Kai, Thane and Nixie sat down on the floor of the training room having just gotten done with lunch.

“For our magic lessons we are going to learn a couple of things. Though unlike your physical training we will be focusing on one thing at a time. First you will learn how to control your mana inside of your body and gain control over it. After that is done you will start practicing your spells and how to use them. While you are doing these two things in the down time you will learn magic theory. Now the first thing you should know about magic is the two different kinds there are. The first type of magic is verbal magic. Verbal magic uses spells and words to command the mana into action. This comes with the advantage of being far more efficient than the other type of magic when you are in the middle of combat. Along with that it is also possible to get to the point of not needing the verbal component of a spell to cast it. The other type of magic is runic magic. Runic magic uses what is essentially a language to command the mana into action instead of words. This means that far larger and more powerful spells can be cast. Though this comes at the trade off of being incredibly slow in the middle of a fight. For this reason mages using verbal magic are far more common. There is one last thing that you should know. People can't use both types of magic or at least humans can’t. Though there are a couple ways to bypass this restriction. One of those is being bound to a bond armament. This means that you will have the ability to use both types of magic.” Thane said, pulling out a small rolled up piece of paper and setting it down in front of Kai. “This is a spell or more accurately a spell scroll. A spell scroll when read will put you in a sort of trance. After reading it the magic in it that allows you to learn the spell will dissipate and you will find yourself with the ability to cast spell.” Thane took the spell and put it in one of his pockets. “We won’t be able to teach you runic magic since we don’t know much about it. Now I have a question for you. With everything you know about magic how do you think that a verbal spell works?”

Kai thought about everything he had learned about magic and affinities. He thought about the time when he had cast end clade and before that when he had cast death field. Finally he thought about when he had killed the gray back gorilla and the magic he had accidentally used. Every time he had cast a spell he had felt the mana gather up in his lung and flow out of his mouth into his words. Thinking about it more he felt that there was something more that he was missing. He had this feeling that there was a final stage between when he spoke the words and when his spell came into effect. “A spell is cast by gathering mana inside your lung and then releasing it through your breath and words. Your affinity and words then guide it into taking shape.” Kai said hesitantly.

Thane nodded. “With the information you have, that is a more in depth explanation than I expected. There is one more step in between the releasing of the mana and the manifestation of the spell. While I have said that your words are an order telling the mana what to do. There is another aspect of what it does. It creates a type of mold for the mana to move into and then create the spell. The spell scroll will imprint this mold on you allowing your spell to naturally create it. Though as you know it is not necessary to know a spell to be able to use magic. It is still possible to cast something close to a spell without a mold and is in fact what most races do. Humans are the only race with this pseudo restriction. Now that you know that we can move onto our final topic of the day before we start training.” As Thane finished speaking he grinned at Kai. “Where do you suppose our spells come from?” Thane asked him.

Kai thought about it for a moment before speaking. “Lots of experiments.” Glancing up at Thane’s slightly pointed ears he then said “And the other races.”

Thane nodded. “Almost entirely correct. Around 10% of known spells originate from humans, 30% come from other races and the final 60% come from the gods. Th-” Thane was cut off by Kai before he could say anything else.

“Gods aren’t real” He said matter of factly. Everyone stopped what they were doing. The sound of metal clashing against metal paused and Thane stopped talking. Everyone looked at Kai like he was insane “What? Gods aren’t real.”

“Kai the gods are real. Why do you say they aren’t?” Thane asked Kai.

Kai shrugged and asked a question of his own. “Why do you say they are? Have you ever seen one?”

Thane shook his head. “No we have never seen one but that does not mean that they don’t exist. Plenty of people have received blessings from various gods.”

Yet again Kai shrugged “Ok so people have received weird magic from even weirder magic. That doesn’t mean the weird magic is a god.”

Thane looked at Kai like he was insane. “Kai gods are real. They aren’t weird magic like you seem to think. Why do you think gods aren’t real?”

Kai thought about it for a second, curious himself why he was so adamant that gods weren’t real. As he was thinking about it he felt a cracking and tearing pain in his head. Kai felt panic start to rise up in him as he tried to figure out where the pain had come from. Quickly he calmed back down as he got his answers. The reason he was so adamant that gods weren’t real was because of that past life though the exacts seemed to be missing. It was also because of these missing memories that he had felt pain. It was like he had tried to use an injured muscle though he could tell this was an injury he would never recover from.

Looking back up at Thane Kai shrugged. “They just aren’t and you can’t prove me wrong.”

“Young man I can assure you that the gods are real.” The voice of an older man could be heard coming from the door to the training room.

Looking over Kai saw a strange man that he had never seen before. He looked to be in his later 60s to early 70s, his hair was gray, and he walked around with a cane. Despite the cane he walked around completely unhindered by old age. And in spite of his seeming old age Kai felt a strange sense of life and vigor radiating off of him.

“Please excuse my intrusion and allow me to introduce myself. I am Errol, high bishop of Knowledge. Please excuse me for barging in. Normally I wouldn’t have entered like this but I wished to talk to this young man about his beliefs.”

“My apologies high bishop” Thane said while bowing. “Kai did not mean to offend you or your lady.”

“No no it is fine. Knowledge does not mind his words. After all it is the mind that goes against the known that learns the new.” Errol said, reassuring Thane. “One of the goddesses' core teachings is sadly one that is also often forgotten even by our own. She teaches us that we should always ask questions and we should stand by our beliefs. Though we shouldn’t be foolish about it and not deny something when there is sufficient evidence. To that end Kai I would like to reassure you that gods are real. In fact I have talked to my goddess 3 different times.”

Kai raised an eyebrow. “Oh and how did you talk to her?” he asked.

“She used our bond to talk to me in my mind twice and I even spoke to her in person when I became a high bishop.” Errol said clearly satisfied with himself.

Kai cocked his head to the side. “Just because weird magic spoke in your mind doesn't mean that it’s a god. I have weird magic that speaks in my head but I don’t think that they’re gods.” Kai froze realizing that he had said a bit more than he should have.

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“My goddess is not just weird magic speaking in my head she is real and so are the other gods. I don-.” Errol paused, “did you say that weird magic speaks in your hea-”

For a moment an immense pressure descended on the room before disappearing almost instantly. In that moment Kai felt as if he was in a gigantic library with shelves of books infinitely expanding in every direction. As the pressure disappeared a stunningly beautiful woman was left standing in the middle of the room. She had long caramel brown hair with matching eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. She wore plain brown robes that made Kai think of some kind of librarian.

“Hello Kai I am the goddess Knowledge and yes the gods are real.” The goddess said.

Kai looked at her confused. “I never said the gods weren’t. I said gods weren’t real. I didn’t doubt that you didn’t exist, there's too much magic to doubt that. What I doubt is that you are a god.”

“Boy bow to the goddess.” Errol said to Kai.

Yet again confused Kai looked around and found that everyone in the room except him and of course the goddess were on their knees bowing.

“It’s alright I will not force someone to bow to me, I am not a tyrant.” Turning to Kai, she continued speaking. “You're mostly right. It is possible to make the argument that we are not actually gods but we are as close as it comes to a god like being that it is a mut point.”

The goddess cocked her head to the side staring deep into Kai’s eyes. “Beautiful” She muttered so quietly that Kai wasn’t even sure he heard it. Knowledge took a step forward and cupped the side of Kai’s head with her hand. “Your eyes.” Her voice was low and filled with awe. “They're beautiful.” Her other hand reached out towards Kai's eyes and passed through as if nothing was there. “The complex is simply amazing.” Her hand moved in a way that suggested that it was tracing something. “Knowledge. Observation. Unde-” The goddess shook her head as if trying to get a hold of herself “What do you know about your eyes?” She asked

“Not much. I know that they’re something called a runic body part. Which is some kind of mutation in my body that lead to the natural formation of runes in my body. As for me specifically. I know that they enhance my senses and that I have some level of control over what is enhanced and how much.” Kai said.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, why?”

The goddess shook her head. “That enhancement is simply a side effect of the true purpose of your eyes.”

“Then what is the true purpose of my eyes?” Kai asked curiously

Instead of answering she instead asked him a question. “What do you know about gods?”

“Nothing, before today I didn’t even know they existed.”

She nodded her head as if having expected that. “That’s what I thought. I am the goddess of as my name suggests Knowledge. All knowledge of this world I have at least some level of awareness but that does not mean I have power over all knowledge. While I seek to spread knowledge, not all knowledge should be spread. This is not only because there are some things that shouldn’t be public knowledge but also some things that I just can’t speak of. At least not without making a trade of knowledge. There are many scholars that will seek me out to trade new discoveries for old lost discoveries.”

Kai thought about her words for a second before speaking. “Can I trade some knowledge that no one but me has for knowledge of what my eyes really do.”

Knowledge shook her head. “There are strictures in place that prevent me from telling you right now. But come to me later when you have a better understanding of them and something valuable and I will give you some knowledge that will definitely be of interest to you. But for now I want to make a trade. I know that there is something strange about your mind. Something not wholly of this world. I want you to tell me a story not of this world.”

Kai looked at the goddess unsure what he should do. He hadn’t even told Thane and the others about his memories of another world yet she knew. After thinking about it for a while he decided that there was nothing he could do about it. After putting some thought into what kind of story he should tell her he finally came to a fitting decision.

For nearly an hour Kai told the goddess and the others who had eventually stopped bowing stories about the Greek goddess Athena. When he was finally done Knowledge had a pleased look on her face.

“Why did you want a story and not something that could have been more useful to you in the future?” Kai asked the goddess.

“Because I wasn’t always a goddess.” She said with a fond smile. “Many many millennia ago when I was a little girl I used to love listening to her tell me stories. When I learned that I had a mind affinity I learned magic to help me read and I would spend all my free time reading stories. I have long read all of the stories that could be found on this world so the chance to hear a new one was not something I could pass up on.”

“Oh, well if you ever want to hear more you can always visit and I can tell you more.” Kai said eagerly.

Knowledge smiled at him. “I would love to do that.” she clapped her hands together “Now why don’t we move on to my reward for that story and then a small present that I had Errol bring here for you.” Knowledge held out her hand. Mana started to flow out of here moving towards her hand where it solidified into a large book. “For the story you told me this is the story of a human general in a war a couple thousand years ago. I believe that you will find it very interesting.”

Turning around she gestured for Errol to come over. “Hand me the book.” She said as her voice took on a commanding tone that Kai had not previously heard.

“Are you sure? It-” Errol cut himself off at the look Knowledge gave him.

Reaching into his backpack he took out a massive book. Its cover was a vibrant electric blue with bolts of lightning shooting through it. On the cover the words Thunder Tyranny were etched in gold. Above those words etched in the same gold was a pair of wings stretched out from the edges of a throne and above the throne was a crown. Kai could hear the crackling of electricity coming off of it and he got the strangest feeling of unimaginable weight from it. As Errol and the book got closer Kai felt the urge to kneel before it. To bow down and submit. The feeling of inadequacy and inferiority.

Kai’s eyes narrowed on the book as something rose up inside of him and flung off the feelings that the book was giving him. As his mind cleared he went back to studying the book. As he looked it over he noticed more etchings. These ones depicted men and women bowing down to or getting struck by lightning from one of the three he had seen at first.

Knowledge grabbed the book out of Errol's hands and turned to Kai. “This is the tome of the thunder tyrant, Thunder Tyranny. When you read it it will impart 3 spells onto you and a lesser spell derived from one of the three. But you can not read it now. In fact reading it any time in the next couple of years would most likely do massive damage to you. These are not spells to be trifled with. They are some of the most sought after lightning spells in this entire world and for good reason. Each one requires not only a good amount of aether but it also needs a decent amount of prawna also. This is another reason you will not be able to learn them since you do not have access to either aether or prawna. Also do not tell anyone you have these spells.” Knowledge closed her hand around thin air and in it a small fabric bag appeared just big enough to fit the book in. “While the book is in this bag no one will be able to find out that you have it. Make sure to be careful that know one learns about it. Do you understand?” she asked as she handed him the books.

Kai nodded as accepted her gifts. “I promise to be careful.”

Knowledge smiled down at him. “Good.” she ruffled his hair as her form started to blur. “ Your life has been hard. Try to find ways to enjoy it.

“Bye.” Kai said as he watched her form dissipate.

Errol was the first one to speak once she was gone. “Those are some extremely valuable items you have there. Not just the spell but also the book. It was created directly by the goddess and if I didn’t want to insult her both by trying to put a value on it and by trying to take something so clearly meant for you I would try to buy it from you.

Errol leaned down to pick up his bag and cane. “I must be leaving but if you are ever in the capital seek me out. I would be extremely interested to hear the story of someone. That was able to capture the interest of my goddess so much. That she visited them directly.” With that Errol left.

Kai looked down at the two presents that he had been given. He was unsure how much he would enjoy a history book but maybe it would read more like a fantasy book. After all this was a fantasy world.

As Kai thought to himself, another thing caught his attention. “Knowledge isn’t really a name, it's more of a title.” He muttered to himself. “I’m going to call you Athena from now on.” He said as he ran his hand over the books.