Chapter 4

AN/ Why, oh why. Fate did not want me to post this chapter Friday. Not only did I have school stuff to fix that shouldn’t even be an issue but for some reason my auto correct went crazy when I was typing and every other word pages changed to the wrong word. Even when I spelled something correct( hey, it happens sometimes) it still insisted that I was wrong and gave me an incorrect spelling. Still I could have had this chapter out yesterday if not for two reasons. The first is that I wanted to get to a certain point by the end of the chapter and for some reason it took twice as many pages as I thought it would take. As I’ve said before I suck at coming up with names. That includes people and places. Anyone have any suggestions for cities? Thats it. I won’t waste anymore space(even though I could actually rant for about a page and a half on my last three days).

Ps.( The second reason is because I’m a lazy procrastinator)

Pss. I also just realized I have no Idea how to change previous post and I am too tired and annoyed to figure it out.

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I woke up feeling refreshed.  This was the first time since becoming a God that I've been able to rest. If you call falling unconscious a rest that is. While it was a nostalgic feeling I probably shouldn't make a habit out of it. Standing up from the couch I just started to stretch when Coco came charging at me. Before I had time to say a word she tackled me to the couch and proceeded to slobber all over me.

 "Really coco! Ack! What is with you. Stop licking me!" 

Shirley came strutting into the room and sat on the couch next to me. She took one glance at Coco attacking me and gave her paw a vicious strike across Coco’s face. The power in the strike was more the I expected as Coco flew across the room only to immediately get back up again. Shirley causal stepped into my lap like it was her property and fell asleep. Coco having brushed off Shirley's attack jumped around me in excitement before bounding out of the house. Weird. I wonder how long I was out for? I glanced at the clock which indicated that it was  10'0 clock. Looks like I was out for 10 hours. My eyes passed over the calendar causing me to double take. This can't be right! I was unconscious for five years! My mind couldn't handle this information. What happened to my new fairy, what happened to Leon? 

I quickly cast my scrying technique and focused on the fairy handmaiden. She was currently neck deep in battle with a ogre. The ogre was nine feet tall dressed in a loincloth. He had a club that he was swinging with uncanny efficiency. Fairies were usually the first responders when their forest was invaded by monsters. Their jobs were to slow the monsters down to allow time for the elves to mobilize and finish off the target. A swarm of fairies surrounded the ogre banishing their magic to little to no effect. Only when the fairies struck at the ogre’s eyes did it show any kind of irritation. Only the fairy handmaiden was powerful enough to stand up to the monster but even that seemed like a losing battle. The handmaiden peppered the ogre with small fire balls that rocked him back and caused him to become unbalanced with every impact and stumble back. Unfortunately those attacks seemed to do very little damage. 

I thought I made the fairy handmaiden’s strong. Has something gone wrong? Did I make a mistake when I created her core? The swarm of fairies tried to help as they coordinated their attacks in time with the handmaidens impacts but the ogre, even when off balanced, was able to strike down fairies with every swing of his club. The fairies were ineffective against this enemy and I could do nothing but watch, after all, this was their world and their life. They deserved to live and die according to their will. 

Suddenly the ogre screamed. One hand raised to cover a wounded eye the other swinging it’s club franticly back and forth. I saw a flash dart away from the ogre’s face and take to the air. There a pixie looked down at the intruder, a bloody metal fragment in its hand. Did this pixie attack that ogre. Interesting. The pixies as a whole were a lot less intelligent than their fairy counterparts and did not have their talent with magic either. While physically superior to fairies, relying on their incredible speed, pixies were not known to engage in battle much, let alone use weapons. I’ll have to keep my eye on that pixie in the future.

 The fairy handmaiden continued to pepper the ogre, making it stumble farther and farther away until the ogre rocked past the forest boundary. Once the ogre passed the boundary the handmaiden turned her back to it and proceeded to head back into the forest. The ogre roared before charging straight towards my fairy. The ogre barely made two steps before he was engulfed in a pillar of flame that reached the clouds. I was so shocked that I almost jump off my seat and dislodged Shirley from my lap. 

The handmaiden showed no outward change as she headed back into her forest with out so much as a glance at her former prey. The pillar died showing a corpse, broken and scattering to the winds. I see, I think I understand now. Fire is a dangerous element when you’ve made your home in the forest. It seems she used the bare minimum amount of power to push her foe out of the forest, this way she could finish it off with her full power without endangering her home. It seems I’ve underestimated her, she was indeed powerful. I suspect that without her that ogre would have made it rather deep inside the forest causing many casualties and injuries to the fairies before the elves arrived as back up. 

I follow her back to the few fairies that seem to have been injured during the fight. She began issuing orders for the injured to be carried away and the scouts to resume their patrol. It seemed she commanded a lot of respect among the fairy population. I also pick up that she was called Prya. It seem I can leave the forest to her for the time being so I switch my focus to Leon.

 So apparently it’s been a little more than five years since Leon has been born into the bear beast tribe. I found him with relative ease and observed him for a while. Right now he was sitting in a tree watching the younger generation of bear beast men practice fighting for dominance. He had all the features one would expect of a beast man but it was obvious he was different at a glance. 

Every member of this tribe had brown or black hair. Leon had long shaggy blond hair. While Leon’s face showed the tell tale signs of the beast tribe, with elongated facial features and furry ears on top of his head, Leon’s face was a little to long when compared to the other bear men. His ears while on the top of his head were larger, more cat like, than the small stumpy ears that the rest had. His eyes had slit like pupils and his body was more lean when compared to his stocky children counter parts. 

 I observed his interactions with the tribe and it was plain to see that the younger generation didn’t like him. Most adult eyed him as a curiosity, as they had never heard of a cat beast man but here one was, born to two bears. Or so they say. Having very little friends he watched and observed constantly. He was such a quiet child that I really didn’t know what to make of him. He chose to flee when faced with the violence and taunts of the other children, using his superior speed to his advantage. But I couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or bad. I watched him help a fallen baby bird back into his nest. He just seemed to kind to make it far as a beast man let alone as a leader of all tribes. I wanted him to be a kind and just ruler but the founding principle of the tribes are power is everything, survival of the fittest. The tribes constantly fought for dominance and if he wasn’t willing to crush a few of his people he would be doomed to the bottom of the tribe. Still he was only five years old. Maybe I’m being a little harsh. Besides, ruling through power is not the only way one can lead. True, power is something that all the tribes respect and it would be the easiest way to bind them together, but that doesn’t mean a gentler touch couldn’t also be as effective. While his kindness, while not unwelcome, does cause me to worry, I’m sure he will toughen up soon enough. After all his father is a solider of this tribe and Leon is already at the age when he can start being train in combat for both his human form and the beast men’s natural animal form. 

Next I checked on the dwarves who haven’t changed at all in the last five years before moving on to the human cities. The middle city of Xaisor was in the middle of repairs. Their walls were breached and a portion of the city destroyed.  Humans were a difficult species for me to involve myself in. As a human myself I felt the need to help as much as I can but I also realized just how powerful the potential of humans are. Take my world for example. We didn’t have magic, yet we thrived on our own ingenuity and intelligence. Given the chance I felt that these humans too will reach great heights. I didn’t want them to go the technological route that my old world did but I also didn’t want to interfere with them when I knew that they were capable of surviving on their own. I’d have to think more on what I could do to help the humans with out showing favoritism and throwing the world out of balance. Time to get to work. 

I gently moved Shirley onto the couch and went to the storage rack where I kept the six pseudo cores I finished before I passed out. I already had plans for all six that I just needed to put into action. I grabbed four cores with my magic which caused them to hover around me and headed out side. I sat down in an open field near Coco who was playfully teasing the passing dears and boars by running around them before giving them a playful slap that sent the animals tumbling down. Now that I mention it, both Shirley and Coco seem abnormally strong and durable. Umm, I’ll have to investigate this at a later time. 

My first task was something that I thought this world desperately needed. After I first observed the world I realized that known magic was mostly comprised of the five basic elements of fire, water, wind, earth and lightning. All spells were derived from those elements. As I observed the elements and their properties I discovered an alarming thing. None of the current elemental magic allowed for healing magic. To me this is quite a dangerous realization. On earth we had advanced technology to the point where for most of the world, diseases and injures were no longer life threatening. At least compared to the earlier days of our civilization. Here, in this world where modern science, or really any kind of science, is almost unheard of, the danger of diseases and injuries are a blight on the people. Diseases and infections are more of a threat to all sentient life than any war or monster. Any injury in battle leads to permanent disability if not death. With people fighting for there lives all the time, having people who can heal the injured and sick will not only raise the population but also allow for their cultivators to live longer and grow stronger. Even the elves and dwarves are not immune to these dangers. Right now the world only knows of medicine men and women whose knowledge is woefully inadequate and sometimes down right dangerous. 

What I want to do is allow for a new element to be manipulated that will allow for healing magic to ease the stress of diseases and injuries. How am I going to do that? By winging it of course. In fiction light magic is known to be the bases for healing and support magic. But I don’t think that giving people the ability to manipulate light will suddenly allow for them to heal people. Light doesn’t work that way. Fortunately I am now a god.

 I bring bring three of the four cores in front of me and  start forcing it to absorb the energy and essence of light. This is quite delicate as light and fire are two sides of the same coin. It takes a while for me to be able to differentiate between the two but soon I’m able to push the cores to the side and have the cores absorb the light outside with out having to concentrate too much on them. These cores will be a lot easier to make than the fire handmaiden one. For one I don’t need to raise their potential by that much. I just want to introduce light magic to the world first, allowing for these core’s decedents to have a light magic affinity. Secondly I don’t have to shape the core much as all I’m doing is adding an affinity to it. The three cores are hovering to the side absorbing light magic at a somewhat decent rate so i bring most of my attention the the fourth core I brought out. 

I’ve been making a lot of changes to the fairies and have been making a lot of plans to improve the elves, beast tribes, humans and dwarves. But what I haven’t done yet was see how I can help the other races of the world that are labeled as monsters. I don’t believe anyone is born a monster. Monster is just a word used to spread fear and hate. After all, these creatures are just trying to survive. Do humans not seem like monsters to other animals. Are humans monsters just because they hunt to survive. Because these creatures prey on humans, elves, dwarves and beast men they are called monsters but that is just a bias opinion. All creatures deserve to live, all creatures deserve the freedom to make their own choices. Helping the fairies and humans while ignoring the other creatures of this world doesn’t seem like something a god of balance would do. Good and evil are just two sides of the same coin. 

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I wave my hand in the air and scry the world for the giant species. They will be the ones I will influence first. The reason I chose them was because, for the most part, they seem to  mostly fight with the dwarves. The dwarves have very few dangers since they’re holed up in their mountain and they should be able to handle the giants, even with the improvements I had in mind. I also chose the giants because of the idea I had to improve them. Looking at the giants, they mostly either venture out alone or form small groups of 4-5. Not only that but their intelligence is seriously lacking. Probably on average their intelligence is equivalent to a three year old. That got me thinking. Giants seem to be just really big toddlers with no understanding of right and wrong. Sure they eat people, but to them, it’s just like if I would eat a hotdog. If I could bring them together like I plan to do for the beast tribe and the fairies, then they could be a powerful force. Bringing them together as a powerful force won’t do much good with their intelligence as it is. Worst case, they come together and rampage across the continent. No, while bringing them together is an idea down the road what they need is intelligence. If I could increase the newer generation’s intelligence then they might be able to build villages, farms and form alliances with their neighbors instead of constantly attacking every one they see. I grab the fourth pseudo core and start whispering to it.

 “Observe your surrounding young one.”

 “Learn from your mistakes.”

 “Arn’t you a curious one.” 

On this core I only need to encourage the soul to be curious and hungry for knowledge while giving the core the instructions to raise the creatures intelligence. 

All four cores are done in a month. Having pseudo cores has greatly decreased the time needed for the finished product not to mention that all 4 of these core were only enhanced in one area. Putting on the final touches, I take the three light cores and start to tweak the properties of light these core’s will be using. Light is growth, light is energy. For this to work I have to be able to make the connection between the light element and the healing magic. Basically I tweak the property of the light to stimulate cell growth in the body and vitalize the body. This is done by converting the light magic into energy that supercharges the body’s recovery speed. Converting light magic into energy the body can use will not only increase one regeneration but also enhance the body to become stronger, faster, tougher depending on where you direct the energy. This way, when some one cuts their arm, light magic can be used to stimulate the cell causing the wound to heal right before your eyes.

 I take out the last two pseudo cores from the house and get right to work with the first one. This one will be the next fairy handmaiden with the element of water. I focus first on the core’s affinity and connection towards water. This I can do with little thought and allow it to absorb the water from the lake and air while pushing it to the side so I can concentrate the rest of my attention on the last core. 

For this core I want to do something about the goblin race. The goblins are simple creatures that lack not only intelligence but also strength. They make up for this by having an incredible reproduction rate. Probably the greatest after the giant Arachne species. What I wanted to do was evolve the species like I have been doing with the fairies. I looked at the pseudo core and tried to think of a way to do this. Nothing came to mind. The core’s are great ways to exert some influence towards the newer generation’s growth, but when dealing with the current generation my cores are just not that compatible. With the fairies I was able to take advantage of the elemental connection to form a buffer and catalyst as well as their deep magic that is otherwise useless to change and evolve a single fairy into a higher existence. This method won’t work for many other species, if at all.

 I tried to think. What gives change to allow a new species to form? DNA. I concentrate on my power and materialize a small dagger. Have I mentioned how cool it is being a god. I poke my finger enough to draw blood and will the drop to levitate in front of me. My wound instantly heals. I ponder the drop of blood for a moment before focusing some of my free magic into my eyes. I stare at the drop of blood, peering deeper and deeper. I see millions of different cells from red blood cells, to white blood cells, platelets and plasma. I focus into the red blood cell and see the different components of the cell. The nucleus, the mitochondria, all is bare before my eyes. I dive deep into the nucleus to my DNA. It’s so small I wrap my magic to amplify the image of the section of the DNA I’m looking at, making it easier to scroll through my DNA and view the base pairs. I use my magic to poke and prod my DNA and realize that it wouldn’t take much to make changes. Like this, I could probably use this as a bases for manipulating the DNA of the goblins and cause change in the current generation. 

There is one problem though. I have no idea what changes will cause what mutations. I’m looking at a strand of DNA but it’s useless if I don’t know how to manipulate it to cause the desired effect. What I need is a system or program that would simplify the whole process. Kind of like in those MMORPGs. If you reach the right requirements then you can select the type of change you want to undergo and presto. Your very genetic makeup is changed. Is it possible to create a system like that. I kind of did something similar with the status screen magic. I look into the core to see if I can manipulate the DNA from the core but of course I can’t. The core is something I made and doesn't have any DNA to change. When a core is formed, a type of a soul is created and shaping that soul gives me some influence early on in the fetus’s development. Changing a bear cub to a lion cub is actually not that difficult because the base is already built. Changing a bear cub to a goblin or a dwarf is all but impossible by this method. Seems like I need another method to influence my world.

 I glance at a corner of my realm that I hardly ever pay attention to and set my sight on the small white light in the corner. That was suppose to lead me to a common realm shard by the different gods. To be honest I almost forgot about it’s existence. Maybe they will have some advice for me and give me a better understanding about things in general? I’ve mostly just been winging it. It’s decided then. I’ll finish this last core and then head on out to the unknown. 

I sent the pseudo core back to its place on the rack and gave the water fairy handmaiden’s core my full attention. It took me a month to complete the three light cores and the giant core with my attention and power divided between them. For the handmaiden it took me around the same time. Not only did I have to shape the core and whisper my influence but I also had to add an water affinity and increase it’s potential to gold rank. Pretty good for a months work if i do say so myself. With the cores done I  wait until the day of the full moon and set out to find suitable host. 

I look into the elven city and find a pregnant elf. Hehehe, won’t they be surprised. I head to the human city of Xaisor and find a medicine wife and farmer husband already 2 months pregnant. This will do perfectly. Not only will this child grow up with light affinity but will also have a good foundation of this worlds medicine and practices. Not only that but as the city is in the middle of the other human cities it will make traveling to get healed easier than having to travel to the opposite side. The last light core I send to the dwarves. surprisingly i don’t have many suitable choices but I pick the family of blacksmiths to birth this light affinity child. 2 more to go.

 I grab the giant’s core and scry for a giant that is suitable. I find a few but most of these giants are not good parents. Sometimes they are abusive to their kids, sometimes they abandon them and sometimes they just don’t understand how to take care of a baby and neglect it for to long leading to it’s death. I pull up the stats of the expecting mothers skipping most of the information about them to find some who already have had children who have survived. I finally settle on a giant named Shelly. I send off the core to it’s new host and watch helplessly as a sudden attack of anxiety built up in my stomach. It quickly passed but it worried me all the same. Am I interfering to much in the world? Did I make a mistake in the creation of that core? Perhaps it was a coincidence and I was sensing a disturbance in the force? Whatever it was, it seems like this is definitely a good time to take a break for a few hours. After I initiate my new fairy handmaiden of course. 

Night had fallen and I scry to the elven city. I already know which fairy to choose. It wasn’t an easy decision either. Unlike the fire fairy, there were quite a few fairies that loved water.  I search for a suitable water source to send out my calling. I decide on the huge water fountain in the center of the city. 

“Come” I say as I infuse my voice with my mana.

 “Come little fairies, it’s time to dance and sing! Come, Come, Come!” 

Soon fairies are streaming into the plaza, surrounding the fountain. Last time they were nervous and confused. Now there was a nervous excitement in the air. I let my voice float softly on the wind.

 “Sing my fairies, dance. There is a full moon out. Let us celebrate!”

 I already knew that most of my message wouldn’t get through but I tried to send out emotions of excitement, wonder and fun. The fairies began to sing, slowly at first, but it increased with every passing minute. Elves began to appear outside the mass of fairies, curiosity plain in their eyes. There were a lot more this time than last time. Music filled the air and the fairies began to dance. Once again magic filled the air electrifying the fairies, enticing and encouraging them to madness. Prya stood on the outside. At first she was studying each fairy but a time went on and the magic filled the air it was obvious that she was desperately trying to control herself. She was such a clever girl, was she trying to figure out which fairy was going to become a handmaiden?

 A few pixies hovered beyond the elves. I only recognized one of them. As the magic reached it's peak I focused in on a small average fairy. She stood out in no outstanding way, forced to the edge of the mass of fairies. “What are you waiting for little one. This is your night.” Rain clouds formed and soon a thick rain fell. Interesting. I didn't do that. Drenched in rain, the small average fairy’s smile grew even bigger. She rose to the storm clouds spinning about before power diving straight into the fountain. Once she made contact with the water I shot the core at her. 

Everything stopped as the fairies gathered around the fountain but the fairy had disappeared. Prya looked on with an ecstatic expression on her face. Soon a torrent of water shot out of the fountain into the sky. The rain clouds disappeared and floating above the plaza was a stunning fairy. At 2’1 her hair grew down her back and into a light blue color. Her features perfect with out a flaw. Her wings before were like all fairies, thin but plain. Now they looked like glass featuring designs of calm seas, storms raging and tsunami’s striking. Looking down at her audience she gave a cute shy smile before making eye contact with Prya. They both flew at each other at the same time, both wearing a huge grin. They grabbed each other’s hand twirled around, laughing non stop. The other fairies and elves exploded into activity as they went to meet their new handmaiden. I would have liked to stay and enjoy the party but I had places to go and gods to meet.