“It’s seven o’clock already! Still lying in bed waiting for someone to wait on you hand and foot?”
The heavy woman’s voice pierced the entire hallway, making the windowpanes rattle.
Aaron sat up from the hard wooden bed and looked down at his hands.
Pale, small, the knuckles not yet fully developed.
“…These hands belong to a ten-year-old?”
He swung his legs out of bed.
A shiver ran up his spine as his toes touched the cold concrete floor.
He walked over to the cracked mirror hanging on the wall.
Reflected in it was an unfamiliar young face—black hair, grayish-blue eyes, and cheekbones sharp on a gaunt frame.
Next to the mirror hung an old calendar: July 1981.
“1981, Britain, an orphanage.”
Aaron connected the dots in his mind and twitched the corner of his mouth.
“Fine. A period transmigrator story it is. Time to make some money first.”
Just as he was figuring out how to raise some starting capital, a searing heat burst from his chest.
The heat bored through flesh and bone, plunging into the depths of his soul.
Something was awakening.
Aaron closed his eyes and sank his consciousness inward.
In a vast expanse of darkness, a thumb-sized crystal floated, emitting a faint glow.
[Creator Godhead Activated]
[Current Divine Kingdom Radius: 0.5 meters]
[Divine Kingdom Rank: Nothingness]
[Believers: 0]
[Hint: Recruit believers and collect Power of Faith to materialize and expand the Divine Kingdom space.]
Aaron opened his eyes and stretched his arms out to measure.
“Half a meter… that’s shorter than me lying down.”
He muttered softly, folded his blanket, pushed the door open, and stepped into the hallway.
In the communal washroom at the end of the hall, a few children around his age were lined up to wash up.
As Aaron brushed his teeth, he sized up these squirts, only two words in his mind:
Believers.
“Hey, who are you?”
A chubby red-haired boy squeezed past him, toothbrush in hand, looking at him with suspicion.
“Aaron. I just arrived yesterday.”
“I’m Tommy,” the chubby boy said, pointing his toothbrush at his own chest.
“I run things on this floor, got it?”
Aaron nodded and rinsed his mouth.
“Tommy, let me ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“Do you believe there’s a God in this world?”
Tommy nearly spat out the foam in his mouth.
“Say what?”
“I said, if someone could grant you power—real power—would you be willing to believe in him?”
Tommy looked Aaron up and down, laughing so hard he slapped the sink.
“Hahaha! Did the old hag yell you stupid yesterday? Look at you, your arms are like chopsticks! *You’re* gonna give me power?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too,” Tommy said, shoving Aaron aside to hijack the faucet.
“Stay away from me. Don’t infect me with whatever madness you’ve got.”
The other kids nearby burst into laughter too.
“Is the new kid crazy?”
“Who knows? Probably been wandering the streets too long.”
Aaron wiped his face and didn’t bother responding.
Humans were far too guarded.
A ten-year-old preaching to another ten-year-old—anyone would think he was a lunatic.
At lunchtime, Aaron sat in a corner of the cafeteria.
Before him was a plate of mushy boiled mashed potatoes and two slices of bread hard enough to crack walnuts.
“Move over.”
Tommy came over carrying his tray and glanced at Aaron’s bread.
“Can you finish all that?”
“I can.”
“No way. You’re so skinny, there’s no way you can finish it,” Tommy said.
Without another word, he snatched a slice of bread right off Aaron’s plate.
“I’ll take some off your hands.”
“…Thanks.”
Aaron’s expression remained neutral as he broke off a piece of the remaining bread and popped it into his mouth.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted several black ants lined up on the windowsill, carrying a grain of sugar.
His hand paused.
“Believers… don’t necessarily have to be human, right?”
Aaron crushed some breadcrumbs into tiny specks and lightly scattered them along the edge of the windowsill.
Three ants changed course and crawled toward the breadcrumbs.
The instant they touched the breadcrumbs, Aaron felt it—faint almost to the point of being negligible, but unmistakably present.
Faith.
Through the food, these ants developed the most primitive form of gratitude and dependency, fully satisfying the condition of voluntary belief.
“Are you willing to enter my kingdom?”
The moment his fingertip touched the first ant, it vanished into thin air.
The second, the third—all vanished.
[Believers +3 (Worker Ants)]
[Power of Faith: Faint]
[Divine Kingdom Space Expanded: Radius 0.5m → 5m]
[Talent Sharing Activated]
[Acquired Talent: Super-Proportional Strength (Can lift 50 times own body weight)]
A surge of strength completely disproportionate to his young body welled up from the depths of his bones.
Every single finger thrummed with power.
Aaron idly pinched the iron spoon on the table.
With just a slight application of force, the handle bent into a tight U-shape.
“What was that sound?” Tommy asked, looking up from across the table.
“Nothing,” Aaron said, hiding the spoon under the table.
“Dropped my spoon.”
That afternoon, Aaron crouched in the grass in the orphanage’s backyard.
Ants, spiders, bees—he captured anything he could find.
Tommy passed by, caught sight of him, and gestured with his chin to his follower behind him.
“See that? The holy preacher’s catching bugs.”
“Probably starving,” the lackey replied.
“You took his slice of bread at lunch, after all.”
“Serves him right. Who told him to compete with me for a bunk?”
The two walked off laughing.
Aaron didn’t even raise his head.
[Believers +1 (Garden Spider)]
[Acquired Talent: Sensory Network (Can sense vibrations within range through silk threads)]
Three days later, he had recruited over forty insects.
The Divine Kingdom space had expanded to twenty meters in radius, already featuring basic ground and vegetation inside.
Aaron lay on the windowsill watching the path of a beetle when a shadow streaked across the sky outside the window.
An owl—an owl in broad daylight.
It flew straight to the window, tilted its head to stare at Aaron for three seconds, dropped a letter from its beak, flapped its wings, and flew off.
Aaron picked up the envelope and flipped it to the front.
Parchment paper, with the recipient address written in emerald-green ink.
On the back was a purple wax seal.
A lion, a snake, a badger, and an eagle.
Aaron stared at the seal for a full ten seconds before unsealing the envelope and pulling out the parchment inside.
The very first line read: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore.
“So it isn’t a period transmigrator story.”
He put the letter down and looked out at the gloomy London skyline.
There were Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest, Merpeople and the Giant Squid in the Black Lake, and all sorts of magical creatures raised behind Hagrid’s hut.
The entire wizarding world was one massive warehouse of potential believers.
“The faith of ordinary insects is too weak.”
Aaron folded the acceptance letter and slipped it into his pocket, his voice barely a whisper.
“Magical creatures… are the true source of faith.”