there, which is about three million.

This staggering number left Evé pondering how Ouros had managed to sustain such a population over the past thousand years.

However, given that their average lifespan was only about 30 years, it is understandable that they reproduced at such a rapid rate.

Now, with their lifespan restored to normal, they have the potential to thrive and develop in ways previously unattainable.

Unfortunately, the life force that had been drained from them in the past cannot be recovered anymore.

This limitation, however, presented Evé with a viable method for spreading her faith and gaining followers in a relatively quick manner.

That is, by leveraging their lifespans.

Considering the demi-realm’s inhabitants’ reverence for elves and the elven bloodline flowing through their veins, Evé could offer these people a chance to revert back to their ancestral form. By granting them the opportunity to become half-elves or even full-blooded elves, she could not only attract them to her faith but also offer them the promise of a restored legacy.

This would serve as both a spiritual and physical transformation, which is a powerful incentive for these people to embrace her religion.

Moreover, this approach wouldn’t just create devout believers for herself but also increase the overall elven population.

Nevertheless, preaching to a population of three million people was no small task.

The Church of Creation’s entire structure had already collapsed by this point, leaving Evé with little more than an empty shell to work around with.

Hence, a new kind of church would need to be re-established within the demi-realm.

Cultivating someone to be a casual believer might be easy, but transforming them into a devotee was a far more challenging endeavor.

Consider, for example, some churches on Earth.

If calculated according to the religious standards of Seigües realm, most people there would likely only be classified as shallow believers, with very few being truly devoutee.

In many cases, the majority of individuals who claim to follow a faith only do so with limited commitment, engaging in rituals or expressions of faith out of tradition or habit rather than deep, personal conviction.

Which makes truly devout believers a rarity.

Cultivating devout believers is no small feat.

It is a process that, unless under very special circumstances, typically requires prolonged and intense indoctrination.

Fortunately, the demi-realm remained relatively stable for now, allowing Evé some breathing room.

As its new master, she held the power to suppress its collapse to some extent, which bought her several precious years to plan and carry out the necessary actions before its inevitable destruction could take full effect.

Based on the growth of certain churches on Earth, spreading her faith upon this demi-realm might prove far more easier than Evé anticipated, perhaps even faster than expected.

However, the process still required her to have a large number of priests to carry out her missionary work effectively.

Currently, including those still in training, there were fewer than 100 elven priests within the Church of Life.

As for those 20,000 believers the demi-realm provided her as a gift?

Evé ruefully chuckled.

—There wasn’t even a single proper priest amongst them.

Those clerics who originally worshiped the ‘God of Creation’ were nothing more than puppets whose minds were forcefully controlled.

In essence, there weren’t any qualified priests among them who met her standards, and everyone who used to belong to the Church of Creation was incapable of effectively carrying out any missionary work on her behalf.

However, Evé had no intention of relying on them for this task to begin with.

In fact, delegating these tasks to the elven priests from the Church of Life was not part of her plans either.

Evé had a better candidate for the whole endeavor:

The players.

—That’s right.

She had finally made the decision to mobilize the players to spread her faith!

In other words, the priest class would finally be unlocked for the players to choose!

Previously, she had refrained from making this class available because the players couldn’t provide her with any faith to begin with.

Without generating faith, they would only consume Evé’s divine power, which would be a waste.

But things were different now.

Her divine power had already grown substantially, and with the sheer population of this demi-realm, the influx of new followers and believers from its population, would be more than enough to compensate for any drain on her divine powers.

By turning the players into priests, Evé was confident their effectiveness in spreading the faith would far surpass that of the elves.

In fact, Evé had already even worked out the requirements for advancing in the priest class.

The experience points needed for priest-level progression would be halved—or perhaps even reduced to one-third of that required for a regular jobclass in comparison.

However, attaining the Priest-class would still require players to successfully convert a certain number of believers before they could unlock it.

Moreover, the more higher the priest’s level went, the more believers they would also need to convert as well.

Such requirements might be demanding, but priests would enjoy unique perks to balance these challenges .

One benefit would be access to divine spells equivalent to those used by elven priests of the same rank.

And if any exceptional player actually managed to convert a massive number of believers, Evé might even reward them with the prestigious title of High Priest, which is a high ranking member of the Church of Life.

This position would be comparable to Bishops in human churches.

Of course, not every player would be eligible to become a priest.

Evé understood that the role required more than just willingness—it required dedication, skill, and a deep connection to matters of faith. To ensure that only the most worthy players would take on this sacred responsibility, she planned to introduce a trial for those aspiring to become one.

The trial itself had already been carefully conceptualized, and it would center around the story of the half-elf Ouros.

She would integrate his tale into the very core of the trial, using it as both a test and a lesson for those seeking to become priest.

By using Ouros’s tale as inspiration, she would create an exclusive questline within the demi-realm.

Evé intended to craft avatars to serve as permanent NPCs within the realm, issuing questlines to players while narrating Ouros’s story.

Completing this storyline wouldn’t require excessive time.

Through it, players would uncover the secrets of the demi-realm and learn of the legendary tale of Ouros, the half-elven demigod.

This questline would be Evé’s way of honoring Ouros’s legacy.

This remarkable individual had sacrificed everything, including his very soul, and as a result, he could never be resurrected.

Yet, some names must not be forgotten.

As part of this tribute, Evé also decided to name the demi-realm in Ouros’s honor.

From this moment forward, it would now be called the Ouros Demi-realm.

With this resolved, Evé reconnected to Earth’s internet and published the game announcement she already prepared:

A new update, a new class!

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