Awakened Earth!!

"Man, this is boring. Traveling through the Void again—what universe am I in this time? Oh, it's the Fairy Tail universe. Actually, that's a pretty good choice. Ah, fuck! Seriously? I get yanked out of it right away, like with that stupid DC Universe. I really wanted to knock some sense into the Justice League for their no-kill policy. I mean, I get it—you’re heroes, you don't want to kill people. That's fine, but the 'no killing under any circumstances'? The Avengers understood that sometimes you've got to kill the bad guys. They'll avoid it and use it as a last resort, but they get that it's necessary.

Where am I now? Shit, is that Godzilla? I guess I'm in the MonsterVerse, as it's called. Godzilla lets out his iconic roar. Of course, I can understand what it means. I'm not communicating with words—rather, I just know. Having a telepathic conversation with Godzilla was interesting. It was mostly just small talk: ‘How are you doing?’ and such.

Suddenly, a pillar of light descended on me, and I was transported out of the Godzilla universe. Not too surprising. After passing through a few more universes, I finally landed in one—a cultivation world, of all places. Great. I hate cultivation worlds. And it seems like I'm going to be here permanently, I can tell. I did notice a large number of pocket dimensions, though, especially a absurdly huge one. I ask Sophie to could teleport as inside the larges one. After arriving, I sensed many false gods and actual gods that were unusually weak for gods. Interesting.

Suddenly, someone appeared in front of me. I reacted as if it was no big deal, used to Sophie. They said, 'Oh, you guys are new! Welcome to the universe where people like us end up—people who got way too strong and weren't supposed to. This is where the Multiverse drops everyone who exceeded the strength limits of their own universe when they weren't meant to.' She laughed and added, 'Yes, this is a cultivation world.'

She continued, 'You may have noticed a lot of weak gods around. They're the ones who used a ton of cultivation resources to reach this level. Reaching divinity usually involves transforming your mortal soul into a divine soul, but if you take too many shortcuts, your divine soul doesn’t form properly. Most people die, but some become pseudo-gods. They’re technically gods, but they're incredibly weak because they’re stuck in this limbo state. And then there are demigods—beings with mortal souls but divine bodies.'

She smiled and said, 'I’m sure you’ve traveled across the entire Multiverse. Honestly, I think the DC Universe is the best to mess with. It’s full of cosmic entities, though they tend to mind their own business unless you do something extreme. In Marvel universes, they all show up the minute you arrive and act like big shots. Honestly, other than Lady Death and the Phoenix Force, most of them are pushovers.'

'Anyway,' she said, 'this is the Divine Realm, and only gods can enter here. Well, mortals can technically enter too, but only with a deity’s permission. As you’ve probably noticed, this is a cultivation world. The energy cultivators use doesn’t matter—whether you call it chi, qi, or something else—it’s a pretty stupid way of becoming a god, but it’s possible.'

She explained further, 'The problem is that everyone here is shortcutting the process by downing cultivation resources to extend their lifespans. That’s why we haven’t had a proper god from this world in ages. Most of the newly arrived gods are pseudo-gods—technically divine, but weak because they relied too much on those resources. True gods are a rarity in this world. Most of the real gods we get here are from other universes—beings who got too strong for their own universe and were never supposed to. As I was saying, this is the Divine Realm, the largest of the many pocket dimensions here. Every god has their own little pocket space—even the pseudo-gods. And then there are the false gods you’ve probably noticed, pretending to be gods but never quite making it.'"

"The gods pretending to be gods are trying to absorb the faith generated by their believers to become true gods. While this method is more reliable than using cultivation techniques, faith-based gods are actually the weakest deities. The reason is simple: their power is directly tied to their believers. Sure, they can grow stronger by gaining more followers and more faith energy, but if their believers are killed, they lose their status as gods. Most of these idiots don't understand that you're supposed to refine the faith energy directly into pure divinity, then slowly absorb that pure divinity. That's the correct method of becoming a god through faith. I know this because it's the method I used.

The Divine Realm looked surprisingly similar to a modern city, but the skyscrapers here weren't the ugly, bland ones you’d see on Earth. Instead, they were made of marble, jade, and gold, with intricate, elaborate designs. Rather than being straight, boring buildings, these skyscrapers paid careful attention to detail, with highly decorative and ornate features on the outside. It’s what kept them from looking as stupid and ugly as modern skyscrapers. Surprisingly, if you spend the time, you can actually make skyscrapers look good.

I’d seen something like this before in the That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime universe, where they also made their skyscrapers elaborately decorated with various unnecessary details. But those details definitely improved the overall aesthetic, especially to me, since I’ve always found skyscrapers ugly. Some of them are impractically shaped, resulting in buildings that are both ugly and impractical, all because some architect wanted a ‘unique’ design. I bet the construction delays and issues they faced with those designs were insane, and the problems with those buildings probably persist to this day."