Aurumgate City housed most of the Asian Community’s administrative machinery for divine affairs, collectively known as the General Administration of Deities.
The Resource Management Bureau occupied the largest portion of it by far.
At the heart of the Bureau’s operations was the technology that made everything else possible.
The Divine Card.
A young deity’s divine domain was inherently unstable compared to that of a True God. Bringing in too much foreign matter or too many outside creatures could disrupt the delicate balance holding the realm together. In severe cases, the entire domain could collapse.
The Divine Card system existed to solve that problem.
A Divine Card could contain almost anything.
Land. Oceans. Minerals. Retinues. Equipment. Supplies.
The possibilities were enormous, but they ultimately fell into three categories.
Divine Domain Cards.
Retainer Cards.
And Special Item Cards.
Divine Domain Cards expanded a deity’s territory directly. Most contained land or ocean, though rarer variants existed, including lava fields, wind-elemental terrain, and shadow-infused domains.
Retainer Cards were used to acquire entire races, ranging from low-grade creatures to the highest-grade races.
They also included skill cards capable of enhancing a retainer’s abilities and equipment cards for arming them.
Of course, most freshmen couldn’t afford any of those.
The students who could were already among the Academy’s true elites.
Then there were Special Item Cards.
More commonly called Divine Treasure Cards, they were the rarest of the three categories.
Each contained properties powerful enough to be described as miraculous.
Even True Gods coveted them.
Kade Aurelian’s Martial Temple was one such treasure. The structure had once elevated his entire retinue by an entire grade.
The Bloodforge was another.
That primal volcanic relic was responsible for the ancient evolution that had transformed the first Hobgoblins into Orcs.
Domain Cards, Retainer Cards, and Divine Treasure Cards were all further divided into three grades.
Low.
Middle.
High.
The difference between them wasn’t merely size.
A single high-grade Domain Card could surpass a hundred low-grade cards combined in soil quality, resource density, environmental stability, and countless other factors that determined how efficiently a divine domain developed.
Naturally, every deity wanted the highest-grade card they could afford.
The benefits were obvious.
Better resources meant faster growth.
A stronger foundation meant a greater chance of reaching true godhood.
But there was another reason card selection mattered so much.
A deity could only use three Divine Cards per semester.
The cards themselves purified whatever they contained, stripping away foreign auras and sealing the contents into a stable state before integration.
Even so, domain stability remained a serious concern.
The more foreign material a young deity absorbed, the greater the strain placed on the domain.
The standard approach was simple.
Use one card.
Wait three months.
Allow the domain to fully digest it.
Then use the next.
That made every card choice more important than it initially appeared.
It wasn’t simply about what would make you stronger today.
It was a wager on your entire future.
Choose well, and you built a stronger foundation, gained more room for mistakes, and increased your chances of reaching true godhood.
Choose poorly, and you could spend the rest of your life struggling toward mediocrity.
When Caelum and Corwin landed, Aurumgate City was noticeably busier than usual.
The city was normally relatively quiet outside major events, but today the streets were packed with students.
Most belonged to Class Ten.
Their class.
Some moved in groups. Others walked alone. Excitement showed openly on some faces, while others wore expressions of intense concentration.
Interestingly, none of them stopped at the luxury stores lining the streets.
Every student was heading in the same direction.
The Resource Management Bureau.
Caelum understood why almost immediately.
Three months had passed since the midterm evaluation.
By now, every student had a clearer idea of where they stood.
It was time to choose their second Divine Card.
He and Corwin exchanged a glance.
Neither suggested waiting.
They joined the crowd.
The Bureau’s massive building soon appeared ahead.
At its center stood a statue carved entirely from white jade.
It depicted a middle-aged man holding an open book. His expression was calm, almost serene, while his eyes seemed fixed on some distant point beyond the horizon.
Thaddeus Wren.
The Origin Sage.
The founder of the Divine Card system.
Wren had invested so much of himself into developing the system that his own cultivation had fallen noticeably behind the three great powers.
His final strength had settled around the same level as Thaeron, the fallen Empyrean Sovereign who had once stood as the strongest existence beneath the three giants.
Unlike those powers, Wren had never established a company of his own.
Instead, he’d integrated himself into the government of the Asian Community.
As a result, he rarely appeared in public.
Yet his contribution was impossible to ignore.
Every Resource Management Bureau across the Community displayed a statue in his honor.
A quiet acknowledgment of how deeply his creation had become woven into divine civilization.
Three cylindrical towers stood beside the statue.
They were narrow but extraordinarily tall.
Skyvault Pavilion.
This was where Divine Cards were stored and distributed.
The right tower contained low-grade cards.
The left housed middle-grade cards.
The central tower was the tallest.
It also had the heaviest security.
High-grade cards.
A crowd had already gathered around Wren’s statue.
Students talked excitedly about their choices, gesturing animatedly as they imagined what their domains might look like after the next three months of development.
New arrivals quickly picked up on the atmosphere and hurried toward the towers.
Most went right.
The low-grade tower.
A smaller number headed left.
The middle-grade tower.
Nobody approached the center.
That was expected.
No freshman had the qualifications to purchase a high-grade Domain Card.
Then Caelum entered the crowd.
The reaction was immediate.
Heads turned.
Conversations faltered.
Some stopped completely.
Those who didn’t recognize him received quick whispers from their friends.
Then came the looks.
Pity.
Amusement.
And, in a few cases, barely concealed delight.
Nobody approached.
Caelum had once been one of the most prominent students in the entire year.
That reputation hadn’t vanished simply because his domain had.
If anything, it made things worse.
Many of these students had already disliked him when he was at the top.
Now that he’d fallen, they were more than happy to watch from a distance.
Speaking to him was another matter.
They had no interest in lowering themselves that far.
Corwin’s presence didn’t make things easier.
If anything, it widened the gap around them.
The Academy’s resident eccentric was infamous across every grade. Most students avoided him even more carefully than they avoided Caelum, terrified that one careless interaction might become the centerpiece of his next stream.
"Caelum."
Corwin kept his voice low.
Eyes followed them from every direction.
"There are a lot of people here today. Want to come back in a few days?"
He was familiar with this kind of attention.
Caelum wasn’t.
And Corwin didn’t know how he’d react now that he was standing on the other side of it.
In its own way, this was a test.
Caelum’s expression didn’t change.
He swept his gaze across the crowd once.
Then kept walking.
"Let’s go."
His voice was calm.
"If I can’t handle this much, what business do I have chasing true godhood?"
Corwin glanced at him.
Caelum didn’t pretend his composure was invincible.
But he wasn’t the same person he’d been three months ago.
The arrogant, easily provoked young deity who couldn’t tolerate being looked down on had been burned away along with his domain.
What remained was quieter.
Harder.
A little mockery couldn’t destroy him anymore.
Not after everything else already had.