Suddenly, Ian Song had a thought: "Meow-Meow, do you know which number I am in getting a slot for the big battle?"
Meow-Meow replied, "Twenty-third!"
"What, I'm actually the twenty-third to get a slot for the big battle!" Ian was really surprised. From receiving the task to completing it, it had only been a little over a hundred years. By all rights, his speed was already pretty fast, but he hadn't expected twenty-two people to be even quicker. Clearly, there's always someone stronger out there. He wondered just how many people would get a slot for the Immortal Kingdom War this time.
So Ian asked again, "Meow-Meow, do you know the rules for the Immortal Kingdom War?"
Meow-Meow replied, "This Immortal Kingdom War will be elimination-style. No matter how many contestants there are, only a hundred winners in the end. As for the detailed rules, this cat can't reveal them to you!"
"A hundred?"
Ian narrowed his eyes, deciding that no matter what, he had to be one of those hundred. He absolutely refused to have his memories and cultivation wiped, to become an ordinary person again—that was something he could never accept.
Since he couldn't get any more details about the rules, he could only figure things out for himself.
The System called this contest the Immortal Kingdom War—did that mean it wanted each Immortal World to fight in a chaotic melee?
But he felt that was unlikely, since it would involve too much and take too long; maybe hundreds or thousands of years wouldn't be enough to decide a real winner.
For a moment, he thought of the Outer Heaven Immortal World ranking battles.
Could it be that this Immortal Kingdom War will also use that kind of format, with each System Host leading Immortals of every realm into battle?
That seemed very likely. In that case, he should start preparing to train a batch of super Immortals from every realm. With god-level cultivation methods from the Divine Temple, he was confident he could raise a group of super Immortals capable of fighting across realms.
The Divine Temple was his own unique fortune; he didn't believe every System Host could get the same kind of blessing.
The System was powerful, but Ian had figured out a pattern: the System's techniques, divine abilities, and all kinds of rewards never exceeded what the host could bear by too much.
Take the third mission, for example—the System only rewarded him with a regular divine artifact, one that was within the Immortal World's tolerance. Likewise, the Divine Talismans he drew in the lottery were also capped by the Immortal World's limits.
Other hosts might get ordinary god-grade techniques, but there was no way they'd have a top-tier god-level method that could be cultivated all the way to the God-King realm like he did.
That was his edge. Even more, the Divine Temple had cross-world functions, letting him bring back two Divine corpses from the Gods' Tomb World.
That was another advantage.
With those Divine corpses, he could cultivate large amounts of God-grade Medicine. With these medicines, training super Immortals would be even easier.
Suddenly, he realized he'd overlooked something.
It seemed every Divine he summoned arrived with their own divine artifact—so why hadn't he ever ordered them to leave those artifacts behind?
The moment he thought of this, Ian nearly slapped himself. If he'd done this ten years ago, he could've kept the artifacts and belongings from those two thousand Divines and used them to equip his own people.
"At least I threw away over two thousand divine artifacts for nothing!"
Ian let out a long sigh.
Luckily, ever since becoming Emperor of the Great Qin Immortal Kingdom, his Prestige kept rising every day. Now, it had reached over 2.3 trillion—enough for more than 23,000 Big Lottery draws.
He decisively started drawing.
"Let's start with 3,000 Big Draws!"
Immediately, System prompts began ringing in his ears one after another.
After 3,000 draws, he'd won a total of 560 Divine Summoning Talismans.
There was nothing to hesitate about.
With a thought, he left the Divine Temple and activated the talismans. Instantly, 560 pillars of light descended from the sky.
Everyone living in the Immortal Imperial Palace turned pale, not knowing why Ian suddenly summoned Divines to the mortal realm—was a powerful enemy attacking? In a flash, Hannah Murong appeared outside Ian's bedchamber.
Right after, Master Heaven-Secrets arrived.
Then Marcus Five-Gates showed up too.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
Over five hundred Divines flew out from the light pillars and landed before Ian.
"Your Majesty, has something happened?"
Hannah Murong asked.
"No need to worry, it's nothing!"
As he spoke, Ian eyed one of the Divines with a mischievous grin. "Haha, I told you, didn't I? Maybe I'd summon you again someday—and look at that, it only took ten years and here we are!"
That's right—the mid-tier Divine who'd threatened Ian before had actually been summoned down again.
For a moment, the mid-tier Divine's face turned extremely dark, but he didn't say a word—he was really worried Ian might order him to kill himself.
Seeing the guy like this, Ian couldn't help but burst out laughing.
The Divine's face was full of humiliation, but he didn't dare provoke Ian any further.
Ian's voice rang out again: "But you know, I'm super petty—there's no way I'm letting you off that easy. Hey you, hand over all your divine artifacts and storage rings, and wipe the marks off before you do!"
As a summoned being, he couldn't refuse the summoner's orders, so he had no choice but to remove the marks from his divine saber, divine armor, and a storage ring, then hand them to Ian.
"Empress, hold onto these for me!"
Ian tossed the three items to Hannah Murong, then glanced at the rest of the Divines. "You guys too—wipe the marks off all your divine artifacts and storage rings and hand them over!"
Hearing this, the Divines were all stunned, but under Ian's orders, they had no choice but to comply.
Ian grinned and said, "Don't blame me—blame that guy. If he hadn't ticked me off, I wouldn't have taken your stuff!"
"...You...!"
Hearing this, the mid-tier Divine was so furious he could barely speak.
Ian said with a smirk, "Where do you live in the Divine Realm? Tell everyone, so when you get back, they can come collect their debts!"
The mid-tier Divine nearly lost it, but had no choice but to say his address in the Divine Realm. Instantly, the other Divines started looking at him with unfriendly eyes.
It looked like they were already considering whether to team up and pay him a visit once they got back.
"Alright, everyone, say your addresses too—makes it easier to keep in touch!"
Ian said meaningfully.
At that, the Divines all spoke up, sharing their addresses.
"Alright, you can go now!"
With a wave of Ian's hand, all 560 Divines shot skyward under the talismans' pull and returned to the Divine Realm.
"Your Majesty, you didn't summon all those Divines just to rob them of their artifacts, did you?"
Master Heaven-Secrets suddenly spoke up.
This robbery netted over a thousand divine artifacts, since most Divines had at least two—one for attack, one for defense—and some even had three.
"Haha, that's right! Don't you think these divine artifacts were just way too easy to get?" Ian said smugly.