The Selection

Divine Abilities… what were those?

In the language of Nerds, Weebs, Otakus and Novel readers… they were the Cheat Codes of every Protagonist of the reincarnation story trope.

Without them, the main character was as ordinary as a random passerby on the street.

And after all the discussion and decisions between God of Darkness and Elric… it was obviously the most important part of this whole arrangement. 

Because it would decide exactly how Elric would be able to plan his path towards achieving his goals. Because these divine abilities were not just going to be his way to gain strength, rather they'd be his Cheat Codes.

Elric knew a majority of such scenarios where a reincarnated person in Mangas and Novels would be granted such abilities in these stories. 

But because of his experience, he had read a lot of these stories and knew where would any type of such so-called divine abilities lead him in the future. 

So he had to look through all of these carefully and choose the most suitable ones based on his situation when he'll be thrown in sooner in the world of Vantrea. 

Since he had to choose them beforehand, he naturally had to look for the most useful ones with the greatest potential. The ones which would not only help him become stronger but also become his trump card and save his life whenever he was in a situation where he could most definitely die again. 

Though it would have been most preferable by the Elric of the past, but now that he was going to give his life another chance, he had to make it easier and more convenient as much as he could. 

These abilities would not only enable him to accomplish the end game. But also shape his future.

"I'm ready. Show me" said Elric with a light smile on his face.

"You're allowed to choose only two divine abilities. 

Every God gives them to their heroes. And each God and Goddess has created multiple of such unique divine abilities related to their Law of Existence. 

And we collectively offer them to all the chosen heroes at the time of summoning.

You might as well choose a divine ability created by any other God than me. 

I can't tell you which God or Goddess created which one. However, you won't get to choose these powers again. 

So you must think about it very carefully."

G.O.D. said and waved his left hand, suddenly over 80 huge monoliths as big as a house appeared in front of Elric and started lining up in a queue. Some of them emitted Gold, some Silver and some Bronze light coming out of them as if they were classified in tiers based on their usefulness.

However, there were also 3 dark ones that didn't emit any light at all. More like they were sucking in the nearby light in them.

Elric understood that these were the abilities he'd be granted after choosing and his future approach towards his goal will be dependent on them.

He looked at these portraits and the information about their use and how to use them started flowing in his mind.

Mind control, Summoning Undead, Teleportation, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Levitation, Integration, Mimic, Clairvoyance, Sage's Eye... Around 80 of such random abilities appeared on each of these monoliths and all of them were in their utmost peak grade. 

They were simply perfect without any flaws. Elric started touching each of these monoliths with his hand and somehow, he was feeling an innate connection towards them. 

He felt like each one of these divine abilities was calling out to him and asking him to accept them. But Elric didn't stop or fell for the temptation; he sternly kept browsing through all of them one by one. He could not afford to mess it up. 

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After some time, he browsed through all the Gold, Silver and Bronze monoliths.

"What's with the bright lights? Why are they shining in different colors ?"

G.O.D. simply looked at Elric and said, "Golds ones are the most chosen ones by the chosen heroes of all gods and goddesses. Like at least 4 times for the 2 slots they were given. Silver ones 3 times and Bronze ones 2 times."

"What about those Black ones?" queried Elric.

"Not even once." G.O.D. replied.

"Hmm... All these abilities are simply amazing and can be used for extremely favorable outcomes. No wonder my predecessors and other heroes of the past chose many of these. 

If used properly, they can even help me create an Empire of my own and reach the strength enough to fight against the Demon God within a decade or two. Simply astounding." Elric nodded in approval.

But in the next second, he retorted… 

"However, all of them are bound to certain conditions. For example, Mind control. I will need to keep looking into a person's eyes for at least a minute and have a suggestive conversation to control their minds to work for me or do my bidding. At the time of fight for Life and Death, it won't be useful at all because the enemy obviously won't be interested in settling things with words.

And the Necromancer ability.. needs me to rob graveyards to make the deceased part of my summoned army. Too useful for the future but also very tedious. 

Clairvoyance can only see through a certain time in the future but can't be used consequently, I'll need to wait for a few hours to use it again. Great potential, it can also save me from being tricked by others and stop my possible death as well. But still, the conditions to use it lack potential as it will only give me a head start but not actually help me change the situation.

Telekinesis has restrictions on distance or how far my reach is and also how much weight I can lift or exert through it. Would've been too OP if I could move a mountain with it. 

Sage's Eye only gives out information about everything as long as it's not of Divine Rank or the information is sealed by the Gods themselves. 

But what use could I make of it if I don't have enough skills or means to use such information to get an upper hand? 

Telepathy needs me to touch the person I want to read the minds of or establish a mind link with. This will definitely help me look like a creep and a pervert for sure." Elric gave a thumb up to G.O.D.

And then he started listing out all the bothersome terms and conditions of these divine abilities which were subject to market risks.

G.O.D. who once had a prideful face when he showed these abilities to Elric and expected a face of awe and worship was left speechless. These were the goddam divine abilities for G.O.D.'s sake.

And this guy was complaining how they were inconvenient and only useful for certain situations with no flexible uses. 

He had indirectly flipped a middle finger to G.O.D. himself who once presented all these abilities to all his Summons that came before Elric. G.O.D. for the first time in his billions of years of existence felt like crying. 

Elric was basically kicking him in the face over and over. And each time, the intensity was increasing more than before. Even Kravel gave G.O.D. a look full of pity.

[Why don't you create your own divine abilities then?] G.O.D. could only retort in his mind. 

Saying it out loud would only diminish his image as an almighty God who was triggered just by a few words from a dead man's soul.

Just as he was about to speak, Elric turned his gaze to the 3 dark monoliths and started checking them out.

Ability Absorption.

Dimensional Law.

Synthesis.

Just as the information about these 3 divine abilities was fully processed by Elric's mind... He was out of words. He read through them and an expression of puzzlement appeared on his face.

The Abilities had details on them such as…

[Divine Ability: Ability Absorption

Allows the owner of the divine ability to absorb the physical and magical skills, bloodlines and abilities of the targeted being without any complications or side effects to the owner. However, the owner will still have to follow through with the restrictions and terms of use for these individual abilities.

Condition: The target whose abilities are to be absorbed must be dead before using this ability on them. Otherwise, the Absorption will be a failure. 

And the target must not have been dead for too long and the physical body must be in a shape enough to completely extract these abilities should they entail having something such as Blood requirements or body parts. There will be a failure if the target's body is destroyed beyond measure or the required quantity needed for ability absorption is inadequate.]

Then he read the 2nd divine ability…

[Divine Ability: Dimensional Law

The owner of this divine ability has access to all the space and void around them. They can open the void and enter it without any harm to the physical body. Also allows a part of the body to be placed inside the void at the same time while the rest of the body exists in the real world without harming the original body. The distance of travel and time the user can stay inside the Void increases with the increase in Mastery of the law.

Condition: The owner must be extremely efficient in Space magic and law. This divine ability is only accessible when the owner has met the prerequisite conditions.]

Finally, Elric moved to the 3rd divine ability.

[Divine Ability: Synthesis

Allows the owner to recreate two different Physical Abilities and Magic Skills to form a new Variant based on the working principles of the abilities and skills in the synthesis procedure. Abilities created will have no side effects on the owner's body or mental condition. This ability can also be used to create creatures by mixing different sets of beings and abilities.

Condition: Certain levels of prerequisite conditions such as physical ability and skills required for the process must be met before synthesis can be done.

The strength and specialty of the creatures created will depend upon the base subjects they were experimented with.]

Elric was out of words again. These 3 abilities were something he did not expect to be here on the list. 

He also understood why previous heroes didn't choose these 3 divine abilities even once.

The required conditions for them were indeed very troublesome and hard to achieve while the others had far more beneficial uses without much risk or effort.

But Elric was different from all of them. 

Unlike those who came before him, they were all either great tacticians, great leaders, or generals of their respective countries and their era. But none of them had the experience of being an Otaku, a Nerd and a Geek. 

So naturally, they found these 3 abilities extremely useless and hard to cultivate. From a normal person's perspective who lived a certain lifestyle and was accustomed to a single thought process; all of these were not worth choosing at all.

As they needed a lot of time to be perfected and definitely a lot of time would be wasted just to meet the perquisites of these divine abilities.

For example, they will always have to kill someone or a monster to absorb their abilities. They will have to learn and understand Space and Time Law which was easier said than done. And Synthesis ability will surely have a lot of restrictions upon it when trying to merge two different abilities and creatures as well.

So in the long run, these 3 divine abilities would give them more trouble, waste their time which would hinder their path to becoming stronger and even make things complicated as they will have to do their research and spend a lot of time on it as well. So these abilities were the worst options available among all the Cheat Codes that were offered by the gods.

But in the next minute, Elric looked at the God of Darkness and said, "I want them. I want all 3 of them."

To his decision, both G.O.D. and Kravel looked at him together and shouted,

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMM MIND?!"