1 Chapter 1 : Awakening

The sky above was clear as a young man awoke within a crater. He did not seem to be hurt, nor experiencing any sort of physical discomfort, but he was extremely confused, and his body fely very heavy at the moment. It took all of his focus just to move his eyes around.

He barely noticed the top of some kind of building outside of the deep crater that he was in, and the clouds also appeared unusual. Indeed, there were clouds, it was merely that a large space, shaped like a massive perfect circle, was above the crater he wa in, as though the clouds had been erased from existence only in this area.

"What happened here?" the young male voice asked before forcing himself to sit up "I can't remember this place, or how I got here. My name...Jiro, I think." he rubbed his head, trying to figure out how come he could only recall the one thing.

This did not feel right to him. Even if he remembered nothing, he still felt confident that there was something wrong with this whole situation.

Finally the young man touched his hair and positioned it so he could see it, and found it was white, before he continued his self-examination and he noticed something else that was weird. He had no clothes at all.

While he knew he didn't remember anything other then his name, he innately understood the concept that was clothes and of nakedness. Even if he wanted to put on clothes, though, there was nothing around for him to put on, and he was stuck in a hole with no hope of scavenging anything.

He carefully tested his legs a bit, the feeling of weakness in him starting to fade and then he headed over to the edge of the crater, which appeared to be 15 feet straight up with nothing to hold on too. Like the circle in the clouds, the walls were too impossibly smooth to be normal.

Again, he couldn't fathom why he knew it seemed so unnatural, but it just did "The wall...is pure stone...no dirt. I can't dig upwards., and I couldn't jump that high, could I? No, it seems non-sensical to think that I can." he spoke to no one in particular, just focusing on trying to escape from this situation.

"How am I supposed to get out of here!" he yelled in frustration, hoping that someone would hear him and come to help him, since it seemed like he would not be able to escape without some sort of assistance.

Eagerly he watched along the top of the strange crater for any sign of movement, but after around 5 minutes, the form that appeared there was not at all what he had hoped would appear.

The hairy black creature stood around three feet tall, with eight long, slender legs, 8 hideous red eyes, and a mouth full of hideously sharp fangs. Somehow he knew this creature was called Latrogigantus, and that this was an adolescent of it's kind.

"I definitely do not want to meet your mother!" Jiro called out as the spider climbed down into the hole with him.

Jiro's heart was pounding, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do against such a creature, but he was determined to not give up without a fight! "If my life is to end now, I'll take you with me." Jiro tried to hype himself up, but inwardly he was thinking that this was so unfair!

The spider, upon reaching the bottom of the crater, charged straight towards Jiro, seeing him as nothing more then a meal. Jiro had anticipated that much, and waited until the moment it was trying to jump towards his face and dove downward, causing the spider to sore over him. While he was falling, Jiro managed one punch, swinging with all that he had and striking the soft underbelly of the spider, causing it to howl in pain and rage.

Jiro tried to quickly get up and prepare for another attack, only to have the spider recover faster and spring towards him. Jiro could barely raise an arm to defend him as the spider bit into it and he felt intense, burning agony, as the creature not only injected poison, but also started eating his arm while it was still attached.

Jiro was filled with rage at the whole situation, wanting desperately to live! With his free hand he started to desperately punch the spider in the face over and over again, only to have it release his now useless right arm and attack his left.

So Jiro cried through the pain and kept kicking the underbelly of the spider until he managed to land a blow that appeared to actual cripple the spider. The Latrogigantus had not expected it's prey to fight so hard, but Jiro stubbornly clung to life until the spider was well and truly dead.

Jiro could still feel the poison inside of him, his right arm was useless, his left wasn't much better, but still he was desperate to live. "Magic stone." he muttered and with what little strength ir left hand had left, he tore out one of the spider's fangs and used it to dig into the flesh of the spiders corpse.

The whole process was agonizing for him, but he refused to give up until he found a small stone half the size of the spiders heart right next to it. He took it out with his left hand and stared at it, desperately, trying to draw out it's power and to use it to heal himself of the poison. That was the most life threatening thing right now, after all,

If this spider had been an adult, it's magical stone would have risen to low-grade, but for now it was only lowest grade. Though he knew this, somehow, it still made him frown that this kind or monster was considered to be the lowest grade. "How the heck is a guy supposed to survive in a place like this." he grumbled to himself before doubling down his focus on using the stones power.

------

Jiro wasn't sure how much time had passed, but when he opened his eyes and examined himself, he found that he looked to be pale. It made sense, as he had lost a lot of blood. His right arm was still mangled and unusable, but at least it was no longer bleeding, and his left arm managed to recover completely.

Jiro looked towards the corpse of the spider, glaring at the creature that had forced him into a life or death struggle, and wishing death upon it's entire species. Jiro looked again at the walls of this unnatural crater, wondering how he could get out now that he only had one usable arm.

It seemed impossible with two, and now he only had one, and he was was still naked, and the clear spot burned into the clouds was long gone and it looked like it could rain any moment.

"Rain" the word came to his lips suddenly as he looked at his surroundings. If he couldn't climb up, then maybe he could fill in the hole? As he thought this it hit him how unreasonable that it sounded. How long would it take rain to fill a hole this huge?

Even though he knew that the plan should be impossible and illogical, he still instinctively knew that he was onto the right idea. He sat down and crossed his legs, staring up at the sky, concentrating on then, trying to see the piece that he was missing.

Even though Jiro was tire, hungry, and still feeling pain from his mangled right arm, he endured his concentration for what must have been hours. The sun was abut to set when he grasped the power of water! Magic!

Sure, he instinctively knew of the existence of magic stones, but he never thought that he'd be able to use magic, and yet now....

He strode nearer to the edge of the crater, again, gathering the essence that was water magic from his surroundings as he went, and when he reached it he formed a staircase of ice,

He'd instinctively known that he could freeze it, but it seemed that doing so was exhausting. He had nearly collapsed the instant that he finished working his magic, but he knew that if he fell asleep here, during the night, he'd die. There were no doubt many more spiders like the one he'd killed around, after all.

In spite of his desire to sleep, Jiro stubbornly made his way to the surface, then saw a simple-looking white tower, relatively close by, though still far enough that he could barely see the top of it from inside of the crater. He did not really see any other possibilities for shelter, so he marched his way towards the tower, though he found that it possessed no visible doorway to enter through.

Unable to remain awake any longer, Jiro fell asleep at the foot of the tower, and in his sleep, he had a dream.

------

In his dream, Jiro found himself at the same tower where he'd fallen asleep, only it was much more magnificant, and the crater that had put him through such hell was a beautiful lake

"This is what it should look like, my hero." a beautiful female voice came from his right.

Jiro turned towards the source of the sound, and saw a woman who was slightly aglow, with long, flowing blond hair, green--blue eyes, and a figure that was incredible. Even without the fact that she was glowing he would easily believe that she was a goddess. And that white dress of hers barely covered anything and was scandalously sexy.

"Right you are. Somewhat." the woman told Jiro sadly, and actually blushed a bit since she'd heard all of his thoughts "I was Pandora, goddess of fate, freedom, luck, and mercantilism. Sadly though, I was attacked by a man with a weapon that shouldn't exist, something from before the creation of this universe, that can kill even a god or goddess. I did not wish for my divine essence to completely be lost, so with the last of my power, I created you, my child..."

The goddess gently touched Jiro's cheek and smiled at him "I wish I could tell you that this life will be easy for you, but my death will inevitably anger a lot of gods. They wont understand what you are. Possessing even this tiny fragment of my power may make you a target. For that, I apologize. But, I ask for you to save me. With this tiny piece of myself within you, you have the capacity to reach the very doors of divinity, and whether or not you choose to step into godhood at that time, you'll have the power to resurrect me. I know I asked too much, but in my final moments, all I wanted was to live. You can understand that much, my child."

------

Jiro awoke next to the tower discovering that the sun was starting to rise, but he could not see very clearly, It took him a moment to realize why. He was crying. He understood that the tower he was resting against was called the Tower of Fate, and was a sacred place to the goddess of Fate, Pandora.

The lake bed where he'd originally awoken was also sacred to Pandora. It was the lake of Fate, and was a place with a very strong affinity for water magic, making it an ideal place to try and comprehend water.

If he had tried to comprehend water magic anywhere else, it would not have been anywhere near that easy, but it was normally forbidden for mortals to approach that lake. Of course, with Pandora gone, it was now possible. He assumed that she chose to awaken him in that place to try to give him a small advantage in his cultivation, and for that he was grateful.

There was still so much that Jiro did not know about this world, but now he understood one thing. He wanted to resurrect that beautiful goddess. His own struggles with the adolescent latrogigantus, and his own stubborn resolve to live, made him empathize with his mother.

Yes, she created him, so even though he found her to be very beautiful, he pushed aside any thought of treating her like some sort of conquest, and decided to instead call her his mother. "Mother...I'll do as you asked." he cried while watching the sunrise.