Chapter 3: Games and Players
The path of growth for the God of Dreams is to build a Dream Divine Kingdom within the dream world, then pull the soul projections of living beings into it, allowing them to act within the kingdom and harvest pure spiritual power.
Gods can directly increase their own strength by absorbing spiritual power.
Uchiha Tenmei possesses the dream godhead, enabling him to build a Dream Divine Kingdom in the dream world of the Naruto Universe and absorb spiritual power through the godhead to enhance his strength.
The dream world exists not only in the Cosmos of Gods; both the universes of Uchiha Tenmei's past and present lives have dream worlds. As long as there are living beings who dream, a dream world will exist.
A dream godhead at the Overgod level is far more powerful than one at the Greater Divine Power level, even possessing the power to turn the ethereal into reality, which is almost equivalent to the power of the Laws of Creation.
As long as the God of Dreams has enough power of faith, they can completely manifest that vast dream world into the physical world.
Unfortunately, the fallen God of Dreams never had the chance to use this ability.
Uchiha Tenmei pondered how to quickly increase his strength.
First, he must build a Dream Divine Kingdom to collect pure spiritual power, rather than spreading faith to collect toxic power of faith.
Building a Dream Divine Kingdom in the dream worldwas no small trouble for Uchiha Tenmei.
The God of Dreams could easily build a Dream Divine Kingdom because they were a god themselves.
Uchiha Tenmei, however, was an ordinary person using the dream godhead, a divine artifact, to build the kingdom.
Ordinary people don't have enough power to use the dream godhead at will, but Uchiha Tenmei could consume his own spiritual power to activate the godhead and build the Dream Divine Kingdom.
Alas, Uchiha Tenmei was currently weak, and his soul was equally fragile, providing very little spiritual power for consumption.
The core of the soul is the soul source; spiritual power is the soul energy produced by the soul source and is renewable. As long as spiritual power isn't exhausted to its limit, it won't cause any damage to the soul source.
Uchiha Tenmei needed some time to build the Dream Divine Kingdom he required, starting with a small one in the early stages.
The Dream Divine Kingdom could eventually be built, but the choice of candidates to enter it was also an issue.
The stronger the individual, the stronger their soul; when powerful people enter the Dream Divine Kingdom, they provide more spiritual power.
For the same reason, Uchiha Tenmei was not the God of Dreams. The God of Dreams was strong enough to build a massive kingdom, regardless of the number or strength of the beings entering it.
Weak as he was, Uchiha Tenmei relied on the dream godhead to build the kingdom, and its capacity was very limited.
The intelligent races of the Naruto World are primarily humans, categorized into Ninja and Civilians based on strength.
The number of Ninja is in the hundreds of thousands, hardly exceeding two hundred thousand.
The number of Civilians is in the tens of millions.
A single Civilian provides less spiritual power than a single Ninja, but the total spiritual power provided by tens of millions of Civilians exceeds that of over a hundred thousand Ninja.
Once he was strong enough, Uchiha Tenmei would have everyone in the Naruto World enter the Dream Divine Kingdom to provide him with spiritual power.
However, in the early stages of establishing the Dream Divine Kingdom, Uchiha Tenmei did not plan to let Civilians enter.
In fact, there were very few 'Civilians' in the original God of Dreams' kingdom; Civilians didn't need to fight, trade information, or even learn.
Civilians gained almost no benefits in the Dream Divine Kingdom, and the aloof God of Dreams didn't care much for them either.
Uchiha Tenmei felt that if he put Civilians into his kingdom in the early stages, he could hardly offer them many benefits, and they wouldn't feel any attachment to it.
Uchiha Tenmei changed his approach: he could completely treat the Dream Divine Kingdom as a game. Those who entered would be players, and by letting players gain benefits from the game, they would be motivated to keep playing.
Ninja could engage in actual combat, practice Ninjutsu, trade information, and learn within the Dream Divine Kingdom; there were many benefits.
But Uchiha Tenmei felt this wasn't enough. He needed to squeeze as much spiritual power as possible from the players, making them enter the Dream Divine Kingdomevery day and provide him with as much power as possible.
Everyone's spiritual power is limited. When it's exhausted, a person feels extremely sleepy and needs to sleep to recover it.
Using the dream godhead, Uchiha Tenmei could force people into the Dream Divine Kingdom, but the cost of doing so was too high.
However, while people were sleeping, Uchiha Tenmeicould bring them into the Dream Divine Kingdom at a very low cost.
In fact, whether or not a person dreams while sleeping, they form a tiny dream realm in the dream world, and their soul projection appears within it.
When not dreaming, the dream realm is dark, and the soul projection is also asleep.
When dreaming, the dream realm is the scene of the dream, and the soul projection is active within it.
This leads to the situation where, if one doesn't dream, the sleep is very sound and refreshing.
If one dreams, they wake up feeling particularly tired, as if they didn't sleep well.
Pulling a player's soul projection into the Dream Divine Kingdom is equivalent to making them dream; they will wake up more exhausted and may even need more sleep to recover their spiritual power.
It could be said that players don't play the game without a cost. Ideally, while paying a price, they should also gain enough rewards to keep them playing.
For most Ninja, actual combat in the Dream Divine Kingdom is attractive enough, but it's still not enough; they can't fight every single day.
Compared to combat, Ninja want to increase their power even more.
Through the dream godhead, Uchiha Tenmei could increase his own power, and he could likewise increase the players' power.
If playing the game can increase their power, as long as the increase isn't too small, he believed Ninja would keep playing every day.
Ninja need power, but what do Civilians need?
Civilians also need power, but Uchiha Tenmei believed they needed money more.
Young and ambitious Civilians might think power is more important than money, as with power, they could earn more money.
For Civilians who already have families, money is more important.
Even for many low-level Ninja, obtaining money is more important than increasing their power.
Giving players power was easy to solve, but giving them money was a troublesome matter. However, having lived two lives, Uchiha Tenmei thought of a way to solve this.
It's a game, so there must be game currency. He could completely use the spiritual power collected by the Dream Divine Kingdom as game currency and allow players to trade it among themselves.
Players could use game currency to increase their own power or trade it to obtain money.
He believed that wealthy people wouldn't mind spending money to buy game currency to increase their own strength.