Chương 47: Chapter 46: Blessings and Rivalries

Kael exited the system shop with mixed feelings, as he was surprisingly invited by a god for a round of talk that, in the end, got him an ancient blessing and solved all the problems he had worried about last night. The god who blessed him was Aeta, a god with a ranger class like him. It was really nice meeting the guy. They had a long talk; he even gave him an orb that bound him closer to nature and allowed his body to absorb mana more easily.

Then they had a little archery lesson, and the god told him a lot of tricks for hitting moving targets. The negative part was the talk they had about the special quest. Ankhet Sekhmara was a mortal who defeated time and lived before the great apocalypse, which happened over 500 eras ago, erasing all life. Somehow, that guy had survived, and his soul was repairing itself slowly, and the undead faction was supporting him in all aspects.

The gods couldn't see into the tutorial, but the worth that guy held for the undead faction meant all their gods were probably trying to bless as many survivors as possible. A group of powerful gods didn't want to sit by while the undead faction gained such an asset, mostly the stronger gods and those close to the undead faction. This also led to him being blessed. A blessing weakens the god if he doesn't get his payout when the mortal fails to reach godhood.

So, even though the situation was urgent, even the strongest gods could only bless a few people in the tutorial. Another message that disappointed him was that his god was on good terms with Solarion, who apparently was one of the oldest and strongest gods in existence, and to his dismay, was also the god who had blessed Steven. This forced them into some kind of alliance. At least he didn't need to interact with that guy too much. The only good thing was that war and attacks were out of the question now.

The open question was, what were the orcs or those other humans up to? His patron would inform him if he got news. The blessed at F grade could only talk twice a week with their gods, but it should be enough to give them a big advantage over those without a blessing. Being blessed by a god gave so many advantages. First, he bought some extra districts for his settlement and one whole district where he would place the new citizens. The district was isolated, and leaving it was not possible without permission.

They could of course go out hunting but not enter the living district of his current citizens. This was exactly what they needed. Next was the equipment. He had a new bow, dagger, short sword, and an enchanted cloak that could even block weak strikes and made it harder to notice him when he didn't move. Oh, and all three weapons were spirit weapons, which was great and overpowered. He had 110, 000 credits, and to be able to buy that much was too good to be true.

The reason for it was that he could now buy items in the systemshop related to his god that were reserved for only those with a strong blessing. He turned to Kai and Sylas, who had all evolved together with him, and both had new equipment and big smiles on their faces.

"I guess you also got blessed," Kael asked with a smile on his face.

"Seems like it," Kai nodded. No wonder Steven had it so easy with such power.

"Let's check what the others got," Sylas said excitedly while moving to the door. Kai and Kael followed him. After a short walk, they met Annie and Jakob. Both were in some kind of sparring match, completely destroying the room.

"Hey, stop," Kai yelled, which was unusual for him since he was normally the calm one.

"Yes, sir," Jakob said, stopping instantly as they looked at them.

"So you got blessed too?" Kael asked, pointing out the obvious since both had new clothing, and Annie was wearing a diadem with a blue crystal in the middle that glowed with blue light.

"Yes, there is just one thing: I was blessed by the same god as those water witches," Annie blurted out.

"That is actually not unwelcome. We need to contact them anyway at some point," Kael said deep in thought.

"So I guess we don't have to worry about them anymore?"

"I don't know. The goddess just told me that I need to go there because of the natural treasures in the ocean and that the blessing would keep me safe," Annie said, looking at the ground.

"I don't really want to go there—they enslaved us." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"See it like this: you are just there to steal their resources, and then you leave," Kai said calmly.

"Which god blessed you?" Jakob asked Sylas since the mage had a completely different outfit than before.

"I'm blessed by Eryndor." He explained proudly.

"I guess they truly don't want this Ankhet to survive this tutorial," Kael murmured deep in thought.

"Let's check in with the orc and the girl. If we're blessed, they are too," Kai said while walking in the direction of the other tower where the two were residing. <-- Steven was very unhappy with the situation. His all-mighty patron was now throwing out blessings left and right. Even that brute Thorwald had gotten a legendary one, which powered him up even more.

The worst thing: he was forbidden to openly war against Kael and his people because the gods were in some kind of alliance against the guy from the special event. He was even ordered to share resources with them. This whole tutorial should have been his show. When he conquered it, he would join Solarion's chosen with a powerful army after the tutorial. Now, a lot of people were competing for this spot, especially Thorwald, who straight-up baptized everyone who didn't have a blessing.

He said it was for their survival, but Steven knew it was just for his power and to get in the good graces of the people. It was also his first move against Steven because everyone knew now that he could have baptized them too, giving them a significant power-up. Steven also wanted to use this to reward the loyalists among his followers, but now he could forget about that.

He had to tell them a story where he was advised by the god not to baptize people lightly, but this had changed now with the appearance of the special event. With that, he, Thorwald, and some light warrior named Joe were in a battle over who could baptize the most people. Joe, sadly, was Thorwald's biggest fan and helped him with everything.

Another thing that deeply annoyed Steven was that he had shown weakness by not baptizing his people in the first place, making Thorwald seem more competent, which infuriated him. That brute being better than him? Unacceptable. At least he still had a few levels on that guy and, at the moment, was stronger.

He also made sure that some of his followers were spreading the story that he had saved Thorwald from the umbral predator, which Thorwald didn't manage to fight, showing everybody that he was stronger and the recent power-up meant nothing. To his disdain, many rumors were spreading that it was only due to Steven having a blessing at the time. Some even said he could only defeat the umbral predator because Thorwald weakened the beast significantly. Anyway, it was time for some hunting and leveling.

Thorwald still hated Kael, and maybe an opportunity would present itself where he could get rid of both troublemakers. He just needed to keep his lead on them. With a beat of his wings, he flew into the air to hunt his first beast of the day. <-- Mazu was worried. She was one of the gods closest to the Eternal Dominion and not a weak one either. Near her was a faction of liches, one of the most powerful undead factions. At first, she thought herself quite lucky at the arrival of the integration.

As she found, on one of the innumerable worlds integrated into the new universe, people with high water affinity. This was quite rare since most of the planets with dense water-affinity mana were often dominated by beasts. She had given some of the Marquess family her blessing, but now she was forced to invest heavily in one of the tutorials to hopefully prevent the rebirth of one of Amun-Ra's direct disciples. This situation was almost hopeless, but she needed to believe that it was possible.

If that being was allowed to join the Eternal Dominion, it could get very dangerous for her. Most undead factions were part of the Eternal Dominion, and they all would go far to help Ankhet. Luckily, she was not the only god who didn't want the Eternal Dominion to gain such an asset—a living being that had survived the extinction. Hopefully, that thing would never exit the tutorial. Normally, if special events happened in the tutorial, she told her subjects to create a base in the ocean.

There, they were safe, as most beings struggled with fighting underwater. Especially in the early grades, and her blessed could use the unlimited supply of water to fuel their spells more effectively. This event was different. Her people would definitely not be safe from Ankhet Sekhmara, even on the ocean. She was a goddess of water, specializing in killing the undead.

While she was very good at healing miasma wounds or inflicting massive damage on the undead, she knew that none of her skills passed down through her blessing would help them much in fighting Ankhet Sekhmara. Her only hope was that they could eliminate the presence of the undead faction and then unite to kill Ankhet, though with great losses. That was a price she was prepared to pay. If he was allowed to exit the tutorial, the whole new universe would be in danger.

Another thing that helped her mission significantly was that the strongest gods in almost every integration gave out their divine blessings to gather more endless energy. Those projects were now in danger because Ankhet would easily kill the chosen ones of those gods. The chosen ones had many advantages, especially from the stronger gods, making it almost impossible to kill them. Most of the time, the only way they died was when they fought against another chosen of a different god.

This was a means for gods to weaken their opponents, because losing someone holding a divine blessing meant that the god wouldn't get back their investment, which would permanently weaken the god. This explains why many gods put their grudges aside for now and invested heavily in the tutorial to kill Ankhet Sekhmara. She could only hope they would succeed in their mission.