Sylvera looked at the battlefield.

All the crabs were dead, but they had paid a high price as well.

However, even though the war was over, their mission was not yet complete.

According to the divine envoy, crabs reproduced extremely fast, and a single female could lay thousands of eggs in a year.

Most of them died before reaching adulthood, but that wasn't the issue. They had to completely exterminate this crab group, and to do that, they needed to destroy the eggs.

Sylvera took about ten rank 2 nagas with him and instructed the rest of the army to clean up the battlefield and bring the bodies to the beach.

The smell of blood would soon attract predators, so they had to hurry.

The small team of nagas swam to the coast and entered the cave.

The floor sloped, and after a while, Sylvera was sure they were already below sea level.

After a few hundred meters, the rocky corridor suddenly widened, and they emerged into a massive cave.

Stalagmites rose high into the air, while stalactites descended from the ceiling. Sometimes the two met, forming tall stone columns.

There were several dozen small water pools filled with reddish-orange eggs.

"Let split up and finish this quickly!"

The nagas nodded, and each headed towards a pool. There might be tens of thousands of eggs in the entire cave, and it would take some time to destroy them all.

Fortunately, they were grouped together and quite fragile.

They only needed to pass over them to make them burst.

Meanwhile, Sylvera found another passage opposite the entrance. Judging by the marks on the wall, the passage must have been created by the crab kin.

Nevertheless, Sylvera waited for the others to finish before venturing in.

After circling the cave several times to make sure they hadn't missed anything, the nagas followed Sylvera and entered the crab king's lair.

The passage was not very long, and after about fifty meters, they emerged into another cave.

This one was much smaller than the previous one. Unlike the darkness of the other, it was illuminated by dozens of small blue stones.

They emitted a soft light that dimly lit the cave.

Sylvera couldn't quite explain it, but he felt his body filling with energy just by breathing the air in the cave.

There was no need to be a genius to understand that it was caused by these blue crystals.

He used his snake tail to wrap around a stalagmite that almost touched the ceiling and, with his clawed fingers, managed to extract a large blue stone the size of a fist.

He planned to ask the divine envoy what it was when he returned.

Anyway, these strange stones weren't going anywhere.

In any case, their mission was complete, and it was time to go back.

...

A few moments earlier, as Sylvera and his small team of nagas entered the second cave, Liam's main body, which was in the void at the top of his divine realm, felt his watch vibrate.

Liam looked and saw it was a notification from the school.

"Congratulations for completing the 4-star quest 'Beach Crabs' and earning 12 300 points."

"Congratulations for completing your first quest. You can now access your ranking and view the overall ranking."

Liam immediately opened the ranking.

[1: 127 200 points]

[2: 117 800 points]

[3: 89 700 points]

...

[49: 12 300 points]

Liam frowned.

He knew he would be behind, but he didn't think it would be by this much.

The issue was not so much about consecutive battles; the problem was that 4-star quests were very rare, and he dared not challenge a 5-star quest yet, let alone a 6-star quest.

Even then, he might have to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach his next target, which would take at least a week or two, and it was better not to cause too much trouble with spatial channels.

It wasn't so much the distance that bothered him, but more the fact that there would likely be fights along the way that would slow them down.

His believers were not machines; even rank 2 warriors needed rest after a long battle.

He brought up the quest board and began scrolling, searching for an opportunity.

...

At the same time, the teachers also received a notification.

They wouldn't monitor the plane all the time and spent most of their time discussing.

Even so, they still paid attention to 4-star quests and were informed whenever one of these quests was completed.

These missions were very dangerous, and a few students suffered disastrous losses by overestimating their abilities.

Mr. Voinier looked at the notification and smiled.

"Well, this brat finally decided to move his ass."

A second elite class teacher grumbled.

"It's about time. He spent two years plunder everything he could find; I've rarely seen someone so stingy."

Mrs. Chang immediately contradicted him.

"Oh, come on, stop being so biased. This kid already has a lot of believers and must be approaching the limits of his divine realm. Doing this directly improve his foundation. It's better than what he may find with pearls. Between the plants and animals, he must now have a real ecosystem."

"You know very well that even if it doesn't seem very important at first, it will become crucial in the future. Such a natural environment naturally expands with the size of the divine realm. The earlier he acts, the less he'll have to do in the future."

No one had anything to say in response.

At that time, Mr. Idder looked at the plane and saw Liam's troops returning.

"Huh?"

He didn't care about the hundreds of corpses they were carrying but focused on the stone held by the leading naga, then followed their traces and looked at the crab cave.

"Interesting, this kid is really lucky."

Mr. Voinier flew near him.

"What are you talking about?"

"See for yourself."

Intrigued, the combat teacher looked down and then burst into laughter.

"Hahahaha. You're right; this kid is lucky. There shouldn't be more than twenty in this plane; the will of the plane will go rampage once it realizes."

...

Meanwhile, Liam had already chosen the next quest and was transmitting the information to his incarnation:

4-star Quest | Kira Village | 14 900 points: Kira Village is a small Drakos village hidden in the mountains. It is harassed by a group of demonic vultures. Find the nest and exterminate all the vultures (1 beginner rank 3 vulture, 27 rank 2 vultures, and 9 chicks (rank 0 and 1)).

It was quite far, over two hundred and fifty kilometers from their current position. Nevertheless, there were several 3, 4, and 5-star quests in the area. So, it was a preferred destination for him.

As for the vultures, although they were less numerous, they could fly. The threat they posed was even higher than the crab group.

Fortunately, Liam was confident.

…

Back on the plane, Sylvera and his men just arrived, and he was currently discussing with Liam’s incarnation.

"We lost 58 novarians, including 13 apprentices. The others were mortals. In addition, two nagas died. One was a confirmed apprentice, and the other a beginner apprentice."

Liam nodded.

It was the first real war in quite some time. For both novarians and nagas, it was their first major battle to death. Losses were expected.

"That’s alright. There can be no war without death. You made a good job, and the Lord of the Azure Abyss is grateful to you."

Liam fell into his thoughts.

"Make all the corps go through the spatial channel; we need to organize a huge ceremony to reward the brave and honor the fallen. At the same time, those crabs will be useful. We'll use their shells for shields and their claws for spears."

Sylvera hesitated.

"It's not that I want to disobey, but these shells are really tough. Especially the king crab's one. I couldn't leave a single scratch on it even after using all my strength."

Liam raised an eyebrow.

Even though it was normal for the shell to be very sturdy, Sylvera was still a step above the crab. He should be able to break with some efforts.

"Take me to this crab."

Sylvera nodded and left the cabin, closely followed by Liam's embodiment.

Soon, they arrived at the base of small hills of crab corpses, sorted by size. There was a large pile of rank 1 crabs, a smaller pile of 15 rank 2 corpses, and the king crab was separate.

Liam approached the massive body and placed his hand on it, sending faith energy into it.

Short after, his eyes widened; he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The shell, the claws, the legs, and even the belly... Everything was as sturdy as those of intermediate beings.

Strangely, the deeper he went into the body, the more the crab became... normal.

It was different from a mutation. A mutation would have strengthened a specific part of the body. It wouldn't have affected the entire body in such a strange way.

Suddenly, he thought of a possibility.

"Tell me, did you seen any blue crystal in the crab's cave?"

Sylvera nodded.

"Yes, I even brought one back. Wait, I'll get it for you."

In the void, Liam felt his heartbeat quicken as he considered a certain possibility. If he was right, he had to hurry.

A few moments later, Sylvera returned holding a blue stone.

"Jackpot!"

Seeing the stone, Liam almost roared with joy and approached Sylvera.

"Did you find these in the crab's cave?"

Once again, Sylvera nodded.

"There are few dozens of them, and those were just the visible ones. There might be more hidden in the rock."

Liam smiled.

"Perfect, you've made a huge contribution. These are spirit stones, and they have considerable value."

"Hurry up and alert the others. They have an hour to dismantle the entire camp and send everything through the spatial channel. Whether it's the corpse, huts, or even leftover food, nothing must remain that could testify to our presence!"

It was likely that Sylvera and his men discovered a spirit stone vein. Judging by what he said, it was probably a very small vein, and there wouldn't be a source stone, but it was enough.

Even such a small vein would have a few thousands of stones and maybe more. If he could extract and place them in his divine realm, his size would increase again.

Spiritual energy was magical: the source of the creation of everything.

That was probably why the crab was so tyrannical. It had probably lived there for hundreds of years, and its body had strengthened under the spiritual energy of the stones.

His divine realm couldn't create spiritual energy yet, but that didn't mean it couldn't absorb it.

The process would be very slow, but it would eventually consume everything and use it to grow.

A single spirit stone contained as much energy as a rank 3 being. For Liam, it came at the perfect time.

However, he had to act quickly.

The spirit stone vein was probably the reason why the crab king kept his tribe here despite a shortage of food.

At the same time, the will of the world must have warned him not to consume the spirit stones and to protect the vein.

Now that Sylvera and his men had killed the guardian, the plane’s will would send someone more powerful to take over the place.

Fortunately, they still had some leeway.

The will of the plane didn't monitor its plane all the time. Most of the time, it was in a semi-conscious state and only woke up for important matters, like rank 4 being battles or if it detected someone trying to sneak into the plane.

Initially, it only swept through the divine realm once a month, but lately, it seemed to notice something and now checked every week.

At that time, they just had to avoid making sudden moves.

Besides the three major races of the plane, there were thousands of different species. As long as it didn't find Liam's incarnation or the portal, it would consider it normal.

Fortunately, it passed two days ago, so he was sure he could mine most of the spirit stone vein before the next inspection.

The novarians and the nagas worked like ants, and soon, there was no trace of their presence.

The crab corpses would take some time to be accepted by the divine realm, but Liam had a solution for that. It just had to wait until he finished exploring the mine.

He sent the novarians into the divine realm, ask them to dissect the crabs, and then closed the spatial portal.

He kept only the nagas with him. Given the size of the cave, it couldn't accommodate many people, and nagas were much stronger than novarians.

Even better, they could directly climb to the stalagmites and stalactites. It would increase a lot their efficiency.

When they reached the king crab's cave, Liam spread his spiritual sense.

Since the spirit stones disrupted his spiritual sense, it made things simpler: the more it was disturbed, the more spirit stones there were.

According to Liam's estimate, there should be around 3000 and 3500 spirit stones.

The method for extracting spirit stones is relatively simple: just break the rock around them and take them out.

Spirit stones were very stable and wouldn't explode at the slightest impact.

He limited his strength to the absolute pinnacle of rank 3 and attacked the rock wall where there were the most spirit stones.

BOOM

The cave trembled, and several stalactites fell from the ceiling and almost impale the nagas.

Liam grinned foolishly at the damage. He was a bit too enthusiastic.

Given the cracks spreading throughout the cave, it was better to stop using brute force.

Even a rank 3 at the pinnacle wouldn't survive if buried under hundreds of meters of rock.

Fortunately, his blow was enough to greatly weaken the cave's rock wall.

It made the entire structure unstable, but that was okay.

They weren't going to stay very long anyway.

Five days later, the king crab's cave had quadrupled in size, and a huge pile of rocks was stacked in the main cave.

Liam and the nagas managed to extract 2694 spirit stones.

The smallest, and the most numerous, were the size of a golf ball, while the largest was the size of a large cat. It wasn't round but elongated, like an oversized blue potato.

There were still quite a few spirit stones left, but they were scattered, and they didn't have time anymore.

Liam had already pulled on the string as much as he could, and the will of the world would arrive in less than an hour.

His incarnation concentrated his faith energy to create a spatial anchor.

In the void, Liam used Sylvera as a medium and connected the anchor created by his incarnation.

Creating a portal was easy, but there was often a margin of error of a few kilometers, which he couldn't afford. Moving so many spirit stones would unconsciously attract all the creatures of the surroundings; it was their instinct.

The only reason for the crab group to not suffer from endless waves of monsters was that the vein was partially exposed and especially under hundreds of meters of rocks.

Quickly, a spatial channel opened in the cave.

As the nagas took as many spirit stones as possible, he arranged some novarians to come from the divine realm and help move things out.

Ten minutes later, Liam closed the spatial channel.

Only Sylvera and him remained.

Exiting the cave, he lifted Sylvera over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

"Huh, whaAAAAAAA."

Ignoring his saint's surprised cry, Liam flew into the sky at full speed, heading towards the mountain of his quest.

He limited his strength to a rank 3 being, so the world's will didn’t notice anything.

The only difference was that even if a Foundation Establishment cultivator or a mage (rank 3 in their power systems) at the pinnacle could burst with such speed, it would only last for a few seconds at most before running out of energy.

Liam was literally burning faith points to go at full speed.

Fortunately, the spiritual energy pushed back the sound barrier, or he would have long ago alerted half of the plane by a bang sound.

In less than five minutes, he reached the mountain and found a small cave.

He put Sylvera on the ground, still a little dizzy from the flight, and began to communicate with his real body outside.

After today, the world's will would probably remain awake all the time for several years, making it impossible to create a new spatial channel.

A few moments later, space twisted, and a new spatial channel formed.

Liam widened it to a few dozen meters and then engraved a lot of sealing talismans.

He even asked novarians to bring six small spirit stones and created a concealment formation.

Between the travel and the portals, he did spend more than 200 000 faith points.

Fortunately, incarnations were rechargeable.

A few minutes later, he felt a powerful consciousness sweep through the entire lower plane.

It was very inconspicuous and was going quite fast. Only some beings at the pinnacle of rank 4 might be able to detect it.

However a few moments later the will seemed to roar in rage and its presence greatly strengthened.

Even rank 3 beings felt its anger, and unconsciously, every native calmed down.

Whether they were eating, fighting, or even making love, they all stopped what they were doing, including the invading armies of students.

In an instant, the entire plane fell silent.