Chapter 6

I followed behind my dwarf guide as we walked across the warehouse and moved out of the main forging area. We entered a large hallway that led to a single door at the end of it. The door was expertly crafted with metal inlays that depicted scenes of blacksmithing taking place. However, the centerpiece of the door that grabbed my attention right away was the large symbol of the Hephaestus familia made from gold. It seemed to hold all the other sciences on the door together with its mere presence. I had to admit that it was an impressive display, if a bit ostentatious for my taste. 

"Behind this door is the goddess. She'll give you your falna, though I have a word of advice. Don't stare at her eyepatch or comment on it. She is a bit sensitive about that." he said before letting out a booming laugh and stepping forward to open the door.

The door swung open to reveal a room that was much larger than I would have initially thought. Warm light spilled from the room and made the room sparkle as it reflected off all the metal objects in the room. Swords, spears, axes, hammers, and every other sort of arm and armor imaginable were in the room, seemingly awaiting inspection from the goddess herself. However, every other detail of the room was insignificant when compared to the woman sitting behind the desk in the center of the room, or that is what I was expecting to say, at least. 

The goddess Hephaestus was definitely beautiful, but she had no overwhelming aura of power or authority about her, though I supposed that was the point of taking on a mortal form in the first place, not to stand out. She inspected me with a singular crimson eye that matched her red hair reaching down to her neck. Her right eye was covered by a large eyepatch that I personally thought looked fairly cool, but I decided to keep that detail to myself. We stood silently, inspecting each other for a moment before I gave a formal bow. I figured it was always better to be overly polite than be not polite enough, especially with a god. 

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Goddess. I am Augustus Ahriman." I said before looking back up at the goddess, who frowned at my display.

"From today forward, you are going to be one of my children, Augustus, and I will have none of my children bow to me," she said, her frown turning to a grin, "No need to be too formal either," she said, kicking her feet up on the desk to prove her point.

"I'll keep that in mind, Hephaestus," I said, getting a chuckle out of the dwarf and the goddess.

"He gets it already, Thordrin," she said, speaking to my dwarf guide, before turning back to me, "Usually, it at least takes a few days to a week before people actually lighten up around me. You are a rare but welcome surprise." 

I wasn't sure quite what to say, so I just shrugged and said, "Thank you?" which made the two laugh all the harder, which caused me to chuckle along with them.

After about a minute, Hephaestus stopped laughing and wiped a tear that had streamed down from her good eye before turning to me, "Ready to get you falna and officially become one of my children?"

"Of course!" I said, my excitement building since I would finally be able to access my abilities once I had the falna. 

I moved forward to sit on a stool beside the desk and took off my shirt to reveal my well-formed chest. I didn't have a six-pack or anything, but my muscles were well-defined. I turned and looked at a mirror in one corner of the room, getting a good look at myself for the first time since my rebirth. I was surprised to see that I looked a lot like the younger version of Ban from Seven Deadly Sins when he was exploring the Fairy King's Forest. I saw short and spiky, pale blue hair with thin black eyebrows and scarlet-red eyes looking back at me from the mirror. Notably, there was no scar on my neck. I admired my reflection for a moment before focusing back on the Goddess.

(Image)

Hephaestus moved behind me and traced her fingers over my back. I felt a cool sensation spread over my back, giving me the urge to scratch my back. Luckily, the experience only lasted a moment before the world the world turned grey and everything stilled. I found myself unable to move my body other than moving my eyes. I was confused for a moment until a screen popped up in front of my eyes. Figuring that this had something to do with my powers, I focused intently on the screen and read its contents. 

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[Choose your starting Psychic Discipline: (Note: You can unlock one discipline per level until all are unlocked)

- Biomancy

- Divination

- Pyromancy

- Telekinesis

- Telepathy]

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(A/N: Descriptions of each discipline are in the auxiliary chapter)

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Once I was done reading the screen, I paused to think. I eliminated telepathy as my first discipline almost immediately. Not that it isn't useful, but I didn't think telepathy would be that useful right off the bat. Divination, on the other hand, I knew had to be either first or second since the ability to see the future is beyond overpowered. However, I had to remind myself that the futures that I see with my powers will not always necessarily be the correct ones. Despite that setback, I was leaning toward divination, though I decided that it would probably be better as my second discipline. That left me to pick from either biomancy, pyromancy, or telekinesis. 

Telekinesis is powerful, but I decided it wouldn't be the best first choice since it would require the most setup since I would have to get a bunch of spears or knives to launch at monsters in the dungeon. I knew that I would be able to kill things with my telekinetic powers directly, but I wasn't sure how well that would work against monsters in the dungeon at level 1. That uncertainty led me to discount telekinesis for now. Then, looking at my final options, I eventually came to the decision to choose biomancy as my first psychic discipline since it is versatile and allows me to heal both myself and others. That allows me to get stronger faster since I can heal any damage I take quickly without having to take time or spend money to recover. Once that decision was made, I mentally clicked on the [Biomancy] option.

Once it was selected, the screen faded, and time continued on as normal as if it had never stopped in the first place. A sudden surge of knowledge rushed into my mind as well. I expected it to be painful, but it felt more like being reminded of a topic I had forgotten about. The feeling was more euphoric or satisfying than anything else as the knowledge filled my mind. It wasn't only knowledge of how to use biomancy that filled my mind. There was so much more knowledge as well. I was also given knowledge on what runes and sigils I could carve into my weapons or armor to amplify my psychic power. I was also given knowledge of some rituals I could perform that would result in a variety of effects.

I was in awe of how I had gone from only baseline theoretical knowledge of my abilities to a deep and intimate understanding of my powers within less than a second. It wasn't only memories, either. It felt like I was granted both the knowledge and experience of a grandmaster biomancer. It was the same for all the other knowledge too. However, there was one piece of information that interested me above the rest. It was the details of what my abilities are in the context of magic and this world.

As it turns out, my powers still come from my mind and its connection to the Immaterium, but it consumes my magical power whenever I use it, meaning that I am limited by my magic reserves. In exchange for that limitation, the version of the Immaterium that I can interface with isn't chaotic, and there aren't going to be demons waiting to devour my soul on the other side. It is literally just a realm of energy that does house sentience, but they are neutral to my presence and aren't malicious right off the rip. However, if I chose to do so, I could still embrace chaos and gain any powers that the dark gods wish to grant me. The knowledge implanted in my mind gave no indication of what would happen if I embraced chaos beyond that.

I was drawn out of inspecting the new knowledge in my mind when Hephaestus gasped as she looked at my back. 

- - - - - - - - - - -

Basically, he has access to the warp, but it isn't a shitshow. Though he is limited by his magical power.