William sat upright, surprised, he screamed, "What?! How?!"
Athena smirked and asked with folded hands, "Now will you listen to me?"
William knew there was no way he could allow himself to trust Athena again but he still allowed himself to listen to her.
She began, "I am the Goddess of Wisdom, which means I am aware of all the events occurring around me. In this human form, I am greatly limited and can only predict outcomes accurately up to 70%, and through careful planning and analysis, I can control only 45% of the outcomes.
"I was sure you wouldn't kill the goblin so I already prepared a way for you to get ki. And that was through the orc. I let you know the ritual needed you to consume certain parts of the goblin and also showed you how the orc evolved by having a taste of my blood.
"You being a human and also a celestial is not a coincidence. Allison is banking on the uniqueness of humans and your potential as a celestial."
"The uniqueness of humans?" William repeated.
Athena nodded, "I told you I can't use ki, right?"
William nodded slightly in response.
She continued, "For the utilization of either ki, mana, or divinity—the soul must be aligned to it. I'm sure Nova has this information…"
Nova explained to William that ki and mana are interpretations of life force. Life-Force is also known as Natural Energy(energy that exists in nature). There are three energies: Natural/Raw Energy, Spiritual Energy, and Divine Energy.
Every creature in existence is given the exact life force they need to function, but when a creature of lower total life force consumes a creature of higher total life force, the creature of lower life force has their total life force increase but the amount it needs to function remains the same and the surplus life force is the usable ki. All the creatures from the Fourth Realm have almost the same amount of total ki so there is no exponential increase when they consume each other.
Life-Force, due to the unique nature of the soul of a creature, instantly turns to mana, a variant of spiritual energy that permits one to speak to nature, manipulate natural energy at will, and communicate with the spiritual. The nature of the soul is said to be mana-aligned. Because of the fundamental superiority to other creatures with ki-aligned soul nature, these creatures start from grade-3.
Mana is ill-fit for humans because their life force isn't much compared to other realm creatures. This is also why ancient witches grew older faster. Their life force was being consumed as they utilized mana; this was also true for the faekins who they betrayed and slaughtered, but the faekin had an extremely large life force so creating mana was never a chore for them. Let's just say that it was the witches' punishment for coveting the powers of the faekins who taught them the secrets of the universe and the spirit language, Faetum. Hence, the birth of the folktale depiction of witches as being old and scrawny women with boils on their noses, wearing long hats with dark robes, and flying on a broom at night.
Ki and mana can't both be present in the same soul. If one has done the ki ritual, they have ki to spare but as soon as they do the mana ritual the surplus ki will turn to mana. The only problem curbed here is the rapid aging issue since the life force the body uses to function and ensure general health has not been encroached upon. Some mana users can still forcefully use the life force that keeps their body functioning to generate mana when in dire or life-threatening situations where their mana has been depleted. However, this will have consequences on their health in the future.
The soul is the manifestation of spiritual energy in every existence that allows natural energy to be created. The soul nature is what the soul consists of or in other words, the substance of the soul that differs from species to species; for example, the soul nature of all faekin allowed them to understand the will of nature at birth and turn natural energy to a lesser version of spiritual energy that let them speak to nature and make it obey their commands. Even if a particular faekin could not produce mana due to certain reasons, they would still be able to understand the will of nature and communicate with it. Whereas the nature of the souls of orcs is to survive and get stronger at all costs to further the existence of their race. The essence of the nature of the soul is 'will'.
While the alignment of the soul nature is the direction or path taken to accomplish or carry out the will. The paths are ki and mana. Divinity is only applicable to humans.
Athena continued, "...The evolution of a grade-4 Orc is either Barbarian or Warlock. The alignment of their soul determines what they evolve into. Ki is to Barbarians as mana is to Warlocks. The orc that becomes a warlock would have been fundamentally smarter and had a weaker physique and fighting prowess compared to one that becomes a barbarian.
"Starting from birth: genetic, environmental, and social factors play big roles in strengthening the alignment of the soul nature.
"The souls of humans don't have any alignment and the nature of their souls are the most complex among all species."
William thought and muttered, "Then the rituals…"
Athena already knew what he was about to say and confirmed it, "Yes, the rituals force the human soul nature to align to either ki or mana, while the churches give their priests and knights divine-powered artifacts, armors, and weapons to influence their soul natures to align to the particular divine assembly. Unshakable devotion to the divine assembly makes the souls of their followers easily allow themselves to be more aligned, and then when it gets past a certain point, where the soul's nature is almost entirely influenced by divinity, they awaken a Blessing.
"All celestials are unique, in fact… too unique. I can only predict what makes you unique and bet on that. I expected you to taste the blood of the orc, then align your soul nature to ki and with the exponential growth of celestials, you learn to use your ki to defeat the orc."
William felt a bit embarrassed that his mind didn't go there at all. Feeling a little enraged he said, "Why didn't you just tell me these things?"
"Three reasons, I figured you needed to be under immense pressure to use your little ki because you didn't do the ritual. Normally, just tasting the blood of an other-realm creature will definitely not give you ki but who knows what you celestials are capable of? And could I possibly have made you believe your life was at stake if we treated it as a normal bout?"
William couldn't answer. He thought for a little bit then nodded and said with an unperturbed face, "Your explanation sounds like bullsh*t."
Athena sighed weakly and admitted with her head down, "Yeah you're right. I knew just tasting the orc's blood won't give you ki, but… but sometimes I just get a certain intuition on what I should do. It feels like a necessity to follow it. Normally, in my divine form, I'm able to see the near future. This power now comes as an intuition, which is my divinity advising me. *Sigh*, you have no idea how limiting this human form is.
"Now for the second reason, I needed to see your true colors and make sure I was right about them. You can never be too sure, most especially in this despicable form. That's why I asked you to kill the goblin.
"For the third… I'll tell you another time."
William sighed because he was used to this and just asked, "Anyways, how come I still awakened ki?"
"That's part of the remaining 30% of things I can't foresee or predict accurately."
…This goddess, she's slowly becoming useless again. William thought before he asked, "What do you think happened then?
Athena placed a hand on her chin and said, "I believed you drank Water of Life but… that doesn't seem to be the case. You had already ingested some liquid containing ki. Your soul was already aligned to ki."
William thought back on his encounters with ki users and asked with a heavy heart, "Could it… could it have been my father's?"
Athena shook her head, "I doubt. The liquid made you heal deadly injuries with not a single scar left. Your father's current state where he can't recover from a stab wound is proof his blood cannot be the liquid. You said you've had two encounters with vampires?"
William looked away and cheekily said, "Y-Yeah. But I rather not talk about them."
Athena placed her hand on William's shoulder and said with meaningful eyes, "William… I need to know. I'll even tell you the third reason I kept from you earlier."