Starting with Growing Mushrooms

The illusory gods had originally still been waging war in the Dark Matter Universe, playing a little "match-two" game.

At this moment they immediately halted their assault, returned to the Super Universe, and watched the surging winds and clouds of the entire Cosmos, staring up at the firmament in utter shock.

"The world… has collapsed!"

"Everyone, look..."

They too were all hesitating, faces full of uncertainty. After some discussion, they decided to go seek out the Goddess of Destiny.

Fortuna looked at these visitors, listened to their vague, roundabout explanation of why they'd come, and suddenly laughed, "You want to egg me on to go fight God?"

These illusory gods hastily said:

"You wield two of the mightiest Divine Powers; in building this Super Universe and opening the gate to the Twelfth Tier, your contributions are immense. Why shouldn't you compete for it?"

"Yeah, we can't just sit back and watch this opportunity slip away!"

Listening to these gods' suggestions, Fortuna shook her head. She was no longer that scatterbrained fool.

She used turning false into true, refused to believe in her own "fate side-effects," and thus the side-effects simply did not exist.

She had long since returned to that Peak era when she fought God, and as a razor-sharp, calculating goddess, she saw through their intentions at a glance,

"You just want to bewitch me into charging at the front lines for you."

A trace of mockery flashed across Fortuna's face:

"I followed God for many years—how could I be talked into betrayal by a few words from you? I know better than anyone how hard God is to kill."

The eyes of these illusory gods flickered with a hint of murderous intent, and in the next instant they attacked in unison.

Boom!

All sorts of terrifying Divine Powers erupted, crashing down onto Fortuna!

In an instant, the different attributes of their Divine Powers erased the unguarded Fortuna inch by inch, and she fell on the spot.

"Everyone, she can resurrect and return from the Death World!"

"But she only has one life left!"

"Hahaha, so what if she commands the Cause and Effect Divine Power? Every Divine Object has side-effects! The stronger it is, the more fearsome the side-effects! And the side-effect of her fate is that she can face our betrayal at any time!"

Just like back then, when the illusory gods, led by the Black God, ambushed Xibo.

Their own self-created illusory lives could betray them at any moment—that was his side-effect.

"Everyone, she'll cut off the supply of our threads of causality. We can't drag this out too long; we'll lose the faith of all beings for a long time and vanish!"

"We must kill her immediately!"

While everyone was still discussing, Fortuna returned from the Death World and quietly looked at these gods.

"You're not half bad."

The main character Fortuna's lips curled with a faint, inexplicable arrogance. Folding her arms over her chest, she looked down at the gods below, "Do you know why I let you kill off one of my lives?"

The gods were stunned and couldn't help but shout, "Why?"

"Because one life is more than enough for me to kill all of you."

Fortuna sighed lightly, "You really thought I was that goddess with no combat power?"

"Among the gods shaped by the faith of all beings, I was molded into… a female God."

As soon as she finished speaking, rings of Wisdom halos slowly drew out from behind her, and an ancient, majestic, vast aura surged from her, swelling inch by inch.

The All-Powerful God halo that symbolized infinite Wisdom spun in circles behind her, blooming like a lotus.

"You truly have guts, daring to provoke this God."

"This God swept through countless Mythical Eras and flattened the ages, and yet in your generation you actually grew such laughable ambition."

As the illusory God of Wisdom, Fortuna softly called out in the next moment, "Fairies, come out."

The countless streams of Divine Power hurled at her by the surrounding gods were all awakened into Wisdom by her, and they spoke in tender childlike voices, "O God, if this is Your will, we shall obey!"

Each attack spun once before God, then was sent back to strike those so-called gods.

"Hello there!"

"Dodge, quickly!"

The gods scrambled in a panic before finally managing to evade the attacks.

They immediately realized how terrifying God truly was.

Any long-range energy attack would be enlightened by God, given Wisdom, and returned in kind.

"Everyone, only melee attacks!"

"Yes, close-quarters combat!"

They pulled out the same old tactic they'd once used against God and charged one by one at Fortuna.

But in the next instant, something even more terrifying happened.

The invincible golden body that turns false into true!

Attacks denied!

As long as I don't acknowledge that your attack hit me, then you never hit me.

"It's useless. I'm invincible, because I…" Fortuna's faint sigh echoed through the Super Universe as she looked at these heroes of an entire era, "because I am God."

"Monster! You monster!"

The gods showed immense fear,

"Now you've become another God, with an invincible golden body—why not come fight at our side against the other camp?"

"Yes, we'd have a great chance of winning!"

But Fortuna couldn't be bothered to respond. As a fake God, she took a single step forward.

One person, fighting all the gods alone!

...

"Fortuna really is having the time of her life."

A hint of speechlessness flashed across Liu Jun's face. Standing at the very center of this Super Universe, he watched that female God fighting the gods all by herself.

She had definitely been waiting for this day for a long time.

Just waiting for someone to be shocked and discover: Shocking! She was actually a God.

"As expected, every support dreams of being the carry."

He withdrew his gaze and stopped paying attention.

These so-called gods, and the greedy mortals of this era, wanting to fight Liu Jun over this twelfth-tier opportunity... yet Liu Jun had never taken them seriously.

Fortuna herself was already a super unbeatable boss.

"Almost there, time to break through."

Liu Jun calmed his mind, sitting at the center of the Cosmos with his eyes closed.

Countless collected Divine Objects revolved around him like stars, contracting, converging.

As if they were entering his body through a process of deliberate selection.

However, this process seemed destined to be very long.

So he simply sat in the center, waiting for this pot of thick soup to slowly reduce.

1,000 years later.

The Cosmos had collapsed by more than thirty times.

And the distant gods had also been taken out by Fortuna one by one, without any chance to struggle.

Fortuna was having the time of her life, still unsatisfied as she said, "Those few little fish in the Dark Matter Universe seem to be making some moves. How about I go kill them?"

As an All-Powerful God, Fortuna was omniscient; how could she not sense those guys?

"No rush, we still need to wait a bit."

Liu Jun's eyes flickered; he did not rush to break through, but instead fixed his gaze on the Super Universe of dark matter.

Fortuna clasped her hands behind her back, a halo of Wisdom spinning behind her. The arrogance born from an IQ-crushing superiority let her occupy the high ground of intelligence as she said proudly:

"True, those small fry gods aren't even enough to whet my appetite. Let that fish get stronger; I hope it can bring me a bit of joy!"

Another 200 years passed.

A crisp, long roar erupted within the Dark Matter Universe.

The Dark Matter Universe had completely entered great collapse; Baya Ya's pot of thick soup was almost fully reduced.

Given that Liu Jun had deliberately slowed down the pace of his own pot of soup, their entire Super Universe's progress bar was obviously much faster!

As the entire universe collapsed, they had already probed down to a fist-sized sphere approaching infinite density and infinite energy.

It had been reduced to the limit.

9.99 million types of Divine Objects had actually melted into a golden flowing slurry, losing their original forms as Divine Objects, interweaving and merging into a power close to omnipotence, covering that fish Baya Ya.

"Roar—"

With a world-shaking roar, Baya Ya felt himself about to step into the next stage, the twelfth tier.

Beside him, Fortuna sensed that terrifying, earth-shattering power and could no longer maintain her arrogance. Her cold and haughty face instantly cracked, and she whispered to God, "Aren't you going to stop him?"

"No, I want to see how far he can go!" God replied.

Fortuna's eyes widened.

She had thought that as a God she was already arrogant enough, yet she hadn't expected there to be someone even more arrogant.

Let him become twelfth tier first, then fight?

How is that any different from seeking death?

This was way too risky!

"Because no matter what choice I make, it's a high-stakes gamble named adventure."

God said calmly, "Right now I only have two choices."

"First, I break through myself. But isn't that also using my life as an experiment? This Cosmos was a cage to begin with; I don't believe the breakthrough will be that simple. The chance of body and Dao perishing is extremely high."

"Second, let someone else be the lab mouse to break through. But if he succeeds, he'll also kill me, so the risk of death is still extremely high."

Between these two choices, whichever he picked, the probability of death was enormous.

Right now, he was merely choosing one of them for a high-stakes gamble.

Liu Jun chose to find a lab mouse to take the lightning strike for him.

If a twelfth-tier being really emerged, then he'd just accept it.

Fortuna's eyes widened. "It really is very dangerous, but why not let me break through? If I die, it counts as paving the way for you. If I succeed, I won't lay a hand on you either."

Liu Jun glanced at Fortuna. "You're not quite qualified enough."

Fortuna froze. Who are you calling names? With my earth-shattering talent, how could I possibly fail to break through?

Fine, the Goddess of Destiny was forever the one with zero combat power and the worst aptitude.

Her current prestige all came from turning fake into real—denying her own trash talent and turning herself into a peerless prodigy.

But this was, in the end, a scam against others and herself, a con job relying on scam Divine Power to fabricate a peerless genius, not something that could be taken as real.

The breakthrough in front of them required genuine, solid material.

The Dark Matter Universe was collapsing.

A brand-new dragon bowl was being nurtured.

"I've done it!"

With a shout of surprise, Baya Ya roared wildly, "This twelfth realm is the Creation Realm... what it creates are the Divine Objects of heaven and earth!"

Having said that, the dragon bowl he had become actually had random Divine Objects floating within it, each possessing the world-shaking might of the twelfth tier.

Compared to Liu Jun's incomplete twelfth-tier Mushroom Soup, the Divine Objects nurtured by this dragon bowl of his were actually far more advanced than Liu Jun's!

Liu Jun's mushroom Divine Objects had an incomplete twelfth-tier rank!

His Divine Objects possessed a perfect twelfth-tier rank!

"I did it, I did it!" he growled in a low voice. Within the dragon bowl that he was, endless possible divinities flowed, containing pure, dazzling radiance, about to fully solidify.

"He really broke through to the twelfth tier? That easy? Was I being too cautious?" Seeing this, Liu Jun's expression wavered as he thought to himself, "If he really succeeds, this is going to be a huge problem."

Liu Jun understood very well.

The rank of that twelfth-tier dragon bowl was complete, and the Divine Objects it shaped were flawless.

His own Mushroom Soup Divine Objects were flawed.

If they truly fought, he would have no advantage at all.

This time, he would be the eleventh-tier mortal, and the other party the twelfth-tier god.