After what felt like several hours. Lukas finally somewhat digested his absolutely not crazy situation. Okay, definitely not, but what was happening was not something you could just shrug off and go on about your life. Besides, he didn't have a life right now, and maybe never really had one. So, he decided to go ahead and maybe make himself one.

Lukas took a deep breath, and spoke. "I am ready..." an awkward but strangely comfortable silence descended upon them.

"Ah, yes, with all that happened, I forgot to introduce myself." the still unknown goddess blushes.

'Okay, gods can apparently blushes and are therefore teasable, good to know.' Lukas noted to himself.

Not paying or maybe ignoring Lukas's purely scientific thought, she continued "My child, I am Altria, goddess of knowledge, wonders, and curiosity."

'Mmh... So I was not chosen by an op god like the one of space or time, but I can do with knowledge. Wait, did the sort of god even matter in the first place?'

The goddess, now Altria, gave Lukas a knowing smile, fit for the goddess of knowledge. "It would be wise of you to not underestimate knowledge, child."

Suddenly, Lukas had the impression of being in cold water, it was difficult to breath. He couldn't move at all, but more importantly, Altria was now floating in the air. Her robes that he only now noticed - because he was fixed on her face before - fluttering wildly around her, a visible aura of power and divinity enveloping her. The space around was even trembling slightly for god's(gods?) Sake!

"For knowledge is POWER, the power to both create world destroying weapon and recreate said destroyed world, the power to know what is and what has been. For knowledge is CONTROL, the control of yourself through knowing your own limits and strengths, the control of your fate through knowing your desire and what you can do. For knowledge is CHOICE, the choice to act or to abstain yourself through knowing the consequences of both, the choice to be who you want, for even if you decided to not be your true self, you will never lose sight of it."

Altria came down from the air, her white little feet softly touching the ground. "Knowledge has only one disadvantage, and one weakness." Her face was soft. " The disadvantage is not inherent to knowledge, it is inherent to beings with desires and dreams, the disadvantage of knowledge is that it corrupts. Because you know of things you shouldn't, because if knowledge is power, and power corrupts, you have to choose wisely on how to use it. In the right hand, it can create wonders, and in the wrong hands..." She was now gazing far at something, something only she could see.

She snapped her gaze back to Lukas. "And the weakness of knowledge... Is that it can't intrude too strongly in the domain of other gods, and that it absolutely cannot know of the future, for time is the only domain interacting with it. Furthermore, the entity presiding over time is above even knowledge."

She stared Lukas in the eyes with a soft and solemn expression. "It is the weakness of knowledge. It is MY, weakness, and for that, I am sorry for my lack of insight and thus causing your mother to sacrifice herself. If I had selected you directly at the beginning. It wouldn't have come to that. So I will repeat myself one last time, I, Altria, goddess of knowledge, is truly sorry for your loss." To finish her speech, she bowed a little to him.

Lukas didn't know how to respond. He felt many emotions during her speech, at first, he was a bit afraid and shocked, then, he was impressed and had his mind totally blown by the true power of knowledge and finally, he was surprised that an authentic god was bowing to him. Furthermore, Lukas realized that the image of the gods that he had before he knew they really existed kept changing over the past few hours.

"It's okay, Altria, you said you didn't know it would happen, right?"

She nodded, not offended in the least by his casual use of her name.

"But being the goddess of knowledge, wouldn't that mean that you can know what people think?" Lukas didn't add any innuendo implicating that she was lying. He was not retarded, after the earlier power show that he was sure wasn't even 1% of her true power, he could do nothing even if she was lying to him from the start. Besides, as a mere mortal, he could not control his thoughts like he would like to, so she already knew what he was thinking and any plans would be useless. 'Isn't that right, Altria?'

She shot a sympathetic smile at Lukas. "Do not worry..." She hesitated, if Lukas had to guess, he would say that it was because it would be inappropriate to call him 'my child' just after she apologized to him equal to equal.

"You can call me by my name Altria. I already do so with you after all."

"Thank you, Lukas." She responded with a grateful smile.

She then resumed to where she was. "Do not worry, Lukas. When I was talking about the weakness of knowledge earlier, I was referring to that. Knowledge cannot intrude on the human mind and their emotions because the gods all have one mortal emotion as part of their domain. For example, myself, represent the mortal desire to understand their environment. In other words, curiosity."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"So, are you implying that you possibly couldn't know of the result of summoning my mother here?"

She hung her head in shame, her, the literal goddess of knowledge, couldn't predict such an easy-to-see-coming result, wasn't it degrading for the gods?

Lukas had a heavy heart, but kept a straight face. "I already said it, Altria, it's alright, it wasn't your intention to have my mother do what she did, it is only the result of her own choice. Know that I do not hold it against you. Now I think it's time, I want to hear the message my mother left for me. "

With a difficult light in her eyes, she nodded.

A sort of hologram/ethereal construct appeared before Lukas. It was certainly his mother, the same brown hair, the same brown eyes, the same kind smile permanently present on her face. The only thing out of place that Lukas could see was the absence of guilt normally present in those very same brown eyes. Now that he got to see her, he could see that she finally found the way to make him happy, even if for a price.

"Hi, dear, well, if you really are listening to this message right now, you know what happened. So I won't bother with it. Firstly, I want to tell you that, I could have taken this chance to and at least live it. It would have been what you wanted, right. But how could I do that? I am a mother, I wouldn't be able to forget you and how I failed you as a mother, no matter the things that would have happened in this life. Besides, wasn't it your dream to get to live in a fantasy world?" She chuckled.

"I saw how you had dreaming eyes when reading certain manga that I bought you. So now's your chance, but before that, I need to tell you the true reason why we were in so poor of a situation before, even when we were trying so hard." Her smile lessened a little.

"I won't mince my words, your father was in fact, the leader of an influential gang of our city who had his way with me when I was younger. When I got pregnant with you, for a reason I'll explain later, he took a liking to me. He wanted to have me by his side and even offered me numerous benefits. Of course, I would never agree to be by my rapist side. So, out of spite, he threatened every single boss I worked under that they really should fire me and thus, one day, nobody dared to hire me anymore." She sighed.

"Your 'progenitor' probably thought that without money, I would fall directly in his arms. Then, my best friend took notice of my situation and decided to take me in. She was sure that I would be safe because of her husband, he was an ex-soldier and was at the time a police officer. It works for a time, but by the time that I was too far in my pregnancy to move around too much. He had an accident at work, very probably related to your father. At the time, I couldn't understand why he was so obsessed with me. Nonetheless, I didn't want anything to do with this man." For a while now, her smile was gone, but there was no hate, no anger, no resentment when speaking of the man who made her suffer so much.

"With time, he lost interest in me, but he always kept an eye us. The rest is something you already know, until the time I estimated you were old enough to take care of yourself that is. It was the first truly selfish thing I did in my life. When you turned 15, ultimately, I accepted his proposition." She regained her smile, her voice even had a certain happiness to it.

"Your father was a foolish man, he was happy and simply thought that I was tired and gave up because of our situation. It was how we got so much money in the past three years. During these years, he tried to bed me various times. He said that he wanted another child, but I found his reason suspicious, after all, he didn't care about you one bit. Never talking about you or asking of your whereabouts, not even caring if you were alive or not."

"I said to him that I didn't want another child before you were eighteen, and surprisingly, he bought it. Meanwhile, I started to asked questions around the group, being the leader's woman gave me a bit of authority. Still, I had to show them that I was not just a helpless woman from time to time." Her smile became a bit scary, it was the first time Lukas was seeing this side of her. He thought it fit her pretty well.

"Of course, I did not ask suspicious questions. I only wanted to know of the reason I suffered all these years, why our lives were only composed of hardship and struggle, and I found it. Your father was apparently sterile, so imagine his surprise when the woman he raped turn out pregnant. He knew it was my first time too, so it could not be another man's child. After that, he got himself retested, but he was certainly still unable to have children. After me, he had many other women yet, none of them became pregnant." Her face was severe.

"Because of that, he somehow thought he could make money if my body was truly unique and that I could bear the children of sterile men. But with time, his interest turned into obsession, his obsession turned into twisted love, and his twisted love turned into genuine love. All this happened in his own head without even needing a single actions of mine, funny how the human mind work sometimes."

"Exactly on your eighteen birthday, he confessed to me about how he was sorry of his past actions and how you, dear, remind him of his foolish past self and that it was the reason he wanted a second child. He wanted it to turn a new page in his life." If her smile was a little scary before, but now it was filled with disgust.

"Of course, I spat in his face, and stabbed him with the knife that I had successfully hidden on me. After all these years, I managed to gain the gang trust and make them lower their guard around me. Only, you know Lukas." She had tears in her eyes.

"Even if mom didn't show it, it was really hard to keep trying to live a normal life and stay sane. The rape, bringing my best friend in my troubles, raising you alone, the guilt of not being able to provide you with the childhood you deserved. And, more importantly, the overwhelming rage threatening to drown everything else." She wiped away her tears and flashed her son a bright smile, so bright that it didn't lose to Altria smile in the slightest.

"It's you Lukas that kept me together despite all of that, maybe you were the child of the man I hated the most in my life, but, above all, you were mine, my cute, hardworking, caring, boy. But, enough of that, this is not a story that concerns you, not anymore. Talking about stories." Her kind smile from the beginning returned.

"We should talk about yours or, more precisely, your new one."