Ardonis and Lucy shared a nod before going into action, Ardonis gave himself a speed boost through a spell called Haste. Meanwhile, Lucy hung back to create a large magic circle to the side of her. Ardonis conjured a sword made of magic and clashed with Milsa. He teleported high into the air as she let off an explosion from the palms of her hand. Ardonis floated there as a large beam of arcane shout from the large formation Lucy made.
A massive ball of electric water shot from his hands and spread through the air as the ball turned wave headed right for Milsa. He snapped his fingers and changed the large wave into many different weapons that all stabbed into the ground below. A magic circle beneath Lucy and next to Ardonis appeared, she herself appearing next to him a moment later.
“Very impressive kids, but I’m afraid it isn’t quite enough,” Milsa said. She had a sword in her arm and several cuts, as well as a few singes in her dress and hair.
“I’m not done quite yet Lady Milsa,” Ardonis said with a smile. “Electric water weapons make great conductors.”
Her eyes widened too late as he snapped his fingers, the electric property of the water swords strewn all around the floor of the room turned it into a brightly lit crackling chamber of lightning. Lucy summoned a bunch of mini arcane circles around Milsa, with a clap, all of them shot a piercing beam of fire and frost.
A slice of wind from a sword made them both dodge in midair by deactivating their flight. Milsa cackled as they landed on the ground, her dress practically in tatters, and burn marks all over her along with some frost covering in patches on her skin. “I have to say, the two of you impressed me, you are far more combat-ready than I anticipated from a couple of newbies. Quick, decisive, there is no hesitation in your actions, and you are in sync with each other as well. You pass this little test of mine with flying colors. I suppose it only makes sense given who your family is.”
“Thank you Milsa,” Ardonis said.
“Don’t thank me for your efforts kid,” she said as she waved him off, that simple move erasing all damage done to her and their surroundings. He had suspected they didn’t cause her any serious damage, but it was clear just how big the difference in power was in that moment. She let them hit her as she just stood there, nothing more. And even what they did manage to do was wiped away all in an instant as if there wasn’t a fight at all.
Ardonis swallowed, perhaps Eradis should count his lucky stars that he lived through his little stunt. No, not lucky, she had intentionally left him alive to suffer the consequences of his actions. Ardonis shivered internally, Milsa was not one to ever get on the bad side of.
“Now normally I would test your defensive capabilities as well. But after that display, I can already guess how that will go. I’d rather not deal with annoying teleports, clones, illusions, barriers, and whatever else you think up,” she said. “That’s one of the things I don’t like about magic gods, always make things annoying for us physical types.”
“But didn’t you use magic when you cleared all of this?” Lucy asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Divine magic that all gods have yes, but not the kind the two of you use,” Milsa said. “After all, these swords are what I use in combat.”
She held out two shortswords with golden hilts and slightly glowing blades. She made them vanish a couple of moments later, “Of course, it has been a long time since I’ve actually seen combat mind you. I still train daily however, the last thing you ever want to do is get complacent. Even when the chances of a threat coming your way is low.”
“Now, follow me, I will show the both of you how the prayer system works. Unfortunately, you can’t access it yourselves until you’ve gotten some followers, but it is good to learn so you are prepared for it in the future.”
She led the two to a room they hadn’t been to or seen before. Upon entering they discovered it was practically an empty circular, white walled chamber. There was only one desk and chair in the center of the room looking as if they were made from marble, or some other similar-looking material. On it was a quill and ink pot, along with many different papers on it. One pile was nearly a foot high.
“There are different ways of handling prayers, depending on the god. But the most common form is certainly documented papers, it keeps everything organized and you can even return to certain prayers at a later date. To clarify, I mean that with divine magic you can change it to where prayers are received via document and not a telepathic message in your head.”
“Unfortunately, however, we can’t get you access to this system yet. It is something you’ll both have to discover for yourselves. And the best way to do that would be by getting followers and believers from a planet without much of a dietic presence.”
“Why is that?” Lucy asked, intrigued.
“Because the power you get from that faith will be far more powerful. You see, the prayer and faith system are linked, and faith is directly linked to a god's power. There is a reason why those who are worshipped are far stronger than those who are not. Even some true gods are weaker than their supposed subordinate for this reason.”
“So because this is your planet, we can’t gain any followers?” Ardonis asked. “I mean, I can see the logic in that a new religion wouldn’t quite be accepted by most mortals but…”
Milsa shook her head, “It isn’t because of that, or rather, that isn’t the main reason. It is because, unless you were one of the original deities of the planet, you would only get a small fraction of faith. And the amount of prayers you get will be tantamount to none. It simply isn’t beneficial for you to try and establish a base here. I would highly recommend finding one of these planets with little deity presence and claim it instead.”
“You said establish a base, does that mean that whatever planet we choose to start our faith on will be where most of our faith power will come from?” Lucy asked.
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Milsa nodded, “You’re quick, yes, that’s exactly what I mean. That isn’t to say you can’t change where your main base is later. But for all intents and purposes that first planet will be where you draw your main source of faith from.” She sighed, “As unfortunate as it is, some gods are rather selfish and will intentionally screw a young god over. Tricking them into establishing a base on their planet.”
“Well that should be expected I guess,” Ardonis said, “Not everyone can be as kind as you.”
“Ardonis, are you being so bold as to flirt with me?” Milsa asked with a teasing smile.
He rolled his eyes, “That’s not how I meant it and you know it. And if you want to embarrass me, you’ll have to try harder than that. My mother practically made me immune to it.”
Lucy nodded, “It’s true, I’ve tried everything yet the only times I got him to blush was when it came to sex. And even that’s starting to become difficult. He gains resistance to teasing quite quickly.”
Milsa gave a tired chuckle, “I suppose that makes sense when you have someone like that for a mother. I mentored her too you know, where do you think she learned a good number of her tricks?”
Ardonis groaned, "So I have you to blame for my misfortune of dealing with her teasing?”
“Oh don’t get it wrong boy I may have taught her a few things, but she’s a teaser by nature,” Milsa said with a sigh. “Actually she is the one who all but begged me to teach her. I was tempted to abandon her and leave her stranded on my planet multiple times.”
“So now that we’ve established the prayer and faith thing, what’s next?” Lucy asked.
Milsa smiled, “Next the two of you will be going down to the planet yourself and seeing what mortal life is like up close. Though your power will be restricted, that makes the experience better. Make no mistake, you will run into those who could easily challenge you in such a state.”
“I thought the restriction was only for those who didn’t have permission?” Ardonis asked.
She shook her head, “Not necessarily, no. You see, no matter what, you are restricted, how much though is dependent on whether you have permission or not. Without permission, your power is restricted up to eighty percent. With permission, it is reduced to half. And for a couple of young godlings like yourselves, that will put you on the level of prodigies.”
“So we can still be put in a lot of danger if we aren’t careful,” Lucy observed.
“Precisely, so don’t get overly cocky and reckless just because you are ageless gods, got it?”
Ardonis nodded, “We’ll be sure to be careful. I’m also not sure if it would be a good idea for them to find out about us being gods to begin with.”
“Good, and you’re correct about not wanting them to find out what you truly are. You can still use your names and powers, the restriction protects you as much as them. Now, you won’t be going immediately, take some time to get used to looking at the planet and keeping an eye on that classmate of yours. Besides, there are things I need to set up on my end as well. You’ll be leaving in one week’s time,” Milsa said.
“However, back to the restriction thing, I do believe it would be best to mention that there are exceptions to the rule. You see, as much as this multiverse loves balance like a drug addict, there are those on the opposite end. Namely the Supreme gods and other beings of such power who can ignore such restrictions. Of course, the restrictions in of themselves work differently according to the power of the planet, solar system, and galaxy. There are planets out there with no restrictions at all, those are the ones you should truly be wary of. As that means the power on the planet far exceeds what you might expect, even old gods like myself are wary of those planets.”
“I do have a question about going down to your planet,” Lucy said after a few minutes of silence. “How are we going to keep an eye on Eradis if we are also on the planet?”
“Good question, I’ll be giving you a magical item specifically to check on him. Though I suspect your boyfriend there has his own method of doing just that.”
Ardonis nodded, “Without my power being restricted, I already found a way to utilize the ability to view the planet in a way of using my own magic. However, I’m not so sure if it would work with my power being cut in half. Especially since it’s still untested and I’m not sure if it will work in the first place. Really it's just an idea I came up with when viewing the different places of the world.”
“Still, the fact that you are thinking about such a thing shows your level of intellect.”
Ardonis shrugged, “I’m a scholar type, if there’s a way of figuring something out, I will. That said, most of my ideas don’t exactly pan out, and the ones that do tend to not go the way I expected. But trial and error is the only way to truly learn. Even if it makes me want to throw something through a wall or give up.”
“I assume you have quite the stubborn streak as well then,” Milsa said with a giggle, “I imagine you wouldn’t be a very good scholar otherwise. Well, the experimentalist type anyway.”
“Oh he certainly has quite the stubborn streak,” Lucy said with a somewhat defeated sigh. “Sometimes it’s almost impossible to tear him away from his experiments. One time he neglected me for an entire week because of it.”
Ardonis chuckled nervously, “That one was pretty bad, Lucy here even made me promise to never do that again. Or more accurately, she won’t allow me to as she’ll forcibly make me take a break for a date or something.”
“Taking breaks is a good thing,” Lucy defended with a light pout, “And I will not allow you to become a social recluse, no future husband of mine will be socially inept.”
“So she says,” Ardonis said with a sigh.
Milsa laughed, “You two are certainly an entertaining couple. Anyway, on top of keeping an eye on your classmate, you two will be studying up and learning about this planet of mine. The people, the histories, how to interact with them, all of that. Fair warning, it isn’t as nice as you may be thinking, it is closer to a world of “might is right” than I’d personally like.”
“One of the other gods who used to be here I assume is behind that?” Ardonis asked.
“That is correct,” Milsa said with a heavy sigh. “The two of you won’t have the easiest time down there, especially considering that there are minor deities down there as well.”
“Minor gods are the ones who work for the major gods like us right?” Lucy asked. “Just want a refresher, I believe that is what we learned in class, but that was also more than a decade ago.”
Milsa nodded, “That is also correct, minor gods are mortal-born divinity. Also considered lesser gods by many who have been around for millions of years. However, with your restriction, the minor gods of my world will be slightly stronger than you. Along with a handful of others who achieved immortality. So do be careful down there.”
With that, she dismissed the two for the day and they went back to their room. Ardonis immediately got to work on his new tracking idea. If he could combine tracking magic with viewing magic… he may be able to come up with something. The power of viewing the planet worked like that, he wondered if he could trace the magical pattern and simply shrink it.
The simplest solution, and by no means revolutionary, but it was harder than he thought to pull off. He only got to work on it for a few hours before Lucy pulled him away from his work for becoming too frustrated.
