Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

Yang Qi was really helping Zhang Jufang, as he wanted him to become a Lesser God as quickly as possible to help run the Sage Monarch Consortium.

In terms of funds, creating godnotes wasn’t a viable option right now. Even using godpower to make godstones wouldn't work. He needed every bit of godpower possible to finish his monarch godhood.

With those two options off the table, it seemed impossible for him to become truly wealthy. At best, he could pass as rich in a pinch.

For now, he had to rely on his little Sage Monarch Consortium. And it would be much easier for Zhang Jufang to run the business as a god. After all, as a Quasi-God, he was like a servant or slave to other gods, and would always have to defer to them.

As long as he was god, then other gods, be they Lesser or Common, would at least have to treat him with a modicum of respect.

With his Paramount will, Yang Qi helped Zhang Jufang to form his virtual godhood, causing a golden flower to form around him, sending golden light streaming into his sea of energy.

Eventually, the golden flower was firmly implanted in him.

Zhang Jufang rose to his feet, thrumming with endless power.

“Work hard on your cultivation,” Yang Qi said. “Got it? I'm going to give you a godly-class energy art called the Great-Void King-Bodhi Seal, which is perfectly suited for your constitution. Truth be told, before you become a god, there isn’t any other energy art that would be more suitable for you.” Yang Qi had so many godly-class energy arts at his disposal that it would be an understatement to claim that they were as vast as the open sea. Therefore, he picked the best one for Zhang Jufang. Doing anything else would have led to counterproductive results.

Having accomplished those things, he headed back to the teleportation portal that led to the god kingdom of the House of God Ordainment.

On the second level of the Scripture Pavilion, things were as relaxed as ever, with Bai Yin spending most of his time reading and drinking. Upon seeing Yang Qi return, and not noticing anything unusual about him, he said, “You were gone quite a while. Considering how upbeat you seem, my guess is that your trip was worth it. Did you get a nice magical treasure or something?”

“Actually, no. I went out to the mines and had a meeting with some demon-gods. I have a little business deal with them, that’s all. I'm not going to be able to accomplish much without some steady income.”

Bai Yin chuckled. “You’ve got big plans, don’t you? Want to make a big scene eventually? Oh, by the way, some new books came in. Our House of God Ordainment got into a fight with the Macrocloud Buddhist Sect, and we ended up wiping them out. A bunch of records came in, including some writings from Monk Great Virtue, describing methods of improving the fleshly body to form Paramount will convergence before godly ascension. Take a look.”

Countless people in the god world longed to reach the Paramount level before becoming a god. That included devils, buddhas, gods, geniuses, freakish hellions, and even wild animals. Experts from all walks of life would research the subject, and although no one had yet succeeded, it didn’t stop people from trying.

“Is that so?” Yang Qi said, looking over at the bookshelf Bai Yin was laying on top of. It featured numerous sutras inscribed on palm-leaf manuscripts. Taking one at random, he saw that the title was Profundities of Śarīras and Godhood. It didn’t contain any cultivation information, but it did have detailed, systematic explanations of the similarities and differences the buddhist schools had identified between śarīras and godhood. Even more noteworthy, it contained a theory about how to strengthen godhood toward the point of becoming monarch godhood. [1]

“That’s pure fiction,” Yang Qi said. “How could it be that simple?”

He put the book back on the shelf and selected another one. This one was titled A Thesis on Wisdom and the Void. It discussed the correlation between one’s wisdom and the void, and mentioned important aspects of improving one’s psyche and will, although it was primarily theoretical.

After flipping through it, Yang Qi picked another book, this one entitled The Psyche and Dharma Idols. It talked of how to use psychic power to make dharma idols, and how to absorb the vital energy of heaven and earth to improve one’s attack power. It wasn’t something that would help with cultivation, but it did contain some good information about the psyche and vital energy. All of the books had been written by gods, and while they might have been helpful to Yang Qi in the past, now that he was in the Paramount level, he understood much more about such matters. Because of that, he wouldn’t be able to gain any enlightenment from books like these.

Time passed. Yang Qi spent most of his time gathering godpower and sending it into his virtual godhood with the goal of completing his monarch godhood. Other than that, he just found books to read.

He could read much faster now. While Bai Yin would need to look through one book at a time, Yang Qi could scan entire shelves with his psyche, and read thousands of books at the same time.

Knowledge poured into his sea of consciousness, which he then filtered to find little bits that could help him. In Demon Master Valley, he had defeated himself, and therefore, had even less to fear from knowledge-devils than before.

Days went by, and although he continued working on his cultivation, his virtual monarch godhood wasn’t making any significant progress.

His virtual godhood was like a professional eater with a bottomless stomach. At the current rate, it seemed likely that the process would take eighty or even a hundred years. He probably wouldn’t notice any significant change in only a year or two.

That said, he wasn’t in a rush. For half a year, he read books and worked on his cultivation. He had already read through most of the books in the Scripture Pavilion that were available to him, and the knowledge within them was his.

He knew just about everything there was to know about forming godhood, and as he worked on his monarch godhood, all of that knowledge served as an excellent point of reference.

He also knew much more about the local customs of the god world, its geography, and the businesses that operated there. No major events occurred, and life was leisurely. Neither Jadefall, the Shepherd, Doom, his father, nor anyone else he knew ever came to visit the Scripture Pavilion. He wasn’t sure why that was. However, after some asking around, he learned that Jadefall was in seclusion working on her cultivation. Besides, she was already so important that ordinary official disciples didn’t qualify to see her.

That was what often happened with disciples that were taken in by important people.

Over the months, the Sage Monarch Consortium had finally started growing. Zhang Jufang ended up reaching godly ascension earlier than Yang Qi had estimated. He was now a Lesser God and was doing his best to advance the interests of the business.

One morning, Yang Qi let loose a long, loud yawn. Inside him, godpower was constantly flowing into his sea of energy and the virtual godhood there.

Sensing what seemed like hunger from the godhood, he shook his head. ‘Maybe I should go work on some missions for the sect. With merit points to buy the god pills I need, maybe I can form my godhood faster.’

His monarch godpower was so mighty that ordinary god pills wouldn’t help him. In fact, they would only add impurities. He needed god pills concocted by Greater Gods with the Paramount will to extrude impurities.

Unfortunately, god pills like that went for astronomical prices, such that ordinary disciples in the House of God Ordainment could never afford them. Although he and Bai Yin could earn some merit points thanks to their duties, to date he had only accumulated a bit over a hundred. And that wasn’t even close enough to get god pills concocted by Greater Gods.

Such pills would cost ten thousand merit points at a minimum. It made sense, considering how unimaginably pure they were.

God pills were classified by the will of the gods that made them. Yang Qi needed paramount god pills at the least. Of course, they were normally split into three tiers of quality.

After the paramount version were the unbounded god pills, which were similarly split into three tiers.

The highest quality were the sovereign god pills, which were created by gods who were half a step into the Annulled level. In other words, people like the Sovereign Lord, King Immortal-Slayer, the King of Godmammoths, the True Devil, and the Demon Master. If such pills even appeared in the god world, they would create a tempest of blood as everyone attempted to get their hands on them.

Yang Qi wasn’t even thinking in terms of pills like that.

“Hey, Bai Yin, have you ever thought of doing missions for the sect to get merit points? I'm considering trying to get some god pills concocted by Paramount experts.”

“Sure, but even low-quality paramount god pills are going to cost ten thousand merit points or more. People like us can’t even dream of getting them. What are you trying to do? Have you figured out some way to reach the Paramount level?” Bai Yin’s eyes glittered.

“That’s right, I have an idea,” Yang Qi said. “And I want to do a little experiment.”

1. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in ancient times, especially for buddhist scriptures. More info here. In my dictionaries, it specifies that these leaves would come from the “pattra palm” or corypha umbraculifera or borassus flabelliformis.