Gasping I quickly climbed to my feet and looked around, checking for shattered glass or if anyone else was around me. The last thing I can remember is putting the order of coffees and muffins I was delivering to this office building on a table, smiling at the receptionist who had shown me to this meeting room, then heat and being thrown backwards while a sound like melting screams filled my ears.

As my breathing came under control and my heart stopped trying to escape, I realised that something had definitely happened as I took in the marble flooring and columns around me. Standing up I realised I was standing in front of a bench that I had just been laying on in front of a fountain. Of all things it was decorated in slimes, which was definitely an artistic choice, but what grabbed my attention was the man standing to my right.

Particularly that he hadn’t been there, then blink, and he was there. I wasn’t tiny by any measure, at a reasonable 5 '6, but this man was a monster easily close to 7 feet tall, covered in a robe that only had a sash from shoulder to hip for a top, while the robe acted like a calf length skirt to cover his lower half. “Stop staring, I better not have gotten a faulty one. So, Name? Give it and we can get started” while he spoke the large red beard somehow just didn’t move giving no real indication of where his mouth was which was mildly disconcerting.

“How about you tell me where we are, why I am just now realising I also have a funny robe on, and who you are” Standing as defiant as I could I hoped to actually get some answers.

“Name, then answer. Come on kid, I promise I ain’t being rude just for the sake of it, please just hurry this up for us both”. Sounding like he genuinely just wanted to get to giving me answers I figured when in rome.

“Sure, call me Fenris, always wanted that name but never got around to changing it anyway. Now, questions, answers, please?” Trying hard to not sound as impatient and close to a mental breakdown as I was, hoping that giving him a name to use would get us somewhere.

“Sure, your soul to name, couldn’t care less if it's the real one. More genuine if you pick it yourself anyway. Right, might wanna sit down, but I don’t get into the whole lecture mode thing so here”. Punctuating his last word I felt a finger suddenly flick the centre of my forehead.

Immediately a bunch of things made sense, Eterna the god in front of me, lord of mental fortitude and endurance. That I was in a soul fountain, where gods could spend divinity to draw a soul out of the reincarnation pool of lesser worlds. Why, oh, to fight of course it couldn’t be just because they liked having lesser souls around.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Gods required Divinity. This was their currency, sustenance, and power source. Spending it a god could craft an entire lesser universe to generate more faith for them. Faith from universes they possessed would lead towards them being able to become greater gods, or something that part of the knowledge gifted seemed intentionally vague.

I also felt like there was more, I knew I would compete in something but not what, but it was like a fog covered it, like when you know where you put your keys but can’t actually quite nail where that was.

“Right, you seem to have taken that well. So, there is a system here and I will introduce you to it properly later, or at least one of my sons will, but before that I want to give you my blessing. I left it out of that knowledge share because it involves learning the system we use for lesser souls to grow, and honestly that usually is too much information to give you in one go. So for now, give a bit of trust, and roll this dice. I won’t get into the details too much now, but once you roll it you will get a prompt with a blessing based on the number from me. Once this happens your system is going to kick in, and good odds you will pass out. Just so you're not going in blind alright?”. Staring down at me the entire time he spoke I felt like this was almost a chore, though I appreciated the forewarning that the knowledge dump that had already given me a growing headache was only the soft start.

“Sure, why not, but I need some proper answers please? I am just trying to roll with this all here, but I can feel the panic attack coming on and would rather get answers soon before I actually start freaking out and go from dissociated into ball in the corner mode” reaching over I grabbed the dice out of his hand and looked it over.

Six sided, but instead of the dots there were small pictures in each one instead. Also slimes, for some reason, which as none of the knowledge shared contained anything about slimes I had to assume this wasn’t a decision of Eterna’s. “I appreciate it, trust me most do freak out early, I spent a bit more divinity then required to try to increase the odds of getting a soul with high mental fortitude so this isn’t a surprise but trust me, this is going smoother for both of us then it usually does”.

Nodding to his response, not wanting to mention I was keeping as quiet as I could and pretending this was all normal to stave off the panic mounting inside, I rolled the dice to see what would happen.

Watching it bounce around on the floor where I had tossed it, bouncing from 6 to 1 then finally settling on four.

“So what n.. Oh okay, so system literally means game system cool cool. Uh I might be able to pass out, please catch me?” Feeling the normal feeling right before my consciousness decided to take a short vacation I hoped Eterna was going to be nice enough to not let me fall onto marble face first, after reading the messages that popped up, as a rush of knowledge on the system and divine gambit found itself pouring into my mind.

Roll result for blessing: 4 4 Reward: Blessing of Eterna (4)

Blessing of Eterna (4): Provide a mental barrier from mental trauma, increase mental recovery from past trauma, reduced need for sleep by two hours, increased growth of endurance and wisdom stats