"O brave heroes please wake up. You are required to put on your training suits and reach the central training yard within thirty minutes."
There is nothing like waking up to a little girl's voice giving you orders, isn't it? Anyway, Alberich woke up and after a few seconds of complete immobility staring at the ceiling, he let out a loud sigh (almost resigned I dare say) and got out of bed. He is now in the dining room calmly eating his breakfast, which makes me somewhat perplexed considering... he has in fact noticed it himself. Seeing how he's running towards the wardrobe with still the last slice of cake in his mouth, he must have realised that thirty minutes is how long it had taken him to reach his home from the central square, so not enough time to prepare himself calmly.
Luckily he is quite quick on his feet and managed to arrive just in time. However, Alberich is not the last to arrive, for I can see in the distance (so to speak) a young man with dark skin devoid of the sweat that bathes Alberich and around whose pitch-black eyes there is not even the shadow of dark circles, which were more than present on the eyes of the other seven who had struggled to get a decent night's rest due to the various emotions they had experienced. As for his hair, well, I would like to say that it is strange that it is not as chaotic as Alberich's but it is so short and curly that I am almost sure it cannot even be combed.
This mysterious character is Ambesa (blessed by the God of Earth) and although I don't know why he slept so peacefully the night before it seems obvious to me why he is not fatigued even though he arrived just in time. I mean, his residence is a couple of minutes away from where they were at the time so he rightly took it easy.
Now that everyone had arrived, the priestess set about explaining to the heroes how to use their powers, but since I don't feel like repeating her words verbatim, I'll just summarise her speech. Since they have not yet fully assimilated the blessing, all they can create is the minimal concept expressed by their blessing deity. Now, I realise that explained like this may be difficult to understand so let me give an example. Darman, blessed by the Fire God, can create small flames, the other elementaries have similar powers. The powers of those blessed by the Seasons, on the other hand, may be more complex to understand as they are not linked to something tangible but to the common feeling towards the respective season. Thus Akimi (Spring) has the power to accelerate the growth of things. Usire (Summer) can enhance their effects. Alberich (Autumn) can speed up their decay. Yelizaveta (Winter) can depower their effects. If it is still not clear to you, don't worry, you will understand everything as soon as we see their first battle.
Another thing that the priestess illustrated is the screen, similar to that of RPGs, that only heroes possess to facilitate the monitoring of their progress. I won't go into how it works because I'm pretty sure you're all familiar with this type of interface with the various skills that are improved by levelling up which in turn increases by accumulating experience, the latter of which can be gained either by defeating enemies or through training.
The last thing the girl explained was the existence of divine weapons, these are weapons that (as one might guess from the name) belong to the eight gods and will be lent to the heroes as soon as they reach level 100. As much as I find many of the choices made by the Goddess questionable this one was inevitable, you should know that those weapons contain an immense amount of divine power and if a person not strong enough were to wield them their blood vessels would explode, leading to their death.
That said, the priestess gave the heroes simple weapons resembling (at least in their type) the divine weapons and had the eight people use the training ground to familiarise themselves with the weapons and their own powers.
Returning to the present, the girl summoned the heroes in front of the church. "Valiant heroes. The Goddess has ordered me to give you your first task so that you may test the fruits of your training." I can imagine how much better they can be after barely an hour's training, I really can't wait to find out what this task is.
"You must know that long ago peace reigned in this world but a group of envious and greedy gods betrayed the Goddess of Light and after taking refuge in the third ring they created an army of monsters with which they invaded the other two rings. After a fierce conflict, the Goddess and her allies defeated the evil deities but could not eliminate all the monsters. Although there are hardly any monsters left in the first ring, the monsters have become more active due to the appearance of the Demon God, and now we hear that one of these fierce monsters is heading towards the village nearby, please heroes, save those poor innocent citizens!"
The tearful face of the priestess surely had the desired effect as the eight young fellows there are ready to leave, or rather, have already set off towards the village. If you're worried about them getting lost, I can already tell you that it's not necessary since the church and the heroes' residences are in the middle of nowhere, and from the church there's a direct path leading to the village, which is quite convenient, don't you think?