Chapter 304: Deal with the Goddess (Patreon)

Mila

Enjoying quiet time in their penthouse condo on New Jupiter, the lone B rank planet in the Heavenly Soul Universe, Aalam’s main body was crafting while Mila acted as a hub for her clones’ actions in the Prime Material and the new universes Aalam had conquered, but she was also following the progress of Aalam’s clones in the monster tutorials. So, when he ran into one of the old monster gods, she shared his clone’s senses and analyzed the ancient goddess.

There had been quite a lot of information about Immortalia, the Undying Phoenix, in the Steel Swamp Blessed Land’s information banks. She’d been one of Steel Swamp Sorin’s oldest and closest friends after all, the monster god faction of that time not too big.

But all of that information was out of date.

That the woman was a master of the life, death, time, and fire elements was, judging by the nature of the flame she’d summoned when protecting herself, definitely still the case, though she might have added other divine level elements over the years. And she almost certainly still had access to her vast experience and knowledge. But what she wanted, and her mental state after all the intervening years since the monster gods had been killed? That was much harder to tell. And, given the goddess’s soul was like hers or Aalam’s, her aura showing neither her emotions or her Laws, Mila couldn’t get a clear read on the woman.

“You’re reincarnating twelve clones for twelve elements, with the intention to use your bloodline to absorb their powers when they reach the peak of C rank?” The goddess, with the right information in front of her, easily guessed Aalam’s advancement plan.

“I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Like Mila would expect of her husband, he pretty much confirmed the goddess’s guess instantly. But, against someone with the level of experience of Immortalia, he wasn’t going to be able to hide anything anyway, so Aalam’s normal reaction was probably almost ideal.

“Were you Reverend Samsara?”

Mila saw through Aalam’s senses as the woman seemed to have a gut reaction to attack which she then held back.

“What makes you think that?”

“You presumably almost died if you are willing to forgo all your cultivation to return back to being a G rank, so you would need massive amounts of nascent energy to recover, and the best source of that I know is the C rank Universal Tournament.” Aalam’s clone raised one of his eyebrows. “What, you can make an educated guess based on obvious information you can see in front of you but I can’t?”

Revealing something he’d realized about her, subtly putting them on the same playing field instead of the conversation becoming a senior talking to a junior, was a good choice, and the goddess snorted in response. Then, while she still seemed to be on guard, she appeared to relax a little as she sat down where she’d been standing, one of the few places in the room not covered in blood. And, like he’d learned to do over the years, Aalam mirrored her actions, sitting down as well.

“How many trial points are required to gain a body like yours and your wife’s?” The goddess asked, her voice sounding calm, as if she wasn’t too interested in the information, though Mila guessed it was a front. “I know about the rules, but not much about the rewards.”

“Not too many.” Aalam’s clone shrugged. “Just a few dozen quadrillion.”

Mila would never grow tired of watching others react to just how twisted her husband’s idea of how difficult things were, in this case the eyes of the goddess almost completely coming out of her head.

“What if I were to create a body from more normal levels of trial points?”

“How many are we talking?” Mila found it cute how her husband seemed genuinely confused, it not even crossing his mind he might be able to earn trial points more easily than a goddess.

“Let’s say one billion?”

“That wouldn’t even be enough to buy all the cultivation techniques available, something required to force the System to make sure your new body has all of a normal lifeform’s energy channels, so it would be nearly impossible to practice the highest grade techniques you almost certainly have access to, at least those requiring four elements or more.” Aalam’s clone shook its head. “You might still be able to become a god with a lot of extra work, but you’d be weaker than you reportedly were at your prime.”

Immortalia muttered under her breath in a different language than the Universal Common they’d been speaking, but Mila was able to understand due to her Omniglot Reader racial ability. “Stupid berserker. Stupid clawless flier. Why couldn’t you just let the bastard sin god have his way?” And there was a lot to unpack there.

Aalam, however, wasn’t sharing her senses and hadn’t asked for the translation, so he continued obliviously, which was probably for the best. “What are your goals, Ms. Immortalia? I presume they probably don’t conflict with mine, so maybe we can work together.”

The goddess just stared at him for a few seconds. Then she audibly sighed, Mila unable to tell if it was an act or not. “Do you also want to kill all the gods in the Prime Material?”

“A good portion.” Aalam’s clone shrugged. “Most of them, from what I know, want to kill my wife and almost all my subordinates after all.”

Immortalia muttered under her breath again, this time in Universal Common. “Of course, the shadow line. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

Then she focused more on Aalam again. “I’m not going to make any contracts with you. Your wife’s power set is too well known.”

“Fair enough. I wouldn’t do so either.” Aalam’s clone nodded and, back on New Jupiter, Mila lightly punched one of Aalam’s main body’s shoulders with telekinesis. “From you, I’d mostly be looking for information. Jeeves didn’t have much about the elder gods other than the Radiant Behemoth in his databases, so that would especially be useful. And I imagine you know a lot more which could prove helpful as well.

“What would you want from me in turn?”

“You said there’s twelve of you in the various monster tutorials running right now.” Immortalia’s voice was calm and completely collected again. “Given they all certainly have maxed out Luck given the nature of your racial abilities, I assume you’ll be guiding the tutorial’s challenges to be of the type you want.

“If so, I would like you to tell me what I should expect so I can make my own plans. I’d like any tricks you know about the reward system at the end. And I’d like your word you and yours won’t expose me before or after we leave.

“In return, I’ll give you my word on that as well along with information.”

Aalam’s clone paused for a second and his real body temporarily stopped working on his latest attempt at creating a real replicator from Star Trek, teleporting over next to Mila. “What do you think? Anything else I should ask for?”

Mila shrugged and just smiled at him. “Do what you think is best.”

Aalam’s main body kissed her before teleporting back and, at the same time, his clone said, “Sure. But I’d like you to add one more thing on your end.

“While we’re in the tutorial, I’d like to temporarily train under you.”

This time the goddess raised one of her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Almost all my training from anyone higher than C rank has come second hand except for a very limited period of my life and I’ve never encountered someone as experienced as you. I believe I could learn some things.”

Immortalia again just looked at him for a few seconds. But then she said, “Alright. I agree.” And Aalam’s main body, along with all his clones, smiled.

“Before we start, though, let’s exchange information.”

“Okay.” Aalam’s clone nodded and Mila could almost feel her husband’s excitement, especially from his main body within her sensory domain. “I’ll be guiding the tutorial to have the right materials to make magical plagues in the final challenge and the main trick to earning a lot is mass killing for high points and wiping out entire civilizations for high point multipliers. Given you’re a master of the life and death elements, I imagine that’s something you’re good at?”

“Yes.” The goddess nodded.

“Then just do that and try to make it spread as far as possible.

“As for tricks for using trial points, the main one is to buy all the cultivation techniques. According to the Yin Yang Sage, who was in a position to know, your body will only have the energy channels your chosen technique contains, so all the techniques are required to have a full energy channel network.

“Then, to have the full potential of a natural born body, you need to spend at least double the points you spend on your bloodline and race on getting the System to adapt your new body to your soul, more if you also modify your soulstructures. This cost is lower the closer your new body is to your original, thus one of the reasons Mila and I chose humanoid forms.

“So, for you, you’d probably want to choose some kind of bird monster.”

The information was rather simple, but it was valuable, and hard for Immortalia to find, so Mila didn’t think she’d lie about the information she gave them next, information which was of the same type and wouldn’t hurt her to share.

“Alright.” The goddess nodded again. “Things to know about the elder gods and the others.

“First and foremost, your grandfather and that shame of all bird-kind who goes by the title Divine Child are both foreign, not from the Prime Material, making them weaker here than in their original universes, the Divine Child especially, and the other two elder gods in the human faction, while natives, are weak, only about as strong as me at my peak, so they can mostly be ignored.

“Before we talk about them, however, let’s start with Quandra Xar Ni Kemizle, the Lady of Laws, probably the only one out of the three leading elder gods you might be safe allying with. As her title would suggest, her path to power was based on Laws, developing what is now known as Yin Yang Cosmology during her rise to power and later the Twelve Element Primal Code, so it’s over 95% certain research on magic is both something she enjoys and also key to any chance she has to advance at her rank.

“Thus, you, who seems to be following a similar track, might gain her interest, and, unlike most of her race, she’s not a massive racist.

“Granted, she’s still a stuck up bitch, but you can at least trust her if she gives her word. And that’s not something you can say about any of the other elder gods.

“Elandra, the Elder Goddess of Emotions, for example, is detached from the world, the Sangha under her operating almost completely without her involvement. And, by detached, I mean she has almost no emotions, more robotic than robots, a complete and utter psychopath. She’ll say or do whatever to get what she wants, but she generally doesn’t want things, and she’ll likely never be interested in you, so you don’t have to worry about her much. Corinon La Mor, on the other hand, you don’t have to worry about for a different reason. Self-styled as the Sage King of the West, he would always constantly stick his nose where it didn’t belong and, as a result, he’s now hiding in another universe after angering almost all the other gods without the necessary power to protect himself.

“Your grandfather, Primordius, on the other hand, has power to spare. The premier controller of natural energy in the known universes and the creator of the Stormlord Rebirth cultivation technique, he’s an undying berserker who gets stronger the more damage he takes, but he regenerates at a speed not even I could match, so, when fighting him, pretty much the only option is to run.

“His main universe, however, has an elder god level portal to one of the main undead universes, so he’s been tied up there for the last 40 trillion years or so, only able to send clones to the Prime Material, albeit clones with the power of a weak elder god. 

“Finally, Arthur Algebrute, who you know as the Divine Child, is a demonic sin god whose true form is a Seven-Headed Peacock Devil. He is one of the premier gods for all seven sin Laws, but his true power lies in devouring. He doesn’t train but instead eats other gods to take their powers for his own, his abilities seemingly working best on monster gods, and he’s probably raising up the young monster gods under him purely so he can eat them in the future, like those twelve elemental scarabs who’ve yet to gain their divine roles.

“He’ll probably protect you for a while, and even give you resources if you ask, but only so he can eat you once you either reach divinity or it becomes fully obvious you can’t.”