The Quiet Years?

[After completing the handover for the West Wind Federation, you finally stepped down as its leader. You no longer had to spend every day buried in its affairs. And who took over? Qian Renxue, of course—the poor soul.]

[Only after the handover did Qian Renxue realize what your position entailed. Even if she handled only important documents each day, they came from all over the world. There might not be mountains of them, but there were still dozens, sometimes hundreds.]

[In the 280th year of the Simulation, you devoted your time to building up the Federation, improving its citizens' lives, and easing tensions between Soul Beasts and humans.]

[Thanks to your Soul Beast Protection Law, those tensions had already eased considerably. After all, Soul Beasts outnumbered Soul Masters by who knew how much. Each Soul Master had only nine Soul Ring slots, and the number of Soul Beasts killed in a year probably did not exceed a thousand.]

[As you delivered tangible results, Soul Beasts and humans alike increasingly accepted you. A steady stream of Power of Faith flowed toward you.]

[You felt the Power of Faith offered by a hundred billion living beings, perhaps even more. Each contributed only a little, but together their faith added up. In a short time, you sensed the beginnings of a Divine Seat Prototype taking shape within you.]

[Faith continued to pour in, but then, to your surprise, your Soul Cores began trying to refine the nascent Divine Seat on their own.]

[You tried to stop them, but the nine Wind Soul Cores refined it faster than you could have imagined. In the moment you stood stunned, they devoured your Divine Seat Prototype.]

[You felt stronger, yet you had not reached Divine Level. A white mark appeared on each of your nine pale-green