Chương 1

Sometimes, miracles tend to happen. A kid on the brink of death would suddenly recover, a man so sick he couldn't walk would be cured out of random, and a couple who had been barren for years would suddenly be blessed by a child. These things occurred once every blue moon, they are so random that there was no way to determine their arrival. And why would people try? The Gods worked in mysterious ways and thus should never be questioned. Blessings on the other hand... Were also random.

No one knew where they came, and when they did? They turned a regular human into something beyond that, not quite to the powers of the gods of course, but close to it. Somewhat. The gods were infallible, so this train of thought may just prove to be blasphemous when spoken aloud. One of the better examples Sobelle could think of a person blessed by the gods was Thetras, son of Alleon. He was a bear of a man, with muscles that bulged from a young age and a chest that was as wide as a barrel.

His face was rough yet sharp, his eyes fierce yet his movements kind, he had a voice that tickled one's ears when heard and a set of perfectly white teeth. His health was almost perfect, and the only time he was weakened was when a plague ravaged the village. Thetras had turned thin then, but he survived and had gone back to his old self a few months later. Girls loved him and believed that only good things would come if they bore his children, a life of ease with a kind husband would then follow their future.

Compared to that, Sobelle believed that her own blessings lacked by a good margin? She was not to question the Gods' decisions nor did her experience make her lose faith but sometimes, one needed to ask themselves if they were truly blessed or cursed. To Sobelle, the answer came simply in the form of: this was their trial. The Gods wanted to test her. And how they did it was through the transparent square that no one but Sobelle could see.

Every morning, the box would ask her to do six different things: push ups, sit ups, pull ups, weight lifts, jogging, and then sprinting. It was a tortuous chore the gods had given her but Sobelle was anything but meticulous and she finished each one with the eagerness of a wolf pack hunting for winter prey. Sobelle did all of them even when she started to get odd looks from the rest of the villagers and she kept doing them despite her father's constant reminders. And why did she do this? Why that was simple.

The blue boxes didn't just stop at trials, it also gave her some type of measure of her physical self. At first, Sobelle had no idea what any of it meant, but now that she was literate—how she managed this was also thanks to the box— she realized that the words actually represented some aspect of her body. Or her physical self. And this was what it looked like:... [Stats] [Strength: 5] [Endurance: 8] [Dexterity: 6] [Intelligence: 4] [Wisdom: 3] [LeveL: 5] [Stat Points: 15]...

Yes, Sobelle was aware that almost all of the numbers were small. The only thing she had going for her was her [Endurance] and that was mostly because she refused to give up even after her body urged her to stop her tests for a single day. Was this the Gods' plan? She didn't think so, this was merely a meager reward for something she'd do no matter what because getting those numbers up proved her worth to the gods. It showed that she was worthy.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Each stat represented something about her, and each one had different tests. Her daily physical chores were, of course, for things like [Strength], [Endurance], and [Dexterity]. Despite being the harshest trial the boxes offered her, her morning chores didn't take up all of Sobelle's stats. For [Wisdom] Sobelle had to do tests of morality and decision making.

The trials had always emphasized that how she made decisions changed the course of her life and although Sobelle did not agree with this—she believed that everyone but the Gods were subject to the whims of fate, which were ever changing—she still believed that the Gods' wisdom should not be tossed aside. While they did not know about fate due to them being unaffected by the phenomena, they were still Gods and thus their words naturally held wisdom.

[Intelligence] has its own tests separate from [Wisdom] and they come in the form of knowledge. To be more specific, the test was split into two parts: the first part taught her with the intent that she'd memorize everything she was shown and the second part tested her if she truly did retain everything. Right now, this was what Sobelle went through.

She'd done her usual morning stuff, her afternoon was spent working—which was yet again part of the Gods' tests—and her nights were here, in this tiny alcove outside of the village where she had peace. No one gave her odd looks here, mostly because none of the villagers knew where she was. [Fill In the Blanks.] 3 x 1 = 3 3 x 2 =? 3 x 3 =? 3 x 4 =? 3 x 5 =? 3 x 6 =? 3 x 7 =? 3 x 8 =? 3 x 9 =?

3 x 10 = 30 [*Failure will result in a repeat of the test, a delivered shock to the participant, and the application of the [Lethargy] debuff for 24 hours.]... Sobelle had solved the two tests prior to the one she currently took and they were relatively easy. She had learned in the sets of 1s that all she needed to do was place a zero on the questions that had [x 10] and she'd be able to solve them. It was a useful trick, but it never made her any faster when it came to solving everything else.

One measly trick meant nothing to the Gods' trials.

'Well, 2 threes obviously means that I... Wait, I've answered this before! I just need to swap the numbers!' Sobelle remembered that the answer to the question [2 x 3] was 6 so that was what she pressed into the box. She put that question aside, satisfied that she had answered one so easily and promised herself that she'd do the same thing to future questions. That is if the numbers truly were swapped on occasions. So she solved three of the questions already.

Now all that was left were the hard questions, now Sobelle had to truly take this seriously. To answer the fourth question of her test, Sobelle had to manually count how many threes were in a 3 and she answered with a 9. She left the question and started counting more numbers, this time she started with her previous answer, counted another 3, and came to the conclusion of 12. She repeated this and realized that she hadn't needed to act cunning at all!

Constantly adding threes to her previous answers was more than enough to finish this particular test and Sobelle managed to get everything done much faster compared to the previous one. [+1 Intelligence!] Sobelle squealed when she saw the box. This was the most exciting part of doing the Gods: trials! Seeing herself improve in real time was incredibly satisfying and she couldn't get enough of it! She knew deep down that each rise in numbers meant she improved, and who didn't want that?

Improvement made her stronger, or in this case, smarter. But usually stronger. Unfortunately for her, Sobelle knew that even if she had 5 [Intelligence] now, she still wouldn't be able to outwit any of the villagers, let alone her own father. She wanted to be witty enough to insult the man while he remained unaware of what she was doing but that wasn't a possibility at the moment. Maybe in the future.

'It's fine. I just need to endure, it is my highest stat after all!' Sobelle left the alcove and went back to her village, now she wasn't Sobelle the blessed and instead she was Sobelle the Daughter of Saltor; a village guard and one of the men who had successfully protected his bloodline by having 9 surviving children with two different wives.

Saltor's two eldest sons had started their own families as well, although their wives hadn't died from childbirth just yet, it was expected that Idon—the second eldest—would soon have to remarry as his wife had turned very sickly these last few weeks. Sobelle also had an elder sister who had moved to another house after marriage, and she knew that Somie had two kids with her husband so that part of their father's bloodline had been secured as well. At some point, she would be forced to marry as well.

But she had made a deal with her father that as long as Efree hadn't married yet, then she would be safe from being given to another family for marriage. On the way to their house, Sobelle passed by her younger brother and he ignored her like he always did. She did the same. She no longer had time to be worried about being unloved by her sibling, as she had bigger issues to deal with. Like facing her step mother and remaining steeled while she was asked why she came home so late.

Sobelle inhaled and opened the door to their house, the wood let out a screech as its bottom scraped against the stone floor. She walked inside.