In the next few days, the golden eye ox tribe and its allies form a blockade around the dream tribe, forbidding any deer-orc from joining them.
Many deer-orcs from weaker, totemless tribes in the region withdraw their desire to join the dream tribe.
The fire wolf tribe, seeing their alliance request stalled, understands the dream tribe has no intention of accepting it.
They allow small parties from their tribe and allies to raid the dream tribe's hunting grounds, targeting its hunting teams.
The dream tribe holds back its anger toward both alliances, enduring the situation for five years.
Then, a massive battle erupts on the outskirts of the dream tribe's hunting grounds between the two alliances, each accusing the other of killing their members.
The blockade around the Dream Tribe collapses.
But the tribe finds no joy in it, for removing the blockade costs them their most respected shaman.
In the past five years, Merin has comprehended the Illusion Law.
A week ago, it reached the point where he could advance his tribe to the intermediate rank with it.
A plan then forms in his mind to end the siege of his tribe.
He imagines casting a massive illusion on the two tribal alliance members around the outskirts of his hunting grounds.
But his power does not extend that far.
So, he needs help to project his power there.
The old shaman has only a couple of years left to live.
He decides to sacrifice himself.
Merin's divine clone will take control of the old shaman's body.
Through it, he will cast the illusion on the two alliances.
They will see each other as a team of the Dream Tribe.
Then they will attack.
And instead of killing members of the Dream Tribe, they kill members of the other alliance.
Tillie then takes over the duties of the old shaman while also training two young shamans.
Five years ago, after Merin briefly connected to the Origin of the World, two of his tribe members became pregnant.
The Origin's touch may have awakened the spirituality of the unborn children, for after birth, both showed talent as shamans.
Now, the tribe has three shamans—Tillie, only ten years old, and the other two, merely four.
They would need many years to grow into their full power.
Merin, too, is not ready to fight the two alliances.
Facing them now would be like an egg striking a stone.
He decides to remain dormant until he has the strength to destroy one alliance swiftly.
Within the tribe, he releases a technique allowing ordinary deer-orcs without faith power to advance to the Divine Mark realm as divine warriors.
This gives him enough strength to no longer feel threatened by his rivals, and he trusts they will not betray him.
Another reason for this move is his need to form a team of Divine Pattern realm warriors.
The faith required for this is massive, but to defeat the Golden Eye Ox Tribe and the Fire Wolf Tribe, he will need it.
He also creates a practice method for the three shamans to reach the power of the Divine Pattern realm warriors.
With these preparations complete, Merin turns his focus inward.
To defeat the rival tribes, he must first defeat their totems.
But if he advances to a Top Totem too soon, they will be alerted.
So, he must achieve the strength of a Top Totem while remaining in the realm of an Intermediate Totem.
To accomplish this, his eyes first turn to the Rock Horn Tribe's totem.
Though he had killed it, the totem had transformed into a divine object.
With worship, such a totem could reform, for its spirituality remained active.
Merin wishes to see what would happen if he absorbed the divine power within it.
He slowly guides the divinity from the totem into his body, feeling a wave of pleasure surge through him.
It is as if he had been incomplete before, and now was slowly becoming whole.
When the process is complete, an overwhelming urge grips him—to attack surrounding totems and devour their divinity.
Yet fear quickly follows, rooting him to stillness.
For he realises that all separate divinities in the world might once have been part of a single whole.
He does not know how the divinity was split, but the thought chills him.
Now he understands why many totems, after defeating others, do not absorb their divinity, but instead turn the fallen into clones to form branch tribes.
They must have felt the same dread as he does now.
If all divinity were gathered again, whoever once possessed it might awaken from within.
Moreover, absorbing divinity does not increase strength—it merely completes one's essence.
Thus, most totems rein in their greed.
The totems of this world may not know the source of the divinity, but Merin does—it very likely belongs to a God.
He does not know the stage this God has reached but knows that gods are difficult—if not impossible—to kill.
The higher their realm, the harder they are to destroy.
Gathering all divinity could awaken this God's consciousness.
From this moment on, Merin vows never to absorb divinity again.
Instead, he will strengthen himself through another path—comprehending more laws.
The Illusion Law does not raise his realm, but it increases his power, and he will pursue that path further.
The next law to comprehend will be the Law of Rune or the Law of Formation, and he will leave the Law of World for last.
He now decides to comprehend the Law of Formation, not the Law of Rune.
Both are acquired laws, not innate laws.
Acquired laws come into being after the creation of the world, sometimes created by the world itself, sometimes by the living beings within it.
He chooses the Law of Formation because, while neither law exists naturally in the world, creating the Law of Rune requires a basic understanding of all the laws of the world.
Runes are the language of the laws of the world.
By creating the Law of Formation, he will still gain a basic understanding of the laws of the world.
There are many types of formations, and he chooses to create the law with field formations.
He has some understanding of fields from the last world.
Everything in existence has a field, from the smallest particle to the body of a living being, even divine objects.
He begins to comprehend the nature of fields and creates formations with them to form the Law of Formation.
While Merin comprehends, outside the world, in the void, a city floats with a massive tower in the centre.
Void ships in different shapes enter and exit the city, while some beings arrive in their physical bodies.
Upon entering the city, all of them bow toward the tower, for the city is formed by a stage six being.
Inside the tower, the being that everyone respects opens his eyes and says, "My dear brother has finally awakened. But it seems he still hasn't changed, pursuing the wrong path again. The last time I shattered his god crystal was not enough for him."
He sighs.
"This time, I shouldn't leave him any way out."
"But first, let him taste the sweetness, then I will come and give him the bitter medicine."
Behind Tillie, six children wearing shaman robes trot alongside a donkey pulling a cart.
They arrive at a barren field, and Tillie—now a grown woman—instructs the children to take objects from the cart and place them in specific positions across the ground.
When they finish, Tillie closes her eyes and spreads her spirit for a moment, then uproots a tree from the roadside and replants it in the barren field.
She digs two ponds and mobilises the surrounding spiritual energy to flow into the land.
Once inside, the spiritual energy cannot escape as an energy barrier forms, and the trapped energy slowly transforms, sinking into the soil and raising its fertility.
When the energy within is depleted, the empty space draws in more spiritual energy from the surroundings, creating a continuous cycle of enrichment.
Tillie then turns toward the children.
"Everyone, you've seen how I formed the fertility formation. In a couple of years, each of you will have to form one on your own."
Merin withdraws his gaze from Tillie and her pupils and surveys his tribe.
For the past seventeen years, his focus had been on creating field formations—ten years to create the first, with a break to teach the shamans in the tribe, and seven more years to raise the field formation to the level of an Intermediate Totem.
In that time, the Dream Tribe's population has reached 854 deer-orcs, yet the other tribes in the region remain hostile, and his lands cannot sustain a large populace.
Not wanting to trigger promotion to a Top Tribe through population growth, he ordered fewer births and emphasised training to increase individual strength.
Now, his forces include three Divine Pattern, fifty-eight Divine Seal, and 547 Divine Mark realm divine warriors.
Among the shamans, one has reached Divine Pattern, seven are Divine Seal, and twelve stand at Divine Mark, while the rest are ordinary deer-orcs or children too young to begin cultivation.