The Hollow God - 23 It would be a shame if....

Edyta wiped her eyes that had teared up from laughing and took a second to control herself before gesturing for him to keep going.

“Chosen! How do you make them? How do they work? And people’s talent for each element is also something I need to know.”

“Aah. Chosen, of course. Look at kaya here, she is actually one of my Chosen.” Edyta said as she pointed her hand towards the servant that had also just stopped laughing.

As he turned his attention towards the girl he was surprised. He hadn’t noticed it before since he was so focused on being able to turn human. This girl looked to be in her early 20s with dark blue hair though her eyebrows were still black, and on her back was a pair of beautiful blue bird wings!

‘Bird woman? Are there different races in this world as well?’

“You noticed her wings right? That’s what my Chosen gain once they go through the process. Many people prefer winged divines for this reason. With wings you generally have a big advantage over anything on land.” she proudly explained

As he heard what she said the little manta was surprised. Ralfe had told them that the chosen would change their body to look more like their divine but he didn’t think it would go so far as to grow a pair of wings!

‘Would my divine also grow a pair of wings?’ he said to himself as he thought back to his stumpy fin wings..

‘No no no they definitely won’t inherit those right?’ he shook his head to dismiss the strange image.

“The changes are different for every divine so you can’t really know exactly what will happen until it is already done.” She spoke with a smile as if knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“If birds have an advantage here on the land then what about us creatures from the sea?” The little crab stump that was on the ground asked curiously.

Edyta gave a wry smile as she spoke “Well your Chosen have complete advantage in the water as they can breathe under it and might move faster as well, but when it comes to land you have the biggest disadvantage because of your speed. That’s why aquatic creatures are actually said to be the weakest. Though there are exceptions of course. For example Lagos the skullfish of light, his chosen gain a tough armored body and have an organ that enhances light attacks built onto their foreheads.”

‘….’

‘Err there’s no way it’s the same kind of skull fish right? Well, Actually…. even if it was, so what? We don’t necessarily need to be enemies right?’ After dismissing the thought he strangely found that the small crab clone had no reaction at all when their long time enemies were mentioned.

Little gold frowned at her answer but he wasn’t worried at all. He had the element of gravity so his speed should be uncontested as long as his control was good enough and little gold is defence oriented anyways so she shouldn’t have any problem either.

“But do make sure to pick your Chosen correctly as you only have a limited amount and they aren’t easily replaced. Since you are a new god you are at the first tier low demigod stage so you should be able to keep around 13 chosen at once.”

“How many tiers and stages are there?” He asked curiously.

“So there are 10 tiers in each stage and there are a total of 3 stages which are low,mid, and high. At each tier you are able to make three more chosen without hurting your foundation. So once you reach the 10th tier peak demigod stage you would have 100 Chosen total.”

“And after demigod stage is the god stage?”

“Well, yes it should be but I’ve never heard of a god being born either on the enlightened continent or the wild lands….. There are rumors the church of light and church of darkness have gods at the top but no one has ever seen them before.” Edyta answered with a strange look on her face.

‘The two churches are more powerful than I thought but, it’s not like I’m trying to be the strongest anyways so as long as i stay out of their way and not gather much attention to myself it shouldn’t be any problem.’ Malik quietly thought to himself.

“Ok but what about human talent in the elements, how can i tell who has it and how much?”

“Oh It’s very simple. Every living thing has life force inside their body. You need to insert the pure element carefully inside of them and see how much their body will hold before it starts to disperse. If the amount of element their body holds is equal to or more than the amount of lifeforce they have it means they are talented in that element. Anything less than that means they aren’t.” The blue haired woman sitting on the couch carefully explained.

“Is there any way to better people’s talent in a certain element?” He asked after thinking for a few seconds

Edyta gave a wry smile before she started speaking. “Indeed there is, when you have chosen where you will set up your base you can make a domain by placing down a totem at the center of where your people live. A totem will disperse out your elements over time in a certain way that is not harmful to humans which will improve their talent in those elements over each generation along with some other benefits. The problem however is that the wood necessary for creating a totem is too rare and expensive. They are from a large tree that used to grow anywhere regardless of biome since all they needed to survive was having access to mana but, once divines found its use it practically became extinct. They are so rare that not only was I not able to get my hands on one but I have never even seen what it looks like!” She was practically shouting at the end as if venting out her frustrations.

‘Hmmm, i might as well just forget it then… wait a minute.’

“What exactly do the trees look like?” he asked seriously.

“Um, other than its size? Hmm, oh i did hear that the density of mana around it should be a bit higher than normal so there will always be a group of magical beasts living around it and protecting it at all times and because of the same reason no trees will grow around it for a few kilometers”

Maliks eyes shone hearing her explanation.’That tree underwater should be the one she is talking about!! But I need to be careful, The tree is too precious so we can’t let anyone know!’ Putting on his best poker face he was about to change the topic when he felt a burning gaze on his body. The small crab clone stump was staring at him with a pair of obvious shining eyes without making any effort of concealing her happiness.

‘The heck! You had no reaction when she spoke about the skull fish so why are you reacting so obviously now!?’ he felt like throwing up blood especially when he saw how Edyta was looking at him once she noticed little gold’s reaction.

“Now that i think about it the tree can indeed grow in any biome but, i don’t think anyone has ever thought of looking for it underwater so the chances of there being at least one growing there should be pretty high.” She continued her answer.

The little sand crab became even more excited as she gave him a very obvious look of “It really is that tree! We know where it is!”

A beautiful smile blossomed on Edyta’s face as she saw her reaction and then turned to stare straight at him as if waiting for an explanation.

‘She has no proof! And though she is bad at hiding it, even little gold knows that it’s a secret so as long as I don’t say anything it should be fine!’ Malik stayed quiet and held his poker face as straight as he could.

For a few seconds they both stared at each other quietly. One with a beautiful smile and the other with an emotionless face.

Seeing as this wasn’t going anywhere the smile on the blue haired woman’s face turned into a frown before she started to speak. “You know even if you did know the location of one of these trees you wouldn’t know how to process it into a totem anyways and a full grown one would be able to be made into at least 20 totems. Therefore your best course of action would be to first find a middleman preferably one that works with information that could teach you the process and to quietly sell the rest of the unused lumber.”

“….”

“….. It would also be very unfortunate if a certain rumor was to be spread of the possibility of one of these trees being found by two newborn divines…”

“You know now that I think about it, I might have seen a tree just like that one underwater!” The black haired man exclaimed loudly in surprise.

A smile once again appeared on the beautiful woman’s face as she made a surprised face and spoke “AAA! that’s amazing! You don’t have to worry though, since you decided to trust me with this information I will never let a third person know! I’ll even explain to you how to create a totem and help you sell the excess wood! All for the low price of one small piece!”

He let out a wry smile as he scratched the back of his head ‘Do I even have a choice?’

Their conversation lasted for a few hours as she also explained to them the complicated process of how to create a Chosen and totem along with many other things that a divine needed to know especially the rules that the churches enforced on the continent.

It was only late at night that they finished their conversation and when they were about to leave Edyta handed them both a small letter and told them that if they wanted to participate all they needed to do was contact her. The human manta clone nodded his head as he grabbed both the letters and the small crab clone stump before he flew out the white tower towards the big black cloud that was hidden in the dark night sky.

As they got on the large mantas back the little crab shook her head in disappointment before she started to speak.

sighs “It’s a good thing she is a nice person but it was still dangerous to tell someone else about the tree! You should let me do the talking next time!”

‘… The heck!’