Marcos was befuddled by the deity's words, he was unsure of what to say at this point, "A proposal? What is it that you need My Lord?"
Niko smirked, seeing his follower's anxious face made him want to tease him, but he couldn't as he was a virtuous man in the eyes of his loyal followers in this world.
"Be my Apostle. Spread my divine will, end this meaningless war and let all humans strive for peace and love. Those that comply to my creed shall be granted power beyond mortality and may obtain the chance of becoming a Great Spirit." Niko spoke with a dignified expression.
He appeared more like an actual deity this way, "A Great Spirit?" The soldier was unfamiliar with the term and related it to the water nymphs and dryads of legends.
Nature Spirits as they called them, "Yes, an honorable and prestigious position. They govern a part of nature, whether it be the soil or lakes, they take great care for their domain and sustain it for as long as they live.
I am the one that grants them that title; and along with it are many benefits such as immortality and your next generation of children becoming Lesser Spirits due to the transformation from Human to Great Spirit. By the way that only applies to the next offsprings not your current ones." Niko made the position sound very interesting and lofty, but the path to become a Great Spirit was harsh and thorny.
From the System's Archives he realized that the way to become a Great Spirit was to hold a gracious and compassionate heart whilst withstanding against despair and keeping hopeful for an indefinite period of time.
Then once they hit the critical point their souls would change drastically and shed their mortal shells, becoming nothing but a decaying bag of meat, slowly putrefying and becoming one with nature.
It was a pretty terrifying process, but the results were decent and the bonuses were quite luxurious.
But that depended on whether he allowed them to be as becoming a Great Spirit also relied on having a Church to officially baptize them.
Quite an atrocious move for the person that created this path, but considering that the person who did create it was a religious person, it made sense.
"I see. So basically if we follow you shall give us benefits, but in return what do you get?" Marcos was sincerely asking as he noticed the inconvenience this posed to Niko.
"Oh? Good question, I have more people to help me recuperate. That's all." Undoubtedly it was the truth, the System wanted him to create a religion, he wished to save the world after seeing the disastrous results war had on it; it was basically a win-win situation for the both of them!
And it was also fitting that he had his followers help the land recover as he passed off as the continents itself.
"Well then. I accept your proposal!" Marcos stood with a stern gaze, a zealous gleam in his eyes, showing fervor and intense passion that made Niko slightly uncomfortable.
"Then from now on you are Apostle Fausto, which in an extinct language forgotten by time, means fortunate one. You shall keep your birth name as your true name, but when you don the robes of a priest you must refer to yourself as this as it reflects your baptized self." Niko decided that the Bestowal one underwent was to become the primary aspect of finally becoming admitted into the fold.
And these soldiers were his first batch, "From now on I delegate the task of baptism and erecting the Church into your hands. You are the Son of Man and shall be so until your transformation. Finally since you chose to accept this I shall now gift you with something."
He snapped his fingers and a black iron sand-like substance appeared around his hand, gathering them all into one fist, he then opened the palm and blew them towards Marcos.
Marcos held out his two arms in defense, but then saw that they changed his appearance, "What is this?"
Inspecting himself, he saw that his fatigues were gone and replaced with a pure white robe, emblazoned with gold and crimson, which he felt was a little overkill, and of course he wore headwear with the same theme.
He also felt the all too familiar feeling of wearing a mask, despite it only being the majority of his mouth and nose covered he could still breathe easily.
He could not see what the mask looked like, but from what he saw of his comrades expressions it must be extravagant to be able to incur such envious gazes, then again his current situation was also very enviable to the point that they would probably even kill him to obtain his spot.
"These are clothes I specially prepared for you. I hope you like them, they were created through some special nanoparticles that completely alters the molecular makeup of anything it touches, I just changed your clothes to fit your new title and if you willed it to you can change it back." Niko grinned as he was satisfied with his new toy.
In truth the special Nani particle was actually iron sand enchanted with those properties, but he wasn't exactly lying as it was still a special nanoparticle and best part was that he could endlessly spawn them outright, 'Hehe, guess High Enchant has its use after all.'
"Now that you are my Apostle you have the right to consult me anytime. But for now we must handle the political and diplomatic affairs that my appearance has caused," Niko bought Marcos out of his trance and told him of the many catastrophic effects of him being here.
Not to mention the government may try to take him away for research purposes and probe him to gain his secrets for themselves leading to a worldwide war, which was the opposite of what he wanted to do.
Sure if he let them all kill each other for his sake, that would mean he'd die in the middle of the war and they'd share his body to experiment on until they realize that he was a normal human being all along, so it was absolutely meaningless to take that path.
"Come, Fausto. We have a meeting to crash."