On a flying island in a realm above the living.
A huge man with blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, who wore golden armor and had a huge longsword on his back, walked into the throne room of a beautiful castle.
"Your realm amazes me every time anew, how do you make it look so beautiful, Pelfeus?"
"Matheus, what are you doing here?" replied another man, who was sitting on the throne of the vast room. He had jet-black shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. He also wore armor, but his was silver instead of gold.
"I just came from the realm of the mortals and wanted to make a little detour here."
"What? For what reason? The time is not yet ripe. What if the other gods had noticed?"
"No need to worry, no one noticed. Besides, it is my duty to ensure justice and order."
"And besides, I already have enough servants. I wouldn't snatch candidates from the old misers," said Matheus, also known as the God of Balance or Guardian God.
"Still, it's dangerous. For what reason would you take such a risk?"
"I had a feeling, and thought maybe on one of the Earths there was something that could help me ascend a realm."
"A fortunate encounter in a mortal world?"
"What world was it?"
"It was on Earth."
"On Earth, huh? I always thought this place had some huge potential," Pelfeus said.
"But the apocalypse on this world should have just started not long ago. Maybe your senses were just wrong."
"I thought so too, but exactly at the moment I arrived, the feeling disappeared. That's why I think there's more to it."
"Maybe we should put the place to the test," said Pelfeus with a smile on his face.
"I thought it would be too dangerous because of the other gods," Matheus said, puzzled. He thought his friend was sometimes a bit foolish, but this surpassed everything.
"If what you say is true, and you could ascend a realm with the help of what is there, what could the old sacks do? They would have to accept it," said Pelfeus, with a dissatisfied face, annoyed that his friend couldn't think.
"You're right, but what if my senses were really wrong?"
"I have a feeling we don't need to worry about that. For now, let's send the little place a small gift," said Pelfeus, and complex blue runes suddenly formed in the air before him, which then disappeared.
-------
In a German village
"How far have you all come?"
Paul asked his friends, whom he had gathered on the morning of the third day of the apocalypse to find out how far they had come.
"This is way too hard," said Karsten.
"Yeah, how is one supposed to understand this?" complained Max, who had huge dark circles under his eyes and probably hadn't slept since the last conversation.
"It's the same for me," said Thore.
"I've already started cultivating," said Jere proudly. You could almost see how gleeful he was that he was better than the others. However, he was in no way arrogant or looked down on the others; he was simply happy. Paul's and Hannes' group of friends all knew each other, either from sports, school, or through the two of them, and so they all got along well.
"Really good, Jere. Help the others and try to ascend a realm," said Paul. He hadn't thought that one of the boys would have already understood the cultivation technique. He just wanted to tell them to get some sleep in between.
"System, search for Analyze Skills."
After a few seconds of searching.
[Analyzing Eye I]
[You can analyze anything that you look at and get its information.]
[Info: Limited to your realm, anything above your realm will appear as [?].]
[Active Skill]
[Duration: - ]
[Cooldown: 0]
[Quality: Uncommon]
[Quantity: ∞]
[MP Cost: 0]
[Cost: 200 SP]
[Buy] [Back]
Paul then bought the skill and analyzed Jere.
[Name: Jere Müller]
[Age: 17]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: C+]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: Qi Gathering Realm I] [Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 10]
'C+ Tallent huh, I don't know how good this is, but it's probably above average if jere has already started cultivating.' Paul thought and checked all the other statuses.
[Name: Hannes Klein]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: C-]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 8]
[Name: Justin Saint]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: C–]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 5.5]
[Name: Max Taint]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: D]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 6]
[Name: Arne Brand]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: D+]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 7.5]
[Name: Karsten Tamp]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: C]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 6.5]
[Name: Thore Saint]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: E]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: None]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 5]
Paul smirked at Thore when he saw his status. He wouldn't have expected anything else. Thore had always been a bit scatterbrained, and this was reflected in his stats. But Paul wasn't disappointed at all that one of his friends had no future. He knew that with his system, he could achieve anything and that some item would solve the problem sooner or later.
Finally, it was Eric's turn. He stood far right in the semicircle of friends and was the last one Paul wanted to check.
[Name: Eric Jones]
[Age: 18]
[Level: 1]
[Cultivation Talent: A+]
[Bloodline: Human]
[Realm: Qi Gathering Realm III]
[Constellation: None]
[Blessing: None]
[Skills: None]
[Techniques: Essence Gathering Cultivation Technique]
[Overall Battle Strength: 31]
Paul was astonished. Qi Gathering III? Why hadn't he said anything and kept his cultivation a secret? The boys all knew each other and could trust each other.
"Eric, don't you think you have something to tell us?" Paul asked in a curious tone. Paul's question made everyone look at Eric, curious about what Paul meant.
Eric was startled. He didn't know how Paul knew what he knew, but he knew that Paul had found out something, and he might not be able to keep it a secret any longer.
"What do you mean?" Eric asked. He didn't want to reveal everything right away but wanted to test what Paul meant.
"If you don't want to tell us, that's your decision. Do what you want," said Paul. He wasn't disappointed but rather glad that at least two or three of his friends had particularly good chances for a successful future, even without his help. Besides, if Eric didn't want to tell that he had started cultivating, then so be it. Sooner or later, it would come out anyway.
"What does Paul mean, Eric?" Jere asked, and with him, all the other boys were now curious. Paul wouldn't say something like that without a reason. One by one, they all asked him, but Eric told them nothing.
"Fine, now go and do what you want, but don't laze around. Go cultivate or do something for the camp. I have my own things to do." With that, Paul left the boys, and after a few meters away from them, he concentrated.
"Let's see what we've got." Paul said, and his consciousness faded, finding himself inside his space ring.
In front of him stood seven machines, five of them "common" and two "uncommon" machines. The two unusual machines had been working almost continuously for 24 hours, and Paul was curious about the production rate.
First, Paul emptied the five normal machines, which had only worked for an hour each until they were full. These brought him a total of €6,000. Then he emptied the other two, which together brought him around €120,000. Their performance was almost twice as strong, and they could run for 24 hours without getting full.
"What a huge difference," Paul said. "I definitely need more of these."
In total, Paul had now received 25,600 SP and decided to buy new machines with 15,000 SP.
"20" was the number of machines Paul bought, spending 14,600 SP on the machines and 2 SP on the tables. Then Paul stored the five normal machines and their tables in his inventory and placed the other 20 next to the other two improved ones.
Why did he remove the others? Because he simply didn't need them anymore. The others were much better, and so he wouldn't need them anymore.
After that, Paul left his ring and went straight to the field where the other boys' houses stood. His next goal was to get his own house, a huge one at that and luxurious, so the exact opposite of his concrete house.