Nick wanted his star to get as close to the original in the real world so that when he eventually absorbed the earth into his realm no one would notice the difference between the two. Speaking of the realm Nick had started expanding the size of it greatly by absorbing the free floating material around the earth into it. Anyone familiar with the orbiting objects would be horrified to discover that they were half gone by this point but they were a worthy sacrifice as now Nicks realms planet was nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter.-
That was the size of a decently sized islands worth of distance from one point to the other in a straight line. Nicks own mana capacity had broken the limit of tier four as a result but he was not there yet which created a strange sort of unbalance in him. He wasn't in danger because of it but he felt bloated almost. Helplessly he could only stop absorbing things into his realm in bulk and focus on having his tier catch up to his mana level. He wasn't having the best time of it however as he had only vague "feelings" in regards to his domains at this point.-
It was fast as far as Hephaestus was concerned but for Nick it wasn't fast enough as Zeus's return drew ever closer and Nick had hoped to be at least tier six by the time it arrived. Obviously Nick was now clear that that was an unreasonable goal and instead set his short term goal on reaching the peak of tier five instead. This was still ambitious and unlikely but it was far more likely to be done by the time Zeus returned. The biggest headache about Zeus though was the gods rapist tendencies that almost always ended in pregnancy.-
While this would likely inject potent talents into the world and even potentially new gods in enough time it also almost guaranteed that some of them will side with their father regardless of the way they came about. One only had to look at the records of Zeus's children as a whole to realize that they were generally speaking not the best of people. Insanity was a common theme for them to follow for example. Nick was not looking forward to having to deal with these demigods in the future after they grew up at all.-
He couldn't even kill them early either as until they grow up enough to understand right from wrong they were innocent and Nick avoided killing such things as much as possible. It was the argument about killing a baby Hitler just reskinned for a different individual. Shaking his head to remove these troublesome thought Nick focused on the foggy wisps of his domain that existed within his own mana. They were like the different wavelengths of light within the mana and he had to diffuse them in order to fully grasp them before converting a portion of his mana into them.-
This was a deeply personal matter so Hephaestus could do nothing to help him besides cheer for him. She did this with random hugs and the occasional sneaky peck on the cheek when she thought she could get away with it. As much as he tried to ignore it these acts of affection were pleasant and left him in a generally better mood than normally. The goddess knew her limits though and didn't press the matter further than that or even ask him to make it official in some regard.-
In an interesting twist Lupin and Helena had made their own relationship public and even jointly taught defense against the dark arts now. They were engaged and set to wed in four months which came with heavily mixed views. More than a few people found it disgusting that a ghost and a mortal would get romantically involved in each other while there were also arguments about the age factor. Nick scoffed at those as wizards easily lived hundreds of years if they were lucky so once they hit at least an appropriate age for sexual activities such as fifteen or sixteen the rest of the time difference became irrelevant.-
Obviously that was different in the case of muggles that at most got a century to live unless a wizard unnaturally lengthened their lives. For Muggles getting involved with someone so much younger and shorter lived than yourself was cruel to both parties. In the end you would always be left with the pain of their passing and the knowledge that their entire life was little more than a blink of an eye to your own. That doesn't even consider how a Muggle might be affected by their own body withering and decaying while you remained the same for the most part.