Unexpected Choice

Noah trembled upon hearing the majestic voice from the sky. He resisted the urge to look up at the sky and waited for a moment.

While there was no rule expressly stating that one could not look at the sky, no one dared to so carelessly, so as to avoid angering the Patron Gods. Who knew what they might see if they looked up randomly at the time when the announcement had just rang out.

Noah knew that there were surely some who had tried, but he couldn't be sure what had happened to those who had looked up at that time because he had never heard of such people and the outcome of their trial.

Although there were no more words spoken from the sky, Noah knew that the ceremony had already begun. He looked out of the window of the room he and the others were in, and just as he expected, there were already a few pillars of colorful light connecting the ground and the sky up above. These pillars of light singled out people from the crowd relatively quickly, lighting up their figures.

'It's begun!' Noah said excitedly. However, he noted that not many people had been selected yet. This was not something to be alarmed about, though. The more important Patron Gods only began their selection in the later stages of the ceremony. The start of the ceremony was left to the less popular Patron Gods to select their candidates freely. This was something that had been taken note of over centuries of practice.

One by one, commoners and servants were singled out by varying beams of light. The light above them condensed into something more substantial before sinking into their bodies, bestowing them with a power greater than anything they had ever possessed.

Noah watched all this with wide eyes. He was fascinated by the sight, as this was his first time seeing it happen. The number of Avatars were always great, as there were always a great number of Patron Gods wanting to bestow people with their powers. Currently, with the human population reaching about three billion, there were millions of Avatars of varying status scattered around the whole world. Some of them were even lone individuals with no ties to any established power, wanting to live their lives in seclusion and without drawing attention to themselves.

Time passed by steadily, and in an hour, about twenty people had been chosen. A few commoners, and even a couple of servants had been selected by various Patron Gods. But there had been no Avatar selected from the nobles present as of yet.

That was not until a beam of light passed through the ceiling of the room Noah was in and landed on one of the young men.

Joseph, with wide eyes and quickened breath, jumped when the beam of light narrowed around him. A dazzling starlight slowly wafted down through the beam of light, dancing around Joseph, as though celebrating his selection, before sinking into his body slowly and empowering him.

Eyes immediately landed on Joseph as the young man's fingers began to tremble. He became overcome with great emotion as the voice of his Patron God reverberated in his mind.

Thud!

Wide-eyed, Joseph fell to his knees, shocked at what he heard. The other young men held themselves back from rushing to him, as the initial moments of selection were the most crucial. They did not want to, in any way, ruin things for this half-brother of theirs.

After a few minutes, Joseph finally stopped trembling. He raised his gaze up, allowing Noah and the other to see his teary visage. For a moment, they thought that he had gotten a terrible Patron God.

"Hahaha! My Patron God is amazing!" Joseph suddenly exclaimed, surprising everyone. He jumped to his feet and hurried forward to hug each of the other young men in a fit of excitement.

Although they did not know who his Patron God was, for Joseph to be this excited, surely it was something good. A bit of the excitement also rubbed off on them, and they began to grin wildly and laugh along with him.

"Who is it?" Eventually, Noah could not help himself and asked.

"You know of the ancient Pantheon that ruled over the mythological Olympus, right?" Joseph asked giddily, eager to share the information.

Noah raised an eyebrow. He had come to learn over the time he had spent here that for some reason, the popular mythological gods and myths that were known on Earth were also rampant on this world after the apocalypse. He had done some research in the library of the Orsted Family and come to learn about many similarities between the two worlds. It made him suspicious of a few things, but he had not been able to prove anything yet.

"Yes, I've read about it." Noah nodded and the others paid attention.

"Well, within that Pantheon, there are two main categories, the Old Gods and New Gods. The Old Gods are referred to as Titans, the first generation gods, while the New Gods are referred to as the second generation, or the Olympians. It's a long story, but to get to the point, my Patron God is a first generation god! The Titan God, Astraeus!" As he explained, Joseph got more and more excited until he was not bothered to explain the greater details and just skipped them all together to share the name of his Patron God with his half-brothers.

Everyone froze upon hearing the name and title of the Patron God. They had all heard about the Titan Gods, some of the most powerful beings to have roamed the world a long time ago. To have a Titan God as a Patron was an unimaginably good thing! Joseph's future trajectory had instantly changed! From being a forgettable illegitimate son of a Viscount, he would soon become a vital pillar of the Argast Kingdom!