Alex flew through the skies of the Zenith Plane, one couldn’t easily teleport through the plane, short range was one thing, but long-range teleportation without the help of arrays or a God King specialized in space nature was another. Alex had neither of these things and besides he hadn’t quite determined where he was going. Every God King had experience with manipulating souls, and having to deal with some soul bullshit during your ascension was far too common, despite many of the techniques involving others' souls being forbidden in most of the multiverse, there were always a dozen cults on any planet practicing the nasty art. If Alex had needed that kind of soul magic then he could go to just about any faction, including his own, and find a “secret” group of cultivators researching the nature of the soul. But he needed someone who could keep his soul in one piece, and the list of people capable of that was a lot shorter.

Another issue in choosing someone is that it had to be someone he trusted. Any technique that involves your soul puts you at risk. Souls were not weak things, destroying one, especially one of a God King, would be nigh impossible. But souls couldn’t really fight, if Alex willingly let someone take his soul out of his body they would have no issue shoving it into some random artifact and throwing him into the void never to be seen again. And even if he had some trusted allies nearby to ensure that wouldn’t happen, the person just knowing that his soul was in a mortal's body, and where that body was would be dangerous. Alex did not fear death but he did not wish for it either, if he was going to die it was going to be done fighting, not as a result of some stupid God King's scheming. Also, he didn’t plan on telling his allies, the chances of Amara allowing him to do this were nil. “Act first, ask for forgiveness later, I’m sure she will forgive me,” Alex said aloud to no one in particular.

These requirements led to a shortlist, a list of three people to be exact. The first was an executive of the Celestial Road Trade Federation, His name was Lyrion, and he was an old shrewd God King who would sell his firstborn for the right price. He specialized in working with souls, if you needed an item to house a soul or one with a soul in it Lyrion was your guy. These items were hard to find even for a God King, it wasn’t easy to seal a soul in an item, and it was even harder to get the soul to function properly one in the soul. There were also the moral issues in taking someone's soul and locking it in an item, more often than not the people in the business of souls were not upstanding citizens of the Multiverse, and Lyrion was no exception. Just one look at the old geezer with his greasy hair, creepy smile, and his gaudy bright white suit woven from angle feathers, would leave you to believe that he couldn’t even be trusted to not not steal an extra cookie out of the cookie jar, and then blame it on his younger brother. But while he wasn’t a good man you could trust him. The members of the Celestial Road never went back on a contract, for the right price you could get about anything from them, and if the contract stated they couldn’t share what you had purchased, they would die before revealing it. Alex even knew of cases where this had happened, they weren’t even known for adding in loopholes to their contracts, the federation saw the act as bad business and something that would drive customers away. Alex had mixed feelings about the group, but so did most people, there were a few lines they wouldn’t cross for the right price, but no one made it to God King without crossing a few of those lines.

Well, most people didn’t at least, which brought Alex to the second person on his list. Among the many factions throughout Zenith, there were a good number of churches. While nearly every faction with hands in the lower realm would have worshippers, most did not cultivate a singular religion. The weak idolized and worshiped the strong, that was the way of the multiverse, most “religious” traditions, especially in the mortal planes, were completely made up by the ones worshiping, those higher up only cared if the practices got out of hand and felt no need to heavily dictate the actions of people so far beneath them. That wasn’t the case for the churches, their factions were built off of worship. Many of their gods required worship to grow or maintain their power. Along with the structured worship, came an often stringent belief system. While the details and intensity varied from church to church, the God King Alex was thinking of, ruling over one of the most intense churches, He was thinking of the Supreme Goddess of the Immortal Church, Veritara. The Immortal Church was a faction most would avoid offending at all costs. They believed that all actions needed to benefit the whole to a frightening degree. There was no room for selfishness in the church, all members were expected to die for the church's goal, if you were fighting an army from the church you had no chance of scaring them away, killing a thousand and a thousand more would take their place. The reason Alex considered going to the church was that despite the lengths the members would go to complete a task they would never cross any of the moral lines established by the church. Members of the church were only killed as a last resort, they considered promises sacred and would die before breaking even the most mundane vow. These two aspects weren’t uncommon among churches but what made the Immortal Church unique was their honesty. It wasn’t just that they wouldn’t lie, many followed that path, and those who did were often the greatest schemers, they would twist the truth to suit their needs using the fact they weren’t lying to garner trust. However the church was not like this, they took honesty to the extreme, and they spoke straightforwardly even clarifying their words if you asked, within the church deception was considered sacrilegious and could result in heavy punishment, explosion, or even death. Alex knew that if he got Vertitara to agree to a vow of secrecy he would be safe. But the church always felt creepy to Alex, the members were honest to a fault and wouldn’t hold back any negative opinions they held of you believing it was the right thing, to be honest, and inform you of your flaws.

With this in mind, Alex looked at the third name on the list, Gaia. With a core nature of life, and more knowledge of living entities than any other God, King Gaia was the most likely person to know how to help Alex. She was also trustworthy, not so honest that she would die to keep even the most minor secret but he couldn’t see her blabbing to other gods about him being in a mortal body. Alex also wouldn’t have to worry about her doing anything. Gaia was no pacifist but she didn’t kill for no good reason, and if she did want him dead she wouldn’t try to trick Alex into a vulnerable state but would face him in battle. Between the three choices Gaia appeared to be the best pick, Lyrion wouldn’t be cheap, neither would the help of the Immortal Church though they wouldn’t ask for money. Gaia may ask for a favor in exchange but he doubted it would be anything unreasonable. But there was still something holding Alex back, he and Gaia had a history together, and it didn’t end on bad terms nothing had started or ended, Alex had just left for some training and hadn’t decided to visit for 20,000 years.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

It wasn’t because of anything she had done, in truth it was entirely his fault. The Zenith realm was filled with many treasures, some were naturally formed by the chi in the air condensing in a single spot and absorbing concepts, and others were made by cultivators to help themselves or others progress. One such treasure was the divine water sprite tree, it had been a lovely tree that greatly benefitted anyone with water or life natures, but Alex had burnt it down, it was an accident of course, he had been experimenting with mixing fire and water natures while using the tree as a source of water chi. A momentary lapse in concentration had led to the fire chi overwhelming the water chi and burning the tree down. Alex had never told Gaia about what he had done, but he was sure she knew it was him. His normal strategy for dealing with these issues was to leave the issue to Amara, but she had told him he needed to man up and apologize. So Alex had gone with his backup plan when Amara failed any negotiations, wait and hope the other party moved on, if they didn’t then he could just fight them until there was no more problem. This he had realized would not work, Gaia was known for her patience and wouldn’t just forget, Alex also knew no amount of violence would solve this problem, but by the time he realized he would need to apologize a lot of time had passed and he was scared to see her.

Alas, leaving the Zenith Plane to inhabit a new body for thousands of years would not help him with Gaia. If he did that and she figured out what he had done, his new body might have to deal with weird plant-related phenomena in his new life which just sounded annoying. Stealing his resolve and planning his excuses Alex changed directions heading directly for the Tree of Life, and what would almost certainly be a long lecture on responsibility.

Alex hadn’t even reached the planet the Tree of Life was on before he heard a familiar voice. “Coming to burn down another one of my trees are you” Gaia said in a playful but very dangerous tone. Alex stopped and hovered in space, he took in a breath of chi and tried to put on his most apologetic smile. “Gaia, it’s been too long, after the divine water sprite tree burnt down I went off to try and find something to replace it, I would have contacted you about it but I wanted the new tree to be a surprise”. Alex was normally very good in these delicate situations, but with Gaia, he could never seem to keep his thoughts straight, he hoped this lie would buy him enough time to shift the subject away from the destroyed tree, but sadly it didn’t work as Gaia’s next words made him panic. “Oh, how nice of you, since you were making your way back to the Tree of Life I guess you were able to find something, I’m so excited to see what you brought me, If it took you 20,000 years to get it, it must be incredible”. Alex should have expected the conversation to go this way, he should have come up with a better lie, or maybe even have just told the truth, it was best now for him to come clean and begin working on repairing the damage, “Oh well you see the treasure is still being worked on, I have Amara overseeing its progress, I had just missed you so much that I decided to visit”, Alex winced internally what was he even saying, he had nothing that could replace the divine water sprite tree, but hopefully Gaia would reach out to Amara and she could find something in our vaults that would work, then Gaia spoke again interrupting Alex’s thoughts. “That's funny, Amara and I meet regularly for tea, and not once has she mentioned anything of the sort, I even asked her once or twice about the issue and she said you had just been hiding on some faraway planet”. Once Alex was at a loss for what to do, he opened his mouth to speak again “I sure..”, Alex froze, Gaia appeared in front of him, holding up one of her hands signaling for him to stop. Before he could only hear her voice which made it easier to come up with a lie but now that he was looking directly into her emerald-green eyes he couldn’t form a single word. Gaia had not changed since he had last seen her, She stood only 5 feet tall with long dark green hair, tan skin, and a toned slightly muscular physique. She was wearing a flowing green dress that still swayed out in space despite there being no wind. Her beauty was that of legend, all those who reached the God King realm could be considered good looking but she was beauty that surpassed them all. The scowl on her face did nothing to suppress her looks and only made Alex want to stare at her more. While he was still frozen in a mixture of fear and aww Gaia spoke, “I was not angry when I learned you had burnt down one of my trees, I was not angry when you ran away not telling me, but it has been 20,000 years Alex, not once did you reach out to me, you couldn’t even have Amara reach out, and when you finally bother to show up you lie to me, and with such an obvious lie to, I know you not known for your schemes but I am almost disappointed that you didn’t even bother to prepare a half decent lie before coming over here. Did you think I would have forgotten, that I would have just greeted you like you hadn’t ghosted me, I am going to give you one more chance, and that is being incredibly generous, so speak before I leave you for 20,000 years more”. Alex’s head spun, and his eyes darted around the space, what should he say, he thought about lying again but threw out the idea, maybe he promise to replace the tree, offer to pay for the tree, maybe he should run away again, surely she wouldn’t ignore him for 20,000 years, and it would give him time to come up with something better. None of those ideas were good, in truth, there was only one thing he could say, in all honesty, he really should have just led with this in the first place. Making eye contact Alex said the only thing he could, “I’m Sorry”, and then he waited. Alex waited for what seemed like hours, never once breaking eye contact. Finally, after sitting silently for 3 real-world hours Gaia spoke, “That is all you needed to say”,

Alex was shocked “Really, you for-”

“Don’t get excited, I haven’t forgiven you for what you have done, I have only decided to allow you to begin making up for what you have done”

“Oh”

“You can start by explaining why you finally decided to visit me, I doubt you had a sudden change of heart and only came to apologize”, Gaia continued to match Alex’s gaze with a scowl ever present on her face.

Alex managed to let go of a little bit of the tension in his body, this was far from the worst outcome he had imagined “I would be happy to tell you about why I came, but first could we go somewhere more private, this isn’t something I want to discuss unless were behind some defensive arrays”

Gaia didn’t appear annoyed at this request and responded “Fine, we can discuss this in the Tree of Life but don’t expect any hospitality”.

With that Gaia opened a rip in space and they both walked through, hopefully, Alex would be able to convince Gaia to help him, and hopefully, he wouldn’t get kicked out for asking.