6. Temple Day

Alex sat in a little grove; she had found it yesterday in the Temple District. As she had gotten all her shopping done on her first day, she had used yesterday to wander the whole city. Most of the temples did occupy the sides of the big square, as did the fortress of the Count of Nordhutten. She had of course looked into those, as yesterday had been no services, unlike today. Today it was the so-called Temple Day, where most people were visiting the temple of their choice and the Priests were standing ready for them or were preaching, as she understood it, there were big differences from god to god how their servants go about business.

More important for herself was that Temple Day was also the first day of the new week, and that most shops and services were closed for at least the morning.

Most of the temples, especially the big ones at the plaza, were quite as you would expect them. Impressive buildings, made of expensive looking stone and somewhat mirroring the domain of the god while having a similar style to them. Only two stood out by being different. At the plaza there was a big temple of the twin God and Goddess of the Clans. Build of polished granite with a lot of quartz in it, it had a more rounded design than the temple of the northern Kingdom. It also was not just a Temple; it was a bank and an auction house.

Kagami had told her, that the Clans had other gods too, but they build the Temple of their Sea goddess only in harbor cities and the rest where smaller, regional and Clan gods, for which they didn´t built temple outside of their islands.

The other temple that was different, was the grove she sat in at the moment. As she found it yesterday, she had simply thought it was a park, as you might expect in the wealthy part of town. But thanks to Kagami she had known where she was, before she stumbled over some Priests. It was a nicely kept garden around a grove and had a wide variety of plants. The actual temple of Neraida, the Goddess of the Harvest and the Hearth, sat direct on the border of grove and garden, and was a wooden structure that gave you a homely feeling. Additionally, where many small shrines placed in this area, consecrated to different Gods and Goddesses with connection to nature, but of lesser importance than Neraida.

As Alex had liked this park at the first glance, she had decided to spend Temple Day here. Of course, she didn´t come here for any form of worship, even without the Geas she was not really at ease with actually existing Gods, she was an atheist after all, she was here for training.

By now, she had her bodyaugumentation at the point, that she could channel her Exessmana into it, if she not got totally distracted. She could also not only boost herself with all her Mana at once, but she was also able to infuse part of her Mana so she would get the full boost for a time between one and twenty seconds.

The finer control, to get a smaller boost over longer time, was not jet in her repertoire. She could do it, but the output power fluctuated so much, that it was more hindering than helping her. Just moving with such fluctuation was an ordeal. The 10% boost she could manage, because she had in her Exessmana an already defined quantity.

So, the training for that was more a long time effort and not what she concentrated on right now.

As tomorrow she had her first outing with other Awakened, and it would be expected from her to heal others, she concentrated on the one part of her Aurasense, she would need most for that.

As she had practiced self healing on herself a lot, even if she were not into self mutilation, it had been necessary, and Kagami had assured her it would be not different with others. At least with others, who were willing. She had tried using bunnies, that she had caught, as trainings objects, but that hadn´t worked. They instinctively repelled her Mana.

So, she had, and did so now, trained the forming of her Aura and infusing of her Mana on plants. It was different, as she was not healing, but animating growth in the plant, but it worked and was much easier than finding people with fresh injuries.

At the moment, she sat cross-legged in front of a small sprout of some tree or bush. It was small enough that she could easily infuse it completely with her Mana, which she filled with a simple Intend of healthy growth. The hardest part was not to get lost in the information, her Aurasense gave her from the infused plant. But by now she could hold it together for longer and longer time, and the sprout had grown at least by twenty-five centimeters in the last hour.

As she stopped and carefully extracted her Aura from it, having used up nearly all her Mana, she looked at the plant in wonder. By now it was easy to see, that it was an offspring of the big, Birchlike tree a few meters away. And it had gone from a spout of ten centimeters to a seedling of half a meter height.

As she couldn´t go on until her Manacontainer was full again, she let herself fall back into the grass and closed her eyes. The trees in this clearly tended to grove had a lot of space between them and no undergrowth in most places, so she lay comfortable in the warm sunlight.

As there was time to kill, she asked Kagami,

So how is it with these Gods? You have more than once spoken of differences in power and other things. I believe you said once that Justina was a mortal that became a Goddess. So how does this work? And what about the Gods here?

Kagami, herself lying in the grass in the form of a human girl of perhaps ten years, started to explain,

Yeah! I didn´t tell you much, because it´s a lot to take in, but as we have time now, I can give you at least a rough overview.

You see, what I for now had only called Gods are beings that more or less fall in four categories, or perhaps five.

It started all as the Well of Magic came into existing. Because without Mana, there were no Gods.

As soon as there was Mana, there were the seven Primordial Truths. Those are the Well, Magic in itself. Energy, pretty much everything from matter to every other form of energy. Life, because however you put energy into form there is something else needed to get life. Time and Space, very complicated topics, so just belief for now, that those two are Primordial Truths. The End, well, because nothing is really forever. And Change, as the universe and everything in it is in a constant dance of change. The Primordial Truth of Chance is Karneol by the way.

Wait, what? The guy who looks like a leprechaun is one of the oldest.

Alex asked, surprised. Does that mean he is one of the most powerful?

Well, hard to say. He is powerful, but he only does as he wants and has no religion or Priests. As Primordial Truth he simply exists and will so as long there is Mana and a Universe. So even if there is something more powerful as those seven truths, they are irrefutable. You would need to destroy the universe to get rid of them.

The next group is the Primordial Concepts. They are nearly as indestructible as they are ideas that just need the existenz of complex life to exist. A good example for them is the Primordial Concept of Knowledge. She exists as even a worm can learn, even if only in ridiculously small ways.

As soon as Mana contacted the first sapient lifeform, they, Truths and Concepts, got personified themselves.

Then you have the group of the Concepts. These are ideas that need the existenz of sapient life to exist. Like Chaos, Order or Justice. You will not find a single atom of justice in the universe, and chaos and order don´t exist really. It´s all in the minds of sapient beings. But as long as they belief they exist, they do.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

And the power of faith, the belief of sapient beings is not just responsible for the existenz of the concepts and the form the Concepts, the Primordial Concepts and the Primordial Truths have, it is also responsible for the existenz of the last two groups.

That what you call Gods are on one hand the gods, that are simply beings that come into existenz just because there is enough faith in them. They are just part of one of those Truths or concepts, which gets their own existenz, their own individuality. So, if you start a religion of, let’s say Dumdum the Goddess of Knowledge, as soon as you get enough believer together, this Goddess actually exists. If there are not enough believers, she stops existing. But the whole time she is just a small speck of the higher Primordial Concept of Knowledge.

It gets complicated if mortals get enough people to belief in them as a God. As it is they become Gods, and it can be a way to immortality for those, that are unable to find true enlightment by themselves. Sounds like a nice cheat code but is not really a good path to go.

It´s messy! They are shaped by the belief in more ways than just becoming immortal and powerful. They have no natural connection to their domain. By that I mean, that a Goddess of Justice like Juntita, who once was a mortal, has not even the smallest speck of the Concept of Justice in her. You could say that they are slaves to their own religion. It is a very complicated topic, at the moment, just belief me, they are crazy!

Wow! I mean that sounds crazy and all.

Alex was quite overwhelmed by all this information.

What about the God here on this world? To which group do they belong?

Nearly all of them originate from belief, but there are places where Concepts and Primordial Concepts have their own following.

The only “god” of the last group is the “God” of the empire at the south end of this continent.

Kagami said, making the “with her fingers.

The guy, he was the emperor before he did rise to the next world, has somehow found out how he could use the belief, and got notice to his descendants here. So, they started this whole religion of him. Don´t know how all that happened, and he is not yet a real God. But he is on the way to becoming one.

So those Ex-mortal Gods are rare, and the others are the norm?

Unfortunately, no. They are rare on worlds of the first threshold. It is not easy to get your influence downwards, as I said no clue how this emperor did manage to contact his descendants. And as you have to get at least to a world of the third threshold to become a God, let’s say, they look more for possibilities that are more easily achieved.

Ok. Well, my Mana is back up full.

Let’s get on with the training.

Alex got back up and touched the little tree carefully.

Lang Fing Fang, head of all operations of the Fang Clan in the county of Nordhutten, walked into the secure conference room for the weekly meeting of his department heads. They were already here, of course. It was the privilege of being their Boss to don´t have to wait on them. After sitting down at the head of the heavy table he looked over those present.

Ru Na Fang, head of the Bank and an old crow with a twisted devilish mind, sat to his right. After him Nel Sal Fang, head of their Auction house and a beautiful woman which gotten her second class so early, that she still only looked as if she was in her thirties. In truth she was as old as the crow.

Fasa Fing Fang and Alego Sal Fang where the youngest in the room, both in their forties and they had gotten their second class not so long ago. But as they were heads of the Intelligence Department, one for the generally County, the other for all things concerning the Clans, it was expected that they would have an active hand in their work. So, their position was one for the younger ones. The fifth of his department heads was not here, as Tinae Hal Fang was the principle of their branch of the Akademie she reported in writing and only came twice a year in person.

He pointed at a stack of sealed envelopes and said,

As awaited, the reports of the news outside of Nordhutten have come in, and you get your copy after our first round. But I will give you the highlights that may have direct impact on us. The preliminary reports and rumors about the good fortune of the Gan Clan are true. They have located a source of immense Naturemana in the Inbetween, not far from the Rift. That source is a form of mushrooms, and first examinations indicate it to be a first rate ingredient for alchemistic purposes.

This had all listeners curious, as this would be the first time the Rift gave such a treasure. As it was an abnormal Rift, sitting right in the middle of the Deadfields, and not blasting out a lot of Mana. The operations of the Gan had only brought out high leveled Beast corpses and such. Profitable, but not in the same way as a Rift normally was.

Nel, you will be happy that I managed to get 100 samples of this mushrooms for our Auction house here. The Alchemists will be ready to pay premium for the chance to experiment with it before others can.

Other than that, we have good and bad news. The diplomats of the Sing Clan have finally got an inroad to those Harger, that were discovered in the Great Barnai Mountain chain. As you know they were xenophobic to an extreme and as they live underground nearly impossible to contact. As it is a Sing Trader got lucky as he got snowed in on a pass with a group of their warriors. He was lucky, because he transported a lot of fine spirits, and those Harger have a great appetite for those. So, they not only let him live, they wanted for him to come back and bring more. The luck of the Twins was with the Sing on this day!

That started laughter in the room. They all knew how many fortunes were made only because of luck and the ability to ride the wild Scalecat if you found yourself on it´s back.

He waited for the laughter to end and followed up with the more dire news.

The bad news is that all attempts to bring the South Empire to see reason didn´t work. Their politic to ban all worship other than their Godempereor stands, and they have gone to exile all Priests of other gods from their land, and we have reports of enslavements and killings of all that don´t want to follow their religion.

They closed all harbor cities but one for trade with others. The Clan heads have decided that we will wait with any reaction for now.

His subordinates looked at him with worry in their eyes as they digested this news.

Look, I will not claim that I know what the Clan heads are thinking and planning, but to wait and closely monitor the situation is the right thing to do. We can still trade for all that the southerners get out of the South rift, make even better deals if other Powers put on trade embargos or such. And all those Gods that have or had worshipers down there will put a lot of pressure on those they can sway to act against the empire. We ourselves did never try to get worshippers outside the Clans. Yes, we lost a lot of possibilities there, especially as our Bank had to leave, but they let us leave with our assets, because they knew they needed our trade in the future.

Either they collapse all by themselves, or sooner or later there will be a coalition of some sort that will cause the collapsing for them. For now, we will wait.

Trying to brighten the mood, Lang chanced the subject,

But now, before we go together through those papers in detail, and before you all give me the reports of your departments, what about this strange newcomer I hear about in every corridor of our nice house? Tell us Fasa, what is it with a green haired girl, which is an Elf or not?

Fasa Fing Fang smiled and answered.

Well, not just our corridors! It´s the talk of the town.

And it´s really no wonder, it´s like a tale of legend, but told by a drunken confused Bard.

A green haired young woman who is a Nymph, and as she tells everybody that’s a daughter of a Dryad and an Elf, from another world. She got into an accident of ritualistic magic way more complex and advanced than what we even had thought of and landed in the deathfields. The Empire she comes from is even more strange, and of a structure that no one ever heard of, it reigns even over more than one world.

An absolutely outrageous tale, but the thing is, she is not lying!

Fasa let that sink in,

The Priestess and the Castellan of the small town, who heard her story first and send a courier to the Count stated so. My own specialists that heard her tell it; say she tells the truth. The Count sent his own adviser, and he too states so. By now nearly everyone has sent someone to verify it, but it´s all the same. And at least my specialist and the old adviser of the Count would have sensed it if it was some kind of self-delusion.

As crazy at it sounds, that woman is not crazy and tells the truth.

Did any of the Clan or the nobility try to get her in any way? Asked Nel Sal Fang,

Not yet. And to be truthful, she is not really a valuable asset, not more than any other awakened of the same power. She does not know a lot of her own Empire, as it seems. She tells she has grown up in the wilderness.

But alone what she has told about those so-called Formations has some Ritualists and Enchanter in total upheaval. I mean the concept of combining Enchantments and Rituals is nothing new, but going above that and constructing something that contains multiple diverse Enchanted Rituals working together is absolutely new.

For now, I think we should keep an eye on her, she may not be able to give us something great and powerful, but I don´t have to tell you how impactful some simple new ideas can be.

I mean, the girl knows nothing but the mere definition of those Formation, but just the knowledge, that they are possible is of worth. It might take time, but sooner or later someone will succeed, and who knows what will be possible then.

So, what would you suggest, how we handle her? Asked Lang Fing Fang,

Well, I have put one of my people on her, just to befriend her and listen carefully for useful tibits. And if she is a capable person, we should think about getting her into the Akademie or even the Clan.

I think we just wait and make it clear to others that we would not look kindly at those that might come between us and her.

Lang Fing Fang nodded. Sounds reasonable. We will see how it goes.

But for now, let´s talk business!