"Gaining strength is easy, but gaining blessings is incredibly difficult," Lasandra said as she sat opposite me.
She seemed to be right. Diogen had told me that awakening my first blessing was easy,
and in truth, it was. But the things I had to make myself believe to receive a blessing were difficult.
"Physical strength can be trained as you usual would, though of course, the heights you can reach are increased drastically. The same works for the blessings you have already earned. Upon using them more in an efficient manner, you will begin to further understand their nature and push the abilities' limits."
That made sense to me. It would explain why Diogen said that his first blessing was controlling the rain within his domain, and he was now able to summon lightning at will.
I wondered how far I would be able to push the ability within my eyes. I also wondered what I should name it.
The Golden Eye?
"Earning new blessings, however, is linked to a complex system that we do not completely understand. In short, we believe the blessings come from an entity above even us. Perhaps from the being who brought us here.
We are only gifted these blessings when we ourselves feel truly worthy of advancing through godhood, and that itself comes from us earning worthiness, which changes from god to god.
Some believe they become more worthy through good deeds and charitableness, while others believe themselves more worthy after battling with other gods and winning. Though of course, the higher entity itself must believe that we are earning true worthiness as a god through the deeds that we are doing.
It's all rather spontaneous, which is why blessings can be bestowed upon us at any random time. Some of us only have one or two blessings, while others may have over ten. And who knows the heights we have yet to reach?"
I looked at the pretty, muscular woman in front of me and wondered how many blessings she must have. She noticed my glare and raised an eyebrow at me.
"You are wondering how many I have, aren't you? I can't give that away, not yet." She gave me a smile followed by a laugh.
She seemed like a friendly woman, and I felt comfortable in her presence.
"Is this your domain?" I asked. It was far from as grand as Diogen's, but I still had no idea how the domains worked.
"Yes, it is," she replied. "Most of this forest is. And in fact, we have some exploring to do. Follow me."
She rose to her feet and led me out of the tent, back into the snow, and through the trees of the forest.
We passed another tent, and for the first time, I thought I would see humans. But as we walked past, I saw that it was completely empty.
"These tents are for when gods visit me. We are not all on bad terms, as you have probably noticed from mine and Diogen's relationship."
Twenty-one gods, all with unique personalities, blessings, and ambitions. I can only imagine the amount of battles and drama that have happened between them.
We continued through the unchanging trees until we finally came to an opening. In this opening, there was a large stone slab laid flat on the ground like a layer of carpet, though upon inspection, it seemed to be wedged into the dirt itself.
It was twenty meters wide and long, but what was most impressive to me was how clean it was. It seemed to be polished, and the snow that fell heavily from the sky seemed to avoid landing on the slab of stone, leaving it clear, showing the inscriptions on top of the slab.
"This," Lasandra said as she outstretched her hands towards the slab, taking a step onto it. "Is the map of Arnos."
I took a step on as well and marveled at the creation. She was correct; it was most obviously a map. However, I had never seen one so large in my life.
The world of Arnos seemed to be incredibly large, and though there was no color to determine what was land and water, I could tell that it was a large island, with some smaller islands scattered around it.
So, an archipelago.
Lasandra allowed me to examine the details of the map and better read the inscriptions.
While the land was divided into regions, cities, and perhaps countries, most likely decided by the government and world history, what stood out to me were deeper inscriptions marked throughout the land.
"These deeper inscriptions are where I have marked roughly where the gods and their domains are," she said, and I looked around.
There were roughly ten on the map, which meant that Lasandra had not yet discovered where the others were, or at least did not have a concrete enough location for her to mark them down.
I saw Diogen's name at a small area in the southwest of the land, and Lasandra's name further to the east of it.
We seem to be pretty far away from each other. He must have used a lot of energy teleporting me here.
I saw other names, but the one I looked for specifically was Zir, though I couldn't find it. It would be helpful to know how far away he was.
I'm sure he will be one of my biggest enemies.
Then, I noticed something. A sound coming through the trees in the forest. It was a terrible sound, like a deep growling common to the most fearsome animals on earth.
Lasandra's face broke into a smile.
"Ah yes, the domain beasts. I should have told you about them. Once you claim a domain, you must not only fight off other gods, but beasts as well. We have no idea where they come from, but they are useful in strengthening ourselves."
I looked towards where the sound was coming from, and a beast slowly emerged from the trees.
It was a creature unlike any I had seen before. If I had to, I would say it had similarities to a gorilla. Though it was double the size, and its skin, white, emanated an icy aura.
It walked using its long thick arms as extra feet, and its jaw hung agape, letting out another terrific roar.
"You seriously forgot to tell me about something like this?" I asked in fear, but Lasandra only laughed.
"It's just an iglod. I will defeat it in seconds."