At nine sharp, the halls of Starlight Seventh High rang with the hourly chime.
Right after it, the usual soft female voice drifted through the corridor, calm and precise as ever—
[Today’s civilization data update:]
[Current contained anomalies: 147,892. Divine faith index: 86.7%. Technological development index: 92.3%. Civilization safety index: 73.9%, up 0.02% from yesterday...]
[Reminder: the lunar eclipse is approaching. Anomaly activity is expected to rise. All academies are to strengthen protective measures.]
[Thank you to every pioneer who fights to defend human civilization.]
[May the gods show mercy. May humanity endure.]
Sophia Everhart leaned against the wall outside the teachers’ office, listening to the broadcast like it belonged to somebody else’s world.
Her eyes dropped to the fine pleats of her uniform skirt.
She was Sophia Everhart.
And she wasn’t.
Because she had crossed over.
Ten years after graduation, she had somehow ended up back in high school. Not just back, either—back as one of the worst students in class, standing outside the office and waiting to be lectured by her homeroom teacher.
Damn fate. It had a vicious sense of humor.
And this was no ordinary world.
This was an interstellar age already breached by anomalies.
She lifted her head and looked out the window.
Beyond the glass stood the vast academy complex, heavy and solemn, wrapped beneath a translucent protective barrier. The light over it shimmered like a thin shell of water, fragile at a glance, yet holding up the last scraps of peace.
Even here, at a God Academy on the outermost edge of the Milky Way, this place was still the final safe fortress in the region.
Outside the barrier, warped shadows slid along the dark like living things. Black mist rolled and coiled, nosing again and again at the weak points of the protective net, as if hunting for a crack to tear open.
That was what they called “anomalies.”
Sophia let out a slow breath.
Anomalies spread like plague.
Once they descended, they would quietly twist every rule inside the affected area. Bit by bit, law, order, common sense—everything would be distorted, corrupted, devoured. Then they would spread wider, swallowing more.
The only thing that could stand against anomalies was the gods.
Humans, through faith in the gods, could borrow power enough to resist them.
And so the God Academies had risen with the times, becoming the final bastions of human civilization.
Those anomalies that could be detected and kept on a leash were folded into one thing—
exam papers.
Every single paper was a real battlefield from an actual anomalous invasion.
Getting transmigrated was bad enough. Getting tossed into a world like this, where danger crouched behind every breath, was worse.
And from the original host’s memories, Sophia Everhart knew one thing clear as iron—
her final exam was about to begin.
Inside those papers, the place was crawling with anomalies that could snap her up like a crunchy little snack.
If she wanted to stay alive, there was only one road.
She had to obtain the power of the gods.
The problem was, the original Sophia had never successfully summoned even one deity. Not one. As for divine skills, she had none at all.
And by the academy’s rules, if she failed this assessment again, there would be no makeup exam waiting for her.
What waited for her was forced expulsion.
Once she lost her student status, forget entering exam papers, forget gaining divine power.
To put it plain, it felt like her grave was already dug right outside the door.
What a damn ruin of an opening.
No wonder the homeroom teacher had called her in for a talk.
…
But Sophia Everhart had no intention of dying.
If this life had to be restarted, then fine, restart it. The opening hand was rotten to the core, but it still beat being dead.
Besides, for all the threat of anomalies, this was also a blazing age where gods had returned to the mortal world.
The gods walked the earth, granting believers supreme divine power, casting immortal miracles over ordinary men.
And the figures from Huaxia mythology she had studied in her previous life—
they might truly appear before her here.
That thought made her heart stir despite herself.
Could she summon the Great Sage Equal to Heaven,
and seize the divine skill of the Ruyi Jingu Bang, powerful enough to churn rivers and overturn seas?
Or she could invite Erlang Zhenjun and beg for that Heavenly Eye that saw through all things.
Then have Xiaotian Quan at her side, the hound that could track anything under heaven.
And that was saying nothing of gods like Nuwa and Pangu, beings who split heaven and earth and shaped the world with their own hands.
In an age of gods like that, so what if the start was hard?
Besides, there was a reason the original Sophia Everhart had never managed to summon a god.
The heart of summoning lay in one thing:
“Call the name. Know the title.”
To put it plain, one had to recognize the god’s true identity first, then use that god’s divine title to draw down their power.
It should have been simple.
But before the abnormal invasion, the gods had slumbered. Faith had thinned out. Knowledge of every pantheon had broken apart, piece by piece.
Only after the abnormalities descended did the gods begin to wake.
Humanity had no choice but to dig through ruins and holy grounds, piecing together the lost myths bit by bit.
After years of struggle, most pantheons had been restored.
Take the Greek or Norse systems. Few gods, clear images, simple titles. You could almost pick them right with your eyes shut.
But the Huaxia pantheon the original host believed in was another beast entirely.
Huaxia civilization ran deep, and its mythic system was tangled beyond belief.
Sophia could casually list them off in her head: the Heavenly Court system, the Underworld system, the Investiture of the Gods system, the Primordial Wilderness system...
As for divine titles, that was worse.
One god might carry more than a dozen titles. Some even had taboo names that could not be spoken lightly.
Because of the cultural break, most historical records were already gone. What scraps remained contradicted each other, half true, half false, impossible to sort cleanly.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
There was backlash.
Call the wrong god, and at best the summoning failed.
At worst, the backlash killed you on the spot.
Who would dare gamble with their own life on that?
Not when there were ready-made pantheons that worked just fine.
So this pantheon, once the broadest and strongest of them all, had ended up the weakest instead. Too vast. Too tangled. Too hard to trace its sacred lands. In the end, hardly anyone still walked its path.
In the last exam paper, the original Sophia Everhart had actually managed to summon gods of Huaxia.
Only what came out were five divine dragons at once.
Their aura was fierce enough to crush the breath from a man’s chest, but their forms were blurred, half-hidden, hard to grasp. And she had been forced to tell which was which from Azure Dragon, Yellow Dragon, Thunder Dragon, Yinglong, and Zhulong.
Sophia was silent for a moment.
...That really was making things hard for the poor girl.
With myth records shattered and missing in chunks, there was no way the original owner could have identified them.
But...
Sophia was different.
She had spent ten bitter years buried in study, grinding through nearly every text she could find on Huaxia mythology. Page by page, line by line, she had chewed through all of it.
And now, every bit of that knowledge sat whole and clear in her mind.
Take dragonkind, for one. Looking at shape alone was never enough.
You had to know that Yinglong could raise clouds and summon rain, had aided Yu the Great in taming the floods, and had slain Wuzhiqi.
Zhulong, with one eye open, made day; with one eye shut, brought night. It could stir wind, call rain, and cast light into Youdu.
The Azure Dragon was one of the Four Symbols, tied to the Seven Mansions of the East, an omen of blessing and good fortune.
Thinking of that, Sophia felt a real stab of regret.
If only she had been there for that exam.
If she had recognized all five divine dragons, she could have gained at least five godly skills.
The Azure Dragon guarded the east and matched the spring season. Maybe that meant the power to make all things grow.
Thunder Dragon ruled thunder. That could mean thunder arts.
Yinglong raised clouds and rain. That could grant water control.
And Zhulong was even more frightening—a conceptual divine dragon. In the old tales, it held sway over time itself, even pierced falsehood and illusion.
If one could truly summon it, then maybe...
Maybe the godly skill gained would be time reversal.
What a waste.
Just as that thought passed through her mind, the office door opened.
Carrying a thread of crisp air-conditioned chill, the homeroom teacher’s voice came from inside.
“Sophia Everhart, come in.”
Her homeroom teacher was a middle-aged man, Victor Ashford.
“Sophia.” He let out a sigh, just the right amount of regret in his tone, like he truly felt sorry for her. “Tell me, of all things you could’ve chosen, why did you have to pick the Huaxia divine system? Dead last in pass rate.”
“And up to now, you still haven’t even succeeded once at the most basic god summoning.”
He paused, then looked at her with the face of a man trying to do his duty.
“You’re my student. I can’t just ignore this.”
“So. Transfer systems.”
“The Greek divine system is in a peak recruitment period right now. Athena’s card pool data looks excellent, with a 99.8% pass rate. Or the Norse divine system—Odin is even more…”
…
Victor Ashford kept talking, one sentence after another, smooth as flowing water.
But Sophia was distracted.
Why was he suddenly being so kind?
The final exam paper only had a 70% pass rate. She wasn’t the only one who might fail.
So why call her in alone?
Why bring up transferring systems?
And why now of all times?
Not earlier. Not later.
But right when her final exam was about to begin?
Something was off.
As for transferring systems…
The one she understood best from the start was the Huaxia divine system.
Never mind whether she could even switch smoothly to another one—in everything she knew, the resources of the other major divine systems had long since been locked down by the great families. Those holy lands had already been carved up clean, not even scraps left behind.
A commoner like her wanted a share there?
She could dream.
The path upward had been blocked shut a long time ago.
It was the Huaxia divine line that stood out.
Too few believers. That was the point.
Because so few people followed it, those sacred lands still hadn’t been fully opened up even now.
And the biggest thing of all—under the current ranking of deities, the Huaxia divine line held Creator Gods.
Its ceiling was terrifyingly high.
Pangu splitting the heavens.
Nuwa shaping mankind.
Fuxi setting down the Eight Trigrams.
But the years had buried too much. Civilization had snapped somewhere along the way. The threshold of understanding was also absurdly harsh. Bit by bit, no one knew those gods anymore.
So everyone ran toward the easier roads.
The Greek divine line.
The Norse divine line.
Easy to learn. Easy to answer. Easy to summon.
But if one really talked about potential, the strongest was still Huaxia.
Who in their right mind could refuse a Creator God like Nuwa?
Victor Ashford talked until his throat was dry. Only then did he stop. He stared straight at Sophia Everhart.
“So,” he said, voice low, “what exactly are you thinking?”
Sophia blinked, wearing the most sincere face she could manage.
“Teacher, you’re right,” she said obediently. “For this exam, I’ll try changing my faith.”
“Good. Excellent.” The regret on Victor Ashford’s face vanished at once, replaced by open delight. “Now I can rest easy. This time, you’ll definitely pass. Go on.”
Sophia left the office, but doubt sat heavy in her chest.
So after all that talk, all those winding words, the real goal had been to make her switch lines?
Then the key point was—
Huaxia divine line.
But why?
As for actually switching, that was impossible.
She had only agreed with her mouth. Nothing more.
The moment Sophia stepped out the door, a boy in a silver-white uniform brushed past her shoulder.
Young, sharp-featured, carrying himself with the effortless pride of someone born above others.
It was the young master of the Mercer family, one of the Three Great Houses.
Ethan Mercer.
Ethan Mercer.
Sophia Everhart flicked him a glance. He did not even bother to look back at her.
She withdrew her gaze at once.
He walked straight into the office. Behind her, Victor Ashford’s voice rang out, and the change in tone was sharp enough to hear. It turned respectful on the spot.
“Young Master Mercer, you’re here.”
Sophia paused.
That attitude?
So Victor Ashford was standing with the Mercer family?
It was nothing strange. In this world, great houses dug their roots deep, and powerful consortiums sat everywhere like old beasts on a mountain. Teachers in the Divine Academy system, more or less, all had some noble house or financial power behind them.
Still, she was not worried that a homeroom teacher could rig things in secret.
The exams were never in a teacher’s hands.
They were overseen by Shenyan Intelligent AI, one of the seven SSS-grade divine artifacts, directly under the Ministry of Education.
In Sophia’s eyes, calling Shenyan “artificial intelligence” did not quite fit.
It was closer to divine intelligence.
A supreme AI forged from the power of top-tier gods, carrying terrifying computational might, cold and vast, almost omniscient.
Not long after she left, Ethan Mercer sat down across from Victor Ashford.
“Mr. Ashford.” His tone was slow, unhurried. “Did she... agree to transfer to another pantheon?”
...
Sophia pushed open the classroom door.
Cold air and the pale corridor light poured in together.
The room seemed to pause for half a beat.
The classroom was split clean by seating, like a river cut in two. The front rows belonged to noble heirs and top students. At the moment, only two girls were sitting there.
One of them heard the door and raised her head. Her eyes swept over Sophia, light and flat.
Fiona Marsh.
With her absurdly high divine affinity, she had become the most talked-about commoner genius of this entire year.
From the day she entered school, she had crushed every noble-born student underfoot with sheer strength.
Hazel Drummond spotted Sophia Everhart too. Her eyes lit up at once, bright with gossip. She leaned over and asked eagerly, “Sophia! What did the homeroom teacher want with you?”
Her voice wasn’t low. Not even close.
A lot of heads turned.
“Nothing much,” Sophia said, calm as still water. “He just suggested I switch divine systems.”
“Oh!” Hazel slapped the desk hard. “Honestly, you should’ve done that ages ago. Out of all things, you had to pick the Huaxia divine system, a niche one like that. And up till now, you still haven’t summoned a single god...”
She hadn’t meant harm, but words had a way of landing where they hurt.
The people behind her traded glances, the kind that said they all understood. Someone let out a short laugh.
Only then did Hazel realize she’d said the wrong thing. She hurriedly covered her mouth. “Ah—sorry, that’s not what I meant...”
Sophia didn’t bother with it. Her face didn’t change. She just walked straight toward the last row of the classroom.
That was her seat.
And Hazel’s attention had already been dragged off by fresher gossip.
Carefree as ever, she said, “Ethan Mercer said he was going to see the homeroom teacher just now. I’m guessing it’s definitely about that extra slot.”
Then she turned to Fiona Marsh, her tone full of open admiration. “But Fiona, you’re totally safe anyway. Your first-place rank’s never been shaken. This time you’ll definitely get into the provincial academy!”
Provincial academy?
Sophia’s thoughts stirred.
The Divine Academy was the heart of this world. Its whole system was built like a pyramid, rank pressing down on rank.
As long as a student’s results were good enough, they could keep climbing, one selection after another, into higher academies. From the outer ring stars, step by step, they could fight their way into the core star systems, become an S-class citizen with top-tier status, and enjoy the richest resources for divine power cultivation.
And exams were the only road to turn fate around.
That was iron law. Everyone knew it.
The Starshine No. 7 High Division where Sophia studied was only a regional-level academy. Compared with a provincial academy, the gap in treatment and resources was more than a little. It was heaven and earth.
Among the twelve regional high divisions, not one student didn’t want to test into a provincial academy.
If they wanted to advance, the only way was to pass the provincial academy’s assessment.
But the fight for it was brutal. Every region only got a handful of assessment slots, and most of those were reserved for the provincial academy’s own students.
Last year, Xinghui got only two slots.
That meant only two students were qualified to take the provincial academy assessment.
And what Hazel Drummond had just said...
“An extra slot?”
Sophia Everhart’s eyes narrowed at once.
All of a sudden, she remembered the way Victor Ashford had been acting lately. Too different. Too eager. Again and again, he had tried to persuade her to switch systems.
Why?
What was so special about her?
Then the answer hit her like a blade slipping free of its sheath.
“The Huaxia pantheon.”
Her fingers curled a little.
Could it be that this year, the provincial academy was specifically recruiting believers from a certain divine system?
That was why there was an extra slot.
And here, she was the only Huaxia pantheon candidate.
If she switched systems, then that extra slot...
Would it be reassigned?
It was not like there had never been similar cases before. There had been. But in the end, every one of them had fallen apart and gone nowhere.
Still, in the original host’s memories, this year’s Ministry of Education had clearly been pushing hard, sharper than before, hungry for change.
If that was true...
Sophia let out a short, cold laugh, so angry it almost amused her.
So Ethan Mercer probably couldn’t beat Fiona Marsh, could he?
And since he could not take her place, he turned his eyes on Sophia instead, on the worst student in class, the easy one, the soft piece of flesh on the cutting board.
As for Victor Ashford—
under the mask of patient advice, under that calm, guiding tone, he had been nudging her to switch systems while she knew nothing at all.
He had decided her fate for her.
Just like that.
All to curry favor with Ethan Mercer.
Sophia could almost see the thought in his mind, plain as day.
A slot given to her was wasted anyway.
Right then, the classroom door got pushed open.
Victor Ashford came in first. Ethan Mercer followed right behind him.
No nonsense. No wasted breath.
Victor’s gaze swept across the room, sharp and cold, pausing just a fraction longer on Sophia Everhart before he spoke in a flat voice.
“Now—”
“The final exam begins.”
The instant his words fell, everything in front of Sophia shattered with a roar.
Desks, walls, light, air—everything broke apart at once, turning into countless drifting motes and scattering away.
Space itself looked like a pane of glass struck dead center. Cracks raced out in all directions, splitting, peeling, collapsing into nothing.
Sophia felt her mind wrench loose from her body.
As if her soul had been hooked and dragged out by force, she dropped straight into a bottomless void.
[Shenyan Examination Space is being constructed...]
[Construction complete]
[Spatial Stability: 98%]
[Divine Power Field Intensity: Normal]
[Anomaly Interference: Not Detected]
In the endless dark before her, streams of golden data poured down like a waterfall, thick and dazzling, gathering into layer after layer of information.
Sophia felt her drifting consciousness being tugged back bit by bit.
Slowly, she woke.
[Examination System Initialization Complete]
Then a voice sounded through the void.
Gentle, steady, and stripped of any human warmth.
“Examinee, greetings. Welcome to the final examination space for the 4050–4051 academic year of God Academy.”
“Affiliated branch: C-Class Outer Ring Star Cluster - Polaris Cluster Region - Lingxiao Province - Xinghui No. 7 High School Division”
[Examinee Information Confirmed]
[Name: Sophia Everhart]
[Affiliated Academy: Kunlun Academy]
[Student ID: F01]
[Assessment Subject: D-Rank Comprehensive Dungeon Practical Exam
First-Year Final
]
[Assessment Parameters Generating]
[Difficulty Rating: D-Rank]
[Expected Survival Rate: 70%]
[Pass Rate: 70%]
Streams of data twisted and gathered, then locked into a single line of golden text hanging in the void before her eyes.
“Please choose your [Pantheon of Faith] for this assessment—”