Nyes had made some plans before going to sleep. He'd also set his skill to rank up for the first time. It would finish sometime before dawn the next day, but that was fine. He figured he could just use it again when he woke up each morning.

  As he drifted off, in that moment between wakefulness and slumber, there was a little drop. It felt almost like one of those dreams where you were falling but was so brief it didn't startle him awake.

  His next thought was, huh?

  He was sitting in a plain wooden chair. In front of him was a small, squar wooden table. On the sitting on the table, at the other edge, was a 20 centimeter tall.... lizard. It was shiny kind of. Almost like polished wood. It was green with dark yellow scars all over its body. There was black thread stitching through all the scars. The lizard had two giant legs for its size with two small arms on its upper body. The arms looked all but useless honestly. It's head had bony ridges above its eyes that were light brown and it's eyes were something else. It kind of hurt to look directly at them but they were purple maybe. Or the smell of alcohol?

  That was a weird thought to have about how something looked but Nyes felt it to be accurate. The upper jaw was typical for a predatory lizard, filled with teeth and such. The bottom jaw was comically small however. It gave the appearance of a ridiculously over pronounced overbite. His brain started to question his environment right about then.

  "What i"

  "I stole your dream." The sound came from the lillte lizard, but it hadn't moved to speak. It was an odd voice to say the least. Like different people saying each syllable of each word spoken in varying tones, pitches, and genders. The sounds were in Nyes's head.

  ......."What?" He was very confused.

  "I stole your dream. Ate it actually. Used the gap to bring you here for a little chat. Tasted like lemon Christmas."

  "I don't know what that means. What's Christmas? And is this really happening?"

  The voice sounding amused "It did happening! It need to happen to have protected you. You now had my blessing. And before you ask, yes. I am a god."

  He just sat there for almost a full minute processing that. This certainly didn't FEEL like a dream. And there was a certain presence from the little lizard thing that felt much larger than it seemed. "Okay. This is either happening or I've lost my mind."

  "It is happened.

  "That! You keep using past and present wrong! And I looked at my status right before I fell asleep. The blessing section was there but empty."

  "Nope. I just don't use time the same way mortals do. There was no blessing until this dream happened. Now it was there. Had to happen that way to keep Halcis from destroying you immediately."

  "Why?! Why would she want me dead?" A goddess wanting him dead was going right to the top of his big ol list of problems.

  "Haha! Because you break the balance!" This time the voice made Nyes brain hurt. His left eye twitched and he felt the sound of trumpets somehow and tasted half past three. "The Advancement skill." The voice said with less force and Nyes felt himself less likely to die.

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  "She thought she'd locked it down forever. That no one would ever be able to use it the way I intended. All it took was a megalomaniacal princeling, some sould magic, and a very unethical use of the skill stone (coupled with secret research the nobles have used for centuries now for their own selfish gain) and BAM! You broke her rules. I've been delighted all day."

  "That would make you Rekf, god of chaos right? And I'm right? I can gain skills with Mimic and then increase the level to keep them?" He was excited now. He had confirmation.

  "Mostly. You'll keep the skill levels you gain. The one you borrowed with Mimic will go away and you'll have to regain that one, but that no problem for you now is it. Ha! Bonus info! You gain the skills with whatever perks built into them. For free. You still get to pick five more total for the skill once you max it out. Isn't that great?"

  "You're saying I get their perks plus mine? Wait though. Did you say princeling?"

  "Oh yeah. The noble you refer to as Lord Snootley is the current crown prince. Nobles like him have been stealing rare skills for a long time now. They figured this out not too long after that one prince got Advancement. Tragic really. They almost had it figured out in time."

  "So that guy was crown Prince Ferdin? And how does your blessing help?"

  "Yeah, you should probably steer clear of him though. He'll be able to feel that soul magic in you because it's his. And the Blessing of Rekf makes it so the bitch of Balance cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell you. She cannot see evidence of your passing, perceive you magically, or hear other people tell her about you. It makes her completely unaware of you in the past, present, and future. Serves her right too. She wants everything so balanced and pristine. Even Proga god of Order understands that chaos and Order are two sides of a coin that both serve a purpose. Halci is like the worst Karen micromanager ever."

  "Karen? So I'm not going to be smote for existing then? But the prince can sense me if I get near him and will likely kill me anyway? That just fabulous."

  "Only until you get strong enough, then you can just squash him like a soap bubble."

  "Okay okay, stay away from the prince, safe from a goddess who would want me dead if she could perceive that I exist, and get stong fast. Is that all you wanted to tell me?" Nyes noticed that their surrounding had been subtly shifting this whole time. He was now sitting on a large multicolored cube and Rekf was sitting on aboulder. The sky, which had been nighttime and starry, was now gold and glittery. Like it was falling but never seemed to move.

  "More or less. And I wanted to meet the man who brought my fun little jab at Halcis to reality. Honestly after 14,000 years I'd begun to lose hope."

  "This is all a lot to take in. Thank you though? I owe you a huge debt it seems." Nyes had always been good at compartmentalizing and rolling with the punches.

  "You're welcome kid. I should put you back in your dreams now. Too much godly exposure isn't healthy for mortals but you'll be fine, probably. Might bleed from the ears a bit but no permanent damage done." The little lizard moved for the first time, but it looked like a statue that levitated up from the log it was sitting on and began floating.

  "I may contact you in the future and it was truly nice meeting you."

  "You too. I have to ask though, why do you look like that? All the other gods looked like mortals races, more or less."

  "Hmm... well I'll tell but I wouldn't spread it around. No one would believe you anyway. This is a child's toy I found floating through a dead universe at the edge of reality. I stuffed myself into it because if I were to be present in a universe, that universe would unravel almost instantly. Picture a drop of soap dropping into a big spot of grease. I'm the soap, reality is the grease. Even the other gods would evaporate if they ever saw me in my true form. I come from outside reality itself, but it was really boring there. Okay bye!" With that he floated up into the turpentine and disappeared.

  Nyes sat there for a moment, his head pounding now even in this not dream state. One problem he disnt know he had solved, a multitude of others to go.