Chapter 186: The Dispute Over Incense Offerings, The Divine Calendar

The "Self-Resolution of Desire" system proposed by Nightfall Has Arrived sparked heated discussion on the forum.

The condition for a Prayer Fate Soul to generate Wish Power is the fulfillment of a targeted wish.

Essentially, this means fulfilling an inner desire related to a goal; the stronger the desire, the more Wish Power is generated upon completion.

Among known methods of obtaining Wish Power, the Ancient God Arena yields the highest output.

Each victory essentially fulfills certain superficial desires of the Ancient Gods, thereby granting massive feedback in Wish Power.

A single victory can generate 829 points of Wish Power.

With each subsequent victory, the output of Wish Power will increase progressively.

Theoretically, one only needs to become the Champion Fighter to reap astronomical Wish Power rewards from the Ancient Gods.

This is because producing a Champion Fighter is one of the greatest desires in the hearts of the Ancient Gods.

Furthermore, Wish Power output is also influenced by the strength of the target.

The Wish Power generated by the Ancient God Clan is theoretically far superior to that generated by creatures of minor worlds.

However, the model of generating Wish Power through the arena carries uncertainty.

The shuttle bus that picks up people at the Misty Coast every day does not necessarily pick up players possessing a Prayer Fate Soul; this is why the vast majority of players have not chosen the arena path and instead focus on minor worlds.

The surge in popularity of the voting option thread is also due to uncertainty about the future.

Most players have never considered how the future of these minor worlds will unfold.

Their general thinking is to extract as much Wish Power as possible and leave once the minor world becomes difficult to generate more.

As for their own contributions to the minor world or its future development, they simply do not care.

The appearance of the voting thread, however, has prompted players to begin considering whether minor worlds can sustainably generate Wish Power.

The reply posted by Nightfall Has Arrived shared the concept of sustainable production with all players and refuted the "draining the pond to catch all the fish" notion mentioned by the original poster of the voting thread.

Thus, a grand plan was born on the forum.

To build a new civilization for the minor world, with players guiding the course of its development in the name of gods.

During this period, players continuously proposed new ideas, working alongside Nightfall Has Arrived to refine the Wish Power acquisition system of "Self-Resolution of Desire."

Nightfall Has Arrived organized some of these player ideas, edited them into posts, and published them continuously.

As the ideas gradually improved, the prototype of the plan took shape.

The first step of the plan was to establish a gathering point, requiring all players entering the minor world to concentrate any survivors they encountered, forming a preliminary social structure.

The second step was to provide basic survival guarantees for the survivors, including food and water.

For example, organizing survivors for agricultural production, reclaiming land, and planting crops suitable for the apocalyptic environment.

In this regard, players could provide various forms of assistance, even supplying some spiritual seeds.

The only uncertainty was whether seeds of low-grade spiritual plants could grow in an apocalyptic minor world where the content of spiritual energy particles was extremely low.

All of this remained to be verified.

The second phase of the plan was to locate water sources or provide equipment for purifying water.

This involved establishing a comprehensive system for the distribution and management of water resources.

The third step was to use existing materials, or directly dismantle building materials from abandoned cities, to construct simple shelters for survivors, providing them with residences that could shield them from wind and rain.

Subsequently, further planning could be implemented to build more sturdy and comfortable living facilities.

The fourth step was to establish basic medical security, collecting medical equipment and pharmaceutical resources left behind by the ruined civilization, ensuring that creatures in the minor world would not die from minor illnesses.

After all, population growth was the core of this plan.

The fifth step was to rebuild the education system, which served as the cornerstone for the civilization's continued development toward greater heights.

The sixth step was to establish a comprehensive set of rules.

After long years of disorder in the apocalyptic minor world, the concept of the weak being prey to the strong had become deeply rooted in the minds of the survivors.

To ensure the healthy development of the minor world, binding rules were essential to guarantee that conflicts arising from various contradictions among survivors would not lead to death.

All contradictions were to be adjudicated according to the established rules.

For this purpose, a management institution also needed to be established to enforce the laws...

Before the execution of these plans, what players needed to do was to kill Immortal Zombies throughout the minor world.

This would purify the lingering calamity brought to the minor world by the Ghost Li Clan.

This ensured that the future of the minor world would not again fall into the rampage of the Immortal Virus.

However, killing all Immortal Zombies was clearly unrealistic, nor did players have the energy to search for Immortal Zombies hidden in secluded areas.

The only option was to handle as many as possible and then build a safe zone for survivors where civilization could gestate.

In the future, the cleanup of remaining Immortal Zombies would have to be handed over to the creatures of the minor world itself.

Although the plan was being refined, there was still one problem that was difficult to solve.

How could all players be made willing to execute this scheme?

Every player had different ideas; although ideas could be changed, the underlying logic for changing them boiled down to nothing more than the two words: "benefit."

The concept of "Self-Resolution of Desire" proposed by Nightfall Has Arrived was an idealized trajectory.

Although the scheme was feasible, contradictions would arise once player interests were factored in.

The primary contradiction stemmed from how divine positions should be allocated, an issue that remained endlessly debated.

Forum players also engaged in heated discussion regarding this.

Observing from behind the scenes, Qi Sheng was surprised to discover that the viewpoint players were debating on the forum was actually a dispute over incense offerings.

The creatures of the minor world were the main providers of Wish Power; making the cake bigger and assisting the development of the minor world's civilization had already become a consensus among everyone.

However, once the Divine Court system was constructed, distinctions in the influence of different divine positions would inevitably exist.

Although players could be divided into gods of the same rank, with no distinction between Primary Gods and Secondary Gods.

There must inevitably be a corresponding division of divine positions; this was a necessary choice for the concretization of gods.

Taking reality as an example, the image of Guanyin Bodhisattva in Buddhism is one of compassion and saving people from suffering; this image is deeply ingrained in people's hearts, resulting in numerous followers and flourishing incense offerings.

Every year, large numbers of believers go to pray, gaining spiritual satisfaction and solace.

Some even find their dreams come true in their future life paths due to certain reasons, believe it to be the god manifesting power, and go to fulfill their vows.

The Wish Power generated by fulfilling these wishes would be credited to the player.

Therefore, as long as a player's positioning in the minor world was a popular divine position, their Yield of Wish Power would inevitably be higher than that of other gods.

Especially during traditional festivals, it was like activating a welfare event in a game; when the populace held grand sacrifices to gods closely related to daily life, such as the God of Wealth, prayers were endless, and Wish Power was produced in large quantities.

In contrast, some niche gods related to specific industries, such as Lu Ban in the eyes of construction craftsmen, generated very little revenue normally, lacking the large-scale, high-frequency prayer activities seen with other gods.

The cake could be made bigger, but the percentage of Wish Power output showed significant differences.

Everyone wanted to be a popular divine position, unwilling to become niche, or even a forgotten god.

God of Agriculture and Harvest, God of Fertility and Reproduction, God of Wisdom and Knowledge, God of Wealth... each divine position corresponded to a type of affair related to the daily lives of creatures in the minor world, inevitably creating a distinction between popular and niche.

If there was no contention before the construction of civilization, it would be too late to contend in the future.

Once the Divine Court system took root in people's hearts, the percentage of Wish Power generated by the population would tend toward stability.

There was indeed a player on the forum who proposed an idea, suggesting that everyone should compete based on their own abilities through divine descents and manifestations.

However, this idea was opposed by a large number of players.

In the eyes of many players, the method of divine descent and manifestation was undoubtedly sounding the horn of involution.

Competing based on ability meant that if an opponent invested 1 point of resources in a divine descent, one would have to invest 2 points to suppress them.

Players comparing themselves to one another and investing massive resources to compete for influence in the minor world would ultimately lead to a rising expenditure curve, undoubtedly returning to the model that existed before the concept of "Self-Resolution of Desire" appeared.

Therefore, involution was inadvisable; it would only harm the players' own interests.

But how to allocate divine positions was indeed difficult to debate into a reasonable scheme.

Just as players were endlessly arguing over the allocation of divine positions, a tourist with the number "1" proposed a concept in Nightfall Has Arrived's live stream.

In his post, he stated why one must necessarily structure the Divine Court according to a fixed system of divine positions.

He indicated that the clearly divided system of gods in reality had created a mental inertia for many players.

They felt that divine positions should be like "one radish, one hole," with clear divisions of labor that would remain unchanged in the future.

But the factual situation was that the current apocalyptic minor world did not yet have a clear system of gods.

It was like a blank sheet of paper; the future understanding of gods by the creatures of the minor world would be written by the players.

Therefore, it was entirely possible to structure a rotating system of gods, which would also facilitate the integration of new players joining in the future into this new system.

The specific scheme was to tentatively divide the divine positions within the Divine Court into 500 god posts.

These would be numbered 1 to 500 according to popularity, from most popular to most niche.

Assuming there were 500 players embedded with Prayer Fate Souls, the first round of divine position allocation would be distributed based on contributions to the construction of the minor world's civilization; this aspect could be left to the Guidance system to calculate statistically.

Next, a time would be set for the divine positions to rotate at that appointed hour.

During this process, a god rotation table similar to a calendar also needed to be produced and distributed to the creatures of the minor world.

This would let them know that at this specific time point, if they had needs, they should pray to which rotating god.

Once this system became fully mature, looking at the "Divine Calendar" would become the norm for creatures in the minor world.

The greatest benefit of the divine position rotation model was that every player could become the most popular god.

Accompanying the development of the minor world's civilization and the growth of the population base, all players could share in the continuously generated Wish Power revenue from the gradually enlarging cake.

In response to the concept proposed by Tourist Number 1, Nightfall Has Arrived also raised his own confusion in the live stream.

He stated that if the system operated according to this scheme, apart from the group of players who initially constructed the minor world's civilization, subsequent players embedded with Prayer Fate Souls would be unable to obtain Wish Power revenue from the minor world and would have to acquire it from other channels.

Newbie players who were not part of the ranks of the "Civilization Founders" and wished to join in the future would simply not be accepted by the "Civilization Founders."

After all, with every additional player sharing the cake, one's own revenue would decrease by a fraction, and the time required to rotate to a popular post would also be extended.

Although this was the most reasonable distribution plan for divine positions under conditions of no internal competition.

Unsolvable problems still existed.

Tourist No. 1 explained this issue using two answers.

First, Tourist No. 1 stated that every growth stage of the player legions had benefits belonging to that stage; just as a group of players in the early phase received exclusive spiritual field rewards, later novice players could only look on with envy, having no chance to share in the spoils.

As for the process of forging minor world civilizations, the first batch of players who embedded Prayer Soul Souls had expended effort and resources, so they deserved to reap the fruits.

As for how to obtain wish power subsequently, novice players could seek other methods.

Perhaps dungeon scenarios similar to the Doomsday Minor World would appear in the future.

Tourist No. 1's first answer gained the approval of a large number of players possessing Prayer Soul Souls.

However, some players expressed dissatisfaction, believing that since they currently lacked enough sacrificial power to buy Prayer Soul Souls and were in the stage of scraping together funds, how could the future revenue of the minor world be fixed and distributed, forming a monopoly?

The debate did not cease after this proposal was made; it continued.

The collision of ideas gradually perfected the scheme of "Self-Resolution of Desire."

At this moment, Tourist No. 1 also provided a second answer to resolve the issue of "Self-Resolution of Desire."

This answer made many players exclaim "awesome" and became the final adopted scheme.

The solution of this scheme was that before civilization construction, all players would rely on their own abilities to save the survivors of the minor world, with the amount of wish power revenue generated depending on luck.

However, upon entering the civilization development Cultivation Mode, the quotas for the Divine Court system would be finalized, and a rotation system would be initiated.

Each divine position within the Divine Court corresponded to a specific real-world need of the minor world's living beings, ensuring every player would eventually rotate into a popular divine position.

It was tentatively decided that no additional divine position quotas would be issued externally.

The future plan was that novices joining the Divine Court system would have to spend sacrificial power to purchase qualification.

The original setting was that before novices joined the Divine Court system, they would contribute a sum of sacrificial power.

For example, one hundred thousand units of sacrificial power would be distributed to all players currently holding divine positions within the Divine Court system, and then the quota would increase by one.

However, this scheme was rejected during forum discussions.

The reason was simple: assuming the Divine Court had one thousand quotas, even if a novice player contributed one hundred thousand units of sacrificial power to purchase a quota, the share received by each Divine Court player would be only one hundred units of sacrificial power.

Such a yield was not worth mentioning.

As for one million units of sacrificial power, the cost was too high; even novice players with team support would not do this.

The solution proposed by Tourist No. 1 was to conduct buying and selling of only a single quota.

A cap on wish power acquisition would be set within the minor world; for instance, once a player in the Divine Court system obtained three million units of wish power, that player would have to sell their Divine Court quota to a player wishing to join later, keeping the total number of Divine Court quotas unchanged.

This setting seemed very reasonable to the forum players.

Although minor worlds could produce wish power, they were ultimately a group of weak living beings with limited world capacity; population growth would inevitably have an end.

Based on recent statistics of wish power output from the minor world, Tourist No. 1 considered three million to be a relatively reasonable figure, sufficient to unlock the fourth skill of the Prayer Soul Soul, which was the Group Healing skill.

Upon reaching a wish power revenue of three million, one would take a sum of sacrificial power and leave, yielding the position to newly joining players.

Newly joining players, upon reaching a wish power revenue of three million in the future, would also have to resell their quota to novice players joining afterward.

This formed a cyclical model of succession between old and new.

Under this model, the Doomsday Minor World would function like a stable novice village; veteran players would leave after cultivating to success to explore broader skies, while novice players would take over divine positions to begin their growth.

As for the price at which Divine Court quotas should be sold, players could decide for themselves, but it was stipulated that they must be sold within ten days.

If a player wished to leave early in the interim, they could also set their own price to sell the Divine Court quota.

After several days of debate, a reasonable scheme was thus born.

This scheme could both enlarge the cake and facilitate succession between old and new; players who built the civilization early would have wish power revenue from the divine position stage, and later gain additional revenue from selling quotas.

Novice players could also join the Divine Court system at any time by purchasing quotas.

With a clear scheme in place, players pooled their wisdom to begin conceptualizing the number and positioning of divine positions within the Divine Court, composing myths.

This mythological system, based on the concept proposed by Tourist No. 1, revolved around two cores.

The first core was the Divine Court Calendar and the rotation of deities.

The second core required implanting a concept into the living beings of the minor world: the deities guarding the minor world might depart at any time, but new deities would also join the world to replace those who left and continue guarding the world.

With the Divine Court structured around these two core concepts, the living beings of the minor world would henceforth base their worship primarily on changes in the Divine Calendar.

As for faith in the deities, the essence of this scheme was to dilute faith.

Which deity to pray to for what would be decided by the Divine Calendar, with no need to focus on a specific deity.

For example, on March 2nd, the rotating God of Wealth for the day is "Black Night."

Then, living beings of the minor world seeking wealth could simply pray directly to Black Night.

After all, the Prayer Soul Soul was not a "Divine Grid" soul; it had no requirements for the devotion of believers, nor did it require the living beings of the minor world to worship devoutly.

As long as the living beings of the minor world engaged in imagination during the prayer process, obtained spiritual satisfaction and comfort, and produced wish power, that was sufficient.

Other factors were not within the scope of consideration.

During this period, Tourist No. 1 also proposed a series of concepts.

He indicated that without damaging the output of Prayer Soul Souls, the minor world could also serve as a channel for producing rule resources for other soul types.

For example, the sixth-generation soul "Lord," which had been accommodated some time ago, could be used to construct a continuous source of Lord Power energy within the minor world.

Perhaps in the future, there would be other souls that produced resources through certain activity logics, all of which could be deployed within the minor world.

In the future, the Doomsday Minor World, while producing wish power, could also be a production site for other players to harvest energy.

Thus, the future direction of the minor world was finalized on the player forum.

The framework of this scheme was proposed by Black Night Approaching, setting the future goal for the minor world's development, which was the divine system of "Self-Resolution of Desire."

The details of the scheme were filled in by Tourist No. 1, who proposed the early-stage wish power acquisition plan and the setting for rotating divine positions, filling out the design framework proposed by Black Night Approaching to form a reasonable operational context.

Countless forum players further proposed concepts for the civilization development Cultivation Mode.

The results of the latest round of voting were released shortly after Tourist No. 1's speech; for the first time, the forum reached a unanimous vote on the issue of the minor world.

After the final results were announced, the future development of the minor world would be jointly supervised by several hundred guilds, which in essence served as an endorsement of military force.

This guaranteed that the development of the minor world would not be interfered with by external forces.

Qi Sheng watched the entire discussion among players regarding the future of the minor world, as well as the multiple scheme plans they formulated.

From the initial debate between divinity and demonism born from the concept of faction confrontation, to the subsequent struggle over incense... the discussion process could be described as brilliant.

He had originally thought the player legions would choose to exploit the minor world once and then leave.

In fact, this was the idea held by the vast majority of players.

However, some players proposed new concepts on the forum, and subsequently, other players developed new ideas based on those concepts.

Starting from the initial concept as the origin point, players continuously expanded the content, branching out, and ultimately designed a nearly perfect system of rotating deities.

They even designed a supporting "Divine Calendar" to coordinate with the operation of the rotating deity system.

Watching the entire process, Qi Sheng applauded in his heart.

These were the players he wanted, possessing both martial prowess and imagination, always bringing forth brilliant ideas that made one's eyes light up.

(End of Chapter)