Chapter 418: Not Gods

Auric looked outside, trying to calm his mind down. He was already on the plane, heading back to Thunderer City. He still remembered what his father said.

"Age of Gods?"

"I haven’t told you everything yet, but I’ve given you enough clues. If I tell you the rest right away, you might end up getting addicted to having the answers handed to you without doing anything. If I’m gone, you might not be able to do anything..."

"You don’t even trust me with the truth?"

"Not at all. However, I can tell you one more thing. I think I haven’t ever taught you properly once, so I’m giving you one piece of advice. The way you are using your power is not exactly wrong, but it is just too crude."

"What?" Auric was startled. He knew his father was strong, but he never thought that the way he used his power was that bad.

"You have been too focused on forming your power and releasing it to your enemy or simply focusing everything on yourself. Of course, that’s not wrong, but I have a holy trinity when it comes to utilizing power. Those are you, others, and space."

Auric could understand the first two. The first meant the user, and the caster covers their own body with their power to gain extraordinary strength.

Others meant attacking others. So, what about the space?

"What is space? It doesn’t seem to be a space element."

"It means everything around you. This area, for example." He tapped the ground lightly with his boot. The area started to glitch. Flowers started to emerge, and this power expanded to the entire area, causing flowers to bloom even from within the walls.

Auric looked around. "I have done something like this. I mean, it’s just using the environment to your advantage, right?"

"You have indeed used this, but you haven’t utilized it properly. It might be because you have been holding back with your unique element that you have only utilized 10% of this power so far."

"Unique element?"

"Unique elements are the best way to utilize them. They’re practically stronger against other elements in this regard. For example, your chaos element. Can’t you apply that to the entire area and cause it to collapse, or even worse?"

"..." Auric frowned. He had never done something like that.

"Your Dream Creation can make all these flowers bloom as well, don’t you think?" He continued.

Auric looked around. That was indeed true.

"You already have the right concept if you want to combine the Weather element with your power to create a natural disaster, but you have always thought that you needed to get stronger to do it. Even right now, you can utilize the heat of the sun with that element and combine it with your Enhancement element to boost someone with fire energy."

"You have yet to utilize all that power because you have been focusing on yourself and the others. Even if you aren’t going to use it, it’s good to have such a power as your trump card."

"That’s... true." Auric could imagine it. In fact, he noticed how his father’s power traveled and erased those beasts earlier.

"That’s good. I guess this is the time for me to leave."

"Wait!" Auric had a lot of things to say, but Gran snapped his fingers and formed a book before tossing it to him.

Auric caught it and saw the title.

"Introduction to Magic Item Creation."

When he raised his head again, his father was no longer in front of him. However, he still heard one more message from his mother.

"If you hate me, I will accept it. If you want to kill me, you can do it in the end. However, even if you hate me, I still need to remain alive and protect you so that you will survive and kill me at that time."

"..." Auric paused for a few seconds before thinking, ’I want to ask whether you loved Mom... both of them.’

Auric let out a long sigh.

"Is everything alright?" Stella asked, noticing that Auric had been looking so serious and distant ever since he visited that grave.

She was quite shocked when she saw an ability so bizarre that it could even erase the beasts as if they had never existed in the first place.

She knew that Auric’s father was truly extraordinary.

Auric glanced at her but remained silent for a good few seconds before asking, "What do you think about gods?"

"Gods? As in the Bible? But there’s only one God in the Bible."

"I am talking about the gods in those myths."

"Ah. You must be wondering about avatars since they’re modeled after them in one way or another." Stella nodded in understanding. Even her avatar was a valkyrie.

She carefully considered her answer. "To be honest, I haven’t thought about it before. So what I am thinking right now is that gods might not be as omnipotent."

"Really?" Auric raised his eyebrows.

"Yes. If you think about it, there are so many mythologies on Earth. In them, some gods sound so powerful. Some don’t seem like it. I do love the story of Heracles and the twelve labors.

"For example, consider the task of slaying the Nemean Lion. He strangled the invulnerable beast and took its pelt to wear as armor. Heracles was a demigod at the time, so his achievement looked extraordinary from a normal person’s perspective, but it’s not exactly that weird now that we have this kind of power."

"Hmm?" Auric noticed something was off. Now that he thought about it, Heracles was a demigod. In other words, his blood came from both a human and a god.

His father also mentioned that Rank 8 was all about bloodline.

"There are other beings than humans in their myths, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"!!!" Auric froze. He had formed a theory in his head, but he didn’t know if he was correct.

’Age of Gods. The Gathering Technique. We have been harvesting power from nature. If one reaches Rank 7, they will not only manifest, but it will affect the body entirely. Those other creatures... Are they actually just the evolution of humans who have been exposed to this power for a long period?’

Auric couldn’t help but imagine that humans had absorbed the energy from the forest, and their long ears just happened to be one of the traits of evolution. In a few generations, it might be fine. But a few generations? They would stop being humans.

’He also mentioned bloodline. If a god has a wife who happens to be a god as well, their child will be a god. If a god has a wife who happens to be a human, their child will be a demigod. If I were to rewrite that from my father’s perspective, shouldn’t it be like this? If a Rank 8 has a wife of Rank 7 or below, their child will carry the part of the bloodline from the Rank 8 father. If a Rank 8 human has a wife who is also a Rank 8 human, their child will carry both of their bloodlines.’

Auric was speechless. If he thought about it, it was indeed possible that this was the theory behind it. In other words, gods were basically people who had gotten that much stronger, that normal people couldn’t explain other than them being gods.

In other words, it wasn’t about the age of gods. It was about the era when magical energy filled the world. This had happened a long time ago.

If humanity lost this race, there was a chance that it would be overrun by the beasts.

Auric let out a long sigh.

"What’s wrong?" Stella tilted her head in confusion.

"Nothing. I was just trying to open my shop and make it to be the best, but now the problem has become too big." Auric originally wanted to open the store because he didn’t have an avatar.

After meeting Lindwurm, that goal changed. He thought that running the best store would be possible, so he created that plan, turning his Night and Day Store into the Genius Evolution Store.

He wanted to turn normal people into geniuses.

"No, wait." Auric paused for a moment. He might not have to stray away from the goal.

In fact, he really needed to focus on his goal. If he wanted to win this race, it wouldn’t be enough to go at it alone.

That was why he really needed to begin his Genius Evolution Store plan in earnest. By making them stronger, he would get even more people to help him with his gathering techniques.

The only way for him to get stronger was by using the gathering techniques. And gathering techniques would be hard to create without anyone to copy.

Auric took a deep breath. He was adjusting his plan in his mind.

"I think I know what I should do next." Auric smiled.

"Is that so?" Stella tilted her head in confusion. "What should we do then?"

"I’ll tell you about it later. I’m still formulating the plan right now, but I guess school doesn’t really matter anymore. I probably won’t have enough time to attend." Auric shook his head.

"Sure. Do you need help from others, like Katarina?"

"I’m still thinking about that. What I’m planning to do is going to be quite dangerous, so I’m not so sure."

"In that case, why don’t you talk to your teacher? I bet she will join you. If students don’t satisfy you anymore, you need to think about the bigger picture. However, you still need to get stronger if you want to play in the big leagues."

"Fair point. Rank 3 is indeed necessary."