I looked up at the lumbering treant a bit confused about which three gods were taking notice of me. I looked at the Guardian and asked, "Which gods are looking at me?"

Shaking her branches the Guardian said, "That I cannot see child, but it seems that another one came to look. But let us get to the main reason for our meeting. I can feel the touch of Unnatural within you, yet you feel as if in the embrace of Nature itself. How is that?" I immediately thought of the (Marked) Achievements effect and realized that might be the cause of this.

"I have an Achievement that increases the friendliness of natural entities and I also have a high Nature affinity. That might be why I feel that way." I explained to her. "That explains a lot of it but it seemed that there might be more. Nevertheless, it seems that you don't know about that. And also I will give these things that came with you through the fairy circle." She said before pushing her hand into her boughs and pulling something out.

She lowered her hand to show me what she had. I had to fly up on my hover disk to see the things. I was surprised to see that it was my thin chrome-coloured interface and my bag of tools. I zipped into her hand and tried to see which tools I had left in it. But found that I couldn't lift it upright as it weighed more than my current form could move. A bit dejected I tried my interface by sending a bit of aether in it, but then I remembered that I didn't have aether anymore and saw that I had pushed a bit of mana into it. And it even worked!

The interface lit up in a multicoloured power-up animation that all of them did. Then I was confused when I saw that it was not a monkey eating a banana that usually showed but a green robot taking a bite of a silver apple. When the animation was completed I saw a normal home screen showing 11:32 as the time. "I am very lucky that this and the bag survived," I said to myself.

Emir started laughing and even the Guardian was chuckling. When I looked at Emir in confusion he said, "The Fae took the rest of your stuff, they didn't get destroyed. And from the look of things they even meddled with them. At least they gave you these back. Before you ask that spatially expanded bag holds a number of tools in it. It weighs that much because the expansion enchantment does not nullify the weight of the things inside it."

"Ok, little one I must go now as I feel someone is about to go too deep than they should. We part till the call comes." Saying that the Guardian went back into the forest after placing the bag on the ground. Then my senses snapped onto a rich brown twig on the ground. When I focused on it I felt an impression of a calm yet energized life force flowing through a tree. I flew down to pick it up and saw that it was about 1 foot in length with some small leaves still attached to one side. "Looks like she left a gift for you," Emir said smiling.

I just shrugged and picked it up on the disk. I saw Emir pick up my bag and then open up the portal. Noctaru also returned at the time carrying a half-eaten brown-furred mouse with three tails. "Summoner! I caught a mouse! I ate some of it and the rest is for you!" Then he dropped the bloody carcass on my core. I quickly had my nanites clean it up before it made too much of a mess.

When I went through the portal I didn't get as much nausea as previously. I righted the disk up as Noctaru urgently took flight after exiting the portal. After walking for a couple of minutes we returned back to the tree house that I was currently living in. I landed the disk on the table and Noctaru perched on one of the chairs. Finally, Emir put the bag near the branch and sat down on a chair.

"So let us talk about your hunt of the Snatcher Worm. How would you say it went?", Emir asked.

"I think it could have gone better if I had not used experimental Spells and stuck to what I already knew. However, the spectres proved more effective than I thought. I guess the dead linger in this world more, though that is not the point. And I don't even know how that bug's skin was that tough it wasn't even using any magic on it. But in the end, it went well enough."

"Ah! About the toughness part, that was, because of the tier difference. When someone tiers up their very essence changes to be something better. Because of this, their essence can resist lower-tier essence easily. This means that any attack with a connection to a lower-tier essence will be less effective against a higher-tier opponent, and a lower-tier defence gets overwhelmed by higher-tier attacks more easily. Then let's talk about experimental Spells, you will always need to make up spells on the go as you will not always know what you will face, you can only practice and get better at making a clear picture of the result.

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Another thing I need you to know is to not call on the spirits of the deceased sapient races as they can be very problematic if they are more powerful than you, in cases like this in necromancy the rule of summons applies. And most definitely look at the law of the city to make sure that necromancy isn't illegal before going about summoning spirits and spectres."

I was a bit surprised about the damage reduction and power upgrade between the tiers, though now that I think about it even in my world things denser in Aether took less damage from less saturated material. I also understand the situation about necromancy being illegal as most people in power most likely won't like their victims to be presented in court to defend themselves. I did get a bit confused about how I defeated the snatcher maw that easily. I asked that to Emir, and he smiled a bit wider and nodded his head.

"That is because most spirits retain a portion of their power from their life, those spirits then gained a boost as they all wanted revenge from the predator who ate them. And your last spell detonated the last of their spiritual energy to create a blast of death and as they were willing they gave an extra umpf to it."

I nodded my head in understanding. Then I asked, "So what are we going to do now?" Emir started to laugh and said, "Getting you a Patron of course! There are Gods, Abyssals, Fae, Demons, Celestials and many more who would like to have an Otherworlder as their Pact."

"Right, the Guardian said something about four Gods taking notice of me. Do you know which ones?" I asked him as going into a meeting with some immortal without knowing about them was a recipe for disaster. Emir cheerily said, "Of course! Though one of them is the Eldritch Outer God that you invoked and the others are the God of Knowledge, Infinite Library; the God of Magic, Arcanist Supreme; and the God of Monsters, Mother of Monsters."

"So what can you tell me about them? And shouldn't I wait until sometime later when I know what I want to do to pick a Patron? And what does it mean to get a Patron." I asked, still smiling he said, "Well the thing is that in this world most cultures someone would pick their Patron at the middle of tier-0, as in after fully completing one aspect set of a Skill. Based on their life, Affinities, Achievements and other factors the needed deities would present themselves to make a pact. And you have done plenty to show the Gods your expertise and if needed you can arrange a nullification of the pact and choose a different Patron later.

And for your last question, getting a Patron means that they can give you special quests with special rewards, give a boost in Affinities related to their Domain and some other things based on who you make the pact with.

You are better off reading this book about getting your first Patron than hearing me babble on. However, I will say that the book will say nothing about the Elder Gods also known as Outer Gods. So let me tell you about them. They are called the Outer Gods because they are not constrained or connected to a single world like the Greater or Lesser Gods, they reside in the Void, a space between everything. They are also called Elder Gods because they all hold a Truth of Reality as a Domain. Like the Great Devourer, an Elder God with the Domain of Consumption. Consumption is a Truth of Reality present in all the multiverse.

When bargaining with them, remember that they are very detached from the people as they see multiple worlds, cultures and more getting birthed or destroyed in the time a human takes to blink. And their quest and rewards are also very esoteric. Like I remember the Great Devourer giving his warlock a quest to 'Eat something that can sustain itself without the death of others yet death is a part of its birth' with the reward of the Trait ( Usurper of Flesh ). The Warlock had been puzzled by this quest at the time but put it aside as it didn't have a time limit, yet when he was eating salad at lunch the quest was completed because he ate some kind of plant and he later told that the trait wasn't even bad.

So remain vigilant when you meet them. Most of society shuns the followers of the Elder Gods but not all so don't feel that will be a restraint you have to abide by if you can convince them to hide their mark it would be alright or I can give you something that might help. Remember that you can choose as many Patrons as you want as long you can convince every one of them. And that even Gods outside of these four will be presented during the selection process so remember to read on every God you might have a good Affinity for and those that might be interested in you from your Achievements. Now get to reading as we will start the Ritual at the end of Evening." Saying that he exited through the front door leaving me and Noctaru alone with the Book.

When I looked at the book I saw that the cover was covered in many depictions of multitudes of Gods, shifting and moving in a dance of colours. And at the front, the title read 'Book of Gods'.