"So, Arito got himself the Status Board… Going a little crazy about the Savior title, but it's fine, it's not such a great title," the Creator god Atan shrugged his shoulders.
"You do realize that the last guy who had this title was called 'The Greatest Hero of all time'? His feats were so great that you had me use my power to change his race into [Celestial]." Tunetia retorted with a grin.
"That… was a one time occurrence…" Atan frowned a little.
"Well, it's not like he will become the next great hero or anything. You literally asked him to just improve relations between people and monsters and make the taming magic more popular," God of Life, Lodite, said while sipping wine. "Damn, this is good. Those humans really improved themselves, didn't they Wydonis?"
Wydonis, the god of Wine —and Alcohol in general— laughed heartily. "You bet! This is a brew made by a guy who received my blessing, used grapes nurtured by a guy who received Lambert's protection and to boost all those grapes used for it were grown on a land blessed by Tearana."
"You guys love alcohol, way too much," goddess of love, Cullana, said with a sad sigh.
"Said the goddess who once drank so much that she ended up creating demons of lust…" Tunetia delivered a jab at her female colleague.
"Oy! That was an accident, and you helped me!"
"Well, I just needed a new type of demon for the Nether Plane, so those Archdemons wouldn't steamroll everything. Anyway, Atan. Could I give the guy my Tablet?"
"That's a Divine class Artefact, do you really think it would help anything?"
"I don't mean right now. Hundred years is just a blink of an eye for a God and for Ancients it's not even time they are fully matured."
"That might be true, but I do not believe he would be so excited about a thing like that. That Tablet of yours is a powerful tool, after all," Lodite sipped his wine calmly.
"Recording and creating new paths of evolution, as well as influencing evolutionary paths of those who come in contact with it. He hated humans when he came to our world, and while there were some improvements, I do not believe he would not use it to lower the standing of humans with it. Remember the last user who created the Dragonfolk as the ultimate race? If we didn't make them so short lived, they would already destroy the balance of the world by now," Atan chidded Tunetia while patting his beard.
"There are only a few individual Dragonfolks remaining, maybe he could save them from extinction," Tunetia added in her defense.
"Haaaaaah… did you understand anything we just said?"
"Fiiiiine fiiiiiiiiiiiiiineee!!! I understand, I will not push for it, so let's make it a rule we will vote on spreading Divine Artifacts in the lower world, what do you say?."
"Are you stingy?" Lodite looked up.
"I agree with her, though. We need some regulations. We spread them only when there is a danger to the world, but sometimes we create even more danger in the process. Remember the Holy Sword fiasco?" Cullana said and the remaining gods silently agreed, pained looks on all their faces.
The greatest hero was killed before he could finish his mission and his sword fell into the hands of demons, starting the longest war in the history of this world.
"Okay, let's see if he is worthy of the Tablet in a hundred years or so. We will be taking votes though." Atan nodded with darkened eyes.
"Thaaaank youuuuuuu!!!" Tunetia smiled happily, hiding her victorious shouts.
Even though the gods could read minds, and look into the hearts of people in their world, Travelers from another world, like Arito and Lena, were completely unknown to them. There was a chance for them to learn more of the Travelers, when they gained Oracle skill or became practitioners of one of the religious magics. For the Gods, even a Druidic magic, which worshiped nature, could be used to take a peek into the soul of the Traveler, but the Holy Magic and Ritual magic were the best kinds for this purpose.
Being unable to read souls of Travelers led to tragedies twice before, once with the Holy Sword and second time when one person gained the Tablet Tunetia wanted to give to Arito. This person used it to create new races by combining two other races, which stuck in the law of the world. Minois, Gobinas, Rusalkas, Selkies, Lamias, Satyrs, Orcaxes and Empyrs are just a few who came to exist in this way. No need to say that the person creating them was fairly evil with little to no sense of ethics.
As Tunetia was smiling happily, the faces of other gods froze. Tunetia froze as well and the gods sighed in unison.
"Why now…"
"That freak is coming? Really?"
The gods were not happy at all. That was because they all received mental messages from one other god. That god in question was Matra, god of Magic and Academics, commonly referred to as 'Study Freak.'
"Good thing you all are together, I tried to call for others, but they haven't responded yet," Matra took a look over everyone present, "I would like for you to look over this."
"Magic generation report? What's with it?"
"Aaah," Matra made a defeated look like he had to explain everything over and over again, "As you all know, our world critically lacks ways of creating magic power. Basically, our magic consumption is way too high compared to generating it."
"Yes. That's why we created Sacred Grounds and Divine Beasts to help make more."
"And as I said, that is incredibly inefficient. Divine Beasts consume more magic power than other monsters. I tried implementing slightly stronger monsters in certain areas, like the Sea of Stones and Sea of Trees, and had much better outcomes… Anyway, we still need to summon a soul from other worlds every four hundred years-or-so to borrow some magic power from their worlds."
"Your point?"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh… look at those numbers. It's magic power consumption of monsters tamed by that new Traveler and comparison to other same species monsters."
"Hmm… seems like monsters he tames have lower magic power consumption. What about it? We did create Taming magic to help with consumption after all," Atan looked at Matra from the papers.
"And because people still can only tame monsters weaker than themselves, Taming magic is seen as useless and Summoning Magic, which consumes much, much, more magic power is seen as superior."
"…can't deny that…"
"You hope that that new Traveler guy will tame strong monsters and make monster taming much more interesting to the general populace. But you should know that to do that, he would first need to tame strong monsters. Slimes are not enough."
"Well, it's not like he can't, but we can't force him. Having him tame all those monsters is enough for now," Atan tried to dismiss the conversation, "Plus he's an Ancient. Give him a hundred years-or-so and he will tame a lot of monsters even stronger than slimes."
"True, he is Ancient, he will tame many more monsters in the coming decades —nay, centuries— but the numbers will eventually grow to the point people will fear him for commanding them. It happened before with the Darkness Tamer, remember?"
There was no way for the Gods to forget the man in question as he was one of the strongest tamers ever, as well as the first ever Necromancer. He was Albino Ancient Kirin Del Marka, previous master of Romi and the one who caused Albinos to be so strongly persecuted against. And to make the point even clearer, his almost restrictionless taming was similar to Aritos.
"So what do you want, Matra?"
"Give him revelation. Send him on a journey to the Sea of Stones, Sea of Snow, Sea of Ice, Sea of Trees, Sea of Flames or even to the Sea of Sand so he can tame monsters there. If he does, he will get strong monsters, will be safer and we will get the consumption problem partially cleared too. It might even help with taming becoming more popular."
"That's too dangerous. I won't do that," Tunetia spoke up, clearly angry. "He is my apprentice. I won't send him to his death."
"From what I could see, he would have no problem with overcoming the hurdles there. You even went to the trouble of making the Martial Queen and the Sage his parents in this world. No one would question his strength if they knew he was their child."
"He might be strong, but you're forgetting one crucial fact. He is not alone. He has that albino elf with him. He won't leave her behind and if you tried to interfere with their relationship, you might end up on his enemy list. You already lost quite a number of your chapels and churches because of this," Atan added.
"Didn't like, every Traveler who received a blessing from you, turn against you sooner or later?" Lodite took a sip of wine.
"I'm not saying he should leave her behind or anything. Just consider my idea, okay?" Matra pushed up his glasses and walked away, looking slightly agitated.
"I hate this guy. I'm not letting him close to Arito anytime soon," Tunetia grinded her teeth.
"His words, however radical, have some value to them. If only he learned to communicate with them better," Lodite drank his wine with a tired look.
"For better or worse, he is too efficiency oriented. Anyway, what are we going to do now?"
"Arito is praying with Blanche every evening and morning. If they keep it up, we might level up his Oracle skill sooner rather than later. When that happens, I will speak with him personally. I would love to discuss monsters with him, but… yeah that might be a better thing to talk about. Oh, I almost forgot, his parents left their belongings in their bases… haaah, how it irritates me that they had to make a base in the Sea of Stones of all places…"
"He didn't plan for that, did he?" Wydonis raised his eyebrow as he gulped down another cup of wine.
"It's possible with him. Oh, where did Blanche come from exactly, do you know?"
"Nope. We didn't watch her at that time. Only since she met up with Arito."
"So only Vulrin who blessed her, or Goddess of Space and Time will know. Where is she anyway?"
"How should I know? She can instantly travel through space and time, be it the Divine realm, All-Light Realm, Nether realm or even the Mortal world or Spirit world, she can be anywhere she wants whenever she wants. It's honestly really tiring to locate her," Atan grumbled about his wife and the second oldest god of the world.
"Should we look for Vulrin then?"
"Leave him be for now. One of those two is as free-spirited as the other. Getting a hold of them is like catching smoke with your bare hands."
"So that's a bust too? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…"
And so, the Gods returned to watching the realms below them once more, maybe a little more tired than before.