Chapter 3 - A Day in the Life

"I'm the Demigod of Man."

Against my better judgment, I told them about my creation and the summation of the relatively monotonous ins and outs of my existence thus far.

"That fucking bastard, Theadrios! He deserved to be forgotten!" Eris squeezed my back tightly into her bosom, "Don't worry, Sem. You have parents who'll love and care for you properly now."

"Even though he's a minor regional god, I've heard about Theandrios. But who is Mithras?" Harmonia asked.

"He was a god worshiped in Rome. He was stamped out with the rise of Christianity. Eris's counterpart, Discordia, might know him." I slipped.

"Ah." Eris let out, clutching her head.

"Sorry." I put my hand to her head and focused on Eris's Greek myths to quell her headache. It was something I sometimes had to do for Mithras himself.

"Thank you."

"No, it was my fault."

"Isn't he sweet?" She asked Harmonia.

Harmonia sighed in response and sat up, gesturing for me to follow her.

Eris joined her and together they showed me the few other rooms they had, such as the study, their storeroom for the few things they had of godly value, the traditional greek baths, and the single massive bedroom. It was the grandest thing I had ever seen. White and black cushions with gold thread covered a mattress large enough for five people to sleep comfortably.

"Why are you showing me your room?" I asked.

"This is Our room." Eris pushed me down into the bed and fell on top of me.

"Sleep," Harmonia whispered, hugging my arm.

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I woke up to Eris's small and unnaturally long tongue snaking itself through my mouth. She gripped onto my bare chest as I shoved my own tongue into her mouth. I battled with her until she finally gave up and collapsed onto me.

"Goodmorning sweety." She huffed. "I had to see if you were lying about everything Theandrios had you do. I'm glad my son isn't a dirty liar."

I turned to Harmonia who was using my arm as a pillow. And I wondered if these were really goddesses.

"She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?" Eris whispered. "I'm sure she would like it if you woke her up."

Knowing now that Eris probably wouldn't do anything to me if I didn't obey her, I picked her up and laid her next to Harmonia before getting up.

I went to the study and found a few mythology books that I hadn't read yet and quickly finished them. Then I tried to meditate on Chaos and Harmony. After having met the deities representing them, I thought I might have a better grasp of such vast concepts. But since they didn't do much on their own, I didn't realize anything I didn't know. I hadn't trained every deity's divine powers, just most of the big ones. Mithras and Theandrios thought that it was better that I learn how to learn rather than actual learning. Dietal training was for taste-testing only.

"Perhaps If I tried combining it with something else," I said aloud.

I was too weak to manipulate anything using the powers of other deities, so my only option was to manipulate something man-made. But I didn't want to ruin the cell phone I had, so I took the elevator down to the city and asked for a handful of sturdy cell phones.

When I made it back to the goddesses' penthouse, I was jumped by Eris.

"You had us worried. We thought you ran off,"

"Sorry, your majesty."

"None of this, your majesty nonsense, Sem. You will call me mother in front of strangers, and you will call me Eris in private."

"Sorry, lady Eris."

She pinches my arm and drags me to the kitchen where Harmonia was preparing plates of fragrant golden substances. I identified the solid cubes and flakes as Ambrosia and the thin liquid as nectar. Both were the food of the gods in Greek mythology. I had tried neither.

"Look who I found," Eris sang.

"Did you have a nice walk, Sem?" Harmonia asked, handing me a plate and glass.

"Yes. Is this what I think it is?" I asked.

"We keep the stronger varieties of ambrosia and nectar for special occasions and medicine. You should be fine with this."

Eris fed me a piece of Ambrosia and it tasted like cake. A complex cake made from what could be every carb staple that existed in humanity. But as soon as the taste registered in my brain, it was gone. Eris brought the glass of nectar to my lips and it tasted like tea and coffee, maybe even cider. I felt as if I could fill an entire pool with water.

"How do you like it?" Harmonia asked.

"It's good."

"We're going to eat in the baths, why don't you join us?" Eris asked deviously.

"No thank you. I have something I want to do."

Once they walked off, I sat on the couch and pulled out the phones I had gotten. I spent a few hours pulling apart and inspecting two of the phones to put an image to what I already knew. I heard Eris and Harmonia giggling as they left the baths, but they didn't bother me so I continued with my task.

First I poured pure Greek Divine energy into a phone, and at first, I thought it was glowing bronze light, but it was actually turning bronze. I still had plenty of Ambrosia left, so I continued pouring more energy into it until the glass screen and backing took a golden look.

The phone worked mostly fine, except it had no cell service, it couldn't even connect to wifi if Eris and Harmonia had it. Thinking it was a dud, I tried to break it, only to realize that I couldn't and would have to spend a significant amount of godly might to even bend it. I left it on the table and tried to do the same to the two remaining phones except by channeling the energies of chaos and harmony.

The results were beautiful yet terrifying. At first, it was simply a phone that wouldn't react and one that glitched out constantly. But I simply channeled more of my nature as a demigod of man until the phones worked again. I kept the process up until the ambrosia and nectar were gone. In my left hand, I had a phone that looked like my previous attempt, but it floated wherever I thought of putting it, and it operated according to whatever I wanted it to do. In my other hand, I held a phone that had fractals flowing and growing across the surface. It melded in my hand and fit like a glove. The software of the phone seemed to have a mind of itself, often doing things I didn't know I wanted it to do.

I decided both things were not for me since I couldn't connect to the internet, so I found Harmonia and Eris and presented them with their respective phones.

"Oh, this is lovely, Sem. You never cease to amaze us." Harmonia said.

"Yes, it's beautiful. Why don't you give your mother a kiss?" Eris said.

I decided to give a kiss to Harmonia's forehead first, much to Eris's disappointment, so when I moved to do the same for her, she pulled me down into her embrace and gave me a puckered kiss on the jaw.

"So defiant."

"We were just talking about taking you to a nice restaurant called Hestia. The gods like it." Hestia said.

"No thank you."

"Why not?"

"Because the Greek gods do not have a great history of kindness and respect towards humanity," I said, casting a silence over the room.

"Well, he's not wrong…" Eris said.

"No, he isn't. Very well, perhaps Sem can cook for us."

And so I did. Except It wasn't really cooking since they didn't have the equipment for it. Instead, I tried to use my powers to create and manipulate the food. The resulting dishes were quite small, but they didn't seem to mind. They just merrily drank Nectar and insisted I do the same. We got to know each other more and talked about the latest godly gossip until Eris had gotten a little too rambunctious and we fell asleep together like one very, very strange family.

=<=>=

Horizon42

I kept the content light in chapters 2 and 3. It's not normally my style, but I pritoritised speed to the first plot point over the strenght of the characters. 

Your answers: 

MC's abilities? 

Spoiler

Sem is a Jack of all trades, and while his abilites are technically seperated by 2 different parts, it's best explained as 4.

1. The first half. Sem posseses a very light amount of power from every god to exist for humanity. And I mean very light. The strength he has from Zeus is enough to power a lightbulb. These are the powers introduced in chapter 1 and the go no further in scope...as of yet. This half of  Sem's powers is really only useful to help his second half, give a very weak but trainable immunity, and to provide some utility features.
2. The second half. (Semi-spoiler) Sem is the Demigod of Man. This means that when you think of what mankind has done, and is capable of, that very thought is what Sem is the demigod of.  In theory this is ambigous, but in practice, it's pretty simple. Sem has nigh godly endurance, stamina, will, tenacity, and growth potential. As he is now, he may only run a little faster than average, but he can run forever, and he can grow to run faster. There is a sort of sacrifical element to this that has yet to be shown yet.
3.  Part of the second half. No matter what gods say, they only exist as the products of thought and beleif. Worship gives them form and power, and the more power they acrue, the more they are able to resist the sways of that ssame forces that brought them to exist.  If every human suddenly thought Zeus was a chiken who pecked rocks, he migth be able to resist longer than other gods, but it would inevitably become true. This same power that humans have over gods and mythos, is given to Sem in crystalized form. He can use his imagination to dampen, negate, subvert, strengthen, or create supernatural power. This is his strongest ability, and the easiest to use,  but it's not absoulte.  The magical space sits here. 
4. Also part of the second half. Basically mind control if everyone was already mind controlled around you. He can posses them too. The main limitation is the amount of free will a person has/expresses. Only works on pureblood humans. Additionally range becomes an issue, though he can get past this through meditation. So while most humans don't even notice him, he ones that might act like regualr people more is children, espacially teens, as well as those with some amount of passion, typically criminals, but this might include others.

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MC = OP?

Spoiler

Hell no. He's got skill, wit, and overall resourcefulness, but he doesn't have strength. Even when he ineveitably earns strength, it'll only be to scale to fodder. He's less like Percy and more like Annabeth.

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Smut?

Spoiler

It's lookin like it'll be chapter 12. I'm going for a more Game of Thrones style of smut but with more of it and more extreme. I want to casualize the smut. (Spoiler: Chp 12 is lesbian, you tell me between who). I really liked my attempts and style in my other work, but it hit too hard. 

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Why did you decide to make this fanfic?

Spoiler

I want to improve myself in as short amount of time as possible. Fanfics are my way to do that. I needed a universe that wasn't based on comics since I've already learned what lessons I can from that. My discord chose the riordanverse from the other options and I've got to say, if I thought comics was difficult, then this is next level. I'm writing this witht the OG books with me as guides, lore reference, and overall dissection material. You don't see it now, but it is TOUGH to adapt these books simply because of how close to perfection a lot of what Riordan wrote was, not that I like all of it. I try to do better and adapt where I can. Doesn't help that I'm trying to follow a lot of the same story beats. 

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