How can a mere man hope to define divinity? It is a herculean task to limit to words that which has escaped the bounds of life and death.

Unless, of course, they haven’t. Historical records show that the mechanics underlying godhood have remained constant over the last millennia. It is unclear what happened to these exceptional individuals before the Chrysalis System, if they even existed at all.

The public knows two truths about godhood. At some point, the light of the System halts the bodily processes associated with aging and cellular degeneration. And that from that point on, advanced Users gradually become more resistant to wounds and more capable of recovering from them.

When do they cross that final threshold into being an unkillable God? When do they gain the abilities for which they are famous, those that can violently rend entire cities from the face of the Earth?

An excerpt from Modern Power: The Glory of Gods, by Jasper Roltae

* * *

A week later, I sat exhausted on the floor of the training cellar. We’d just finished a challenging practice bout, one that I hadn’t come close to winning. It was my latest defeat among dozens.

“Your size should be your greatest advantage,” Delta lectured. He smacked my shoulder blade with the flat of a wooden practice blade. It stung.

“It’s not feeling that way,” I said.

“That’s because right now it isn’t. Until you learn to leverage your body you’re just an oversized target. Don’t give them more to hit. There’s no advantage to being big if you’re going to be clumsy.”

He’d drilled that into my mind over the past week’s worth of bouts, and I knew any objections I had would fall on deaf ears. It wasn’t worth wasting my breath.

“I understand,” I muttered. “I’ve gotta control my movements. Can’t let you give away a free hit each time.”

Judging by how thoroughly Delta beat me each time we fought, I had a long way to go before I was competent. It reminded me of something my father said: the path to mastery was long and slow.

Although Tyrghul had been talking about blacksmithing, and not the best way to stab people. I was sure the same principles still applied. Compared to Delta, I sucked. There was no nice way to say it.

Grunting, I dragged myself up from the floor. My head still felt a little woozy. I straightened my back and ignored the screaming protests of all of my muscle.

I raised my blade. It was made of real iron, though the metal was dull and ill-maintained. It was an ancient style of sword called a Claymore, and even if it was sharp, it couldn’t cause him lasting damage. He’d heal through it in a heartbeat.

Delta raised a single eyebrow at me, asking an unspoken question: did I want to go again? I met his eyes and nodded firmly. One more match to add onto dozens. Was it really keeping score if you’d lost countless times?

We faced each other and began once more.

The exchange of blows that followed was mercifully brief. It ended when Delta hit the back of my knee hard, which caused my leg to buckle and forced me into a kneeling position. Then he’d held his blade against my throat.

I yielded.

“You tower over most men,” Delta barked. “You should be able to bat them around. Demand control of an arena by merit of scale alone! A grown man is like a child compared to you! Act like it!”

I groaned in response. That didn't seem fair to me.

“Is a grown man able to move faster than my eye can follow? Or catch an arrow as it flies at him?” I asked. “If someone like you is a child compared to me, then I should hate to see the day you grow up.”

Both were feats that I’d seen my enigmatic teacher perform over the past week. Even with him holding back, he was not ordinary. Speaking of which, I was becoming increasingly convinced that Delta was a pseudonym. But that begged the question: why would someone choose to be named after the mouth of a river?

Delta craned his neck at me and considered, absent-mindedly twirling his sword through the air as he thought. Even carelessly, his wrist moved in a perfect circle.

“One with advanced enough Dexterity, maybe. Catching an arrow should be possible around Dexterity X. Explosive movement comes with Might, but that’s difficult to sustain."

“That question wasn’t meant to be answered,” I said.

“Then why did you ask it?”

Delta frustrated me to no end.

“Enough of this already!” I exclaimed. “I’m beginning to think you enjoy knowing more than I do.”

“I wouldn’t be a very good teacher if I didn’t.”

I raised my blade. He raised his eyebrow. I nodded. We began again, an unspoken understanding passing between us.

Delta enjoyed waiting for his opponent to come to him. I approached from his side this time and tried to sneak past the guard of his fake sword that had often caught my own. In response, he ducked low and sent an elbow flying into my gut. I saw his move coming. That didn’t prevent me from going down onto the mat with a wheeze. That was going to leave a bruise. I could already feel it forming.

“I’m beginning to think you like how the mat feels,” Delta mocked. “Maybe that’s why you keep losing.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d give to wipe the floor with him just once. I'd do anything to remove the smug grin from his face.

“I keep losing because you are a god! Not because I am incapable, even if you might be limiting yourself!” I snapped back at him.

“You’ve yet to win any bout by merit of skill, Ghul. I will allow you to best me, but only once you’ve earned it.”

That was a load of cow-dung if I’d ever heard one.

“You’ve presented me with an impossible task!”

“The divines are not omnipotent,” Delta stated. “So, it is not impossible. You must be able to best one in a trial of arms. It is the minimum required for you to protect Callie.”

Delta stretched one of his arms back behind his head. It still felt like he hadn’t warmed up. There wasn’t a bead of sweat visible on him.

“But worry not,” he said. “You’ve got five years of service before you’ll be called for the task. That’s plenty of time to learn to perform adequately.”

That’s not at-all scary, I thought. ‘Ghul, you’ve got five years to be able to scrap with a divine!’

“And what if I don’t? What if I’m never able to stand toe to toe with an immortal?”

Delta grimaced. “Then you die. Painfully.”

“You understand that’s not reassuring, right?” I said. “I haven’t won a fight yet.”

“In all fairness, I think you might be underestimating yourself,” Delta replied. “An ordinary man wouldn’t have been able to hit your stomach hard enough to topple you. That flanking move you tried might’ve worked against someone else. Still, it’s sloppy form to rely on tricks.”

I chucked a nearby pebble at him in response.

“If an ordinary man wouldn’t be capable of hitting me like that, then why did you?”

Delta gave a dark laugh.

“Because I’m not preparing you to fight ordinary men.”

Despite the brutal instruction, our morning practice wasn’t supposed to be the hardest part of my day. Later in the evening, we’d have a session dedicated to practicing [Empower], the ability that used the System to enhance the force of your blows.

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He helped me up from my spot on the ground, and then spoke.

“Let’s break for lunch. There’s someone you should meet tonight.”

That wasn’t a good sign. Mysterious strangers aside, we never broke before the midday bell.

Over the course of the past week, I’d had my enthusiasm worked out of me. I felt dog-tired. My stay at Alewife House hadn’t been a pleasant one.

To clarify, Alewife House is the name of the oversized manor where I was staying. I’d heard the men of the garrison joke it was named after the two things that were both absent from here - ale and wives. Later, I found out that the truth of the matter was that it’s named after a fish local to the area.

I began every day with ‘conditioning’ exercises with the men of the garrison. The exercises consisted of running, body weight movement, and chores. Despite the large amount of ground staff nearby, it was the duty of the garrison to ensure Alewife House’s maintenance.

After conditioning, I had swordsmanship practice with Delta. That time was usually dedicated to the correcting of technique and the creation of combat instinct. It was hard but fulfilling, and I felt I had already made some sizable steps in a week under his tutelage.

Following lunch, I had my least favorite time of the day: Statecraft lectures. Jacobi’s household expected me to be able to accurately recite the history of New Rome, so they’d arranged for me to be tutored. The tutor was a man named Voltani who had a hellish personality and a boring voice.

Also, the more those lectures revealed to me what I didn’t know, the more upset I got. The wealthier parts of the Empire had public education. Schools for children that lasted until the beginning of adolescence. Lille had nothing of the sort.

Speaking of lunch, I ate most of my meals alone. The members of the garrison had a casual familiarity between them, and it’d been made clear by snide looks that I wasn’t welcome among them.

Things changed that day, though. There was an unfamiliar face in the dining hall. The first new person since I’d arrived at Alewife House. A person who would become a friend.

It began with a stolen seat.

I served myself a hefty plate of the questionable mixture of oats and sliced fruit, and walked over to my regular spot. Only, I suddenly found it occupied. Someone had taken it.

He was a bookish boy with bifocals and long, golden-blonde hair parted down the middle. He sat hunched up on the seat. Neither of his feet touched the ground. His nose was nestled in between the pages of a book. I doubted he could see anything; it was only because I looked at him from above that I could see his face at all.

His clothes were fine. He wore a deep-blue overcoat embroidered with silver flowers covered his midsection. He had a cape of silk dotted with golden stars hanging off his back. His boots looked like he hadn’t walked more than a dozen miles in them. Personally, I thought the mismatched metallic colors clashed. I doubted he cared. He looked like money.

I fought to control my disgust. We were opposites, him and I. He wore more wealth than I’d ever held.

I sat down across from him and ate my fruit-oat slop. It’s a meal that makes noise- a lot of noise. It’s obnoxious to listen to. I made sure the sound created by the movement of the spoon in the bowl was loud enough for him to hear. A lovely grinding noise.

He lowered his book and noted my presence. I kept eating. He put his book down and made an exasperated noise. I kept eating, pretending not to hear him. He glared.

I was feeling ornery. He’d taken my spot, so he could at least provide me with some entertainment.

He cleared his throat at me. “Do you mind?”

I met his eyes. I lifted the bowl of slop up in one palm and offered it to him.

“Oh, I’m sorry. That was horribly rude of me,” I chastised myself. “Would you like some? I know that I’m supposed to share.”

“Gladly, my friend,” he said. “I just don’t have a spoon.”

He pushed his closed book to the side, away from where he was sitting.

“But that’s never stopped me before!”

He cupped his hand and scooped slop directly from my bowl. He brought his hand up to his face and lapped the food into his mouth like a dog would water.

A mixture of porridge and spit dribbled down his chin. He looked daft, and it nearly made me lose my nerve. I couldn’t reconcile his unhinged behavior with his princely attire. I stared at him.

“Umm,” I said. He’d put me at a loss for words.

“What’s wrong, friend? Do I have something on my face?” He asked.

He did. But I think he knew that. He’d turned my joke on its head. I knew when I’d been outplayed. I smiled.

“Nothing at all.”

“That’s good,” he said with a grin. “Because with the way you were looking at me when you sat down, I’d have thought I suffered from some wildly contagious plague.”

I shook my head. “No, not a plague. But you have committed an unforgivable crime.”

“I’ve hardly been here a morning, and I’ve already done something unforgivable?”

“You stole my seat,” I informed him. “But I’m a kind soul, and I decided you could have it after you shared such a lovely meal with me.”

“Well, I greet you as one kind soul to another. I’m Tobias Oscarii,” he said.

Oscarii was a prim name, I could already tell. His blood was blue.

“It’s good to meet you, Tobias,” I said. “I’m Ghul. No surname.”

I gave him a pointed look, inviting him to take issue with that statement. He didn’t rise to the bait. That was a mark in his favor.

“And it’s good to meet you, Ghul,” he responded. He tried hard to be friendly, although I couldn’t tell how much of it was an act.

“So, how does an Oscarii end up at Alewife House?” I asked him. If he was a patrician, then I figured he was here for a reason.

“I’ve been too much trouble back home in Delavvare, so father sent me here to learn some discipline. I can’t imagine it’s going to work.”

“Trouble? What sort of trouble?”

He’d must’ve been waiting for a question like this because his answer was passionate.

“There’s nothing there for me!” He exclaimed. “No adventure, no humor! My tutor thinks that everything worth doing has already been done! I’ll never go back!”

His hands animated as he spoke, moving to emphasize every word.

“Where will you go? What will you do?”

“Once my System activates, I’ll head for the ruins beneath New Rome.”

He motioned toward his book.

“I’ve been reading an explorer’s account of an impressive network of subterranean tunnels made of stone! Who knows what I’d find down there?”

“Aren’t most subterranean tunnels made of stone?”

I wasn’t sure if he was telling me a joke or not.

His grin flickered back for a second as he answered. “Not like these. These are carved.”

The ruins beneath New Rome were infamous enough that I’d heard of them before in the relative isolation of Lille. I wasn’t sure how much of it was truth and how much of it was exaggerated talk from the bottom of a bottle, but they were known to be dangerous. The kind of place where few men walked and fewer returned.

“You’re young,” I said. “There’s quite some time until the day your System activates. What’ll you do in the meantime?”

“That’s simple. I’ll train. No great hero was made in a day, after all.”

Our conversation meandered from topic to topic, never settling in one place for too long. Later, Tobias asked me to join him for a friendly spar if I ever had a few hours to spare. I agreed, knowing that because of Delta I wouldn’t have the time.

I thought Tobias was far too hopeful and more than a little ambitious. All in all, I liked him. We agreed to speak again at lunch the following day.

In the evening, I had my training session with Delta. It was the one he insisted on calling ‘Application of System Techniques’. It was an odd mix of combat training, informal lecturing, and tinkering with the System and the powers it bestowed.

I’d never actually seen Delta’s [Status], but he’d established a solid estimate of mine through guesswork from our training. He’d even guided me through tweaking it a little after he heard the story about how Ollie had press-ganged me.

I could now display a partial status, or display one with no System attributes at all. He’d explained that there was no way to make the System lie for you, but that you could easily make it obscure things. After he said that, I latched on to his every word.

Delta had unknowingly given me a method to hide the Authority attribute.

Today, a group of strangers joined us. There were four of them. One stood apart from the rest and spoke one-on-one with Delta.

He wore clothing that marked him as a working man, someone who wouldn’t be out of place in the taverns of Lille. The rest wore soldier’s garb and lounged against the wall.

Once they’d finished their conversation, Delta addressed me. “Ghul, I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine. This is Centurion Alexander Grady, the Commander of the Alewife Garrison.”

“Tomorrow, he’s going to take you on a mission to harvest the nanites of a creature unnaturally strengthened by the System,” he said in a monotone. His tone might’ve sounded bored, but his words sent my heart racing.

“They’re commonly known as Horrors. They’re quite lethal. It’s your goal to prove to him tonight that this isn’t a — excuse the pun — horrible idea.”

The ranking officer of Alewife, the man who was supposedly in charge of the whole place in Jacobi’s stead, didn’t look like much to me. But, especially with the System, I knew looks could be deceiving.

Grady spoke. His voice was low and gravelly, and he sounded dismayed.

“You didn’t tell me the boy was part tree when we made our bet, Delta! Look at him! Once the System gets ahold of his growth, he’ll be a titan!”

It already had. Over the past two weeks since I unlocked the System and began to eat a consistent diet of three meals per day, I’d gotten larger. My fitted trousers, ones that had been provided upon my arrival by the Radeos’ quartermaster, were already too small. A region of skin above my ankle was uncomfortably exposed. My limbs had thickened noticeably as I’d put on muscle.

“It doesn’t matter that ‘he’ll be a titan’ if the scamp never makes it out of his cradle,” Delta said.

That didn’t feel like an overwhelming vote of confidence. Aren’t you supposed to be my teacher? I thought. Doesn’t that mean you have to be on my side?

“How am I supposed to prove my worth for the hunt, Master?” I asked. I used the overly formal term of address because I knew it would irk him. It was a petty victory.

“You’re going to fight some of Grady’s men,” he said. “Three of them. Don’t worry, they’ve been told lethal blows are forbidden. Strictly forbidden. But you’ll only be using practice blades, so it’s not like it’ll matter much.”

He threw me a wooden sword, which I caught by the handle and gracefully segued into an ‘at the ready’ position. Even if I lost, none of my opponents could say that I wasn’t stylish. His voice rang out.

“If I can’t get you to leverage your size against an individual, I’ll put you in a position where you’re forced to be big."

I wasn’t sure if that logic checked out.

The three men that leaned against the wall stood and drew three identical wooden blades.

“Remember, you’re supposed to be a giant,” Delta’s voice echoed. “Not a field mouse.”

It got quiet. The only noise was the sound of Delta laughing from the outskirts of the ring.

I raised my sword.