champion of the starlight realm

System: Congratulations on passing the Primordial God-grade trial with an SSS-grade completion and becoming a Tier 1 Origin Swordsman. Rewarding 50 Legacy skill points.

James pushed the message aside and saw that he was slowly fading away, which was normal, but since it looked like it could take a second, he took this time to take a look at the skills he got from becoming a Tier 1 Origin Swordsman.

[Sword time perception] (passive skill)

You can perceive the world around you 5% faster when holding a sword.

[space shattering blades] (Action-type)

Requires: Sword

Tier 1, Level 1 (Proficiency 0/30,000)

Shatter space around you, making swords out of the broken space that do 50% of the user's damage, for 5 minutes. The more space is shattered while activating the more blades can be created, up to 20. They can be controlled within a range of 50 yards.

Cooldown: 10 minutes

[teleporting slash] (Action-type)

Requires: Sword

Tier 1, Level 1 (Proficiency 0/30,000)

After activation, the next attack will move instantly through spacetime, arriving at the targeted location instantly, ignoring all defensive measures between the user and the target.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

While looking over his skills and feeling quite pleased with them, James started to disappear. Only a few seconds later, he reappeared in the exact place he had opened the portal with the pocket watch.

James felt about ready to log off, but after trying multiple times the system still wouldn't let him out. Thinking this would get resolved after a little time James just laid back. What surprised him was a system message that had popped up while he was trying to log out.

System: you have been invited by the starlight realm administrator; this is not a request that you can deny. You will be transported there shortly.

James couldn't help but read it a few times, administrator? He had never heard of such a thing, as far as he knew there wasn't anything like admins in god's domain.

Calming down for a second, James just accepted it, if this administrator was something like a game administrator, then he should have some rules placed on him that prevent him from harming players. Thinking of this he still couldn't believe that there was an administrator in gods domain.

He honestly suspected that this administrator was more like a god ruling over the starlight realm with some special privileges given by the system, that would be more in line with the way god's domain did things.

James didn't think of it any further as he was sure to find out soon anyway. A portal made out of pure gold and white substance appeared in front of him, it was about the size of a door. Looking at the gateway James's opinion of this administrator rose even further. He couldn't tell what this substance was made of, even with the universal eyes and his level 4 world affinity, but one thing was extremely clear, not a molecule of mana was slipping out. That meant that the person creating this portal had at least double the control over this substance than a saint had over their world law.

Stepping inside James was surprised, not by how crazy the terrain was, on the contrary, it was just an endless grass plain. The thing that surprised him was that he was quite familiar with this grass plain, it looked identical to Domain Angelina had summoned him in to talk to him. Every detail, even the white round glass table with two matching chairs where there, the only difference he could see was that Angelina wasn't sitting on one of the chairs, but another woman that seemed to be just as beautiful. She had long blond hair that glowed and radiated golden light and was wearing a white sun dress. Just like Angelina, she was sipping tea.

"All of your questions will be answered shortly, young man, please take a seat."

Hearing this, James just nodded and walked over to the chair opposite the administrator. He couldn't feel any power from her, but something told James that she could erase his existence with just one thought, at least here, so there was no need to not be cooperative or make rude commands about summoning him.

Seeing James cooperating without a hitch the administrator revealed a warm smile, before setting down her teacup.

"Now then, before we start let me introduce myself. I am the administrator of the Starlight realm, but since will likely share a closer relationship from now on, you can call me Lea. Is there anything you want to ask before we begin mister James?"

Hearing her address him by his real-life name, James, was slightly surprised, but not that much, if Angelina could do that, there was no reason for an administrator not to know his name.

"Then could I ask you why this space looks so much like the place I took the test in for my divine weapon, miss Lea?"

Lea's eyebrows shot up after hearing that, making it seem that she was quite surprised. This in turn made James worried that he had unveiled some info he didn't have to.

"O, I totally forgot about that Angelina, it's probably because I was so excited to meet you. Anyway, that's probably because she modeled it after this place, I do recall one of her previous owners had visited me."

James just nodded, if he could get summoned to this place, there was no doubt that another wielder of his divine weapon could too.

"What did you mean you were excited to meet me miss Lea; I don't think I did anything to catch your eye. I only just became Tier 1."

James honestly was a little scared now that he was confronted by an administrator. He couldn't help but keep thinking that they had noticed his time traveling and found it an unfair advantage.

"Stop spouting such nonsense young man, there is nothing normal about you, and you caught my eye way before you became Tier 1 you can be sure of that. All of that ties in with the reason you're here though, so do you have any more questions before I start explaining why I have summoned you?"

James thought for only a second before asking another question.

"What are administrators exactly, I have never heard of them, and I don't think gods domain is a game where admin rights exist."

"Well, I honestly can't give you a full explanation, but what I can tell you is that just like you have suspected, we don't exactly have what you call admin right. What we do have are some special privileges that come with a lot of limitations given to us by the only entity in the entire God's domain that has some sort of special power. As to who that power is, I'm pretty sure you have a good idea."

James nodded yet again, just like he had expected these admins weren't omnipotent beings. But probably just Ancient or even primordial gods that have been given special rights by the only being that could give such a thing, the artificial intelligence running the world of god's domain.

"Now that all of your questions have been answered, I will be telling you why I summoned you here. I summoned you to be the representative of the starlight realm in 'the tournament', this tournament is a competition between realms and is held by the aforementioned being. The reason he is holding this tournament is unknown, he says it is purely for his own enjoyment, but I have my doubts. So, are you willing to represent your realm?"

Thinking about it for a second James decided to ask some more questions, this whole tournament thing seemed too vague at the moment.

"Could you tell me some more about this tournament miss Lea? I don't mind representing my realm, but I would like some more information before jumping into something this big."

Lea nodded and started talking about the tournament.

"Well, I don't see a problem with that, so I'll start from the beginning. The tournament, as I said before, is a competition that is held between realms, it started at the same time as you immortal souls started appearing in the different realms. The one above told us at that moment to select a champion to compete in a tournament, the higher said champion reached, the higher the rewards our realms would get. Everything wasn't that simple though, as you might know, realms have ranks, even before you and your people appeared there were differences in the number of resources that a realm had. This difference only increased when you guys appeared. I'm telling you this because the rank of your realm determent the number of special privileges we could gain inside the tournament. For example, we the starlight realm aren't that high, so I decided to spend all of the privileges I had on the ability to disclose a certain amount of information with you."

Taking a sip of tea before continuing, Lea seemed to be staring at James with stars in her eyes.

"Most administrators don't bother with information; they spend all of the privileges they have been given on getting more champions inside the tournament. In fact, you even have access to more information than almost all of the champions of the top-level realms. I was also planning on getting one more champion instead of more information, but the moment I saw you I knew that putting all my eggs in one basket was probably the best chance I had to get anything good for our starlight realm. I waited a long time for someone like you. In fact, you are the last person to enter the tournament. But I can with confidence say that my patience has paid off."

James couldn't help but feel a bit worried, if this tournament had existed for that long, then most of the talented champions would have long reached the apex of gods domain. Even if he was a former Tier 6, he had absolutely no chance to beat them, even if their stats were suppressed.

"Lea, won't I be at an immense disadvantage if I have to fight against beings that have been preparing and honing their skills for that long?"

Lea just chuckled before continuing.

"I'm getting to that, don't worry, and give me a second. Now that you know the rough history of the tournament, I'll tell you how it works. The tournament consists of 6 rounds, and each of those rounds will be fought directly after you have completed all the steps necessary to complete your Tier promotion quest. Every round will be fought one against one, except for the final round, as you can probably already guess thanks to the ability to increase the number of champions a single realm can have, we will end up with way more than 2 champions in the final round, so that will be a free for all. Now, to address your concerns, you don't have to worry about being at a disadvantage, the opponents that you will be fighting have all just like you only recently been promoted to Tier 1. This is all made possible by letting the matches take place outside of space and time. Since you are the latest to participate all your matches have already been completed in the eyes of your opponents, so you will be on an even playing field."

A slight frown came onto James's face when he heard that, he could already see some obvious flaws that came with a system like this. Before he could question Lea, she seemed to have already picked up on his confusion and started talking again.

"I know what you are about to say, most champions realize this flaw the second they hear how the tournament is held. It would indeed be a big problem if losers started hunting down their opponents after the match to prevent them from ever entering. That is why we wipe your memory after you lose. Only in the early stages though, in the Tier 4 matches and beyond, we just make it so that you can't remember any detail about the fight, but the tournament itself will not be forgotten. So, James, I believe I covered most of the important points, are you willing to become a champion for the starlight realm?"