Divine Celebrity 130 (Patreon)

“Okay, this is interesting,” I murmured when I finally arrived at my office, right after dropping Coach Juana to her car. After the bet, she had trouble walking straight. 

The target of my comment, was my pet, who was radiating a soft magical aura. “It must be the totem animal thing,” I murmured, even as I reached the System. Which responded quickly, as a benefit of its most recent repair. 

Convenient. 

[DIVINE SYSTEM I

Traits: (Divine Body I, Divine Mind I, Divine Aura I)

Domains: (Lust I, Command I, Athletics I)

Acolytes: ()

Totem Animals: (Tortoise [0])

Intent Pool: 24.2%]

My pet turned toward me … and looked at me in a way that was far too intense to be just ordinary. “You can understand me, right?” I said, and he nodded. 

Admittedly, thinking that my pet could hear and understand me wasn’t the sanest thing imaginable; but after some consideration, I decided to add it to the pile, which included features like talking to an invisible sexy angel and slowly turning into Divine. 

“So, any changes?” I said as I put my hand on his shell, trying to understand his magical potential — which he had now possessed, along with some kind of connection between us. I tried to focus on the connection, and — 

[Totem Animals: (Tortoise [1])

Intent Pool: 4.2%]

I felt a sudden tug in my system, feeling the storage draining significantly, and, at the same time, the magical aura of my pet got stronger … several times. He started moving fast … fast for a tortoise, and tapping the side of the box. 

“I’m sure you can free yourself,” I said. He turned to look at me, and somehow, I managed to read his deadpan expression — though the connection doing the heavy lifting on that aspect. Then, he followed it by tapping the side of the box, breaking it easily. 

The cardboard wasn’t particularly strong, but still, it was not something a tortoise could achieve, especially not the ease he was able to do that. 

“Interesting show,” I said as I chuckled. “Do you want me to carry you, or do you want to go to the car yourself,” I said. Another amused expression, and he took a step forward … but I didn’t expect him to disappear. The connection between us alerted me that he was just a few hundred feet away, roughly toward the personnel parking, where my car was. 

“Okay, teleportation is more than I expected,” I murmured as I started walking toward my car, wondering what else he could do … and what his sudden intelligence meant. I didn’t know just how intelligent he was, but my guess, was he could rival a well-trained dog in a minimum. 

I decided to leave that question for later, as I went to my car, and drove to my dorm. While I drove, however, my phone rang. I was surprised to see it was an unknown number … as I had blocked the unknown numbers from reaching me. 

The app I used wasn’t anything fancy, just a free offer rather than writing something myself, as I was just trying to stop the spammers that flocked after my recent rise in prominence. A surprising number of local companies wanted me to do ads for them, though their offers had been insultingly low. 

Hopefully, with the spectacular victory we had just earned, the offers would get better. I needed the money. But, I didn’t think about it much, instead answered my phone. The app I used might be simple, but the fact that they were able to bypass it with an ordinary call was interesting nonetheless. 

It wasn’t supposed to be possible. 

“Why did you keep me waiting, boy,” a gruff voice from the other side called. A familiar female voice. 

“Hey, professor,” I said, chuckling. “Or would you prefer a doctor? Are you calling to congratulate me on my victory?” 

The growl of anger that came from the other side was simply beautiful. 

“Stop acting glib, boy,”  the answer came sharply. “Come to my hospital tomorrow, and we’ll talk about your health report. I might be convinced to rescind it.” 

It was a nice offer. Coaching was nice, but I was afraid that the novelty would wear off quickly, and it would affect Intent generation. The repair process and the little accident with my pet showed that the System still required incredible amounts of intent. 

I needed to go back to the field to make sure the Intent flow continued, which weakened my hand. 

Luckily, she didn’t know that. “I don’t think so,” I answered. 

“Boy, do you know what I’m offering?” she declared in an entitled manner. 

“Something that I would like to have, but nowhere near as vital as you think?” I countered, and the call fell silent as her little power play fell apart. She was really not used to people not listening to her orders. 

Especially after her little trick with the phone, which she probably thought to be intimidating. Pity, it would have been effective if I wasn’t an expert on the subject. 

“But you know what, make sure you fix the medical report as a peace offering, and I’ll make sure to visit the hospital somewhere this week? How about that for a deal?” 

She growled in anger again, and I bit my lip, holding back a quip. I felt that I had already pushed her to the limit, and further quips would be counterproductive. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then the call disconnected without an answer. 

I wondered if that meant rejection, but I didn’t try to reach out to her. The fact that she called in the first place implied some kind of immediate need on her side. 

I had nothing to do but wait and see. 

The rest of the trip went without any interruption. “I’m guessing you prefer to move on your own,” I asked my pet, and he didn’t even deign to look at me before taking a step, once again showing his teleportation capability.  

Trying to copy that was tempting, but I decided to leave it to a time when I was confident I would not accidentally erase myself from reality in the process. 

I was tempted to call Megan and Kim for another celebration, but, after some consideration, I decided against it. I had a lot of studying to do, both in coding and in magic. I had tested the physical benefits of my new Divine Traits. 

Now, it was time to push the mental aspect to the limit. 

I started with the familiarity of the two. Programming. 

“Fascinating,” I murmured as I looked at the code editor, my fingers dancing on the keyboard faster than I thought to be possible, especially since what I had been producing was not nonsense, but clear, crisp, and the perfect code. 

It felt like a hacking scene from a movie rather than the reality. “Maybe I should extend that little search into the dark web as well,” I murmured, wondering if I could find any magical source there. 

The presence of magical organizations made such a thing likely. I was sure that at least one traitor or a greedy guy had decided to scan the information and tried to sell it on the web. Unfortunately, validating the information about magic was a true challenge. 

And,  it wasn’t the challenge that made me decide against it. No, it was just finding it. The dark web was not that easy to crack … not because it was some kind of magical, dangerous place. It was more like a clearance sale of the world’s biggest library, but the books not only didn’t have any kind of catalog and had their covers ripped, but also they had been forgotten in a moldy basement…  

Searching through the dark web without knowing where to go was a long and time-consuming exercise, even with my new Divine Traits. 

Instead, I finished rewriting my web crawler, created an impressive number of fake social media accounts that looked like real people, tasking them to have constant arguments about me to keep people’s emotions relevant, and even redo my anti-hacking measures. 

With that gone, I turned my attention to my magical studies. But, before I could dive deeper, I felt a familiar presence. I looked outside, only to see several shadows moving without an object to make them. 

“I thought I had gotten rid of you,” I murmured in frustration as I looked at their approach. I wasn’t afraid of them, per se, but what they represented. 

More sleepless nights, unless I decided to free my guide from the convenient magical spot she had been hibernating — which I didn’t want to do unless the pressure turned unbearable. 

However, there, I received another surprise. This time, a pleasant one. My pet — and totem animal — looked at the shadow assassins, his magical aura flaring stronger. Then, he looked at me, as if he was asking for permission. 

“Go ahead,” I said, feeling curious. It paid off rather fast … when my pet tortoise blinked outside the window, floating. Then, a wave of magic spread out of him … popping all of the shadows at the same time. 

“Wow,” I murmured, fascinated. “Someone earned a nice juicy lettuce,” I said. His gaze was unapproving. “Filled with enough healing energy to make it even more delicious, of course,” I added. His head lowered in approval. 

‘You’re a picky beast, aren’t you,” I said with a chuckle, and decided to sleep instead of studying. 

I didn’t need sleep today, but I still missed it. 

And, after the day I had, I deserved a nice, long sleep…