I have Nine Lives

It took them two minutes to get out of earshot so they could talk privately, Manitola looked around to make sure no one was around before she threw out a barrier created by her charm field, anyone who tried to pry on their conversation would only be able to hear static noises.

While she wasn't very great at battle her utility hex techniques were quite plenty, her charm field was just the conglomeration of all of her hex techniques into one combat-oriented technique.

Felix looked at the transparent barrier and then at Manitola as he asked:

"So what do you want to tell me?"

Manitola hummed as she said:

"There are quite a lot of things but first let's start with the basics."

"How much do you know about the Gods?"

Felix mimicked her humming as he said after a short while of thinking:

"Well, I know that my God is considered one of the weaker ones... and well not much besides that, my God didn't tell me much about himself nor did Bizkier tell me anything about Gods in general."

"Oh, so you are practically clueless, well it's easier that way since I can explain from the start."

Manitola took out something from her special bag as she threw it into the air, it was glittering a deep blue color and it looked just like starlight.

"The gods are born from the stars and they fall to the planets they are assigned by the universe where they are locked there."

The starlight morphed into little stars then into humanoid forms before they slowly started to fall towards the ground where they were seen to be chained into it.

"Gods are meant to be the guardians of the planets but they aren't allowed to interfere in the battles of mortals."

The starlight morphed into a bunch of different tribes attacking each other while the gods were just looking on, still chained and unable to do anything.

However, the images started to change as a tribesman who was fighting fiercely on the battlefield started to glow, the same thing happened with one chained god as the chains broke and he started to levitate, however when he tried to move away from his spot he realized that he could only move around his compatriots and he couldn't interact with the people that he saw fighting.

He wanted to help the person that glowed, he realized that only because of that person he was able to move so he created a connection with him.

"Even though Gods cannot interfere, they can select champions on the planet which they can give multiple lives and special abilities."

As time passed more Gods were unshackled as people who were compatible with them appeared and they made them their champions.

In the end, the Gods who got more champions would be stronger than those who had fewer champions.

The starlight morphed into the form of the humanoids as they started to argue and even fight, but that's when something interesting happened, the moment the stronger gods tried to kill the weaker gods, providence came from the heavens and struck the stronger gods until the starlight turned black.

A heavenly voice was heard saying:

"There shall be no conflict between the Gods! Only mortals are allowed to conflict!"

The moment the voice appeared the strength of the stronger gods who tried to kill the weaker was sapped away being absorbed by a ray of light.

"So the gods fought against each other and the transgressors who began everything were punished..."

The humanoids writhed on the ground as they clutched their heads and shouted soundless wails.

"The power of the gods was taken away as they abused it, however, they would be able to recollect it in the future as long as they didn't do the same thing again."

Gods were beings that were pure in one way, they were either pure good, bad or neutral.

They all respected some type of laws that were imposed on their psyche.

"Felix, did you understand everything up till now?"

Felix nodded and asked:

"So every planet has its own bunch of gods?"

"Indeed from what the Goddes that I serve told me there are countless other planets out there with intelligent life forms on them, but she said she didn't know anything besides that as there are no information channels for the Gods to have besides the ones that the mortals know, so in other words what the mortals of the planet know, the Gods know as well, they aren't omnipotent nor omnipresent."

Felix nodded but then he asked:

"What does this information help me with anyways?"

Manitola shrugged as she said:

"Who knows maybe in the future you will have to talk with your god again, maybe you can blackmail him for something with this information?"

It was most unlikely but Manitola still had to teach Felix about the Gods, not because she wanted to but because the Goddes she served instructed her to for reasons unknown to her.

Even the starlight she was using was given to her by the Goddess.

The starlight started to morph as the humanoid people started to put themselves in order:

"A ranking for the Gods had been created, the more champions the higher the strength of the God and the higher his ranking, even though the Gods didn't attack physically again they still wanted to feel superior against the Gods with fewer champions so they created this ranking system."

The voice agreed on the ranking system as it didn't appear like before.

Felix looked at everything that was happening as the starlight morphed accordingly to Manitola's words:

"After that, the gods started to recruit champions en masse only to realize that not every champion was good for them, they needed to become more selective regardless if they were compatible or not."

"Thus afterward connections to the Gods were severed from multiple champions without any communication beforehand..."

"This bit of history isn't that important for us so I will skip it."

"Anyways in the end the Gods had finally realized that one God's chosen for each God was the best situation and as long as the champions got stronger the Gods would get stronger as well."

"Here's where we come in."

"God's don't usually have much to do in their plane so they enjoy looking at mortals, since they can't fight they want us to fight for them so they can be entertained."

"They use their champions as their eyes, my Goddess has seen your abilities and she told me that I should teach you more about the Gods."

Suddenly Felix felt lightheaded as his eyes started to slowly close, his eyelids felt heavy as he fell to the ground in front of Manitola and Manitola sighed:

"It seems this conversation has alerted Felix's god, I wonder what does he want to talk with him?"

When Felix woke up in his mindscape he looked around only for a booming voice to appear in his ears:

"Don't listen to that woman's stories anymore Felix!"

"Hmm? Why Aaltarox?"

"Because I talked with her Goddess... she wants you!"

"What?"

"Oh I forgot how simple you are, she wants you to be her champion!"

"But Manitola just said that Gods shouldn't have more than one champion."

"Yeah, she was going to discard Manitola before she finished the contract with you."

"That's not very nice."

"You know what else is not very nice? You being stolen from me!"

"It's been such a long time since I finally found a worthy champion and she wants to take you away from me? I'm going to fight it out with her!"

"Isn't that disallowed?"

"No, only killing is disallowed but fighting is allowed."

"Anyway don't tell that girl what happened and if you hear the voice of a woman in your head please don't respond to her ok? The abilities she will give you won't be as great as the nine lives that I can provide you with, just look at Manitola!"

Manitola was indeed not really strong but she still got 4 lives and some illusionary ability that she hadn't got to use yet, it was a part of her charm field but those with a strong enough soul wouldn't be affected.

Felix was ejected from his mental space as he woke up in front of Manitola who was ready to continue the lesson only for Felix to shake his head and said:

"I think this is enough, how much time has passed?"

"Well around 1 hour but I don't think they need our help with the interrogation."

"It's ok let's go back, there is no reason to continue this."

"If you say so..."

Manitola and Felix started to slowly make their way out of the forest as they saw the walls of the village again, as they got to the back of the village they saw how Landers was cleaning a knife with blood marks on it, he gave both of them a smile as he said:

"Enjoyed your learning session?"contemporary romance

Felix nodded as he responded:

"Yeah, I learned a lot of new things, what happened to the mole people?"

Felix looked at the steel net and he could only see blood in there, there were no mole-people.

Landers shook his head as he said:

"They were rather obstinate so I had to take out the hard measures on them, they spilled out what they knew but it seemed the traitor's identity is anonymous, quite annoying."

Manitola left Felix to talk with Landers about the traitor's possible identity while she went back to Lindo who was looking at the empty steel net where the mole-people previously were. It seemed the hard measures that Landers had taken on the mole-people had affected Lindo somewhat.

done.co