Chapter 14 Status

She laughed a little. "Not the first time someone has said that, but it has been a while."

Brushing past my confession she continued.

"Do you still wish to join?"

My brain stuttered in confusion for a moment before I realized that some people, other smiths, might look at this and feel hopeless. Like their years of time and effort were insignificant.

I could definitely understand those people, I had a somewhat similar feeling when the capital G God poked me into another universe. But I no longer felt that way, a desire to break the limit of mortality welled up.

"Yes."

Her hand landed on my head and ruffled my hair, kneeling down to my eye level she smiled warmly.

"Welcome to the Hephaestus Familia Kova."

…

I sat backwards on a chair leaning on the backrest in Hephaestus' office. I had taken my shirt off and was waiting for the Goddess to inscribe my back with her Falna. From the corner of my eye I watched her take off her gloves.

I had told my parents about me being accepted

"Hey Goddess, so what do I call you?"

"Hmm, Goddess is fine, but Hephaestus, Lady Hephaestus or My Lady is also common among the Familia," she chuckled. "Some of my friends call me Phai-Phai, though its mainly just Loki."

"Ah ok," not as much of a devout cult setting as I thought a Familia would be.

She sat in the stool behind me and with a small knife she pricked her finger. Pressing it to my back I felt my body ripple like a rock thrown into a placid lake. I felt her divine blood seep into my skin.

Minutes passed as she etched hyroglyhs into my body.

"Oh my," she said quietly.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Hmm, you have a Skill and one of your Magic slots is taken already."

I tried to move but the Goddess put a firm hand on the nape of my neck.

"Wait I'm not done," she continued her work. "I was somewhat expecting this. Some races, such as werewolves will always have a Skill when they get a Falna, and there is a certain family, the Crozzo's, that do as well. Their ancestor was given the blood of a Spirit just like you, so it's no wonder. As for the Magic, especially with your Elven blood it was no surpise."

I of course had heard of the Crozzos and their magic swords, they had been the key to Rakias success in domination in the past, but had somehow been unable to produce magic swords in the past few hundred years. Da liked the stories of their weapons, but Ma disliked them. Even though she hadn't grown up in an elven village she hated the stories of them burning due to the Magic Swords. They had actually gotten into a fight when I tried to ask about the Crozzos.

"How did you know that I was given the blood of a Spirit?"

"I can read your history through my Blessing, its a bit blurry because you didn't have a Falna beforehand, but I can clearly see the Miracle of a Great Spirit."

I was happy that she didn't make a huge deal about it, my parents constant worrying of that gave me a bit of a waryness to it.

"How many Magic slots do I have?"

"Three."

I kicked my legs in anticipation until she finished.

"There we go, I locked the Falna so no one else can see it."

She then moved to her desk and wrote down my Status on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

—

Kova Nact

Level One

Strength I-0

Endurance I-0

Dexterity I-0

Agility I-0

Magic I-0

Magic-

-[Stellar Sheen

-Enchantment

-Light Element

-Chant - Brightest Night

Golems Body

-Enchantment

-Earth Element

-Chant - Never Broken

-[ ]

-[ ]

Skills-

-Blessed Blood

-Potency of Elven and Dwarvern Bloodlines have been enhanced

-Will gain the full benefits from both heritages

—

I quietly decifered what the Magic and Skills were telling me. I looked to Hephaestus who nodded with a little grin.

"The Blessed Blood Skill from what I can tell so far gives you the magical talents similar to that of a high elf, who are known for their incredible magical power even when compared to other elves, Riveria Ljos Alf is a great example. Dwarves don't really have the same royal reverence, but there are a few familys of large extremely powerful dwarves that don't have the same stature as others, Mia Grand for instance."

"Wait, does that mean that I wont be short?"

That had been a secret worry of mine. I had never met other kids to compare to, but I felt as though I was a little shorter than average.

"Uhhhhh, not so sure about that. Your ears didn't get any pointier and your hair didn't turn the Royal Green of a high elf so I don't think so. Skills rarely passively affect looks," she looked at me with a bit of pity.

Seeing my disappointment she quickly moved on.

"The gaining full benefits from both heritages is why you have two Magics in one, also similar to Nine Hells. Both are Enchantment magic so I believe your future Magics will be similar as well. Like it could be two wide range magics or two support magics,but heres the interesting part. I believe it won't just be Magic, it could affect future Skills as well."

Hephaestus didn't seem to be the kind of person to make wild assumptions so it had a pretty good chance of being true.

"You don't need to worry about the news of your heritage getting out, most Familias wouldn't be able to do anything even if they wanted to, but they can still be an annoyance and pester you. It's impossible to keep it a secret forever, but we'll have a set of cloaks made that will make it to where even Gods will have some difficulty seeing your dwarvern blood. It won't be perfect though, a close inspection will give you away."

"Won't that be expensive?"

"Yes, but I'll make it, don't count on it being armor, take it off if you ever go into the Dungeon us Gods are not allowed down there anyways. You'll spend the next few days here while I make the cloaks, but your parents can visit all they want. Do you know what they are going to do?"

"They don't want to be adventurers anymore. They talked about maybe opening a shop or joining a non combat Familia."

Hephaestus nodded. "Not unusual, for some people its too hard to watch Famila members get injured or killed in front of your eyes."

"So what am I going to do while I'm, stuck inside?"

"You'll be instructed on our Familia policies, help around the shop, and get some basic knowledge on both Smithing and Adventuring. After the cloaks are finished you'll be assigned a smithy for just yourself and a place to stay."

"Uhm, I have another question."

"Yes?"

"I'm also an alchemist, so do the smithies have plots of land around them as well so I can grow some herbs?"

"I saw that you had some knowledge on herbs, but I didn't think it was that much. Yes, see here."

She pulled out a map of a large area in the city. A cluster of a hundred or so small buildings were evenly spaced out.

"I'll give you this corner one here," she said pointing to one of them.

"It has more lawn space than most others and you can use that as you see fit."

The Liquid Viagra plan was a go.