“Thanks! I’m glad my existence is worth something!” Mirror Van said with a sarcastic smile. Freaking everyone out again and making Van jump back in panic.

“Pffft! Seriously!? I’m you! You don’t have to be ‘that’ scared…” it said, trying to keep in its own humor at the situation.

“You… can talk?” Van asked his mirror self in some disbelief.

“Of course, I can, you can talk, so why can’t I? My mind and body is based on yours. So when you and I are not directly linked to each other, I’ll follow and do things you would have as if you were there.” mirror Van said.

“I… see… and you don’t mind being a… double of me?” Van asked, worried about what it might say next.

mirror Van rolled its eyes. “You watch too many scary movies. I’m not going to replace you or anything. I ‘am’ you. If anything, It should be me that’s worried about being gotten rid of. You can do so at any time you want. Not to mention you can take complete control of me whenever you desire or check up on me no matter how far away we are. More importantly, I can only exist inside your soul realm, and killing you would mean my own death, and there's no reason why I would want to kill you or myself anyway. We are not suicidal after all.”

Van took a moment to let that all sink in then turned to Ren. “What do you think?”

Ren looked between Van and his double. “Honestly speaking… he’s right, if he is a byproduct of your soul realm's power, then you have nothing to be worried about,” he said, quickly getting used to the situation and now thinking about how this could benefit them.

Van looked back at his mirror self, trying to figure out what he could use it for. “Umm… work at the brothel until I figure out a use for you… later…” he said, not really knowing what else to do with it.

Mirror Van raised an eyebrow then shrugged. “Sure, I don’t care. But just a warning, you will be feeling what I feel, so if you're fine with that then I'm game.”

Van frowned, but in the end, he nodded. He wanted to know the extent of how much he would feel his other self doing things and what that could imply. Not to mention he needed someone to help increase the population of his soul realm, and he was the only other male other than him.

He then blinked and was just about to ask his mirror self a question when it already been answered.

“No, I can’t be used for breeding, you don’t need to ask, you can just feel it through our connection. Or at least ask through it, you don’t need to use words with me. Just like you had me slap Anna’s ass, I literally exist to act as your double, no drawbacks.” Mirror Van said.

Van frowned, but in the end, nodded and with a thought, sent his mirror self away. Once it was gone he turned to Anna and Kassandra. “could you two make sure to keep an eye on it for me? I would really appreciate it.”

The two nodded.

“Of course master, I'll keep an eye on you,” Anna said.

“Maybe more than an eye…” Kassandra joked.

Van frowned again, but oddly enough… he didn’t feel jealous about the idea of any of them sleeping with his double… odd…

Ren gave a polite cough. “Now that this… whatever it was is done, we should get back on task.” Then motioned towards the panel. “Van, let’s make sure we have everything set up and ready before you leave. There are still a lot of things to go over with you.”

Van did so, making sure he went through the beginner tutorial on ‘so you want to start a cult? Vol. 1’ on how to become a godling and everything else that entails. The tutorial was quite amusing and seemed to portray the do's and don'ts in a satirical slant. A few hours later when he was nearing the end, his eyes widened in shock, but not because of what he was reading.

“Holy crap! Is this how Anna feels with her other bodies?” as he felt the sensation of his double start making love with a goblin. It almost felt like he was right there… in fact, when he concentrated, he was right there! Doing it with the goblin!

With a blink and a shake of his head, he was able to sever the connection, but it was still weird no matter how you sliced it. But at least he was able to find that he could easily ignore it if he wanted to, the sensations quickly disappearing as he forced the connection to the back of his mind.

After that, he made sure to finish up the beginner tutorial and felt like he wasted enough time here. He had a bunch of other things to do topside and he already did what he wanted to do when he first came here. This was just a nice bonus, but as he was thinking about leaving, he noticed Ren talking to Kassandra. They were still both here and from time to time Anna would come around to talk as well, making him wonder what was so important that they hadn’t left for other things. It was also an opportunity to ask Ren a question that he had been thinking about as he was doing his godling duties.

Walking over he got Ren’s attention, planning to ask what he felt like was an important question.

“Hey Ren, before I leave there's something I want to ask you.”

“Hm? Sure, go ahead.” Ren said, patiently waiting for whatever Van was going to ask.

“Before, you said that worrying about people with soul realms or lack thereof was a moot point when in my own soul realm. But what about now? Or when I’m going to become a godling? Or if they were my worshippers, do I have to worry about giving them an afterlife or something? And how does that work anyway? The whole life and death thing here in this world.” Van asked.

“Hmm… that’s actually a pretty good question…” Ren said with some thought, “but honestly you don’t have to worry about it until you reach demigod rank, only then do you have to worry about providing some form of afterlife if you even chose to do so.”

“In this world, reincarnation is a somewhat fact of life, though not always back into the same world... But, there are some gods that provide a form of afterlife for their believers. For example, there are gods that provide an eternal sleep, or gods that provide something akin to heaven, some have you fight forever, and some have you studying in a grand library.”

“You see, each god has three separate realms, their soul realm, their god realm, and their third realm, which can be anything such as a place to take believers in when they die. As a believer dies, their souls will go to whatever afterlife you set for them. They lose some of their soul realm aspects, and a large portion of which joins in to become a part of that after life’s realm. So think of the realm for the afterlife as a collective of a bunch of soul realms that you control for the express purpose of providing a world for your followers.”

“I can’t really tell you at the moment what that means… but be assured that you will find out when the time comes. Though I can tell you that, as time goes on, those who live in your afterlife give passive soul energy, which you can use to combine with faith energy and create divine energy. Though you don’t always need soul energy, and there are other ways of gaining it than by having an afterlife. Like I said before, each god is unique, and it is up to you what kind you want to be.”

“Hope that helps.” Ren finished.

“It does… thanks,” Van said, now having much more to think about than he did before, but not ungrateful for it. This just meant there were a lot more possibilities available for him to use in the future, which wasn’t a bad thing.

“One last question…” Van asked, hoping Ren wouldn’t mind. “What was that tattoo that formed on Anna’s chest? It looked like my symbol, but like a tattoo of some sorts, any reason for that?”

Ren nodded. “Like I said before, you are definitely going in the direction of a god of order. Though do be careful that you don’t become too controlling… Some gods of order mark their followers as a sign of possession. The greater the mark, the greater the blessing and power received, but also the greater the control that god has over the follower…”

“Be careful that you don’t abuse this power… it could be very dangerous if people start to think your some sort of god of slavery…” he said warningly. “As you gain more followers, their perception of you can even change your personality in subtle ways… that is another thing you should worry about…”

Van looked a little panicked at that. “Wait… you mean people can influence me by how they perceive me!”

Ren nodded. “Which is why the doctrines or tenets you choose and how you interact with your followers and those who are not is very important… you can be a god of destruction, with a heart of gold that means to only destroy evil, but it wouldn’t matter if people thought otherwise. The same if you were a god of creation with a wicked heart, people would think you must be a good god just because of that, even if you use your power just to create weapons of mass destruction.”

“How people perceive you, will affect not only your personality in subtle ways, but could even determine what powers you get as you grow. So most gods make sure to have a very good PR in place in case anything goes awry. Probably should have mentioned this before… but it doesn’t matter now because you aren’t a godling yet. So use this time to make sure you figure out what kind of god you want to be. Hope this helps.” Ren finished.

“Ya… it does…” Van said in thought.

Now that he had his questions answered, and gained more questions because of it. It was time to finally leave his soul realm and get back to the real world and see what had happened while he was away. For all he knew, another attack took place, and he really should tell Agnès of what he had learned. It could be very important for her growth.

Flying over to his castle he landed on his balcony and took one last look at his territory with everything that it included. Proud of how far it had come and how much more it could grow. Closing his eyes he ascended out of his soul realm and back into the real world.

---

Opening up his eyes he found that it was quite dark outside, and Luna and Agnès were already in the tent. Though as a jumbled mess of naked bodies… it seemed that they did not wait for him to consummate their honeymoon. Which was fine by him, though he did feel a bit left out.

He was planning to tell Agnès of what he had learned but felt like it could be saved for later. So getting up, he decided to leave the tent to check up on things and see if there was anything he needed to do or know. Absentmindedly he also checked on his double who was still doing the task he left it.

Walking around he again felt a sense of pride of how things turned out. His soldiers were wearing better and more proper armor with weapons. Looking a whole sight better than the rags they used to wear and the cobbled up and makeshift stuff they used to use.

They now marched in formations and with purpose to their designated areas. And despite being from many different races, they all got along with each other. Even the troglodytes and the goblins, despite having killed each other just a few months prior.

All combined, they numbered around two hundred, not including the insect kin that belongs to Lyn. kobold, goblins, troglodytes, and forest wolves now lived with each other in harmony. There was one hundred in his soul realm, and one hundred out in the fort, with the portal in the center allowing two-way travel in and out.

The best part of the port was that he was constantly aware of who was entering and exiting it at any time. While annoying at first, he quickly got used to it and was thankful for it, since it meant that almost instinctively he could prevent those who were not supposed to enter his soul realm from getting in.

Walking around he looked for Kella until he found her and asked her for any updates while he was gone.

“Nothing so far, it seems those bugs finally figured out we are a tougher nut to crack than they first thought…” Kella said.

“That’s good…” Van said with some relief. “Hopefully they will think twice about attacking us in the future, I don’t want to have to sleep with one eye open every night.” then changing the subject. “By the way, do you think it would be okay to do a little expedition? It’s been a while since I last went out of the fort and did my own thing. Starting to feel a little rusty since all of you have been taking care of all the fighting and I’ve largely been left out.”

Kella shook her head. “Unfortunately, if you're going, the others will go too.” referring to Anna, Agnès, Luna, and all the others. “And while we have come a long way, the truth of the matter is… you guys make up a large portion of our fighting power. If you were gone and the bugs attacked… we would probably not fair very well…” she said solemnly.

Van frowned, but he couldn’t actually deny what she said. Agnès could destroy entire swathes of the enemy. Luna can take on a small army, and so could Lyn. Anna was practically an army unto herself. If they left… no matter how well trained his troops were or how much their numbers increased or how much better their fort was defensively. It would not be good if they were away and a large bug force of a few thousand attacked.

In the end, he sighed. “I see what you mean… but there’s got to be something we can do!” grasping at straws now. Feeling a bit stir crazy from not being allowed out of the fort for so long.

“I know how you must feel,” Kella said. “But even you are an important asset to this fort. Your skills in helping enchant our arms and armor gives our soldiers the edge they need to survive.” placing a hand on Van’s shoulder. “Your potions and leadership as well as your mere presence help bolster the morale of our troops. It’s important you stay here and help rather than going off gallivanting around in the woods where you can be attacked by who knows what.”

Van felt like this was more of an excuse to keep him in the fort where it was safer until he was convinced to go home. But even if that was the case, he knew she was right, which irritated him some, but in the end, he sighed because he had to agree with the logic.

“Alright… I’ll stay… but I still want to make time for at least a short scouting trip around the area. If I don’t, I might go stir crazy…” Van said

Kella gave a small smile. “I’ll work something in for you tomorrow, it’s a little too late in the day for a scouting trip right now. Would that be fine with you?”

Van nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

After that, the two parted ways, both a little happy with the outcome. Van because he was at least allowed outside the fort for a short while and Kella because she was able to keep him out of any real danger from going too deep into the woods.

Van then walked around the fort some more and talked around with Isa and Sela and asked if they needed anything, both saying that they were doing good so far and that they already had more than they needed at the moment. When he went over to Gwen, he found her eyes glued to a few vials of liquids, it seemed like she was tasked to help make more health and stamina potions.

Feeling in a good mood, he decided to help her out, much to her relief since she was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed with all the orders, and they were able to enjoy the work together as they chatted about new recipes and what she had learned so far.

After a few hours, they were able to finish in time and then said their goodbyes as Gwen turned in for the night.

With that done, Van went back to his cabin, and found Luna and Agnès up and talking about their future plans, making him feel left out again. Ignoring the feeling, he decided to tell Agnès what he had learned about her soul realm and everything else that entailed, even apologizing about the fact that he had to mess around her soul realm without permission.

Surprisingly, she was glad for it. It seemed now that she had a soul realm that she can now access, made her very worried and preferred a professional helping hand. Though he couldn’t really say he was a professional…

Either way, Agnès was astonished to find out she had dragon blood in her because of a past life. And when Van got to the part where it seemed like they were married in a past life… well… that really blew their minds…

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