Guild Wars

Gage was not surprised by this. Ever since he had awakened his Anansi bloodline, he had come to learn many things about himself and the world as a whole. First and foremost, Anansi had been far craftier than anyone realized.

He had been privy to Lucifer's plan to leave an incarnation behind but lacking any abilities that would grant him that ability, he had simply piggybacked along the plan with added safeguards for himself.

This was why Gage had been able to awaken memories about his true nature as an incarnation without the need for the 'key' from the Evil Trio which Lucifer had programmed into the other progenitor incarnations.

Sure, one might see this as an act of rebellion, but Anansi would argue it was simply a contingency plan for his incarnation in case Lucifer's plan failed. After all, who could blame him? Even though he was an Original Human, Anansi lacked time-related abilities and couldn't see the future, so he had no way of predicting how the world or the situation might unfold.

Anansi hadn't been worried about the possibility of the Evil Trio becoming enemies with Gage and suppressing him, his real concern had been that the trio might never come together at all. Given the previous timeline, in which Shuangtian had been trapped until her death, Draco had been murdered, and Eva had committed suicide in the aftermath, the necessity of Anansi's actions was painfully clear.

Although he lacked the ability to predict the future, Anansi did have great capability in regards to playing with fate and karma. He was a well known trickster among the various mythologies, often being the protagonist of various African folktales.

Gage had geown used to these abilities over the years, and his karma severing abilities had proven to be very helpful to his chosen path as a ninja assassin. Was there even a need to slice the person's neck when you could slice the thread of karma connecting them to the world instead?

Alas, the Grey Rot's karma line was the biggest he had seen outside of the core members and the Evil Trio. Its thickness was also equivalent to its hardness, and a casual slice form him was rebuffed without doing much of anything.

However, the tougher it was, the more Gage was interested. As such, he returned his katana to its sheathe and charged another slice before unleashing an iaido-like attack that was more than twice the size and potency of the one before.

When it struck the karma thread, it resulted in a 'DONG' sound, but one would notice a slight nick in the thread, like a chip. Interestingly, the moment the nick was made, a portion of the grey rot disappeared while Gage received notification screen of his earnings from the battle.

"This is enough? Then I shall maintain it." Gage murmured to himself.

In the end… he was a lazy person. If it wasn't for the fact that his big boss Draco gave the order, he would rather go and search for big booty beauties to admire than fight all day.

Now that he realized that this much energy could clear the grey rot slowly, he decided to maintain this level of strength, releasing a slash every minute or so. Hmm, this should be more than enough.

Meanwhile, Omega Raider was having the time of his life.

｢Name: Omega Raider – True God

Level: The Law of Endless Plundering (Basic)

Divine Energy: 100%/100%.｣

｢Law of Endless Plundering - Divine Law

Grade: EX+

Effect: This is a law that enhanced one's ability to steal what legally belongs to another person for oneself. When imbued into the body, skills or abilities, it allows the suer to plunder one thing from any enemy it strikes, which can be items, equipment or even skills and laws!

Sources: Pirate King of Heroes (Divine Class) + Kaizoku-Ou Ni, Ore Wa Naru! (Passive Skill).｣

"Hahaha! Come to me, Queen Anne's Revenge!" Omega Raider laughed as he jumped up.

｢The Queen Anne's Revenge – Active skill

Effect: Summon a Legendary grade ship called the Queen Anne's Revenge and captain it as the Pirate King. It can attack, defend and support you on sea related battles, and even submerge itself underwater while protecting its crew.

Note: The ship comes with its own basic crew, but its strength multiplies based on the amount of crew you bring on-board and their individual power.

Duration: 6 hours

Cooldown: 12 hours or 0.1 Divine Points.｣

Immediately, the entire area zone was plunged with water, a literal sea forming on the formerly dry ground filled with grass. From the horizon came a large ship with an exotic design, being that of a frigate with black sails and a worn body.

Omega Raider, who was already airborne, simply flipped in the air and landed at the helm of this ship, right before the wheel. The moment he did, a loud sound of cheers emerged from all over the ship as the crew raised their swords and shouted for their captain.

A beautiful read-headed young woman who wore a red headband and pirate slacks sauntered over behind Omega Raider and glanced at him with a soft look. She then placed his captain's hat on his head and fixed a coat on his back gently.

"Welcome back, captain."

Omega Raider turned to her and grabbed her into his embrace. "I told you to call me Luke, Anne."

Anne Bonny, the famous red-headed female pirate, blushed and looked away. The pirates who were watching jeered at their vice captain who usually bullied them, seeing her acting so bashful in front of the captain.

Anne gave them a fierce look, and all the fellows withered as they scurried away with their tails behind their legs. After all, pirates only fought battles they could win and they had never won once against the vice captain!

Omega Raider was amused and held Anne Bonny close as he began giving orders while using his free hand to control the wheel of the ship. He then gestured to the cannoneers who were ready to unleash a barrage of fire, turning the ship to the broadside.

"Fire!" Omega Raider roared as he unsheathed his sword and pointed towards the grey rot domineeringly.

The cannoneers obeyed the command and unleashed their rounds, the explosion of the cannons shaking the entire ship since they were truly powerful. The entire grey rot shook when the explosions occurred within its midst, causing some of tis mass to naturally be exhausted.

The Queen Anne's Revenge began sucking in ambient Divine Energy to replenish the rounds spent. After all, they certainly couldn't use normal cannon balls to blast the grey rot, for that would do no damage whatsoever.

Omega stood at the helm of his ship with a fierce grin. He had a beauty in his arms, his ship in hand and a bottle of rum in his flask.

His life had peaked!

Finally, there was Eciuj Gub, the special homunculus that was half player half NPC. With his law of Endless Summoning, he only had to burn Divine Energy to summon various True God creatures to fight the grey rot.

In fact, he was like a miniature grey rot, able to endlessly generate creatures to fight his enemies, but the difference was that Gub could only summon True God monsters at the Basic Rank, the equivalent of his law.

Luckily, his Divine Energy cost only came from summoning them, but the summon creatures could absorb and use their own Divine Energy from the atmosphere without needing to supply themselves from his pool.

While Gub made progress, he couldn't help but think of what Draco told him as well as his own purpose. He decided that he must progress quickly in order to achieve his goals and find some closure in his rather uncertain existence.

.........….

Eva was currently thinking of ways to handle the faith requirement of the Divine Umbra Pantheon. Every Pantheon encountered this problem and usually resolved it by training their own specialized ministers and establishing their churches within various territories in the main plane.

Luckily for the Divine Umbra Pantheon, they had two strong factors. One was that the owned and controlled a huge portion of the main plane while the second was that Eva herself had the Divine Tradeskill of Ministry, which allowed her to gather faith to sell to True Gods and Divine Pantheons.

As such, she activated her Ministry Tradeskill and her Tradeskill Aide came over.

(AN: not gonna bother re-explaining everything. Read chapter 1022, Development 11, for a full refresher on how this Tradeskill works.)

"Hello Madame Pope, I trust you have been well? How can I assist you today?" The Supreme Aide for the Ministry's Utility under Excessive Limitation - Samuel - asked as he bobbed over.

Eva pushed the orb out of her face and asked calmly. "How much faith have I accumulated?"

Samuel seemed to be checking some database before responding with a slightly heavy tone. "Madam Pope, you have currently accumulated 338,122,441,632 units of faith energy over the past ten years."

Eva was stunned. "How much?"

Samuel did not repeat itself and seemed to understand Eva's shock, so explained. "You established a Rank 7 Church in which you enshrined yourself and two others as main gods, as well as many follower gods."

"Yes, but that Church was linked to the Divine Umbra Pantheon later on." Eva stated with a frown.

Samuel bobbed with a flash in its lens. "Correct. Faith gathered within the church was directly transferred upwards. However, the Divine Umbra Pantheon and your Ministry Tradeskill are two separate things while the church and the gods being worshiped are the same."

Eva pondered and seemed to understand. So it was basically a case of one household and two tax collectors. When a person came to the Rank 7 Church to pray to Draco, faith energy was collected by the Church and sent to the Divine Umbra Pantheon's account while some was retain for Eva's Ministry Tradeskill.

"This has little value of to me anyway." Eva said with a frown.

It was not necessarily a windfall, but the money they should have had anyway had Ministry not interfered.

The difference was that the faith energy that went into the pantheon could only be used for either the pantheon's growth or to 'pay' the enshrined True Gods their faith dividends while the one for the Tradeskill could be either sold raw or converted to Divine Energy using the Tradeskills mechanics and then sold for a higher price.
Enjoy stories on m_v lem|p-yr

In the end, there were two key differences. Firstly, one was a faction and the other was a Tradeskill, so though they collected the same thing, how they used them was different. Secondly, The Tradeskills was specifically meant to be used by mortals to earn funds from True Gods or to supply True Gods with extra Faith or Divine Energy, while the faction was meant for actual True God use.

The correct use of Ministry was to collect accumulated faith from ANY receptacle - with or without permission for the god who was that receptacle - and then process it for their own use. Linking to a church was fine, but it was super redundant to link to a church that was connected to a pantheon already.

For Eva to use this Tradeskill well and fulfill her part of the deal, she would have to go on a grand adventure through the main plane, seeking out old and decrepit churches from the old era where faith energy had been accumulated and plunder it!

However, as one could imagine, Eva was extremely unwilling. Her adventure-seeking days were behind her as she was now a mother and matriarch of a powerful clan, with countless duties that required her to be around.

In the end, she could only rub her forehead and smack Samuel aside, who had appeared in her face and was relentlessly asking her what she wanted to do next. She decided to expel all the accumulated faith energy back to the Rank 7 church, sending it to the Divine Umbra Pantheon.

After doing so, she de-linked her Ministry Tradeskills from Vita's Rank 7 church and decided that it was time to stretch her legs, regardless of how she felt.

If she was going to do this, it was best to start at a place she was familiar with, which had True Gods even to the modern day.

Shinoka Continent!