Chapter 589: Might

The first obstacle for a magical professional to become an ancient god is how to touch the world's 'source', also known as the 'gate of truth'. This is, of course, not something anyone can achieve; it requires an extremely powerful divine soul and a profound understanding of truth and the source.

The second difficulty is to bear the feedback force when the 'source' is pried open with the physical body.

The 'source' is the origin of all matter and all things in this world. Although its power is not inherently aggressive, even a natural overflow can cause devastating damage to the human body.

Therefore, faith gods generally abandon the physical body and gather the faith power of sentient beings to open the 'gate of truth'. This itself requires the divine soul of the magical professional to reach a certain level.

Law gods, on the other hand, have spirits that can touch the 'source', but their physical bodies do not meet the requirements. Their method of becoming gods is also to abandon the body and lock their spirit to a certain law of heaven and earth, preventing their soul from being destroyed by the impact of the 'source' power.

However, in modern times, mages have invented a method to temporarily seal the body after isolating it from the spirit, allowing many law gods to retain the possibility of becoming ancient gods. This is more difficult than the normal path to ancient godhood, but it still preserves some hope.

Roberte adopted this method when she ascended to godhood. Li Mochen personally sealed her body in the Destiny Manor magic tower, constantly nourishing it with medicine and refining it with magical energy. He even implanted a chip in Roberte's body that allowed her to use the 'Blood-Eyed Maid' body for high-intensity training.

Finally, there are ancient gods, whose both body and spirit have reached the level where they can touch the 'source'.

And at this moment, although Li Mochen's professional level has not yet entered Legend, both his divine soul and physical quality have met the requirements.

Under these circumstances, there is no need to continue step by step along the path of Legend and Demigod.

In fact, whether it is the Western demigod or the Eastern loose immortal, they are compromises made when cultivators and magical professionals cannot directly ascend to the divine realm. They decompose the realm that gods should have and obtain these divine powers step by step.

So when Li Mochen had the thought, he directly condensed divinity in his body and soul, ignited the divine fire, and achieved divine rank.

So-called divinity is actually what the East calls the Nascent Soul or divine soul; it is the spiritual will that has been sublimated, purified, condensed, and elevated beyond the limits of mortals, and it is also the key to opening the gate of truth.

'Divine fire' is the product of the fusion of source power and the god's soul power. It exists deep within the god's soul, 'burning' like a flame, hence named 'divine fire'.

Faith gods and law gods usually use 'divine fire' to collect the faith power of believers. This power, partly derived from the source, can refine and purify the impurities in the will of sentient beings, allowing the god to claim it as their own.

So-called 'divine power' is largely refined from this.

To describe it in a more vivid way, 'sentient willpower' can be seen as coal, 'divine fire' as a generator, and the latter outputs electricity, which is energy.

As for divine rank, it is essentially the spiritual imprint that gods carve into the source. The deeper the imprint goes into the source, the higher the divine rank. Spiritual imprints are not eternal; they are eroded by time and source power and gradually fade. Therefore, gods need to provide a large amount of divine power for maintenance at regular intervals. Faith gods often have their divine rank downgraded due to insufficient divine power.

Moreover, after a god falls, their spiritual imprint in the source absorbs matter from the source and eventually turns into a gem shape—this is the source of divine rank fragments.

It must be mentioned here that so-called 'demigods' do not have divine ranks; they have only completed the first two steps but have not yet condensed a divine rank. This also allows their physical bodies to avoid the constant impact of source power.

Correspondingly, their bodies will suffer some damage, making it difficult to further improve at the demigod stage. The power and source matter from the source and the magical energy full of impurities and turbidity cannot blend well within the human body, although the former is the source and foundation of the latter.

As for divine office, that is something only faith gods and law gods possess. Ancient gods have no such thing; they themselves represent a certain aspect of the source and hold the authority of heaven and earth.

Li Mochen could already feel that inside his body, like a volcano before eruption, magma was surging and rolling, accumulating tremendous pressure.

But for now, he could still bear it. The purpose of cultivators like him who tirelessly polish their bodies when intending to ascend to godhood is precisely this. This body, far surpassing that of demigod-level experts, has immense endurance, capable of withstanding the 'source power' and 'source matter' surging from the source.

At the same time, his qi and blood, his flesh, his bones, his cells, his genes were undergoing drastic changes under the stimulation of source power, just like his spirit now—reorganizing, optimizing, improving, and strengthening.

But Li Mochen could not attend to these for the moment; he was concentrating on pushing his spiritual will deeper into the source, attempting to condense a higher divine rank.

According to the experience of predecessors, when achieving the status of ancient god or immortal, the higher one raises one's 'divine rank', the greater the benefits for one's body and spirit.

When people first communicate with the source, they can often draw out the most essential matter from within the source, which is most beneficial to the soul and body, better than any miraculous medicine.

Therefore, at this moment, even going one layer deeper into the source can equal ten years of hard cultivation in the future.

This is why many people, even when they have reached the threshold of 'demigod', still suppress their cultivation and hesitate to take the step, insisting on polishing their spirit and body to perfection before stepping into the gate of demigodhood, awakening divinity, and burning divine fire.

But Li Mochen had no choice. After the soul of Wenjian Taoran merged with the original owner, it was already beyond ordinary in quantity, and after being refined step by step through the 'Binary Xuanhua Great Method', it had now exceeded the limit that this world could contain.

If he did not directly ascend to ancient godhood and entrust his excess spiritual will within the 'source', then the Boundless Astral Realm was his only destination. This bright world could no longer accommodate him.

Even in the astral realm, Li Mochen was restricted, like forcing the body of a bear into a cage that could only hold a cat or dog. Moreover, the law radiance reflected by myriad stars there would also pollute Li Mochen's divine soul that had not yet reached the source.

Today's ascension was actually the result of having no other choice.

Without much surprise, Li Mochen pushed his spiritual will step by step deeper into the source.

First layer, second layer, third layer, fourth layer, fifth layer—it was not until the fourth layer that Li Mochen felt resistance, but he still, with his tenacious will and powerful mental strength, shaped his spiritual imprint at the fifth layer, then continued deeper.

During this process, his body was on the verge of collapse several times under the impact of source power. But communicating with the cosmic source matter for the first time was indeed the best miraculous medicine, even better than the legendary Xuanhuang Qi. It not only repaired the damage in his body during the process but also further strengthened his physique.

It was not until the seventh layer that Li Mochen finally stopped here, meaning his current divine rank was seven!

Several thousand years ago, a wise god named 'Prometheus' in ancient Greece roughly divided the source into twenty levels, corresponding to twenty grades of divine rank.

Among them, 1-4 are lesser gods, 5-8 are intermediate gods, 9-12 are greater gods, 13-16 are mighty gods, 17-18 are major gods, and 19-20 are god-kings. Above 20 are the so-called supreme gods, or gods above gods, while the divine rank and power required for a creator god are even higher.

Although this Prometheus, whose whereabouts are unknown and whose life or death is uncertain, has never entered the major god rank, his division of divine ranks is roughly accurate and recognized by gods and mages.

Li Mochen's divine rank of seven meant he already possessed the status of an intermediate god, and even among intermediate gods, he was relatively powerful.

And as soon as this spiritual imprint stabilized and Li Mochen found himself unable to go deeper by his own power, he began to attempt to condense a 'divine office'.

As mentioned earlier, 'divine office' is something only law gods and faith gods have.

The 'divine office' of a law god is the product of locking one's spiritual will with a certain law and combining the two; for faith gods, it is condensed through the beliefs of sentient beings. Simply put, if people believe you hold this law and authority, then as long as the number of believers is sufficient to blast open the gate of truth and carve a spiritual imprint behind the gate, this 'divine office' is established.

At this moment, Li Mochen was attempting to forge his first law divine office, linking and combining his spiritual will with 'fate'—which was also his most fundamental power now.

'Fate' encompasses all things: Ananke's necessity and inevitability; Hecate's three aspects of opportunity; the Greek Moirai's authority to spin, allot, and cut the thread of fate; the Norse Norns' governance of past, present, and future; and of course, luck and misfortune, as well as Moros's 'doom of fate'.

Li Mochen's goal was all of 'fate', like the earliest Ananke, controlling all fate, destiny, necessity, opportunity, and inevitability.

As he inferred, the stronger his own power, the stronger his ability to control 'fate'.

The seventh-rank ancient god status, the star signs, yin-yang, life-death, ice-fire, light-dark, five-element interactions, and the most powerful 'positive-negative' contained in the Binary Xuanhua Great Method all gave him enough power to influence fate and control fate.

In just ten minutes, Li Mochen's divine office was formed. At this moment, a huge wave of magical energy appeared around him. The rich source power he had drawn from the source dispersed into pure magical energy, surging and rolling in all directions, impacting every corner of this world, and at the same time declaring to the world that a new 'God of Fate' had appeared in this world!

At the same time, his will spread like a spider web to all aspects of fate in this world, while also reaching deep into the source, closely combining with 'fate'.

And after just one breath, Li Mochen received feedback from 'fate'.

All matter in this world has its fate, from atoms and protons to teacups and wine glasses, to humans and the dead, and even this world and this universe, all flow within the river called 'fate' and 'time'.

So in just three minutes and fifty seconds, Li Mochen's divine power was fully charged. And it was the purest kind, requiring no refinement by 'divine fire'.

Within the range covered by Li Mochen's divine sense, any phenomenon related to the law of 'fate' could provide him with power.

With this help, Li Mochen pushed further into the depths of the source, again starting from the first layer, carving his imprint as the master of 'fate', that is, his divine rank!

This directly determined the amount and upper limit of divine power he could extract from 'fate'!

This time, Li Mochen pushed all the way to the ninth layer in the depths of the source before he found it impossible to advance.

This was related to the level of his divine authority. In these seven years, even with the help of a divine artifact like the 'Divine Fortune Purple-Gold Tower', Li Mochen had only raised his 'fate' divine authority to a level close to high rank.

This was due to his insufficient study and understanding of the 'truth' related to fate and the 'source', as well as his insufficient power.

It was not until the moment he became an ancient god that Li Mochen truly possessed a high-rank 'fate' divine authority. Thus, he broke through the barrier of the ninth layer of the source and condensed his divine rank there.

But Li Mochen was not satisfied. He then moved his expression slightly and took out a blue gem the size of a fist, the so-called 'Miracle Stone'!

"Make a wish!"

A glint shone in Li Mochen's eyes, and an unusually large magical array appeared behind him: "I shall, with the authority of fate, stand at the status that is mine!"

At that moment, the 'Miracle Stone' immediately disintegrated into fragments. The 'Divine Fortune Purple-Gold Tower', which had been integrated into Li Mochen's soul, also lost nearly 150,000 strands of merit light at this moment!

Li Mochen, at this time, continued to advance like a hot knife through butter within the source. Tenth layer, eleventh layer, twelfth layer, thirteenth layer!

It was not until this point that Li Mochen finally stopped, unable to advance further.

And at this moment, outside Atlanta, in the void around the Destiny Manor magic tower, countless eyes peering at this place were filled with shock and astonishment.

Diana's incarnation, staying in a certain magic church in the suburbs of Atlanta, looked up in surprise at this moment, once again fixing her gaze on this magic tower. After a long while, she let out an incredulous murmur: "Divine rank thirteen, and this is only the first step—has he already reached this level?"