I wasn’t exactly sure how much blood I should shed. This was especially true since I would need to write the magic sigils in my blood as well. However, I also didn’t want to use too little. I continued letting the blood flow, slowly becoming more worried. Suddenly, the items glowed for just a moment and a notification appeared.

ACHIEVEMENT: DIVINE FOCUS ANOINTED. You have anointed a Divine Focus with the blood of a deity. Do you wish to imbue the Divine Focus with Faith?

I quickly wrapped a cloth around the wounded hand and said, “Yes.” I was so excited that I had momentarily forgotten what would happen next. I could feel the faith pouring out of me and into the spellbook and feather. When I first received the faith points, I hadn’t felt anything. However, that changed.

Each point of faith did enter into the divine focus, but then it was fed back into me, painfully. It was like a giant circuit. The faith points flowed out of me and into the divine focus, subtly changing it, purifying the spellbook and the feather. Then the faith points would return to me, or at least some of them. The faith points that trickled into my mind were chaotic and unstable. I had to concentrate in order to keep the chaotic faith points from injuring my mind.

After I gained control of the faith points, I could then repeat the process. I knew without being told that I would need to repeat this process again and again until the spellbook and feather were consecrated. I wasn’t sure how long the process took since I lost track of time. I wasn’t even aware that blood had started to ooze out of my nose and ears. Maintaining control of the chaotic faith points grew harder and harder. I almost collapsed as I finally felt a connection form with my divine focus.

Through it, I could sense many things. I could feel magic swirling around me. I could see it in every object. I could hear whispers of ancient magic in the depths of my mind. While it was terrifying, it was also exhilarating. It also provided another benefit. I discovered that I could detect magic at will with just a thought.

After getting over the amazement, I forced myself to stay focused. There was a lot left to do. After unwinding the cloth from around my hand, I squeezed out some blood and began to inscribe the magic sigils with it. I placed the spellbook and feather into the center, to focus the divine spell. By the time I was done creating the magic circle, I was starting to feel woozy from the loss of blood.

However, my efforts had an effect. My immediate surroundings had become bathed in an eerie glow that was emitted from the magic sigils. The air crackled with raw, untamed energy. I then rebandaged my hand again and took a few minutes to rest.

The first test involved surviving the transformation from demigod to god. That was one reason why every god gained the divine regeneration feat. Without it, anyone attempting to conduct the ritual would die a miserable death. Of course, even demigods were not immune to pain.

The next parts were the most dangerous. I would have to pass five tests, most of which would be fatal if I failed. After mentally preparing myself, I began the Ritual of Apotheosis. Standing in the center of the magic circle, I held my divine focus and started chanting the incantation.

With each incantation spoken, my flesh seemed to stretch and contort as if being pulled by unseen hands. Veins of incandescent light coursed beneath my skin, revealing glimpses of the celestial essence flowing through my body. I had to force each word of the ritual through gritted teeth as pain threatened to drive me into the darkness. The pain was a constant, searing fire that shot through me, each wave of agony more intense than the last.

My muscles twisted and expanded, their fibers elongating and intertwining in intricate patterns that resembled constellations. My skin turned luminescent, glowing with divinity, iridescent with shifting hues of silver and blue. The transformation was an excruciating process, a trial that tested the very limits of my endurance. My screams echoed through the night as I struggled to endure the divine metamorphosis.

Although I couldn’t understand her words through the pain, I could feel Alsvartr in the back of my mind, urging me to hang on. My blood boiled as all the mortal aspects were burned away, leaving only the divine. If not for my regeneration feat, I would have died long ago. I could feel myself continually losing health points, but also continually regaining them almost as quickly.

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A feeling of relief surged through me as I realized that I had survived the painful transformation. A torrent of celestial energy suddenly surged through me as my new form stabilized. I could feel an increase in all my attributes. However, I didn't have time to celebrate since my new divine senses were now becoming unbearably painful.

I realized that I could see and hear farther. I even developed some type of tremorsense. It was strange. I felt like an old, blind, deaf man who suddenly discovered he could see and hear like he was a child again.

However, the changes weren’t without a price. My nerves screamed in the agony. In fact, the pain was almost unbearable. It was much like when I had transformed from a mortal to a demigod.

My senses were overwhelmed with a deluge of sensory input. The world was a kaleidoscope of colors and energies. Each color vibrated with an intensity that both dazzled and disoriented me. The whispers of cosmic secrets brushed against my consciousness. Their murmurs mingled with the hum of distant stars and the pulse of celestial realms.

This new awareness, though wondrous, was a disorienting storm of sensation. It threatened to drown my mind in its complexity. I struggled to maintain focus. I grappled with the overwhelming flood of divine knowledge. Surprisingly, it was one of my other divine senses that allowed me to maintain my sense of sanity.

I could feel my kobold believers. Many of them were sending prayers of thanks. They were grateful for having been blessed with the draconic kobold transformation. Other kobolds prayed that members of the opposite gender would look their way while taking a morning “bath.” Some prayers made me smile while others made me shake my head in amusement. All of these prayers helped me maintain my focus and not be washed away by my new godly senses.

As I grew used to my new celestial senses, I became aware of an ominous presence lurking at the periphery of existence. This presence seemed like a vast, terrible nameless void that hovered on the edges of reality and dreams. Its essence was a pulsating, ravenous darkness that seemed to whisper seductively to my mind.

It had no place in the natural order of existence. It was an aberration of reality. It had rejected reality, and it wanted me to join it in the darkness. The voice of oblivion was a deep, resonant murmur that promised liberation through destruction. It urged me to succumb to the inevitable entropy that awaited all things. It promised me the power to destroy everything.

Yet, amidst the swirling chaos of divine sensations, I somehow found the resolve to resist. I fought against the pull of oblivion. I summoned every ounce of my divine will to resist the seductive promise of annihilation. The void's whispers clawed at the edges of my mind. However, I endured. Eventually, I was able to isolate its influence behind a wall of willpower, faith, and divinity.

After enduring through these experiences, I started to feel a connection to the domain of death. Death. I was even connected with the undead. My understanding of death began to change. I realized it was not merely about the cessation of life. Despite sometimes being a cruel and unpredictable force, death was also a necessary evil.

Death was both a final release and a necessary transition. It was a force that could be both merciless and merciful. It wove through the tapestry of life, serving as a harbinger of endings and a catalyst for new beginnings.

I witnessed how death, in its chaotic nature, could be a tool of justice or a harbinger of destruction. This revelation brought with it a sobering realization. Death was an essential part of the cosmic cycle. However, its manifestations were not inherently good or evil. I embraced my role and decided to wield my powers with wisdom and compassion. After embracing my divine domain, I started to feel a sense of dread, as if something totally anathema to myself was approaching.

Although I didn’t know the face of my mortal enemy, I could sense it drawing nearer. I realized that I had survived and was now facing the Test of Anathema. It was a symbolic test that reflected the things that were fundamentally opposed to my nature and domain.

I had assumed that life would be the opposite of death. However, I was wrong. Life and death were like two sides of a coin. One could not exist without the other. Instead, the force that approached me was one of eternal, timeless nothingness. Because nothing grew, nothing died. Because nothing changed, nothing was born.

The power that death feared was that of oblivion, where nothing exists, not life, not death, and not even time. It was an absence of everything. It was the power to erase something as if they never existed and never would exist. I shivered, realizing that such powers did exist, although they had been pushed outside borders of existence by some ancient existence, perhaps even the Planar Existence mentioned in the ritual.

Knowing that there was something out there on the edges of existence, I vowed that I would fight it tooth and nail should it ever try to invade my world. While I might have reincarnated into the world, I was a part of the world of Guthheimr. It had given me a second chance, and I wasn’t about to let that chance be taken away from me.

Suddenly, I felt a warm approval wash over me, as if my determination to fight the eternal void had pleased some powerful being. Slowly, I started regaining awareness of the world. That was when I heard a ding with a new notification.

ACHIEVEMENT - MINOR GOD. Congratulations. You have ascended to become the weakest god in the world of Guthheimr.

ACHIEVEMENT - PANTHEON. Congratulations. You have joined the Pantheon of the System Lords.