It was weird. After the pain I kind of just... blacked out? It seemed really anti-climactic. Sure, pain makes sense since it's literally absorbing my essence and merging it with another fifty thousand gods worth but why is there nothing after death? One minute I’m in excruciating pain and the next I’m a crying mass of bloody liquid with a baby some place underneath. There was no in-between. I felt the pain of dying and then I was already out of the stomach, like nothing even happened. And yes, I’m crying and I’m willing to admit it. It's fucking cold. Going from an extremely warm tummy into an arctic ice cap... ok, I know I’m over-reacting but seriously, after that feverish warmth, I’m suddenly thrust into the middle of winter, undressed and soaking wet. I may not have been 'conscious' until now but I still feel the previous warmth suddenly drastically change. The contrast between it is horrible. And, for whatever crazy reasons, these people think it's a good time to hold me up in the air and carefully examine me. Like, hello! Is this how to torture a baby 101? My immune system should be crap at the moment and they are holding me up into the elements? My lips are turning blue!
Ugh, whatever. Their lucky I remembered to give myself a massive immunity boost in order to resist poisons. Seriously though, I’m not a masochist. No unnecessary discomforts, please. If I need to get hurt to increase my strength, sure! But if I’m getting hurt for no reason like now... yeah, no thanks.
As quickly as I could manage, I started gathering and purifying mana inside of me. Since I installed 'filters' it means the mana is naturally cleansed before it gets to my magic core, the place that my soul resides, so I didn't have to consciously spend much effort to take it the rest of the way and make it perfect but it still took a few seconds to condense enough into a liquid mana drop and break through to the first level. The separate levels are based on how big of a pool you have. Technically, I skipped the condensation stage that people usually go through due to how fast I absorbed and filtered it before turning it into liquid mana but it's not really important. It's easy to break through to that level. Even with terrible talent it'd take only a few months at most.
Of course, there are some special things about cultivating though. Every cultivator (mana atleast) will have a 'colour' to his or her mana core. Basically, the purity of the mana inside of it. The reason this is so important is that once you break through, the purity of your first mana drop will determine the colour but once you have the colour, it will automatically refine it to that level based on you're level of talent and not how long it should take. In other words, someone with the worse quality mana and another with the best quality mana would refine at the same speed if their talents where the same so this is the most important stage to cultivation. Unfortunately, most of the times a child will screw it up or they are born in a weak enough world not to realise. If that's the case, it is harder and harder to increase in strength and you can't begin to purify your core until you’re about half way to god level or a god helps you. Even then, it's takes a long time and most die from age in the process. Originally, I was quite lucky that I couldn't cultivate until the age of ten due to the meddling of an old lady so when I could, I made sure to make it as pure as possible. It wasn't perfect but it was the best I could do and it is largely that decision which carrier me to becoming a god. Once I was there, I finished purifying it as well. Not many mana cultivators succeed in becoming a god due to the requirements on both talent and purity but if they can, they have fairly decent potential unless they are a genius like me and thrive from it.
Now though, I was able to make my core perfect from the beginning. So from now on, I’ll cultivate this stronger, cheaper, faster and more versatile mana at massive speeds easily. Doing just that, I successfully broke through four stages in ten seconds, bringing me to the fifth stage in the first realm. The second realm is when I have a puddle sized pool so another five stages. Every realm has ten stages and there are forty realms. So, four+ hundred breakthroughs. The realm gaps are bottlenecks though so they are supposed to be harder. Right now, I just did this so I’d stop freezing to death. Rotating my mana, I began to warm up again and I let out a sigh of relief. The impurities that came out doing the breakthrough (there are always impurities, regardless of how amazing the body is. It creates them to improve the base form more) where swiftly burned away with my mana without hurting the idiot freezing me and I opened my eyes to their stunned looks. They only have around ten realms in this world before they have to leave for more cultivation resources and even then, only the royal family tends to get further then the twentieth realm.
The room was simple but at the same time, extremely beautiful. There were not any over the top decorations like jewels in the roof of gold laced curtains but every wall was carved with small patterns that seem to merge together into a greater whole and come to life. Obviously a master carver had made this room their life’s work and even I had to appreciate its looks. While three sides of the room were pure stone except for where the door was, the forth was a massive glass panel that overlooked the kingdom below. Blood red carpet that looked insanely soft lined every inch of the floor and a bed the size of a small house was directly opposite the window. I could also feel the wards that where covering every millimetre of the room. There was no wards used for spying surprisingly and all of them where focused on defence, comfort and privacy. Unfortunately... It seems like these people already have a high enough resistance that the cold does not affect them at all so they don't even realise that they are freezing me. To be fair, I used to always prefer to be cold than hot if I couldn't have my perfect temperature so I can understand but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable.
The people in the room where conversing among themselves. As for the topic, it was obviously me. Since ahead of time I found this bloodline and helped them found the nation I was able to send a message to them saying that this baby (me) was special. Besides, I really do like the bloodline due to some grudges I had against males and while it’s not to the point of raising it specifically because I want to destroy them all, it is to the point where I can appreciate being born into this all-female nation. Since even a normal female who is fucked by a bloodline holder is changed to only breed with females and they too can do that to others, the nation is quite big.
So I’ve been helping them out in the background. Honestly, it's still new as a civilisation as when i found it men where hunting down the 'heretic' bloodline so it's only been a nation for around ten thousand years but yet, it's one of the top nations on this planet and also one that is almost impossible to topple. Why? Because there are two hundred gods making sure it doesn’t and even if new gods come here, two hundred gods at the strength limit against one normal god? Yeah, they'd be screwed. So with all that and the curses and buffs I set around the nation to stop people attacking them, it is naturally a strong nation.
My goal for it is to soon be a female-only world. Within another few thousand years it probably will be. In the grand scheme of things one world makes no difference so I want to give them a chance by having a base-world. As long as there are laws that they don't go fucking woman and changing them randomly from other worlds without permission, they can easily flourish and a lot of the woman who dislike men will move here, giving them a higher base strength.
Most bloodlines will have a few home worlds but this one will create a lot of controversy among the more disgusting men. My interference gives them a chance. Getting back to the point though, I have been helping this nation for a while now so obviously I understand a fair amount about it. I was just reborn as the two queens third child. Ahead of time, I sent them a message saying a load of crap about me being a reward to help the power of their nation and I made it clear to them to treat me as a beloved daughter, not a weapon. Of course, I didn't tell them that i was a reborn god but I did spin it like I granted this child awareness from birth and a lot of talent and power.
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Technically it's true, I did. It's just that this 'child' happens to be the ruling god of their other two hundred gods that protect them. Of course, they don't know that and in fact, no one out of this room even knows the gift story but yeah, I was confident no one would try and kill me for my massive talent and awareness.
The reason I was thinking about this though is because it seems they are under the belief that I can't understand them. Usually, it'd make sense. I said awareness, not language comprehension. But seriously, there's no way I’d be cruel enough to give a baby awareness without language. Do you know how much harder it is to learn a language when having awareness makes whatever way your thoughts are wired hinder the process? Learning a language without awareness as a baby is much easier than learning it with it. Once your thoughts are aligned in a certain way it's hard to change that, atleast when you’re still young. So no, even if I could do it I wouldn't be that mean. It's like all those reincarnation story where they can't work out the language till they are like four.
Anyway, in the room they’re where five people other than me. Two moms, two older siblings and what I’m assuming is my grandma. About the one that was trying to freeze me, I think she's a bit of a natural ditz but I’m not sure. She could just be an idiot. Or a very, very emotional person. Or maybe she's sceptic about me being a gift? I don't know. Problem is, cultivators don't tend to age very fast so while I have identified one of my mothers due to seeing her on the bed before she was flash-healed, i can't tell if the other woman is my mum or if the one who tried to freeze me is.
It's rather embarrassing but I never really payed attention to what they looked like when I chose to be their child... Sure, I know I should respect my family regardless of my birth circumstances but I wasn't exactly thinking about stuff like this before now so I didn't look further than them being good people, royalty and in my personally built nation. It also just so happened that they had finally created a stable system where even the commoners can go to school so it was the perfect premise to reward them on. While here and now I am thinking on it, before I did nothing more than look into the logical point of having a family, not the emotional one. It's kind of hard to have a desire to be emotional when you are about to destroy fifty five thousand souls, just over half of those being innocents who just got caught by me since I needed their power. Yeah, emotions weren't a very respectful thing to have while I was waiting for that moment, so logic it was. Until now.
Now, I’m absently listening to the conversation while trying to work out who my mother is while being slightly panicked on what impression I made on them. Sure, I can get powerful easily now with this body but that doesn’t mean I will automatically flee this world as soon as I can and forget my family. No, to me family is something important after I lost my first one at the age of four and had any family I made for myself stolen from me. I know that I’m the sort of person who would do anything to protect family and even if I got to choose where I was reborn, that doesn’t automatically mean I will dismiss them. No, it's the opposite. I want a family. All my life, I had everyone I loved brutally murdered while I couldn't do anything to stop it.
Eventually, I just got fed up and decided to get powerful instead so I could make my own family but then I hit that damnable power limit. While sure, I was powerful just for that but I knew that a mistake could still get me killed, let alone protecting a family. So, I grew cold. I desperately reached for strength and ignored my emotions in my pursuit for perfection.
So even if I just used this family as a means to an end, I still acknowledged and accepted them as my family. To say i didn't care would be wrong. In fact, I probably care more than most people do. But to say I was confident would be ridiculous. I know what I did. I know I used them to give birth to me, that I purposefully chose them for their resources and personality and because they are in the nation I built. I used them, plain and simple. There is nothing nice or elegant about that, my intentions where to get powerful and they where just the people who brought me into the world. I know all that but I care a lot more about it than I should logically and honestly... it's the first time I’ve been scared since I shut off my emotions. I know how awkward i am now. For the last hundred thousand years, my social interactions have been limited to recently giving orders to my mind-wiped slaves and occasionally talking to myself. In that time, I purposefully limited my emotions and became cold and ruthless. I did anything I could do to reach for power, including hurting innocents.
Even before that, I only had awkward interactions with the sadist lady who started my training, a few girls I fell in love with, a single store clerk, two friends and my monologue for why I was torturing the guys who took them all away from me. Seriously, for all my knowledge and power, I am probably one of the most inexperienced at talking there is. While a child can talk innocently, a hundred thousand year old god... I can just imagine how much I’d cringe at a character like me. I mean I would cringe at book characters with awkwardness but in the end, I’m just someone that hides behind a mask while having absolutely no self-esteem about my social presence. 'Hey, bob. The highlight of my life? Hmm, I guess it would have to be shattering fifty five thousand souls simultaneously and using it as sustenance to my own soul. Bob, why are you trying to kill me now? Heretic? I'm not a heretic! Bob! Bob, snap out of it!'
Uh-huh. Yeah, I think I’d try to kill someone if I heard that as well.
I'll still try though. I know my self so eventually, I’ll probably cave in and tell them anyway but for now I guess I’ll be keeping secrets for a while. So far, they have been discussing my cuteness, sudden breakthrough and the fact that I’m a 'gift from god.' Ah, and a completely off-topic conversation about butterfly’s which lasted around three minutes somehow. It seemed that my oldest sibling wanted to name me scarlet while the younger one wanted to name me butterfly... Yeah, somehow I agree with my mum's (finally identified her) choice to go for scarlet. Though it did create a tantrum, of course.
They look to be 3 and 5 years old respectively. The oldest was Amber and the middle child was Emerald while i was Scarlet. We all shared the last name of Primrose which was the royal families name. Personally, Scarlet Primrose sounds pretty cool and noble in my opinion. Much better than the alternative, Butterfly Primrose. Wow, I could totally be a species of actual primrose with that name...
Anyway, it was indeed my grandma in the room. She was the one freezing me and from the conversation so far, she seems to be an airhead. I mean, she suggested that I should bathe in holy water everyday... do they even realise how valuable the stuff is now with all the gods in hiding? There’s been massive increases in undead activity because of me and the more vile variants that holy water used to hold back are having the best time of their lives. But here, on a world with two hundred gods, they want to bathe a princess in holy water everyday. And considering we're royalty, that means the massive hot-tub two times a day will be used. So much holy water... I bet kings would cry blood if they found out about it.
'Holy water is valuable right now. Stock up on it for when you do interstellar trading.'
Everyone was quite for a while at they stared at the box I made in the air.
"You can understand us?" The airhead asked excitedly.
'Yes. Thank you for not naming me butterfly.' Amber burst out laughing as soon as she read my box.
"What's wrong with butterfly?" Emerald protested grumpily.
'You wanted to name me after a bug that has an extremely short lifespan and is one of the weakest creatures even after cultivating? In all the known history, a butterfly has never became a god due to their small lifespans even after cultivating and their tendency to fly into bright objects like suns'
"So there's no butterfly god?" She asked with teary eyes.
'The gods are in hiding. This 'known history' is just what your god has observed after 100,000 years as a god, not an absolute truth. There still might be a butterfly god or even whole tribes of them in places yet to be explored.' Judging by my birth mothers expression, I realised it must have been a children’s tale I had overlooked so I quickly comforted Emerald.
"Why are gods in hiding and holy water valuable?" Mum two asked.
'The gods where being hunted with around 55,000 killed. Holy water cannot be created unless a god is within the boundaries of faith' I answered easily.
"Should we be concerned?" Mum asked seriously.
'In a way. It was you're god that hunted them so if it is leaked, others might come to fight. Still, she hunted that many gods by herself and she has another 200 gods at the strength limit watching over the planet.' I reassured.
"Gods dying so easily... maybe they didn't bathe in holy water enough" Grandma interrupted. For a second, i thought she was actually taking this seriously. Then that second shattered.
''What a ridiculous person...' And I passed out before I could finish writing the box.