The figure towering above the high-elven prince was a creature of cosmic, heart-pounding beauty. He had the toned and attractive physique of an Olympian athlete, complete with the handsome, bronzed skin tone of a surfer who had spent his life on the idyllic beaches of a place like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or Roatan.
His muscular physique was also helped by his immense height, coming in at around two-point-fifteen meters, or roughly seven feet tall. That was one of the first factors that alerted the strange prince to the oddity of the figure's identity. That said, even as the prince studied the perpetually scheming deity, the god's mighty powers were taking root in his soul.
To gaze upon the face of a creature of love, of joy, of corruption, of lust, of beauty, was a soul-altering experience. Regardless of the fact that he was an infant as far as his status as a Living God went, Antonio possessed the powers of a fully grown, fully matured Anael, Archdemon of Lust, and Grand Adonis, though he didn't quite have the fully scaled range of a Grand Adonis at the height of one's potential power.
His powers as far as all three of those things went were incredibly intense and made even the mere act of gazing upon him be a transformational experience, even for creatures who weren't attracted to men. If he willed it, those who dared gazed upon him could experience a maddening, bliss-inducing whirlwind of emotions that left them little more than broken husks who only desired to serve him and felt his words were the most beautiful song in the omniverse.
Alternatively, those who gazed upon his countenance could attain countless powers if he felt like benevolently awarding such individuals. Anyone who gazed upon the face of a Living God, especially one using its powers, was rolling a very dangerous dice.
The prince was no slouch as far as personal power went but in the face of a Living God, he was akin to a fully mundane worker ant in the face of a primordial dragon. He was gazing at a literal embodiment of things like power and beauty, and the being was gazing back at him, studying him with a gaze that greedily desired more control, more influence, and more luxury.
It was an astounding miracle that the prince had the willpower to even retain his full sanity in the process of a being more powerful than he could ever imagine. Though... perhaps his ignorance of the true nature of the creature gazing at him played a role in his ability to maintain his composure, his sanity, and indeed his very soul.
To date, I had utilized many, though not all, of my Living God powers in some way or another. Until now one I hadn't made use of, in any real capacity, was one named "Metamagnus". "Metamagnus" was one of the more decidedly dramatic powers, along with titans like "Worldmind" that gave me an ability in which I was inviolable; magic.
Magic itself referred to a series of abilities possessed by sapient, not always living, creatures to alter existence through a combination of rituals, materials, and the right sort of force of will, but was itself governed by a number of cosmic beings. The least of those cosmic beings were lesser spirits and in some cases powerful enough creatures like angels and demons. Standing above them were lesser divinities of magic. And standing above even them was me, due to the incredible mighty of this staggering ability.
With "Metamagnus" I had total and inviolate control over every aspect of magic. But beyond that, and very importantly in this context, I was able to control things like who could use magic and under what contexts magic would be usable in the first place. As the young prince gazed at me I activated "Metamagnus", and stealthily targeted the elven prince I had come here to recruit.
As I did, it coupled with the rest of my powers and I felt my mind fill with an intimate awareness of every spell he had ever cast, ever seen and even knew of in the most theoretical contexts possible. I also felt my mind swell as I relieved every lesson he had ever gotten in magic, and I learned the handy and mechanical numbers of his skill, mana storage capability, and more. This knowledge, and seeing my powers mix on their own, brought a smile to my face.
"Prince Hawthrone, it is a pleasure to meet you. I can tell we're gonna become great friends. Allow me to introduce myself." I began, even as I began to creatively rewire the landscape of my brain. The smile on my face as I spoke was positively devilish.
By utilizing the potent powers of "Worldmind" and "Absolute Condition" together I was able to do a variety of fun things. Due to my innate knowledge of my powers and how they could touch and interact for me to mix them together was a breeze, which was quite handy.
I was restructuring my brain to create new "trains of thought", or "secondary minds" for lack of a better term. These "secondary minds" would be capable of doing things that I deemed too boring or small-scale for my primary train, which meant something along the lines of me having the ability to create mini-minds within my grander mind that could do things like math I deemed uninteresting or anything like subtly using telekinesis to grab things without my main-mind doing it itself.
This new ability would be incredibly handy in the days to come since with it I could do things that would otherwise require fair amounts of concentration even for me. This freed my main mind to focus on fun things, which was an important aspect of both seeking and actually enjoying luxury.
"My name is Antonio, and these two visions of beauty are my brides." I explained, speaking swiftly and confidently. As I spoke some of my abilities began to take hold. Some of these were abilities that required me to speak before they could trigger and others were only activating now because some of my "secondary minds" were doing things like creating clones of me that could freely free things from the power of my decision to freeze time.
They were using this freedom to turn on computers and freely add more powers to my impressive plethora of mighty supernatural abilities. At the moment, the majority of these abilities were minor and served to improve specific things rather than give me wholly new abilities, since I had plenty of those already.
These perks were fun little things, such as perks that made me more persuasive in general or improved my ability to create things by hand. And I was getting them from a variety of sources, as my clones and mini-minds began the process of acquiring vastly more information for me to use to speed my own advancement.
"I am a newly ascended divinity native to Earth, and I have come here to get involved in the politics of Avalon." I explained, sincerely. This level of honesty took the young, for an elf, prince aback a moment as he wondered what to make of my words. I watched a series of emotions appear and then die in the elf's eyes, emotions such as shock, curiosity, skepticism, acceptance, and then even a small spark of excitement.
Until the very moment that his eyes filled with excitement the prince was a serene figure, occasionally shifting slightly to look at each of my allies. The very instant that he realized why I was here, at the culmination of my introduction, he immediately began to act. The figure wasted no time dusting off part of the bed atop which he sat and then patted it gently.
"Well if you're a divinity, and you're new, then I am exactly the right sort you ought to have gone ahead and met!" The figure replied, cheerfully. There was an almost manic joy deeply and distinctly audible in his voice as I felt his mind begin to subtly be affected by the vast power present even in my voice. I decided to feign ignorance.
"Oh? How is that so?" I asked, curiously, allowing my own eyes to fill with false curiosity. I knew everything there was to know about this man, but I decided to allow him to act as though he were more than he was; a lazy, yet proud, princeling.
"Because I am the future king of Avalon! And even now my influence is ever waxing." He proclaimed, confidently. His clear eyes filled with a powerful sort of pride, but not one mighty enough to overwhelm his inner tendencies towards sloth.
"I see..." I whispered, with a smug smile on my face as I studied the somewhat ambitious elf. And at the same time as I was doing that my view of the world around me suddenly and dramatically shifted, with everything taking on... video-game-like qualities.
While my main mind was dealing with the prince of Avalon, my mini-minds had been active in a hundred different ways. One of the more important ways was that some of my minds were piloting some of my astral selves and had given them physical bodies to use so that they could scour the internet for more superpowers. While they did this other mini-minds utilized "Power Architect" to actually give me those superpowers.
One of the more interesting powers I had given myself was "Heads-Up-Display". This video-game-like power allowed me to apply a sort of filter to my mind's eye that allowed me to see and manipulate a staggering number of menus and to have many of the benefits that a video game player character might have over any non-player-characters in a video game. This included things like subtitles for all of the conversations I could hear, a very detailed mini-map, and a variety of "shortcuts" that would incorporate elements from my powers.
Some of these things were partly powered by my other powers. The mini-map, which sat firmly in the bottom left corner of my mind's eye, was powered by two of my abilities and traits; my immensely powerful senses and by "Planeswalker". The mini-map was a handy thing that displayed a three-dimension map of my surroundings and stretched for miles in every direction. I could see every lifeform around me on it, though they were represented by dots of various colors that represented their attitudes towards me.
Another item within my gamified mind's eye of interest was a simple cartoon image of a spellbook, complete with a nefarious-looking aura exuding off of it. I knew what the object was; it was a grimoire, and more importantly, if I mentally clicked on it I'd be allowed a chance to gaze through the most complete spellbook in all of existence. Due to the incredibly potent Living God ability "Metamagnus," I had intimate awareness of every single spell in existence, and if I wanted to I could effortlessly cast any spell with ease.
The shortcut was just a way for me to more easily access the vast powers I possessed as far as sorcery went. With it any spell from the simplest sort of firebolt to the reality restructuring powers of something like a spell that summoned even the mighty Lovecraftian gods who inspired the author to write his now well-known works of cosmic horror. Magic was mine to control and use as I wished.
As I gazed at the elf I began to see pictures appear next to his head. These pictures were of figures I recognized, his friends and family, and next to them were numbers and words. These numbers ranged from -5 on one end to 5 on the other and were followed by adjectives and nouns denoting the relationship the elf had to these individuals. In some, it said things like "father", "mother", "cousin", "love interest", and in others it was less focused on the immediate, familial relationship the elf had and was more focused on descriptors like "Favorite politician".
The meaning of these words and numbers was immediately clear to me. This was a manifestation of the "Saint Valentine" power that some types of gods had access to, including me now that I was more freely utilizing the vast and creative powers of "Power Architect", a power that was allowing me to understand and visualize the emotional and familial bonds that Prince Hawthrone had to various other people. Though there was another, very important aspect of this.
Emotions and bonds were things I could shift with but a thought. I practiced this by gazing at the elf and willing a picture of myself to appear next to his head, which did me the favor of cementing our bond. The instant that I did that I watched the elf's eyes widen as he felt the subtle power of my presence on his heart.
The number next to the picture of me was intently a 2, which wasn't bad at all. That said, I could easily change that. The word next to the picture of me was "Potential patron", which I quite liked. He believed me, which was good because I had been telling the truth. I could have effortlessly manipulated this, but I decided not to. Not yet anyway.
"If you are a future king, one whose influence grows, then as a fellow rising star we should get to know each other." I told the little princeling, a confident and cool expression on my face as I spoke.
The lazy princeling nodded proudly at me as I spoke, fully agreeing with what I was saying. I could tell that the agreeable prince had a lot of potential, as far as becoming one of my allies went. And he was far from the only person who had the potential to be a valuable ally of mine in the future.
The actress in front of one of my other bodies gazed at the other body in awe as it altered and warped reality to create an object from nothing in the palm of its hand. The object in question was a tiny golden ring, one that was filled with numerous, handy enchantments.
"This gift... shall connect the two of us." My body whispered, even as its eyes fell upon the celebrity and watched as "Saint Valentine" allowed it to see her relationships with the important people in her life. And unsurprisingly, I saw a picture of myself there with a bright number five displayed next to the words "Divine Patron".
Rachel did not possess the supernatural willpower of Prince Hawthorne and thus was much more vulnerable to the mighty influence I effortlessly exuded. Nevertheless, despite her lesser willpower she had a fair amount of influence and would surely prove to be incredibly useful in the days to come, as I spread my influence across the world of Earth.
EthanPeh· Feb 20, 2022
