Isaac's Dungeon City!

Isaac was fairly casual about choosing the site for his Dungeon City. As long as there were three to five dungeons nearby, it would do. He needed to give the demon gods behind those dungeons the impression of a normal conflict.

As for the terrain...

The name Wilderness Dungeon explained plenty. This world was either wilderness or dungeon. Most of its land consisted of endless plains, while the few strategic locations had long since been claimed.

Besides, Isaac would not be appearing at the forefront of this Dungeon City. He would not even provide it with technical or material support as that Grand Arcane Master had.

This was for the trial mission, but it was also part of Isaac's attempt to oppose the Great Creation!

Before long, Isaac found a suitable location—a small hill that was easy to attack and hard to defend.

Its terrain might not have been impressive, but there were plenty of dungeons nearby!

There were seven of them!

More importantly, those dungeons were all in a semi-dormant state. Thus, within a thousand-mile radius centered on this hill, the monster population was not particularly high, making it just right for gradual development.

A dungeon's so-called semi-dormant state was an energy-saving mode. The demon gods had established dungeons in this world partly because of the Great Wizard's oppressive might, but also because they could gain many benefits here.

That did not mean they could gain benefits simply by setting up a dungeon, however. At most, that would keep them from dying.

If demon gods wanted to gain benefits from the world of Wilderness Dungeon, they had to participate in Wilderness Dungeon's game—the trials.

These trials referred both to outsiders like Isaac and his companions, as well as another hostile faction—the cults.

The three sides used Wilderness Dungeon as their battlefield and fought one another. The dungeons accumulated magic power, created monsters, and wreaked havoc; outsiders hunted monsters, conquered dungeons, and protected the world.

The cults...

They acted as proper troublemakers, stirring things up here and there. They did no real work; they were just here to play.

That was the nature of evil gods, and it was also the task the Great Wizard had given them.

This arrangement could be said to have perfectly combined every side's interests and nature.

But that led to another problem—

The demon gods were too diligent, while the evil gods were too insane.

With the endless magical supply of their dimensional worlds, building dungeons cost demon gods little more than time. As long as they wanted to, they could create dungeons without limit!

In fact, that was exactly what they did.

Although the cults would also conquer and destroy dungeons, that was not their mission. Most conquered dungeons had simply been destroyed by coincidence.

As a result, this world had more and more dungeons!

And if the monsters inside those dungeons were not cleared out regularly, they would pour out and wreak widespread destruction!

Naturally, that was not what the Great Wizard wanted to see. After all, the worlds within the Boundless Tower were not disposable toys. That would be far too wasteful.

Thus, this rule was created: when a dungeon went uncleared for a long time and the monsters pouring from it reached a certain stage, that dungeon would temporarily cease operating until someone entered it again.

These seven dungeons were currently in that state, giving Isaac's Dungeon City some room to develop.

With the site chosen, the next step was naturally to create Virtual Divine Sparks.

This time, Isaac did not intend to continue creating evil god divine sparks. Wilderness Dungeon already had a place for evil gods. Although he planned to use cults to conquer dungeons for him, he did not want to keep developing evil god cults.

Righteous gods were much more suitable.

However, being righteous gods did not mean they could solve the problems of this world's humans. Even righteous gods had only one option if they wanted to develop their own churches—the same option as evil gods: nonhumans!

Of course, that was not important.

Although he intended to challenge certain rules of the Great Wizard's Great Creation, Isaac was not naive enough to think that his current [Miracle] alone could challenge the Great Creation's rules.

After all, one had to eat one bite at a time.

Compared to evil god divine sparks, righteous god divine sparks were much simpler. Many righteous gods were still quite friendly toward wizards these days. If he merely needed a little divine power, setting up a simple prayer ritual was enough.

Though it was called a prayer ritual, Isaac did not actually need to pray personally. The faith of other humanoid beings would do, even if it was only a few simple temporary prayers. After all, wizards currently had the bigger fists.

After some effort, Isaac obtained the divine power of the Sun God, the God of War, the God of Strife, and the God of Fire. The materials consumed...

Were basically nothing—just a dozen or so loaves of bread.

In truth, if faith had not been involved, Isaac could have completed each of these simple rituals on his own without any materials at all, given his current abilities.

After that, Isaac spent another two days weaving two Virtual Divine Sparks: [Blade of Blazing Sun] and [God of Strife]!

Yes, one of them was called [God of Strife], the same Divine Name as the god whose power he had borrowed. Of course, despite sharing the same Divine Name, their divine powers and Divine Authorities were vastly different.

That God of Strife governed the authority of skill and was among the strongest of all gods. Especially with the rise of knights, Its power had grown ever stronger.

The [God of Strife] Isaac had created, on the other hand, possessed the divine powers of [Strength], [Strife], and [Battle], with [Combat Techniques] as its Divine Authority. It was pathetic in every conceivable respect.

It was far inferior to [Blade of Blazing Sun], but Isaac did not care much. This Miracle had come too easily. The process of weaving divine sparks was still basically like opening blind boxes—what came out depended entirely on luck.

That was why all the righteous gods Isaac had chosen were powerful combat gods. This gave him a higher chance of drawing a combat-oriented god.

It was worth mentioning that, like [Evil Eye], these two Virtual Divine Sparks had both been nurtured by Isaac using Divinity Fragments, and they likewise possessed the [Eternal] trait!

That meant they did not have the time limit of other Virtual Divine Sparks, though they could not grow stronger.

But that made little difference in Wilderness Dungeon. The power ceiling here was only Tier Four anyway, leaving no room for improvement.

Still, Isaac was not particularly satisfied. Although the production efficiency of Divinity Fragments had improved, it was still not enough for now. After nearly two years, he had only managed to support two Eternal Virtual Divine Sparks. This technique still needed further optimization...

While considering how to optimize the Divinity Fragment technique, Isaac arrived at a human settlement. He entered without a sound and quietly observed it.

He was choosing a suitable candidate to fuse with a Virtual Divine Spark.