A Solitary God In A Dark Multiverse 14 Establishing Goals

[I understand you wanting to escape the narrow confines of the tutorial. I can appreciate the drive you feel to escape this burdened state you're in.] The system began, as I inched closer and closer to the forest where my friends were located. I was now close enough to it that my tremorsense allowed me to detect the plants, trees, and gra.s.s at the outer edge of the forest.

I had just asked the system how it would allow me to be freed of my tutorial status. I could sense that the thing was beginning a lecture, and silently waited for it to continue to speak.

Farmers nodded at me as they labored in their fields. I suspected that after they heard of my work in healing their friends and neighbors, as well as my skills as a druid that they'd like me a lot more than they did now.

[Once you have two separate cults set up we'll say you've succeeded in learning everything you need to know to merit being liberated from the confines of the tutorial.] The system informed me, using a word I understood via that weird knowledge I sprang into being knowing. "Cults".

[As a G.o.d you want wors.h.i.+ppers. Wors.h.i.+pers are creatures who show you great reverence, adoration, and love. They consider you a part of their families and acknowledge that you are a higher being. They have beliefs about you and serve you. They pray to you and act in ways they believe advance your interests and earn them your attention.] My mental companion told me, whispering into my mind.

[Cults are groups of wors.h.i.+pers who share beliefs about you and who are united in their wors.h.i.+p. Cults are what a specific religion is before it becomes commonly accepted.] My first friend told me, trying to sell me on this plan. I was already sold, but it just kept on talking.

[You have begun to set the foundation for a cult already. Cosecha's cult. But you need to gain wors.h.i.+pers and set up rules for that cult once it has followers. We'll say... you need 10 wors.h.i.+pers for it to be considered enough of a cult to count towards freeing you. And you still need to create one other cult from the ground up.] The system quietly said, as if I wasn't aware of that.

"What sort of cult do you think I should set up?" I asked as I reached the outskirts of the forest. There was a silence on the other end of the mental link I shared with the system as I took my first steps into the forest.

[Having one good cult, one that is devoted to healing, community, and agriculture, isn't a bad thing. That said you're a chaotic neutral G.o.d. It'd be good for you to have a breadth of cults under your command. Some that are good, some that are neutral, and some which are evil.] The voice in my head told me. I nodded in consideration of its words.

"So I should work to make my second cult one that isn't good?" I asked, trying to see if I understood its suggestion.

[Not necessarily. It'd be great if you could create a second cult that isn't good, but for now, I'd say you should focus on seizing an opportunity. If you see an opportunity to create a cult, it should be seized. Plus... mortals can be manipulated fairly easily. Changing the alignment of a cult isn't difficult, it just takes patience.] The system whispered, rea.s.suring me as the familiar darkness of the forest crept in around me. I just nodded.

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I navigated through the forest mostly using my tremorsense. I was slowly making my way closer and closer to the edge of the goblin's lair, or at least where the tiny things seemed to congregate.

"Care to fully unlock 'Shapeless One' for me?" I asked the system, hoping to get what was in all likelihood my strongest power right away. I heard a soft chuckle and then a one-word response.

[No.] The system said to me, handily denying me with the utterance of a single word. I sighed and kept walking towards my distant destination.

"So what do I need to do to unlock more of my powers, even before I get out of the tutorial?" I asked, curious to hear the system's insights. I wanted powers that I knew and felt in my soul were already mine to control.

[If you keep moving towards fulfilling various goals then I'll unlock more of your powers.] The system told me, and I could tell that if the thing could smile it was smiling. There was a certain smirk in its voice, an inflection that gave away that it enjoyed this. I felt my lips move from an idle smile to a thin, neutral line.

"Fine. What about domains and subdomains that I don't yet have the first tier of influence over? What can I do to begin to gain their attention?" I asked, curious if that line of questioning would get me better results than previously attempted questions.

[Hmm... can you be more specific?] The system asked me, which caught me off guard. I thought about it for a second before figuring out what I'd like to say.

"I have a lot of community-based powers. Agriculture, earth, nature, healing, and civilization are all powers based around others and helping them." I began, explaining my current state of mind.

"It'd be nice if I could gain influence over some domains that make me more personally powerful, like magic and the schools of magic. Are there schools of magic that would allow me to become more powerful on an individual level? Especially because I like being able to go out and adventure on my own and having more tools to defend myself with is better." I said to the system.

I was walking along soft gra.s.s and was now not far from where I had where met Troik. There was a silence while the system considered my question. It took it over a full minute to finally come up with an answer, at which point I was already in the area where I had met Troik.

[There are three schools of magic, each of which is also its own subdomain, that make their casters more personally and offensively or defensively powerful. Two of these are basic schools of magic. Those ones are the evocation school and the necromancy school. The third school of magic is abjuration magic, which is an intermediate school of magic and thus harder to gain tiers of influence over.] The system explained.

[Evocation magic is magic that manipulates energy, usually to destructive ends. Spells that conjure fireb.a.l.l.s, arcane projectiles, bolts of lightning, and ice-storms are evocation spells.] The system told me, marking the beginning of an explanation about those three schools of magic. I pictured hitting nebulous enemies with fireb.a.l.l.s, lightning, and ice. It was a nice image.

[Necromancy is magic that manipulates lifeforce, death and animating sparks. This magic can be used to harm the living through poisoning, sickness, or just unholy energy, raise the dead as undead creatures, and to infuse oneself with the lifeforce of others.] It whispered in my mind.

This school of magic intrigued me. I envisioned myself draining those who opposed me of their lifeforce and then using the same magic to twist their corpses into something new.

[Abjuration magic, on the other hand, is both more complex and far more defensive in nature than evocation or necromancy. Abjuration is about controlling the battlefield and defensively protecting oneself from enemies. Abjuration allows its users to create barriers, absorb blows, and tank magical strikes from their enemies.] The voice told me, causing me to picture arcane barriers stopping all manner of aggression aimed at me or at my wors.h.i.+ppers.

"All three of these schools sound so interesting!" I said, actually speaking aloud as I examined the traps that Troik left out here. They stood out even in the dark since they were made of s.h.i.+ny copper and iron, and weren't green like the gra.s.s they were on top of.

"How do I go about gaining influence over them?" I asked, after thinking about it for a second. The system chuckled a bit before responding.

"In order to gain influence over evocation magic you need to use evocation magic in battle. In order to gain influence over necromancy, you need to use necromantic magic. Both of which you have access too... well in necromancy's case I just unlocked the spells for you. I also upgraded your grimoire. You can't gain influence over abjuration yet." The system revealed.

Upon hearing that I checked the icon in my H.U.D. and noticed that there was a red under exclamation point underneath the actual icon. I grinned at the thing and mentally tapped the book-like symbol.

[Good afternoon Althos! We have new spells for you to peruse. All of these are druid spells. They are also spells that you can use to gradually begin to build a rapport with the subdomains of evocation and necromancy.

Cone of cold: This spell unleashes a cone of freezing air in front of you. The cone is about 5 meters wide.

Poison pistol: Using this spell causes a line of poison to shoot out from one of your fingers.

Diseased disaster: After using this spell the next time you open your mouth a swarm of flies shoot out and hara.s.s your enemies. Those who survive the flies and escape are struck by a random, non-fatal disease that quickly sickens others two days after being struck by the spell. This is a legendary spell that can quickly incapacitate entire communities of foes as the diseases are always contagious.

Shocking strike: This spell buffs an attack of yours, and the next blow you deal stuns an enemy as electricity shoots out of you and into them. Even as little as grabbing an enemy, a creature your minimap has marked down as hostile, is enough to trigger this spell.

Reanimating spark: This is the lowest level spell that can create undead. When cast by mortals there's a real chance this spell won't work even when the spark this spell creates. .h.i.ts an applicable target. That isn't the case with you though. That said, it only raises something as a basic skeleton or as a zombie, the most basic types of undead monsters. Anything non-magical can be raised by this spell.

Acid Splatter: This evocation spell allows you to spray acid at an enemy. Where it comes from is up to you, though some vile creatures like to cast the spell and then spit at enemies, transforming what would be their saliva into insidious attacks. Others like to flick it at their foes, like it was sweat and watch their foes suddenly fall to their knees in agony.

These spells are not the only evocation spells at your disposal. Some of your druid spells were evocation ones.]

The grimoire gave me one final revelation as it finished informing me about the magical tools at my disposal. And at that moment, the creature closest to me stepped into view. I wasn't surprised by this, as I still had my minimap on hand. What I was surprised by was that I received a violent suggestion from the system.

[Hey... why don't you test your newfound spells on that thing?] The system asked me, trying to tempt me into unnecessary violence. A small part of me wanted to take advantage of this moment, but another part of me rejected the call to cruelty.

"I can't just attack a random, non-aggressive animal..." I said to myself, even as a small part of me wanted to go ahead and begin walking down the path to power. A path that apparently, at least as of right now, involved randomly attacking neutral critters in the forest. I shook my head and rejected that, flatly refusing it.

"No. I won't. We can just find actual, aggressive, enemies." I said, which was me, in my own way, chiding the system. I closed my eyes and allowed the not-so-mini-map to overtake my vision.

"I'll just find some creatures that would already consider me an enemy." I muttered to myself, annoyed at the idea of randomly committing violence towards a creature who was just minding its own business.