Far up within the tower of heaven, on his opulent but elegant throne sits the realm lord. He opened his eyes, and from them shown golden divine light, his eyes were like touches that could see into the very fiber of reality. He blinked and the light was gone.
"It is time," he said, his face devoid of emotions.
It isn't that he is unhappy, he is just unfeeling about what would come next. It was simply his job. The position of the realm lord comes with perks but it also comes with constraints. He indeed has the power to do anything and go anywhere within High Heaven, but reality has shown that he cannot.
Mother High Heaven always has the interest of her children in her heart, so she will not allow him to cause damage to them. His job is to help her do her job better, which is to increase the overall strength of her children. In less pleasant terms, he is a caretaker or a nanny.
He has put some thoughts into the actions of the will of the realm and he is downright perplexed. He has noticed that all the realm trees in the universe are sentient, they all cater to their realm with a singular objective in mind, and that is to produce strong individuals.
He had thought that was just to raise a genius that could ensure the safety of the realm in the form of a realm lord, but he has found that even that achievement is there to ensure the continuity of that objective not for the personal safety of the will of the realm. There are some other points in the workings of the world that give him pause, but more on that later.
The lack of absolute control has gotten to him sometimes, especially when he knows that when he becomes a world god he would be a god of a world he cannot control. But apart from that, it is a good thing to be a realm lord. Realm lords are among the richest individuals in the entire universe.
A typical one-star origin god will only be able to produce a single bead of origin essence every origin cycle, this rate increases, but among origin gods, no one can match a realm lord in the amount of origin essence he gets every origin cycle.
Originally, a realm tree is only able to produce a scant amount of beads of origin essence every origin cycle, which depends on the number of active planes the realm tree possesses. For high heaven realm used to be 300 beads of Origin essence back when the high heaven realm had about 30,000 planes of existence.
That number increases 10-fold when a realm tree gains a realm lord, and the realm lord gains 10% of this amount. The rest goes into the trial of heaven as a reward for the sovereign and grand god trials.
The leftover is used to maintain the various functions of the realm tree and to increase the planes of existence. So it is because of him that mother high heaven got enough Origin essence to expand the number of planes of existence from 30,000 to 110,000 and the base Origin essence production from 300 to 1100 of which he gets 1,100 every Origin cycle.
Since he couldn't do much he had to make do with little changes here and there which have worked to further increase his wealth if not his control of the realm. When he became a realm lord he had put in place some things from his past life that the realm lacked.
One of them is the internet. The development of basic information exchange and storage technology had been stunted because of the lack of a need for them. People here live long lives, have near-perfect memories, and keep good records, can communicate across long distances with talismans which were developed using magic.
So they never really needed something like the internet but they accepted it readily. The integration of this innovation has been relatively low despite its acceptance but it still has its uses, especially in instant communication.
It is only available in the ancient battlefield and some select places in the upper realm, but it is a start. The necessary technology is lacking to support a more robust system in which the internet is capable of more.
The greatest success is the origin store and delivery system he established. This started from his initial changes to the reward system of the trial of heaven. It wasn't so streamlined in the past, where they could use points to exchange for rewards.
He decided to make this available to everyone but the will of the realm was adamant that every and all origin god it had a hand in producing must be the best among their peers. This made him suspicious again. Some rules have been set in stone in the universe and they are inviolable. But who made the rules?
These rules are very specific and not some random things. He had asked himself and the will of the realm who made the rules but she had said it had always been that way. The entire void universe is just too orderly for his liking.
So he had to settle with making the store available to just origin gods, from which he coined the name origin store. The origin store is accessible by every origin god that is born by the realm tree in any part of the universe, but the delivery system is only available in the realm, for now. This won't change until he becomes a world god or a more powerful being.
The currency used is origin stones and origin essence, the goods sold vary in value to things that mortals require up to the level of world gods except for origin essence and life essence. Anything that can help someone break through to the origin god level isn't sold, the will of the realm was pretty adamant about that.
This arrangement has made him even richer in origin stones and essence. The realm tree realm purifies the Origin essence received and gives him 70% of it. The remaining 30% are made available to exceptional participants of the trial of heaven below the level of a sovereign. Mother High Heaven makes sure to bind the origin essence to their soul, it will also dissipate if they die, all to make sure that only the best becomes origin gods.
The origin store and the auction at the meet-up of origin gods every origin cycle has made him even richer than some world gods in origin essence, origin stones, top-grade origin weapons, and artifacts. If it were not because universal-level artifacts aren't sold he would have the capabilities to buy them, for now, he only has 3.
The changes he had made are one of the factors why he improves so fast, that and his universe artifact. Apart from him, the changes have improved the lives, strength, and innovation of the races of High Heaven. The Status screens that only the populace of High Heaven can see are simply a byproduct of his ascension to realm lord.
The universe artifact that had bounded with him also bounded with the realm heart and caused that change. Everyone thinks it's the will of the realm that did it till today, and he would like it to remain that way, at least until he becomes a world god or even beyond that. With his experience, he knows that there are some monsters in the void universe that can make realm lords quake in their boots.