Gifts...

Maximus was in the bathroom relieving himself, clutching his stomach. He could feel the parting strike Pan gave him in the real world. He lifted his shirt, gritting his teeth to feel the wound, but to his shock and utter disbelief, his hand went inside his stomach as if going through a layer of jelly or something viscous but solid. He quickly pulled his hand out but felt no pain except the numbness still present from the punch. Just for the sake of curiosity he put his hand on his stomach, but nothing happened. He tried again and this time he willed to feel that sensation again and to his pleasant surprise it worked! Maximus noticed that after after his hand went inside, the space his hand was in, was pretty much empty. He concluded that it was a dimension of space of its own and his stomach is connected to it and could be controlled by his thoughts. He did not take his hand out this time and was upto half of his forearm, just to see how deep it went, until his hand touched something hard.

He really wished it was not his backbone and started to get a bit sick imagining what would happen if he pulled out his own backbone. Taking a chance he wrapped his fingers around the object quickly realizing it was he slowly pulled it out. It was a set of reed flute with a note stuck on it saying, "ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES. JUST BLOW AND CRUSH". Shrugging, he put it back inside when his hand touched on something, he reached for what felt like a handle of some sorts and pulled it out. It was an eight feet long shepherd's crook, which shrunk down to half its size when Max thought it was too big, as it was poking out of his restroom cubicle. He ran his hand over its knotty surface and was mesmerised by the feel it gave. It was thrumming with power, that Max felt he was doing it injustice by examining it in the toilet. When he was holding it he felt light, euphoric and also a bit turned on. Feeling himself getting an erection he stuffed the staff back inside his stomach/pocket dimension after removing the post it card on it (Fatass: Imagine that...Wood gave him Wood. OMG!! I'm dying here😂🤣) which said, "Its yours now. FYI this is the key I was talking about. USE IT WELL!".

Maximus comes out of the cubicle with a smile on his face that sent a cold shiver down their spines to any person who saw his face. The reason why Max was smiling were because of three things: one, he noticed that there were markings on the staff in greek saying 'World Tree fragment'(all demigods could read greek) and a bunch of other ruinic symbols that he suspected were Nordic/Norse; two, when he got a boner he noticed that the size that it grew to and was giddy at the thought of making a woman's eyes roll to the back of her head. Well you can't blame him, he never had sex in his past life and was excited at the opportunity for when it should come.

The third reason was the information that rushed into his head when he held his staff/shepherd's crook. When he held it, there was a rush of memories; most likely Pan's, tell him how to unlock his potential and how to go about it, this made him restless as he wanted to try out his newfound powers. It seemed Max already had an inbuilt, or rather a power passed down from his divine parent. Maximus focused on this memory that he received and focused, focused real hard but there was no change. He was about to try something else when he heard the head matron of the orphanage call out for all the children to gather.

He was slightly disappointed that he couldn't see or use his powers but remembered that practice makes perfect. Which he found ironic cause he had never practiced let alone worked hard in any of his lives, but this this time it was different. He has a freaking superpower! He decided he would even go to Tartarus if he could just use his powers.