We parted ways, each of us going in a different direction. Ares still had some things to take care of with his agents, Aphrodite went to meet with the people she was training, and Artemis was going to inspect the defenses in the mines and forest so that her crews wouldn't lose any ground while we were away.

I had a single thing left to do but it was one that had been a long time coming.

I opened the overview of the guildhall and made sure everything was ready.

* * *

Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm

Name: Mount Olympus

Level: 5

State: Idle

MP: 325,267,115,979

MP Generation: 53,000 MP/minute

Population: 10,149

Lumber: 2,842,559

Iron: 1,238,989

Food Rations: 44,849

Level-Up Requirements: 80x Level 5 Manors (Met)

16x Level 5 Farms (Met)

4,000 Citizens (Met)

Intelligence Agency (Met)

Complete 1x Research Project (Met)

Complete 1x Raid (Met)

1,000,000 Food Rations (Met)

1,000,000 Lumber Units (Met)

1,000,000 Iron Units (Met)

Level-Up Cost : 10,000,000 MP

Level-Up Time : 34,560 minutes

* * *

It would take twenty-four days to upgrade our guild core and this was the only thing so far that I couldn't just throw some MP at to make it happen faster. We would need to wait for the full time to elapse before the core leveled up.

I focused on the words "Level Up" and the prompt appeared. I accepted and instantly the resources and MP disappeared. I couldn't wait to see what new wonders awaited us after the core reached level six. Perhaps we would finally reach a point where the supply of housing exceeded the demand and we would need to go out searching for more people.

That would be an interesting challenge but I had no doubt Aphrodite would love to think of creative solutions around it. To reach that point though, we first needed to survive what was coming tomorrow. And, as confident as I felt about it after the new skills we'd received yesterday, there were still plenty of unknowns.

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For starters, we hoped that I would be received there as an esteemed visitor, but that wasn't a certainty. There was also no way to know where exactly Hephaestus was imprisoned, even though I had an idea about how to find out. And then getting the god out of there might prove to be significantly more challenging than reaching him in the first place. I knew that the place would be heavily guarded but since it was indoors, as long as my uncle wasn't there, I didn't think we would be overrun.

Still, I couldn't help but feel some uneasiness because of all the potential variables. I hated unknowns, but at the same time, I felt the excitement of adventure and there was nothing else like it.

The hours passed slowly as I forced myself to not do anything and rest as much as I could. My DP were full again and I had advised everyone else to make sure theirs were full as well. We needed to be in the best possible shape to increase the chances of this mission succeeding.

The best-case scenario would be to get in and out with the god of the forge without anyone even knowing about it. This would not be possible without bloodshed, of course. Anyone who even just saw us would need to die and we'd need to dispose of their bodies so that nobody else would be able to bring them back and ask questions.

The worst-case scenario, even if the mission were technically still successful, would be if we managed to make contact with Hephaestus, told him who we were and why we wanted to help him, but weren't able to escape with him. In that instance, we would probably have to kill him and hope that when he returned to his home plane, he would come find us and help us out of gratitude. In that scenario, the news of our attempt would soon reach my uncle's ears and--by extension--those of his guild leader, my father's.

They were great risks but we had to take them. There was no other way to kill a titan and make sure they would never come back.

Part of the reason why I was trying to grow our guildhall and the city's defenses as fast as I could was because this fight with my father would likely create ripples that might outlast even his death. Making enemies of other titans would be almost unavoidable, but I hoped that them knowing we were able to kill their king would keep them at bay.

My head filled with thoughts of all the things that might go wrong, despite Aphrodite's and Artemis's efforts to take my mind off things, I retired quite early and pushed myself to sleep. Dreams would no longer come to me since I'd gained my godhood, but right now I wished my restless night was instead populated with dreams of things that would make me happy--a feast, or an orgy. Alas, I kept turning in my bed, annoying Aphrodite, and sleeping only in short stints until it was time to wake again.

* * *

The pygmies had transported the mana bird to the edge of the city so as not to attract the crowds that would no doubt want to see us off. All four of us stepped inside and we were airborne just as the sun began to rise. The earlier we arrived at my uncle's place, the quicker this whole thing would be over and I would finally be able to relax.

Steering the vessel wasn't difficult at all. All it took was for the person in control to hold the crystal and think about the direction they wanted it to fly. The MP it used was only a minor inconvenience since we were all essentially resting and our MP regeneration rate was high enough to cover it.

I didn't do all of the flying. Since we had a few hours of traveling ahead of us, everyone wanted to try navigating this thing, with Aphrodite being the most vocal about it--she wanted to see how different it was to controlling her oyster. According to her, the controls were pretty similar though the view through which she was making sure we were moving in the right direction was different. When controlling the oyster, her view point would be transferred outside of it, giving her a big overview of what was around it, whereas here she only had her own two eyes.

I knew my uncle's dungeon floated several thousand feet in the air so I knew we needed to keep a certain flying altitude. I also had the approximate location, which was slightly to the south of the large island of the Minoan kingdom. I let Aphrodite do most of the flying, since she had the general direction right and her MP regeneration rate was the highest of all of us, and tried to enjoy the trip.