POV: Statera Luotian

Inesa hummed softly to herself as she moved about the library in my palace, choosing the odd book to add to her growing collection. She routinely visited me once every century, and this time asked if she could browse my ever-growing library, to which I responded with an 'of course.'

"Finding any you like?" I inquired, looking over her shoulder at the five books she had chosen so far. Most were of the comedy genre, and particularly good ones too. She did have an eye for literature.

"I've been enjoying some good comedy lately, so I thought I'd try these out," she responded, beaming up at me. I nodded and stretched out one hand, summoning a book from the endless shelves of my Library. It was already enormous, and growing still, but would not be a match for Keilan's Library of Memories - or Archives of Memories, as I have grown fond of calling it. Sounds a bit more important than just 'library.' The Archives would positively dwarf my own. Which wasn't a problem, in my opinion.

"You'll like this one then," I suggested, handing the book to her. Inesa accepted it and scanned the summary, snorting and looking up at me with a smile tugging at her lips.

"It's about Tian and I," she accused. I laughed and nodded.

"Yes, it is! It's quite funny too!" I said. Inesa looked at it a bit skeptically.

"Intentionally funny or no?" She asked.

"Bit of both. The author was purposefully being funny but it's also funny because he got a few things wrong when he was being serious." I explained. Inesa nodded thoughtfully, clutching the book to her chest and smiling at me again.

"I'll give it read, then. If nothing else, I'm sure Tian will get a kick out of it." She said softly. I nodded and ruffled her hair, turning and silently flying away, letting her get back to it. She was the only deity that rountinely came to visit me...discluding Randus, who was most always present in some form or another. I had a special place in my heart for her because of this, just as I had a special place for my first four children. They didn't visit me often, though that was partly because I had incarnations running around everywhere, so they see me at least once every thousand years anyways.

Speaking of seeing people, I hadn't seen Kei in person for a long time. She was too busy playing around and messing with Sequoia.

To be honest, I'm glad those two hit it off. Kei had been too stifled recently, not enough stimulation for her more playful and creative side. Sequoia was doing wonders for her. 

"Are you going anywhere?" Inesa suddenly asked as I drifted off. 

"Huh? Oh, in a bit. Why, do you need something?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at her. She shook her head, her collection of books now floating beside her. Apparently she got tired of carrying them. 

"Not really, I just wanted to talk for a bit," she admitted a bit sheepishly. I smiled and patted her shoulder, nodding. 

"Sure, I don't see why not. I'll let you know when I have to leave, there's a meeting I need to go to." I said. 

"The meeting with the Original Four?" Inesa asked, and I nodded. The Original Four was the official term for my first four children seeing as how it was no longer just a Big Four. Kei made it a Big Five, and Tian would at some point make it a Big Six. I still held out hope that Morgan would be the Seventh, but there was no real promises on that front. Morgan was fickle and irritable at the best of times, there's no way it would willingly agree to being part of the "Big" group. 

I frowned slightly as I led Inesa towards the veranda of my Palace, where we could watch the Realm Sun and Moon and chat for a bit. 

"So...how are you doing?" Inesa asked, a hint of concern coloring her voice. I looked at her in surprise at the question. 

"I'm doing wonderful. Why do you ask?" I inquired, conjuring a cup of tea for both myself and her. Taking a sip I internally sighed with satisfaction. Just the right temperature.

"Well, you always look androgynous when something really serious is going on, so I thought you might be a bit stressed or something," she said with a slight blush, prompting me to look down at myself to confirm that I was, in fact, in my adrogynous form. Huh. I never notice these things. 

"Nothing in particular is going on dear. It's just the meeting and that the war in the mortal realm is about to come to a temporary close." I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. Inesa relaxed a bit at that. 

"Oh, good. I was actually a little worried that you had another 'Calamity' bomb to drop on me," she admitted. I tossed my head back and laughed, a fully belly laugh that filled the entire Palace and got Inesa to laughing as well .

"No, no, nothing like that!" I assured, regaining control of myself and forcing down a few more chuckles.

However, I still needed to speed up the advancement of the Four Realms if we were going to survive the collision with the One World. So that was one thing constantly bugging me. Thankfully the Realms would evolve soon-ish, and things would really pick up from there. At least the Regions were moved into their proper positions for the most part. Only a few were being repositioned minutely, which was the really tricky part. To get it all to work properly, the Regions had to move along with the key points they were positioned at, to maintain maximum effeciency even as the Four Realms grew.

Hmm. Maybe I should make a Divine Beast or two solely dedicated to that task. Could be interesting. 

Besides, I was coming to realize that the Divine Beasts I had made weren't really Divine Beasts...excluding Kei. The Skyshatter Wolves for one didn't do much besides act like intelligent wolves, intelligent meaning on-par with cultivators, and none had really lived up to their potential. I wasn't dissappointed with them, not by a long shot, as it was only a matter of time before they did live up to their potential, but I needed to introduce a few...more powerful Divine Beasts, who truly lived up to their name from the start. 

Food for thought, at least. Giving the current Divine Beasts specific tasks might also be helpful...

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Inesa and I continued to talk until it was time to leave, at which point I bid her farewell and vanished, reappearing in Elvira's Holy Palace. 

My children greeted me as I sat down at the table they had procured, blatantly ignoring the serious tension of the room and summoning tea and snacks to litter the table-top. They, of course, made me sit at the head of the table, so therefore I summoned snacks. Keilan, who stood beside the table with his back straight, shoulders squared, and hands clasped behind his back, sighed lightly. 

"Can't we get one meeting where it's a serious as it needs to be?" he asked plaintively, shaking his head. I blinked and shrugged. 

"You get plenty of those all the time. I've even attended a few, and they're boring. So no," I responded with a grin, shaking my head. 

"I do have some news..." Elvira said with both a small smile, looking at me and the others with an amused expression. "Well, two pieces of news, actually. First off, the war in the Mortal Realm has advanced the mortal's  opinions of the Heaven Realm greatly. They're now starting to truly view it as a safe haven, as compared to the war-torn parts of the Realm now. It's a little annoying, actually." She asdmitted, leaning back in her chair with a complex expression. 

It was true though, as compared to the Mortal Realm, the Heaven Realm was far more peaceful, and the mortals had taken note to some degree. More and more rogue cultivators, eager to escape the war, were struggling to climb the Life-Giving Tree. It probably was pretty frustrating for Elvira, seeing as how it took a massive Realm-wide war for the mortals to accept the Heaven Realm as something more than just another Realm. 

"But the real big news is that I'm pregnant," Elvira continued, calmly taking a sip from the tea that I had put in front of her. "Wonderful tea, Father, just like always."

...waitaminute. 

"What?" Keilan asked. 

...what.

"I'm pregnant," Elvira repeated.

...h-hold on...

"Are you serious?" Alexander and Keilan both asked simultaneously. 

Elvira is...?

"Yes," she confirmed, a smug smile on her lips. 

"Congratulations!" Reika squealed, leaping out of her chair and rushing over to give her sister a hug. 

"I'd ask how you managed it, but I'm not sure I want to know," Keilan said slowly, but was smiling regardless. I felt my fingers twitch as my mental faculties returned to me - this was such as shock! I hadn't seen this coming at all! But, most importantly, ELVIRA WAS PREGNANT!

"Kei actually gave Gilles and I a hint, however unintentionally. Technically she is your daughter, Reika, because she was born of your soul. Father's influence merely kept her from fading away and stuff, so we figured that the key was to use bits of our truesouls to form the base soul of our child. It took a little bit, but we finally managed it." She explained, still beaming. 

"Father, are you alright?" Alexander asked, concernedly looking at me. It was then that my children all turned to face me, each of them having abruptly noticed my silence and shocked face. 

I stared at him blankly for a moment, just long enough for all my children to grow concerned, before a gigantic grin spread across my face and I started to laugh, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes as I stretched my senses out to see that, yes, Elvira was pregnant. The young, weak, new soul was being slowly nourished by Elvira's own soul and bits of Gilles' soul, slowly growing stronger and stronger even as I watched. It was truly my grandchild, as it was not formed from my own soul but rather the descendants of my Soul...a grandchild in the truest sense of the word. Even moreso than Kei, in a way. 

"That is wonderful, Elvira," I said, standing up and moving over to her, wrapping her in my arms and kissing the top of her head as she still sat. She leaned into me for a moment before pushing me away, one eyebrow raised. 

"I half expected you to start squealing," she deadpanned. I laughed. 

"I almost did! I honestly did not see this coming at all!" I told her, rubbing her head. She slapped my hand away with a snort of laughter, shrugging and turning back to the table. It took a little while to calm everyone down, myself included, but eventually we all got back to business, and the meeting continued. 

It was all mostly simple affairs, they updated each other on the changes in their Realms and the growth of their Evolvers - the name for the four beings who would 'evolve' each of the Realms seemed to change every other day - and a few other things. Most of our plans for upgrading the Four Realms would have to wait until they advanced, so we could adjust the changes accordingly. 

The meeting itself only lasted for about an hour, being able to share information mentally and at an incredible speed was a bonus of being a Deity. Afterwards, I found myself being accompanied by Alexander on the way back to my Palace. 

He was silent for a long while, but I could tell something was bugging him. In fact, I was almost certain I knew what it was about. But I let him bring it up, because I myself wasn't too certain about what to say. 

"The First," Alexander began, scratching his scaled chin with one draconic hand, "is being awfully calm. I was expecting...more." He said slowly, glancing at me out of the corner of his eyes.

I sighed and rubbed the back of my head, agreeing with him. "I was as well," I admitted honestly. "They're just so...weak. It's shocking, honestly. I don't mean power-wise or skill-wise, they've got that in spades. Based on energetic power levels alone, they're probably my equal, but they've just got...no heart." I said, letting my hands fall to my sides. Alexander stared off into the Realms for a moment before sighing dejectedly and nodding. 

"Perhaps that is what happens when a mortal lives and experiences as much as they have," he said sagely. I scoffed and mockingly glared at him out of the corner of my eye. 

"Trying to sound wise in front of your Father, hmm?" I teased. He grumbled in embarrassment, and I laughed. "You may be right, though," I admitted, though I felt there was a bit more to it than that. They had so much potential...

"Oh," Alexander said softly, perking up a bit. I immediately focused on what had caught his attention: Sequoia Pama had stumbled into the cave of a dragon - one of Alexander's first children, a great silver dragon that had been, until this point, sleeping peacefully in his cave. Sure, occassionally he went out to stretch his wings and massive serpentine form, but this one seemed to be a bit of a recluse. 

Sequoia would crack his shell in no time at all. Her wonderous heart gifted her with unparalleled charisma, after all. Not even a grumpy old dragon would be able to resist her for too long. 

Alexander chuckled and coiled up where he floated next to me, nodding to himself. "That will be an interesting development," he admitted. Seqouia on the back of a dragon? Those elementals had better be ready for the tongue lashing of a lifetime. Their war, which was slowly beginning to heat up, was only just now reaching the level where a few of the more ancient beings and beasts would be bothered "by the noise." Neither side was faring very well, both having underestimated the other, and this first conflict was doomed to end in an armistice. 

It wouldn't last long, and the tensions between the nations, this current war only being between the Elementals and the Celestial Empress, and soon-to-be-shattered smaller kingdoms would continue to grow until a second, more furious war broke out. That would be the real war. The one where even the dragons and reclusive, powerful cultivators and beasts will be drawn into it as well, and all nations would participate. Somehow, the Gallos Empire had remained neutral throughout the current conflict. 

"I'll probably have to do something about The First," I said, mostly to myself. "Or else they may just make matters worse." Alexander glanced at me and huffed something incomprehensible, to which I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. What was his deal with The First, anyway? It's not like he really had a reason to dislike the being, besides his protective instincts kicking in to defend the Four Realms against "tresspassers." I patted his side. 

"Don't worry about it. I'll handle it," I said soothingly, earning myself another grumble. I laughed and said nothing futher, teleporting back to my Palace, my head filled with thoughts. There was still so much to do...and so little time, it seemed. 

I suppose that is the real limiting factor on all deities. Time. There was so only so much we could do in any measure of time, because it kept endlessly advancing. It was frustrating, but I had to deal with it and not focus too much on the little things or else there would be no time for anything else.