The instant after I stood up I activated my "pheromones" power. I felt them begin to emanate out of me, and I chuckled when they reached Riezel's nose and she began to stare at me, with an awed look on her face. Shortly thereafter they reached other people as well, all of whom began to turn and gaze at me with wonderstruck looks on their faces. This wasn't exactly "fair" but I was a deity and I was here to help people so it's okay if I'm a little bit unfair. I gazed out at the crowd and smiled before beginning to speak.
"Good evening good people of Jasper! My name is Raul Medrano and I am a god. I have gathered all of you here with the aid of the noble baron and his family for the sake of revealing myself to you all." I decreed with a gentle smile on my face. The instant after I paused for a moment I began to hear awed murmurs coming from the gathered people, as well as confused looks since most people in this world, and especially in Vanheim, had an understanding of the gods.
"I can sense your awe and disbelief, and allow me to be clear. I respect your skepticism and I understand your confusion. Allow me to begin to show you all my power and help clear your confusion." I uttered, my voice exploding out of me and being clearly audible to the gathered crowd. I snapped my fingers and upon doing so granted every single person in the crowd access to the system, which filled their mind's eyes with text boxes identical to the ones that my "family" and I had. I heard confused and surprised gasps coming from the crowd which made Sofia and I laugh and share a look. She was at the front of the crowd and had a gentle smile on her face.
I sensed a sudden flood of questions being asked to the system all at once, and I chuckled as I resisted the urge to shiver. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation but it was a strange one.
While many members of the crowd questioned the system I quietly activated another potent power of mine: my "Aura of joy" which was a seriously powerful ability that allowed me to radiate an aura of light that inflicted joy on another it touched. People in the crowd were still gazing at me so they were able to watch as my aura seeped out of me and began to touch people, making them relax and begin to smile happily at me and at each other. My aura continued to spread and touch more people, causing them to relax and feel a subtle yet powerful joy deep in their souls. I then began to speak again.
"I am a young deity of life, joy, fertility, and nature. I seek to become the patron deity of this city, a protective, guiding spirit who ensures that every harvest is abundant, every fishing expedition is safe, and that the city's coffers never run dry." I explained, before beginning to fly into the air a joyous smile on my face. As I floated in the air above the gathered masses I again place my hands over my chest, as if in what the system once called "prayer" and began to use another of my powers.
"I have come to bless this city and to let its inhabitants live joyous, healthy, loving lives. And to begin to demonstrate that, allow me to heal you all." I uttered, my voice beginning to resound in the minds of the gathered masses. The instant I finished speaking, all of the assembled men and women sighed in relief as they began to glow and witness my potent healing powers.
The glowing men and women began to joyously smile at each other as they felt pains and discomforts, both old and new, fade away. They began to cry nearly golden tears of joy as they felt discomfort give way to vitality, and as old aches ceased plaguing them. I smiled at them and then pointed at Margarita, who was dressed in a traveler's outfit and had yet to reveal herself to many of the city's leaders even though some of them had heard of her return thanks to rumors spreading from the National Arcane Academy.
"I have come to the city and brought gifts. One such gift is my divine ability to restore the dead to life. As a gift to the city's most noble baron and his family, I not only cured Sofia, his precious daughter, of a sickness she was suffering from, I also showcased my divine power by performing a miracle for his family. I restored Margarita Esperanza Gomez to life!" I revealed, at which point Margarita threw off her cloak and revealed herself to the crowd. She was wearing a beautiful blue dress and she confidently strode out to the fountain where Riezel and I had been sitting before.
The crowd was stunned into silence at this reveal. Many of Margarita's old friends had yet to see her, even if they had heard of her return, and so upon seeing their old friend for the first time in over two decades, a friend they watched be buried so very long ago, they froze in shock and awe. They looked at her and could hardly believe their eyes. I quietly whispered, in their own voices, in their minds that it was indeed her that they were seeing, and in many cases that was enough. Her old friends began to cheer, and I felt their hearts turn to me in awe and worship.
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A god, a full, true deity, such as myself could sense worship. I could sense what people had faith in at a glance, and I could feel it when people turned to me in worship.
The revelation that I had resurrected Margarita was the first time I felt a meaningful number of people turn to me in worship. Her old friends who had missed her, dozens of them, including numerous influential elves, turned to me in their hearts and began to sing praises of my power and of the awe they felt for me. It felt good to be worshiped.
I felt a pleasant warmth within me as a result of their worship. I sensed their sentiments, their devotion, filling my heart and my core with power. I was surprised to see the words in the text boxes in my mind's eye beginning to change.
[Alert: New worshipers detected. Your power is growing as a result of you acquiring new worshipers. As you gain new worshipers your existing powers will increase in potency, and depending on how you are worshiped you may well gain access to new domains and subdomains.]
[For now, only one new trait has been unlocked. Due to your powers as a being of love and life things and life you create through your "Creation" power will automatically be in love with you, as though you had utilized "Seduce the world" on them.]
I chuckled as I read that notification. I still hadn't begun to truly show off my power to the gathered crowd. I had only gained a few dozen worshipers so far. I fully planned to gain many hundreds, if not thousands more worshipers both tonight as and a result of tonight's actions.
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I gazed out at the crowd and smiled. They continued to gaze in awe at the resurrected Margarita, and I couldn't blame them. I knew their memories of the baron's wife, she was an astounding person. Some of the gathered people began to cry out and call her a saintess, that she was a heroine, and even ask her for her thoughts on the faith and on me. When they did, she turned dramatically and gazed at me admiringly.
"That man, that god, is my hero! He was moved by the love my daughter and my husband had for me, and he reached into the underworld to bring me back. He performed the sort of ancient miracle that the very oldest elven legends detailed our creators doing. He called out my name across a vast, interdimensional distance and he brought me home." She declared movingly.
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"He sensed how much love my family had for me, how much we missed each other, and he decided that my time had come too soon. He has promised to do this more and more and to reunite families that have been broken by that most ancient enemy of humanoids everywhere: death." She continued, speaking powerfully and from her heart. She was performing but her words weren't lies or exaggerations. She did worship me, and she was moved beyond words by my choice to resurrect her. I sensed her heartfelt and utter joy as she spoke, and so did others who were moved by her testimony to become members of the faith I was creating.
Some of my newfound worshipers gazed up at me, their eyes filled with tears as they thought about what Margarita had said. They began to speak, to call out to me.
"Raul! Please, share with us the beliefs and practices of your religion! We wish to understand them, to understand you!" They asked, speaking up and making their voices heard. I smiled at them and immediately began to reply.
"Members of my faith worship me and care for each other. My faith is not a selfish one that is focused on worshiping me, but a faith that builds communities and creates families, bound together by bonds of love and choices made in the hopes of shared prosperity and happiness! To truly worship me is to love yourselves, each other, and myself in equal measure. It is to be kind to one another and to seek to create a better tomorrow by taking action today." I began, admittedly waxing poetic more than concretely answering the question. I fell silent for a moment before beginning to speak.
"My religion would be centered on goodness and life. It would be a faith where holidays and festivals include charity and building things for the community. Where public worship involves helping people, and where private worship includes moments of joy such as the acts that create life and instill joy in families." I told the crowd, now speaking more concretely.
"Worshipers of mine should be identifiable because of how much they love their communities, their faiths, their families, each other, and themselves. I do not seek to be a deity who encourages you to be fanatical in your devotion to me above all else, I wish for you to be fanatical in your love of life itself, in all of its forms. I am first and foremost a deity of life and love." I explained, causing them to cheer as they heard me speak of loving their communities, their families, and each other as much as they loved me.
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I would spend the next few minutes explaining the tenets of my faith. I emphasized kindness and forgiveness as key attributes of the religion I was creating, but not pacificism or naivety. I wanted kind worshipers, but not ones who'd let themselves be taken advantage of, by anyone.
I spoke of acts of worship as including prayers, a ritual I knew about through the system, and a minimum of three acts of kindness, even small ones, a day. I wanted my followers to spread joy and to choose to be kind as many times as they could a day.
I also spoke of the importance of big families and of having children for my worshipers. I wanted my followers to have children and to raise them in the ways of the faith, especially this particular crowd of the city's leaders.
One large topic that I spoke about was my power as a deity of love, and of things like joy, passion, pleasure, sex, sexuality, and lust. I spoke to the crowd and told them freely that I was a deity of pleasure and sex, and that these things were not shameful things to be embarrassed by but natural things that should be enjoyed freely and happily. I encouraged the crowd to be joyful and make merry, including by having loving, passionate, sex, which both surprised and excited the crowd. I was not embarrassed to be what I was, and nor would I ever apologize for it.
Over the course of the next two hours, I would steadily gain more worshipers. During that time I was quietly conversing with my followers and worshipers and steadily doling out a number of gifts to the more devoted ones, as well as gradually making more connections. At one point towards the end of the night's time for I settled on a concrete plan to again showcase my divinity in an undeniable way. A public display of divine, and life-oriented power.
When I had spent over two hours conversing with the crowd and informing them of my nature, of the things I valued, and of what I wanted my faith to be like, I descended to the ground and powerfully called for the archmage of the National Arcane Academy to appear before me. When he appeared before me, I smiled at him and began to speak.
"Hello, David. I have been told by my worshipers about your incredible life story so far, including a truly tragic story regarding your discovery of your arcane power. I am truly sorry for your loss, and about the journey, you undertook to save your father. You have worked so hard, and he loves you very much." I began, my eyes filling with silver tears as I recalled the man's journey.
The man in front of me was an older man in his mid-fifties. He was the archmage who currently served as the headmaster of the National Arcane Academy. And he spent his teen years as an orphan, after having been raised by a single father for his early childhood. His life's story was the subject of one of the books in Jasper's public libraries, and he was the person Margarita had recommended I next convert during the mental strategy session I had with the Gomez family a bit before beginning this demonstration of my power.
"You traversed the dimensions as an adult, attempting to seek out the soul of your father and find some way to reunite with him. You worked so hard and in the end, you were denied what you wanted, what you had journeyed for. While I cannot make up for the time you couldn't spend with him, I can give you the next best thing. Arguably, something even better." I told the archmage, whose eyes began to widen in awe and shock as I again made use of my power of resurrection.
The air around me began to glow, and another silhouette appeared next to me. This silhouette was shorter than Margarita's had been, but that made sense. Elves were, on average, taller than humans. David's eyes widened as he felt awed that he was selected to receive my personal attention, and even more so when he realized what I was giving him. The crowd watching this fell silent as they witnessed a fully divine miracle happening right in front of them.
This time the process was faster than it had been with Margarita. Miguel, David's father, quickly began to form and he had on the robes of a mage, which had been his career in life. In almost no time at all, Miguel's eyes shot open and he rushed forward, embracing his son. There was a moment of silence which felt like it stretched on forever before the crowd began to let out a tremendously loud cheer, a joyful eruption of heartwarming noise as dozens, then hundreds, and then over a thousand people internally devoted themselves to me in the wake of this demonstration my divine power by performing a resurrection.
For the next hour I would give people free food and demonstrate my ability to grow plants, showing off a less thrilling but in many ways equally important ability. When that hour was done I would dismiss the crowd and tell them that I'd be back the next night and every night after to do more miracles.
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The rest of the night would involve me meeting with various leaders of different groups throughout the city and getting to know them over brief conversations while giving them relevant gifts. I actually enjoyed meeting different leaders and giving them thoughtful and unique gifts.
One such example included me going to meet David later that night and giving him a dozen amulets which were filled with over 1,500 mana each and recharged every day at dawn. I told him to meet with the magi who seemed the most devoted to me and give them those amulets. They were symbols that their wielders were going to be trained to be clerics in my new faith, and I told the archmage that I had future presents for him and his father as well, but that they'd have to wait to a later date.
The next five days went similarly. During the day Sofia, Riezel, and I would do various things in and around Jasper, and at night I'd preach, perform miracles, and gain new converts. By the time the end of the fifth night since I had been preaching rolled around I had over ten thousand devoted worshipers, and I was beginning to feel the effects of their worship and devotion even further.
There were entire organizations where every single employee or member was a member of the religion I was building. My clerics-in-training, aided by members of the city's guards, who were one of the groups that were among the most devoted to me following my first miracle had even built a building devoted to my worship.
All in all, I was truly astounded by the progress we were making, and on the dawn of the sixth day since I had revealed myself to the public at large as a deity I found myself inside of the temple that had been built to me, alone with my own thoughts.