The sound of frantic rustling and pages flipping could be heard from beneath me as I leisurely rocked in my hammock while Dee Sei fed me berries. I looked down to see how the progress was going to find the groups had actually read through about 25,000 of the books using their Qi to suspend the books and literally absorb the information contained within them a hundred at a time, I was slightly impressed by the efficiency considering they had 10 minutes left. Just as I was about to give them a 10 minute warning however I noticed that one woman wearing a blue and yellow outfit composed purely of electricity that flowed like water and crashed like waves whom Dee Sei had pointed out as the storm mother of the liquid thunder sect had stopped working on many books and was instead focused on one book before her face slowly transformed into an excited smile and she raised the book high into the air

“My Lord! I’ve found it!” 

The other sect leaders wore complicated expressions as while they were happy to be free of the time limit death penalty I had placed them in, they lost the competition to curry favor with me, although their sects received great benefits from this random task the one who managed to be lucky enough to find it herself would surely receive even greater benefits. 

I shifted my spatial dimension to teleport directly in front of her as I realized my act that was intended as imposing looked extremely comical and innocent, I was like a small child looking at something out of my reach. I quickly adjusted myself to be above her head and swiped the book from her before reading the title 

“The Rituals of Initiation?” 

The books title clearly showed that it was intended as a rule book for new disciples to follow in order to advance or join

The woman bowed deeply as I turned to her

“Woman? What was your name?” 

She raised he head slightly to me before bowing back down again

“This humble servant is known as Zhei Meng, this one represents the Liquid Thunder Sect, your divine majesty.” 

I nodded at all the trite pleasantries, I didn’t really like them but anything I said always sounded like a trap to them so they only became more lavish with their praises. 

“Well then Zhei Meng, describe in detail what this book says about the purgatory soul flame and how to train it.” 

She nodded before standing straight as I allowed her to yet still maintaining a deferential posture to myself. 

“Yes your divine majesty. The book describes a great many rituals necessary to train and establish new disciples yet the most important step that separates a weak candidate from an extremely versatile and dangerous full disciple  of the Sect described seems to be that capture of a Shinigami or equivalent spiritual manager, it describes the world inside the soul flame as essentially a prison with no guards or a warden that is thrown into chaos, yes the prison does get larger and more powerful since it contains more prisoners yet the wielder will not be able to actually wield the prison at full efficiency unless a warden is established, unless a Shinigami or some other soul controller being is placed inside the soul flame then the society inside will lack direction and never advance as a power source.” 

It all made sense now, of course just throwing a loose collection of souls into another world would not give adequate strength, it was much like Dee Sei in this world, my power drawn from this world is based entirely on the level of the cultivators here who worship me or revere me or even fear me. Dee Sei was my high priestess because she was able to guide and enforce my rules across the entire cosmos with a single thought and acted like a focus that made sure everybody was worshipping me as they should, PROOF of God’s power for all eternity to make sure no doubt was ever left. 

I looked to Zhei Meng and smiled

“Thank you, this merit will not be forgotten. You may request one thunder or water elemental from Dee Sei up to the True Immortal Realm or one Elemental of each up to the Astral Ruler Realm, this will of course be accompanied by the appropriate habitat.” 

Her eyes widened and gleamed in shock and ecstasy, for her sect that practiced Water and Thunder techniques this was nothing short of a literal Godsend. An elemental of any element was the best creature to observe and learn from in order to comprehend the ability to use your elemental attributes, and the habitats they were in were some of the if not the purest places to find they corresponding type of elemental energy to comprehend.

This benefit coupled with the increase in energy all but guaranteed that she would advance beyond any of her predecessors and her sect would thrive to go from a star system level sect to a possible galactic level sect. 

In this world sects had different benefits and requirements based on what kind of sect

The smallest were city level sects that were based in a single city and had anywhere from 10-1,000 members. These sects were innumerable and did not receive any real benefits but also had little to no worship requirements or sacrificial taxes enforced by Dee Sei. 

Past that were country level sects that were powerful influences in their nation and had multiple based attached to them, their numbers ranged from 1,000-10,000,000 depending on the size of the country. These sects still received no benefits or requirements but started to catch Dee Sei’s eyes if they held enough potential or heritage or secret methods. 

Then we reached planetary sects which were sects that held more power than any nation on their home planet and were widespread. The minimum members for a sect of this size was 1 Billion members to 100 billion members depending on the planet. These sects had mild benefits like they could make a great sacrifice to slightly increase the abundance of world essence of their planet

Then the sects before me were star system sects that each held at least 1 trillion members and occupied several planets and even harnessed the energy of stars and natural formed arrays on a grand scale, if planets were aligned correctly around their star a myriad of possibilities could arise that gave birth to millions of unique array stars. 

Past that it continued until you reached the several large behemoth sects here and above them was my sect in this world, classified as a universal sect and not a sect at all. 

The disappointment evident on the faces of the sect leaders led to a slight conundrum but I quickly found a new task 

“Well what are you all looking around all depressed for? Did you think I would catch a Shinigami myself? I will but first I need one of your sects to find an artifact to enhance the defense of the soul, the individual the Shinigami is being deposited in cannot hope to contain a Shinigami as they currently are even in the purgatory soul flame so they’ll need an artifact to contain it for them, come now.”

The sect leaders eyes all started beaming as they sent astral messages to their advisors at their respective sects bases. After about 30 breaths of time, seven lights appeared in space and entered the atmosphere flying towards us at speeds so fast that the light trail they created was actually struggling to keep up. The sect leaders all raised one hand and caught the items with ease however. Upon looking at these stones I was able to infer they were minor array jades used by stellar sects like these to teleport items to and from their home bases in a pinch. They functioned by using a cultivators energy to engrave an array inside of a flawless jade filled with spiritual energy, the array was rendered inert by the inability to consume any world energy due to these star jades being known to store and contain vast amounts of energy in every pore, the cultivator would then crush the jade in their hands enabling the array inside to absorb world energy and activate creating a small wormhole by the array connecting to the other half of the array,  this in turn allowed the teleportation of items over great distances.

‘Funny, I never actually thought about the sciences applied behind so many of our bullshit abilities, I guess moms lessons have been making a real impact on me, OOH OOH, MAYBE I COULD BRING THESE BACK FOR MOTHER!’

I looked to Dee Sei as the sect leaders removed their various artifacts from the orange and green hole. 

“Get me some of those jades”

Dee Sei smirked 

“My my, such a spoiled deity you’ve become now my lord, you are aware that a woman giving her lord a jade is tantamount to proposal right? Not that I’m opposed...”

I looked at Dee Sei with an ugly look  that was the embodiment of “ew” before sighing 

“You really do need to keep that habit of yours in check, it’s not really well reflected on me when my priestess has your... unique tastes.” 

She simply shrugged with a smile 

“There’s no difference between me and those who proclaim love for the pure hearted and loyal, it’s simply a matter of height really.” 

She would hate my world, my sisters former bully turned friend seems to have informed my darling sister against being so innocent by showing her a show called “The Carnivore Trapper” where this man confronts older individuals with the same type of tastes as Dee Sei. 

With this conversation going nowhere besides the most uncomfortable place in the world, I looked back to the kneeling sect leaders and had them explain their artifacts.

First was the flame haired lion of a man, he was greater in size than any normal man at a towering 11 feet with a ravenous unkempt beard. 

“Aye me Lord, I-I mean, Yes Lord! This is the solidified eyeball of the legendary Illusory Dawn Phoenix proficient in soul attacks and illusion, me Bestial Heritage Land battled one 63,000 years ago and tore out one of the beasties eyes. This should be able to contain any Shinigami below greater death class.” 

Somebody scoffed and I looked over to see the alluring black haired woman wearing scarlet red robes with a black latex suit and high heels made of blood

“My royal lord, this-“

She held up a ring with a skull that exuded a blood red mist from its mouth

“-Is the greatest treasure for controlling a Shinigami! I gladly would hand over this Blood Feud Death Ring to your divine personage with no hesitation should you so ask, as long as it is not a Shinigami above the True Immortal Realm this ring would be able to compel it to do any tasks.”

It was a little gaudy even for my father but it was definitely in the running 

We went down the line seeing soul rending blades, divine necklaces, the beak of a sacred eagle, and many other ridiculous gifts until only one person was left.

“Your divine excellency, this Gon cannot hope to compare to the other sects in terms of combat ability or techniques, but when it comes to artifacts this Gon’s chamber of commerce is second to none, I humbly regret to inform my companions that they all forgot the most important aspect of what you said...”

Every other sect leader looked towards Gon Moxing with impatience and contempt while his grandson watched intently so he may attempt to pick up on the secret of the trade. He had spent a great deal of his youth honing his martial arts skills until he became one of the top 5 cultivators of his generation but he eventually realized the fate of the chamber of commerce depended on more than just battle ability and had spent the last 70 years picking up trucks from his grandfather. He was indeed a young man in his early teens in body and mental development but cultivators could live nearly indefinitely as long as they reached a high enough realm, his grandpa had been the chamber of commerce’s founder 3.7 million years ago afterall, 70 years was not even a blink compared to the lifespan of these cultivators, the fact that he had picked up so much in only 70 years could have been said to make him a peerless genius 

‘Still... I must say even this Gon may lose to my mother in a business battle, she’s yet to turn 40 and she’s able to compete with a man of 3.8 million years in terms of aptitude’ 

Gon Moxing suddenly pulled out a necklace with a grey dragon curled into a sleeping position dangling off of it.

“This necklace is called Sleeping Dragons Pressure. As is known the grey dragon holds a tremendous amount of influence over the soul and this necklace was forged billions of years ago by the legendary Forgelord, the only Artifact Master amongst any Apex Realm overlord. This necklace contains the tamed spirit of a grey dragon and is able to exert pressure on Shinigami to prevent them from claiming your soul as long as you hold it making you immune to death, yet this Gon also knows this could be used to exert pressure on a captured Shinigami!”

The others looked at this sly old man with hatred and dissatisfaction as I looked at the necklace with great interest, it was simply perfect for my father! I must thank this forgemaster person even if his soul is destroyed I’ll bring him back as proper thanks... maybe not actually considering Dee Sei would throw a fit. I looked towards the grandson to see both a look of anxiety and pride on his face.

“Speak boy, what has you worried so?”

He squinted his eyes before bowing deeply

“Nothing Lord! It is simply... this item was snatched by our chamber of commerce specifically to prevent grandpa from ever dying of old age, if he loses this necklace now I’m afraid he may only have 10,000 more years...”

I snorted, this was an easy fix...

AN: AND THAT IS IT EVERYBODY! This part is divided into two because it was so damn long, I mean I’m already at 2400 words before writing this, so yeah this was a really long chapter double normal length to apologize for missing last week, I went on a road trip as my graduation present and ate a bunch of food from Diners Drive Ins and Dives and even went hiking in a bunch of forests, it was a fun time! As an apology part 2 will be out before the weekend and I’ll post the prologue to my actual boom for you all to enjoy or critique! Don’t get any ideas, you can’t tell much from the prologue page because I don’t want people stealing my personal idea cause this hits home! Love you fools and thanks for 20K reads!