Grounded

Once they all recovered from the bomb I dropped on them they were all eager to understand what the fuck actually happened for me to suddenly get such a massive jump in abilities. I revealed my enlightenment of reversed curse technique and how that worked with my current abilities and gave me healing as well. My ability to regrow limbs wasn't exactly a secret in the familia at this point but it was not truly healing so much as manipulating the body to replace the lost limb or fuse the wounded flesh back together.-

Reverse cursed healing though was true and proper regeneration that didn't starve the receiver to do but used the positive energy as a fuel source instead. Unlike normal cursed energy however positive energy was extremely difficult to send outside my own body to manifest. It was also really damn hard to control as well but neither of these were surprising for me. Qualitatively speaking positive energy was a super advanced form of cursed energy and thus WAY more difficult and different to handle than the basic cursed energy. I may as well have been learning a brand new energy type in fact as a result.-

Unfortunately this good news wasn't enough to get me off the hook with Hestia and she grounded me for a month. That meant no dungeon, limited crafting and training. She initially wanted to entirely remove crafting and training but I managed to negotiate it down since I did still need to replace my equipment and master my new abilities. I still only got four hours of "free" time to train or craft a day though which left me bored out of my skull for most of the day.-

The first thing I focused on was mastering my new abilities for the first two weeks. To start out with I practiced with my new positive energy to bring my control up to snuff. This meant spending all four hours at a time meditating as I focused on manipulating the creation and control of this energy. This alone showed fast progress as I had experience from when I first got cursed energy and thus had some reference as to how to go about bringing this new energy up to snuff. Annoyingly I sorta glowed when I was working on manifesting the stuff outside my body which made me look like a glowstick.-

For the remaining part of those two weeks I practiced my reversion techniques that came from reversing my two techniques. Hestia was NOT amused at how I called my [Hell's forge] reversion [Heavens judgement]. Like she totally understood why I named it that way but that didn't mean she approved it. She like most gods considered the heavenly realm a sacred and holy place even if like the mortal realm it was actually neutral in nature much like mortals and gods themselves. My [Hell's forge] represented the creation aspect of hell so naturally the reversion represented the destruction aspect of Heaven.-

It was all symbolic and stuff, cursed energy was fun like that. Interestingly though the reversion of my [Hell fire] technique was still afterlife related but was an opposing type compared to the hot consuming flames of hell. It was a soul deep cold that in a way preserved rather than destroyed which was why I named it after the Norse mythologies realm of the dead [Helheim] that was a place of bitter cold. I wondered why it wasn't a heavenly aspected ability but one still related to the afterlife until I recalled that my [Hell fire] was actually an extension of my [Hell's forge] that became it's own technique after my level up.-

By similar logic it made a degree of sense that it's reversion was it's opposite while still falling as a subcategory under my [Hell's forge]. Gonna be totally honest here but I had totally ignored the possibility of the different representations of Hell all being a part of the actual Hell and had been stuck on the fiery aspected one preached about on earth. While it was undoubtable that my technique was based on that aspect of Hell it MIGHT just be a doorway to the full realm rather than the be all end all.-

Once I had this thought it took root in my mind and I couldn't help but ask Hestia if my idea was right. She clammed up at the question though and made it clear that no god would answer that question, it was taboo. Syr/Freya was more able to enlighten me as to why it was so thankfully. See while we mortals were allowed to know that the afterlife existed we WEREN'T allowed to know what the details of it were exactly unless we discovered it by accident or personally went there somehow.-

Oh yes we mortals could indeed go to the divine realms however it was way fucking harder for us to do so than it was for the gods to come to the mortal realm. The reason for this was perfectly natural really. Gods could "fall" by suppressing their existence to a level acceptable in the mortal realm. Like a skilled fighter holding back to spar with a newbie. Naturally it was a much more difficulty process for that same newbie to match the skilled fighter without themselves growing to a skilled fighter themselves.-

In this case for a mortal to go to the heavenly realms they needed outside aid and lots of preparation. It was also something few mortals had ever actually survived doing as once in the heavenly realms they were subject to the full unbridled power of the beings that lived there. To put that into perspective that was like every ant being as strong as the level seven monster rex, Balor. And that was just the starting level of power for the things over there so obviously you'd need to be level eight or nine just to possibly survive in that place.-

Learning that insane shit killed any idea of me trying to make a trip to the literal Hell in the fucking cradle. Sure I might make vast leaps of progress in my cursed technique but I sorta need to be alive to enjoy those benefits no? Though there was also a possibility that I'd show up as a soul in Hell after death with what would basically be a sparkling job history in the field. Could you even fathom how happy the deities in that place would be to have someone show up that already knows how to do the job?