Chapter 892: Seeking God

Pei Shoujing felt very frustrated.

She never imagined that even after graduating from the highest-level Research Institute, she would end up a student again, and one experiencing the most grueling, hellish training at that.

At first, she wasn't sure whether she should perform brilliantly; being brilliant could get her noticed and allow her to participate in subsequent plans to gain more intelligence, but if she were too brilliant, she feared exposing herself—it would be bad if the Shengnyu remembered something.

But after practicing for a few days, she realized she had overthought it.

Forget about hiding her light; she had to give her all just to secure a spot in the top ten percent and stay in this team first.

How could there be so many beastly guys here?

Although the current selection was based primarily on physical fitness, and although Humans indeed had no innate physical advantage compared to Tianmo, she was no ordinary person. Not to mention her outstanding talent, she had been a Sword Guest for several years, cultivating her Sword Heart while simultaneously cultivating Sword Essence, which constantly tempered her body as if she were doing the best training every day. Not to mention that she had fought daily in Lingzhou and had very rich experience; back in the Training Class, she had been a top-tier student.

Upon arriving here, she discovered that the Tianmo Jie was truly full of hidden talents. One had to know that this younger generation had not received divine grace, which was roughly equivalent to Loose Practitioners or even Knights-Errant who had never been Sword Guests; in the eyes of a Sword Guest, they were all bottom-tier, so why was their physical fitness so good?

The training over these past two days had focused on physical conditioning; rather than calling it conditioning, it was more like pushing the training volume to the limit to see what an individual's foundation was like.

When the results came out, Pei Shoujing calculated that she was barely hovering around the one-thousand-to-two-thousand mark; if she didn't work hard, she would really be eliminated.

Not to mention whether being eliminated would affect her plan, the key was that her pride couldn't take it. She was gifted; not to mention how she was doted upon and valued at home, back in Guikou she had quickly caught the eye of the East Pillar of State, bypassing the direct descendants to enter the succession sequence. She had always been very confident, and before, she had been full of confidence thinking about whether or not to choose to stay, never expecting that it wasn't this opportunity that was doing the choosing, but rather it was choosing her.

On this day, they, the young team members, received the results of today's tests again. Seeing that she had given her all and only ranked around eighteen-hundredth, Pei Shoujing couldn't help but grind her teeth.

Arong, on the other hand, had a very good mindset, saying from the side: "It doesn't matter, if we can stay, we stay; if we can't, we've done our best. This kind of thing can't be rushed. Look, I'm not rushing."

Of course you aren't rushing, you're ranked over eight thousand; what's the point of rushing?

Pei Shoujing gritted her teeth and said: "This is simply unfair. They say they don't look at race, but isn't it still just a contest of racial traits? That Iron Tiger race is born with immense strength and superb physical quality; we simply can't compare."

This statement applied to both Humans and the Jungle Maze race; the physical quality of the Jungle Maze race was in the lower-middle tier in the Tianmo Jie. Humans were even worse off; Pei Shoujing was essentially using a mid-level account to compete against those small accounts and still couldn't win. Just in terms of physical quality, the starting point of a Tianmo was almost catching up to the end point of a Human.

Arong suddenly smiled and said: "You've finally realized it; it has always been like this. Have you forgotten how we learned in our initiation classes? All things are different, the Hundred Races are different, and one cannot force it. That is why everyone must serve the gods, and one must have a god that protects their own race. With the grace of the gods, the weak can contend with the strong. Now that we have lost the support of the gods, we are just returning to our original state. In the future, if everyone believes in the same god and receives the same grace, then the weak will remain weak, the strong will remain strong, and it will be impossible to transcend the boundaries of race. What meaning is there in working hard?"

Pei Shoujing was startled and said: "There's no need to be so pessimistic."

Arong said: "Actually, you don't need to work so hard either. I see those guys at the top of the rankings; they don't even work half as hard as you. Even if you work this hard now, you might catch up to their starting point, but the end point is completely different. Once you catch up a little, they work a little harder and throw you even further behind; isn't that even more desperate?"

Although Pei Shoujing didn't need to argue with her, she found it very unpleasant to hear and retorted: "Since we know that not working hard will lead to being thrown even further behind, shouldn't we hurry to catch up? Narrowing the gap even a little is still something."

Arong shook her head and said: "Actually, to catch up to them, relying solely on hard work is very slim. But it's not without methods. We can change our faith."

Pei Shoujing was stunned and said: "In this current situation, change our faith to an Evil God?"

Arong shook her head and said: "Evil Gods are too evil; they really will devour their believers. We can change our faith to other good gods."

She leaned in mysteriously and said: "Do you know about the Taixiong God?"

Pei Shoujing really didn't know; the Taixiong God was completely unfamiliar to the Human World, and even at the highest levels, only a few people knew of him. The textbooks she studied were compiled before the Great Assembly of Gods, so they certainly wouldn't mention him. She asked suspiciously: "What god? A Lesser God, right? Since we are changing our faith, why not just change it to the Upper Left God?"

Arong whispered: "Because the Upper Left God... has also fallen."

Pei Shoujing was stunned and said: "How do you know?"

She wasn't shocked that the Upper Left God had fallen; she was surprised at how Arong knew. The results of the Great Assembly of Gods, except for the part about the Taixiong God, had mostly been told to them, the infiltrators, and they were even required to spread it to cause chaos.

But Pei Shoujing hadn't actually focused on spreading news about the Upper Left God, because for the Jungle Maze race, the fall of the Upper Left God was far less shocking than the fall of their own god. Even if some people guessed it, because the Haotian faction was recruiting troops with such great fanfare, everyone defaulted to the assumption that the Upper Left God was still around and was the leader of the faction.

Arong sighed: "You are busy every day, just exercising, and have nothing else in your mind. I, having no hope, naturally went out to wander around. People of all races are here, and the news is particularly well-informed; as long as you are willing to ask, you can always find out."

Hearing this, Pei Shoujing couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt:

Who exactly is the spy here?

As a spy, shouldn't she be working hard to collect intelligence and utilize it? How did she get so carried away with exercising? She should go out more; as for the results, they weren't that important—a Sword Guest doesn't rely on brawling to prove themselves. She couldn't put the cart before the horse; if she could find out key intelligence, even if she didn't stay, it wouldn't have been a wasted trip.

Here, Arong continued: "The Taixiong God is amazing; he is one of the few gods who did not fall during the Great Assembly of Gods, and he is very likely the strongest god now besides the Evil God!"

Pei Shoujing pondered secretly and said: "So... you met a believer of the Taixiong God?"

It was obvious; only a believer would brag like that.

Arong said: "Yes, I met a young Liujin tribesman. The Liujin are a tribe about the same size as our Jungle Maze race. Their god was originally the Liujin God, and he had always had a good relationship with the Taixiong God. It is said that this time the Liujin God fell at the Great Assembly of Gods and entrusted his tribe to the Taixiong God. Although they haven't officially changed their faith yet, it's almost certain. He told me that the Taixiong God is a very generous god who, even in the past, did not hesitate to bestow divine grace to help tribes progress. However, the Taixiong God's core believers are the Fire Spirit race, and tribes that join later have to take a back seat, so..."

Pei Shoujing said: "So he wants to pull more people to change their faith to the Taixiong God, so that they can have more weight in front of the Taixiong God? They recruited you?"

Arong clapped her hands and said: "As expected of A Jing, you understand immediately." Her expression was solemn, clearly recalling and repeating: "The current situation is like this: the strongest in the Shenjie right now is the Evil God. Besides the Evil God, the strongest of the orthodox gods is the Taixiong God. However, the strongest of the Lingjie people is the Haotian Priest; his strength is no less than those Lesser Gods, but he does not have the authority of a god, so he cannot bestow divine grace."

She held up three fingers and said: "There are three powerhouses now, and two factions. The Evil God is a faction on his own, and the other two are a faction; the two have already allied. The Taixiong God has a divine position but few believers. Haotian can gather more people, but his banner of the Upper Left God is fake; he cannot directly collect believers, so he has to drag the various tribes onto a new path. And the people of the Hundred Races are accustomed to believing in gods; they want divine grace more than hard cultivation, which is something he cannot provide, so his current position is not stable."

Pei Shoujing listened and thought to herself: "The Taixiong God has a capable person under him. This explanation is clear and logical, but it clearly favors the Taixiong God, only mentioning Haotian's flaws while not mentioning the Taixiong God's shortcomings. How could Arong say this? It must be that someone else said it, and she is just parroting it."

Arong, unaware that she had already been seen through, continued: "Because the Evil God exists, the Taixiong God and Haotian will not fall out, but they are also divided internally. Haotian's path is not bad, and perhaps the future is bright, but it is not set for us. We weak races simply cannot compete with those strong races. If we still want to strive for something, we might as well try defecting to the Taixiong God."

Pei Shoujing listened and calculated in her heart. She had originally thought that she could enter the final list and then obtain more intelligence, such as the new martial power system the Tianmo wanted to establish, which sounded like it had some substance. If she could record that and send it back to the Human World in its entirety, it would surely be of some use, right?

But hearing Arong's words today, a light went off in her head:

This has potential!

The war between the two factions was already a bit chaotic; if another faction were established within one of the factions, turning a two-tiger struggle into a three-legged standoff, wouldn't it be even more chaotic?

She immediately asked: "Did you also receive a mission to spread the faith of the Taixiong God?"

Arong said somewhat embarrassedly: "I do have that. After all, we are newcomers. The Liujin race is trying to win us over to gain merit, and we also need merit, so we can win others over. It's just that I'm afraid that rashly trying to win over other races will anger the Haotian Priest and the Shengnyu, so I had to start with you. One is better than none."

Pei Shoujing smiled slightly and said: "What's one? If we're going to recruit, we should recruit a few more. Of course, it's possible to anger the Shengnyu, but we can start from the low-ranking ones. For example, those ranked over ten thousand, it's clear they are hopeless; would they even care? Let's try to recruit a few dozen before we leave, or even more. Although we arrived late, we can leave early!"

Arong nodded repeatedly, feeling that as long as she was there, there would be no problem. Pei Shoujing, however, thought: I might not be good at recruiting people; why not ask headquarters tonight and have an Expert provide a tutorial? Wouldn't that be twice the result with half the effort?