Rafe was itching to start. He always had some ideas about this, but he suppressed them, not daring to consider it.

Back when he had visions about the history of Primus, he did see a group of Earth high mages create a giant golem and merge their souls into it. When the golem matched towards Ma'la capital, it gave off the aura of a D grade user.

Rafe lay on a table-like stone slab. Ten minor gods stood around him, drawing an array. Behind them stood the fire god who freed him that morning.

"What is that stuff all over your body?" the fire god asked.

Rafe started. He did feel slimy before, but he thought it was just sweat. He thought the egg was only on his head, but it turned out the whole of his body was bathed in goo and crushed egg shells. Now they were dried.

Rafe shrugged, "Phoenix egg. Couple of ungrateful twats broke it over my head and body."

The god was quiet for a time. Rafe saw his lips twitch, his muscular body shaking. Then he raised his head and let out a loud laugh.

"You are one lucky kid," he said with an evil grin as he made a hammer appear out of thin air.

Rafe didn't like this guy's creepy smile. It was ominous.

"You…what do you want to do?"

"I want to forge," the man said in a deep voice that Rafe thought was trying too hard to be impressive.

In that moment, the array under Rafe's body lit up, and the ten minor gods started feeding it essence. Rafe saw them slowly dim in colour over ten seconds. They were losing essence faster than the gods who helped him with his soul training back then. And then one of the gods burst, their essence signature disappearing just like that.

There were more than a thousand gods here today, one dying was no big deal. But the way things were going, all ten of these gods were going to give their lives to operate this array Rafe was sleeping on, and he didn't even know what it did.

But then one of his insights started to respond, and he could feel a familiar mana emanating from the array. Another god exploded out of existence. Before he could even make his conclusion, space tore and the table was cut in half. Rafe's body started to sink into the void. More of the gods, all of them, exploded out of existence.

He was halfway through when something stopped him, anchored him in position. At this moment, Rafe could feel that he was in two worlds at once.

"What is this?!" he asked no one in particular.

There was now another group of gods drawing a circle around his table. Only the creepy god and his hammer were left close to Rafe, examining his body closely.

"This portal will lead you back to your world after everything is finished. The fate that was used to summon you will keep you here until everything is done."

"Oh…ok. So what are you planning to do with that hammer?" Rafe asked.

"I'm going to forge," the god said innocently. "Why don't you be a dear and take your clothes off before departing?"

Rafe instinctively reached for his crotch, his eyes flickering left and right.

"Is that appropriate?" he asked, his cheeks burning.

Just then, the world shook, an earthquake of unknown magnitude. Dust and debris rained from the cave roof, and there was a sound of cracking Earth.

"Burn! We are already late!" Ma'la screamed.

"Boy, what do you have to be embarrassed about?! I'm the only one who will be paying attention to your body now anyway! Take off your clothes nicely, or I will just rip them off when you're gone."

Rafe didn't have so many pieces of cloth in the gem like core on his chest, and he wasn't sure what happened to clothes that were destroyed when he was wearing them. With a thought, he stores the robe in the gem. And then he felt his soul being sucked out of his body once more.

There were two groups of gods. Almost about two hundred stood at the front of the cave. They were standing in the largest array Rafe had ever seen, the most complex one at least. They weren't looking at him, but out side, toward the Deufont dungeon.

The remaining almost thousands were looking at the little soul as it was pulled toward the giant golem body.

Previously, thousands of the strongest mages and priests in the Earth tribe were required to control a golem, but this time it seemed Rafe's soul was going to control a gigantic golem alone. But why should he be gigantic, he wondered? Wasn't this a little sloppy from the gods?

He wasn't going to be fighting an army, after all. He was going to be fighting the Chosen one-on-one. Wouldn't this gigantic body be a little difficult to control?

'Ding': Temporary Power surge detected. This is an isolated incident caused by the memories of this world's essence. Most changes will be only temporary, if you survived…

Updated temporary status…

Name: Rafael Kingsley Wilde

Race: Human (lvl. 16)

Class: Wind dancer (lvl. 16), Mimic (lvl. 16)

Health: 330

Stamina: 430 (+1500)

Stats

Strength: 46 (+200)

Agility: 82 (+250)

Coordination: 67 (+200)

Endurance: 43 (+150)

Vitality: 33 (+250)

Intelligence: 24 (+100)

Wisdom: 38 (+100)

Paranormal: Luck: 31

Mana: 380 (+1000)

???

Hidden: Constitution: 5 (+100)

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Free: 3

Class Specifications:

Offense: 27. (+400) Defense: 40. (+450)

Control: 5. Density: 17. Regeneration: 5.

Quest Points: 64,271

Credits: 2 D-grade, 2522 E-grade, 510 (46, 730)

Note: 1) All changes temporary. 2) Detected surge in soul strength and quality. Sufficient energy required to unlock higher system function otherwise life force will be…sufficient energy has been provided. 3) Detected use of abnormal body tempering method. Physical characteristics changing rapidly. Sufficient energy required to unlock a higher system function otherwise…sufficient energy has been provided.

Rafe still had free stat points. He didn't have time to distribute them before in the secret room, and now they were just sitting there. Still, given just how much his stats had improved temporarily, he didn't care too much about it. He would distribute those things once he returned to Earth.

And then there were the last two abnormal messages he had received.

He could feel divine essence from thousands of gods surging into his soul at once. It was even painful, and his soul raptured a few times, but it rapidly healed and continued to expand. With the support of the gods, one man was going to ride this golem that previously required thousands of very strong people.

Now Rafe knew why improving his soul strength before had been very important.

Before he let things go too far, he tried to sense deep into his soul, and sure enough, his second soul core was growing rapidly. His first soul core was rapidly changing colour.

He cursed that he did not have a better cultivation method, otherwise he could take advantage of this opportunity to cultivate all nine soul cores at once. As it was, he started banging his second soul core against his first soul core as fast as he could.

And the fragments were collected together. He didn't know how long he had, but he would take advantage of this cheat opportunity to cut off decades, if not a century of time from his soul cultivation. No wonder Goleon told him the previous training was just a prelude. This was the true opportunity Rafe earned with all his suffering up until now.

And on the altar with the void portal on which his body lay, Burn the fire god was hitting. With his divine essence as the fuel, Burn tried to forge Rafe's body anew. If his soul was present, Rafe would be feeling the pain of having his bones and muscles crushed to paste. Even his head was no exception. The tattoo of his connection to the librarian was shinning, moving around rapidly, as of it was trying to escape the first of the hammer.

Even though his future was going to be bright after today's event, Rafe knew things were far from simple. The amount of power he had now was barely equivalent to a mid-tier E grade at most. Or at least what he thought he'd be like at that time if he slacked off and only got stats from leveling up.

There were other sources of stats, and Rafe was sure he'd be stronger than this when he reached that level.

Anyway, he was now the equivalent of a weak E grade fighter, and he was supposed to fight against a D grade Chosen on his turf. Not to mention his skills were mostly basic skills. Even if they had very high levels, they were at most comparable to rare ranked skills close to their ceiling.

His sword skill was maybe comparable to a high level ancient skill, or a weak legendary skill. It was frustrating to think about.

He had insights that were all very strong and high level, but he had never been able to use them because of his weakness. And the Chosen had likely surpassed insights. Insights were useful for crossing to the E grade, but even in the late F grade some geniuses already had low level concepts.

By the time these people crossed to the D grades they would likely have high level concepts, ready to break into the next stage of truth after that. The Chosen probably had concepts close to breaking through, so that was what Rafe was up against.

His inability to use his insights meant his techniques were not yet fully in the master realm as well. His combat effectiveness was too low compared to his opponent.

Of course he could use his insights for the upcoming battle, but it was going to be the first time.

It was also going to be the first time he used this gigantic body, so of course controlling it would be difficult.

There was also the fact that he was going to be fighting against a small man while he was big and unwieldy. It was going to be hard to slow the Chosen down. But then again, if anyone could it, Rafe sure could try.

This was the best the gods could come up with. Rafe was very pessimistic about his chances, but what other option did he have? It was time to go to battle.

Rafe sat up slowly, trying to get used to the golem's body. He rolled his neck, rolled his shoulders, popped his knuckles.

Then he looked around. He could not stand in the cave. It was too short.

"Winning is probably beyond us," Ma'la said with a resigned sigh. She looked at Rafe with visible regret. "This was the best we could do on such short notice. We already wasted years of fate accumulation to summon you and to prepare Deufont. It would be a miracle if you managed to buy us five minutes."

Rafe wondered what the whole thing about preparing Deufont meant, but he could only scoff in the end. "I'm not going out there just to stall. I'm going out there to kill that damn bastard!"

Even he knew the immensity of the fight he was about to take part in. Still, a stubborn part of him refused to yield. The worst that would happen was that he may die. But he would only die after all these gods were gone, he believed.

"Please, Rafael…" Ma'la pleaded. "I know you hate us, but please, just try to stall him a little bit. Stall him for long enough that we can finish our task. That is all I ask."

Rafe was reluctant, but these gods were giving too much for him anyway. It wouldn't be such a terrible idea to play for time at the beginning. Besides, he needed time to test out his new temporary combat effectiveness.

"I don't have a weapon," he said.

And then a gigantic sword appeared in his hand. He could tell it had not a shred of magic cast on it. It was just ordinary metal, shaped by a peerless blacksmith, but said blacksmith put not an inch of a special effect on the sword. No runes or anything. Just cold sharp metal.

Rafe wanted to ask the gods to get him out of the cave, but even before he did, he found himself standing on the beach and towering over the cave and the entrance to the Deufont Dungeon.

He noticed that the two hundred or so gods who were not involved in the array connected to his soul were connected to the Deufont dungeon somehow. And there was something strange about how Deufont was shimmering now, like there was something strange going on in the dungeon.

He remembered the dungeon had been exhibiting strange signs when he first arrived to this world months ago. Almost all dungeons that were native to Primus before the system came had exhibited these strange signs, although Deufont was still an outlier compared to others.

Maybe the gods had something to do with these strange phenomenon.

Rafe walked towards the sea, trying to create distance between him and the dungeon, which was probably what he was supposed to.protect from the Chosen. Previously, under minimal strain, his soul could move for about six hours away from his body. There was going to be an incredible amount of strain today, so Rafe wondered if he could even last an hour once the battle was joined.

He checked on his soul cores, and his second was now almost as pure as his first core. The third was still just a tiny bud, but with the amount of energy he was getting from the gods, it was only a matter of perhaps half an hour before he started working on his fourth core. He estimated he would have started working on his fifth by the time the day's struggles were over.

With such a head start, Rafe was probably going to end up being a numbers cultivator in the end. Though his first core was already almost fully silver coloured by now, and it was getting more compressed and shedding some layers. Rafe guessed what was a pure bronze core was nothing compared to a pure silver core. On the other hand, a silver spot appeared on the second core.

Even the colours of his cores weren't bad. Maybe Rafe could afford to cultivate both colours and numbers. Even if it needed a thousand years, he had a skill that made him immune to the negative effects of time dilation so that was no problem.

But recently he suspected that skill had something to do with his unstable mood. Nothing was free in this world, and everything that was too good required at least a little price. He had spent more than forty years in the Skyholm trial, when he considered how long he should have stayed in the tower as well. He needed to spend less time in time dilation in the future, otherwise when he was very strong, he might inadvertently destroy worlds when the mood took him. He needed to not be so greedy in the future.

The world rumbled again, and this time the tremor lasted a whole ten minutes.

Rafe finally looked at the sky. He already knew the sun was being blocked by some gigantic body, but he was unsure of what it was. Now he knew what this devouring beast he'd once heard about looked like.

Back on the ground, he could see that the islands around Ma'la capital still had people bustling about, enjoying the promotion event. No one had ever experienced promotion before, so how were they supposed to tell that something was wrong? They thought it was part of the spectacle.

Then the spire, which Rafe could see even from this distance, exploded.

Rafe kept walking normally, imagining the shock the Ma'la must be feeling now. Something was actually flying from the spire, and it looked like a tiny space ship.

Rafe figured Filoria and Collab had probably escaped, but all of Helare's royal family were now gone from this world.

And then something burst out of the sea, climbing at terrifying speeds. As it exploded out, it destroyed at least a hundred floating islands that were in its vicinity.

Rafe could almost feel the panic the Ma'la must be feeling by now.

And that was not all. From the sky, thousands of flying beasts suddenly appeared. The other tribes of Primus that the Ma'la thought they had long destroyed. The Ma'la were numerous, but they were in a wasted state at the moment. It was going to be a massacre.

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