Suddenly, Taro opened his eyes, looking into a vast black void covered with stars.
"Why am I in space?" Taro said, confused as he realized that he could speak and breathe in space.
Slowly, Taro managed to turn around and saw a big grey sphere before him —
a planet.
Just as his thoughts began to race about how he got here, or why he wasn't dead even though he was in space, he heard a robotic female voice speaking from the void.
[Announcement: Welcome, New Gods. You were chosen after your death to become New Gods.]
[Announcement: Your current objective is to terraform your given world so it can sustain life.]
[Announcement: On your left, a terminal should now appear where you can chat with your fellow Gods and buy knowledge in exchange for faith.]
Taro calmed down as the last message ended.
"Well, so I died and am now a god. It could be worse."
Even though Taro still had many questions, he decided to turn to the terminal the voice had mentioned.
The "terminal," if you could call it that, was a blue transparent hologram made of a floating keyboard and a monitor hovering above it.
There were two buttons on the monitor: one for the Shop and one labeled Chat.
Taro decided to click on the Chat icon first — he wanted to see if he could find anyone he knew, even though he didn't have any family and only a few friends.
"Oh," Taro stopped. "So I had friends… but why can't I remember their Names ? And why don't I remember more of my old life?"
After trying to recall more about his old life — and failing every time he thought he remembered something — he decided it was useless and clicked on the Chat button.
It didn't let him in at first because he had to type in his new God name.
"Taro," he entered cause he wanted to keep his real one, and then the chat opened.
It was pure chaos.
It looked like most other Gods weren't as relaxed and calm about their new life as he was. They were all asking about friends and loved ones, or simply shouting what the hell was going on.
"Ella, are you there? Please DM me if you see this!" — Kronos
"How do I move in space?" — Terafico
"Are you all also from Earth?" — Trevor
After reading the incredible flood of messages, Taro turned away from the chat with many new answers — and even more questions.
On one hand, he now knew that all the other Gods seemed to come from the same world as him — or at least, that's what he believed based on the few memories he had left.
It also seemed like most people who still remembered much of their lives said they all died because of a global pandemic.
Maybe that's how he died too…
And it looked like everyone had a different planet — from water worlds, to worlds covered in lava, to even someone claiming theirs was completely made of diamonds.
After glancing again at the new messages popping up, he said,
"How many Gods are there, anyway?"
Just as the words left his mouth, the robotic voice spoke again.
[Report: There are currently 767,836,056 Gods in this universe.]
Taro snapped his head around, searching for the source of the voice, but couldn't find it.
"Wait, you can answer me! Are you a system? Like in those web novels?" Taro asked.
[Report: This assumption is rudimentary but mostly correct.]
"Cool, I've got an all-knowing system answering my questions," Taro said with a smile.
Just as he wanted to write a message about his discovery in the chat to help his fellow Gods, he noticed that two others had already figured it out.
Even though he was slightly frustrated that he wouldn't get credit for the discovery, he still wanted to ask the system a few questions.
"Hey System, why did I become a god? And why can't I remember my old life?" Taro asked.
[Report: Information not available.]
[Report: Information not available.]
Taro raised an eyebrow.
So, his all-knowing system wasn't so all-knowing after all.
"But what about this faith you mentioned before?" Taro tried again.
[Report: Faith is used to buy knowledge from the Shop to gain new abilities. It is also used by Gods when performing certain actions. The amount of faith you own can be seen in the Shop.]
Intrigued by this new information, he turned back to his terminal and opened the Shop.
As he opened it, four options appeared on the screen:
[Name: Knowledge of Creation]
Description: Grants the knowledge to create objects at the cost of faith.
Price: 5 Faith
[Name: Knowledge of Terraforming]
Description: Grants the knowledge to terraform planets.
Warning: Only works on the God's starting planet.
Warning: Cost will increase dramatically once life exists on the planet.
Price: 5 Faith
[Name: Knowledge of Divine Traveling]
Description: Grants the knowledge to travel in any chosen form on your planet and gives the ability to fly through space.
Price: 5 Faith
[Name: Knowledge of Divine Awareness]
Description: Enhances your Awareness
Price: 5 Faith
Taro took a good look at the different abilities.
"The system said our objective is to terraform our planet to sustain life, so I should buy the Terraforming one first."
Then his gaze fell on the upper left corner of the screen where his faith points were shown:
[Faith: 30]
"Well, that's definitely enough for me."
Without a second thought, he bought the knowledge to terraform his world and watched his faith points drop to 25.
[Report: Knowledge of Terraforming has been bought]
After a few seconds, he felt an uncomfortable warmth behind his skull that kept growing hotter.
Just as the heat became nearly unbearable, images flashed before his eyes —
tectonic plates shifting, volcanoes erupting, and giant oceans forming from endless rain.
It wasn't just knowledge he gained, but a deep understanding of how a planet truly worked.
After only a few seconds, the warmth faded, and he now had a complete understanding of what to do to turn his piece of rock into a beautiful world for life.
"Okay, you big piece of rock," he said with a grin,
"let's get started."