Hermes spread the news to every major and minor pantheon that Fate would grant a boon to whoever won Alex's competition, and applicants came in droves. He had to show them the letter, of course, because they wouldn't believe it otherwise.
The thing that was so funny about this is that even if Alex didn't win, which he had to, tons of Chosen were being created just for the competition itself. So in the end, Alex won either way.
The next part came in designing the competition itself. His initial instinct was to make it a hunt to see who could kill the most giants, but that seemed a little barbaric.
Despite the fact that Thor hunted giants all the time for maintaining the safety of Asgard. The other more important reason for not making it a hunt was the fact that they had no way to verify who killed the most giants.
Heimdall could try to keep count with his all-seeing and all-hearing abilities but there were far too many participants in this competition for him to be able to keep track of all their kills.
So Alex decided it would be a race. It was far easier to keep track of and measure who won. That said, it wouldn't be as simple as running from point A to point B.
To keep the competition fair, Alex had Odin, the Allfather, Ruler of Asgard, and God of Wisdom, design the race course. Odin would not be participating in the race. The race would take place across all nine worlds of the Norse pantheon.
Every racer would be given a bag of colored flags featuring their color of choice and a symbol of the racer's patron deity emblazoned on it. This would allow Heimdall to verify that the winning racer had reached all the checkpoints.
The flags were to be placed at various checkpoints throughout the nine worlds. As long as you placed the flags at the appropriate checkpoints, it didn't matter how you traveled through the worlds.
The bifrost—the magical rainbow bridge that Thor uses to travel between the worlds—was available for use by all racers. Heimdall would activate it when participants got to the appropriate locations.
However, travel between the worlds using magical means or through secret pathways was allowed.
There were required checkpoints in every world, but there were also extra checkpoints that would take time off your total race time if you placed a flag at them.
The time taken off would reflect the difficulty of the extra checkpoint. An initial flag would be placed at each extra checkpoint, indicating the difficulty and the time taken off.
Green was for the least amount of time cut off. Yellow was for two times as much as Green. Orange was three times as much as Green. And red was five times as much as Green.
The exact amount of time was not specified because it differed from world to world, but the time taken off was meant to be significant. If you could hit all the extra flags, you should, as long as you could still make the five-day time limit and didn't die in the process.
The regular checkpoints would have silver flags at them, so participants knew they were placing the flags in the correct locations.
Gods were not allowed to interfere with the race. They could prepare their chosen however they wanted, but they couldn't interfere once the race had begun.
God flags were only allowed to be placed by the correct participant. Cheating would result in disqualification. On top of that, if someone tried to touch a flag that wasn't theirs, the flag would cause them considerable harm through magical means.
If a racer was in significant danger during the race, race officials would be sent out to help them. But while the officials were on their way, other racers would be allowed to help without adding time to their race.
Heimdall would keep track of time spent helping other racers not die and would take that off the correct racer's time.
Making a racer have to choose between winning the race and being a decent person would be messed up.
If racers wanted to team up during the race for mutual benefit, that would be allowed, but it would not take time off their race. If racers wanted to fight or otherwise hinder other racers, that was also allowed.
But killing another racer or critically injuring them was strictly forbidden. Doing so would result in immediate disqualification and potential divine punishment.
In order for a god and their Chosen to be considered eligible to win the race, the god would have to sign a magical contract created by Tyr, the Norse god of law and justice, specifying how many Chosen they are required to create.
Each amount was specific to each god, based on the power of the god and how many Chosen they had already committed to the cause. Some gods, like Ludos, who had already committed one or more Chosen, would be required to create zero new chosen.
Despite that, every god had to sign a contract. Even if the contract didn't require them to create more Chosen. Because there were also other agreements specified in the contract, not only for creating more chosen, but also potentially providing other forms of divine assistance if called upon.
The race would begin and end at Valgrind, the main gate of Asgard. Participants would be given a maximum of five days to complete the course, which would not only test their strength and speed but also their survival skills and strategic planning.
Heimdall had set up a scrying pool in Asgard that would allow spectators to view highlights of the race across the Nine Worlds. While Fate's boon was promised to the winner, other racers who finished in top positions would be granted lesser but still worthy rewards.
There were three days until the competition, which would give racers enough time to prepare for the journey. They were each also granted a single-use runestone that would allow them to communicate with their patron deity for a specific amount of time.
These measures were set to create a fair and exciting competition for the participants and spectators.
"So, how are you going to prepare for the race?" Ludos said, rubbing her hands together.
"I'm not sure. I could basically cheat and spend several years training in the time dilation chamber and become overpowered, but I feel like watching that would get boring for the cosmic spectators," Alex said.
"They don't have several years to watch me just train for a five-day competition. That, and by the time I got out of the chamber, I might be too old to fight in the war."
"You're eighteen. A few years won't kill you. At least I hope not," Ludos said.
"That's fair, but it just seems boring. And I don't like being bored," Alex said.
"That is also a good point. But where you're at now, Pretty Good, is where most Chosen start out. And while they don't continuously get stronger like you, they do grow in strength some as they adjust to their powers," Ludos said.
"You might end up facing opponents who are one or two power levels above you. And that's only considering power level purely from a divine abilities stand point. If the gods give their Chosen divine artifacts or magical supplies, you could be facing opponents who are an equivalent of three or four power levels above you."
"By the way," Ludos said, "Are you going to keep sitting on that level up? You should probably level up before the race begins."
"You make some decent points. I was waiting to level up after I designed the competition, so I could have a better idea of what I needed abilities-wise. I should be able to make decent decisions now that I know how we're competing," Alex said.
"With my abilities, I'm already the equivalent of one power level above my stated power level. And are you saying you don't have any divine artifacts or magical supplies to give me?"
"I do, but I wasn't sure if I should give them to you because I'm afraid you'll lose them in the snow, like you did with the extraction device," Ludos said.
"That was one time!" Alex said.
"Ok, I'll give you some stuff you can whip out during the competition, but are you sure you don't want to train, even a little bit?" Ludos said.
"The one bit of training that I think would be fair for me to do and helpful would be to visit the Nine Worlds in advance of the competition just to see what I'll be up against," Alex said.
"And since I made the rules, mapping out the course in advance is allowed."
"Ok. As long as you feel like you'll be ready to win this in three days, I support you. Are you sure you don't want to at least play some video games before you visit the Nine Worlds?" Ludos said.
"Ok, maybe one round of Bash. Or we could play that racing game where the other racers beat you up at the end!" Alex said.