November 12^nd, year 787 of the Imperial calendar

We followed Alicia to... her cabin.

"Alicia, why are we going here?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Alicia looked confused.

"Don't tell me this shabby cabin is actually the Hall of Divinity?"

"What? Of course not! And my cabin is not that shabby!" she pouted.

'Maybe she's just getting something from her cabin' I thought as I decided to just shut my mouth and trust Alicia.

We got into the cabin. Alicia looked around for a bit. I didn't know what she was looking for, as the cabin was literally empty save for 2 beds and a desk. She then went to a spot in the corner of the cabin, and opened a very well-hidden trapdoor.

"What are you waiting for? Follow me" She spoke as she descended underground.

Shrugging my shoulders, I followed suit.

The trapdoor was connected to a long passageway. At the end of it, however, was an old-looking transfer gate.

"We will go to the Hall of Divinity through this" Alicia said nonchalantly.

"You... why do you have this?" I asked. Alicia had now just became more mysterious.

"Huh? I can't just spend weeks scaling the Kaiera range. Of course there would be a faster way to go there" Alicia rolled her eyes at me like it was the most obvious thing ever.

"No, I mean how do you have this? What's your actual identity? Normal people can't just have transfer gates to literally the most sacred place on the continent"

"Oh that? Our family had been the guardians of the Hall of Divinity for generations. Of course we have easy access to it"

I furrowed my brows. There weren't any mentions of any sorts of guardians in the novel.

'Did the timeline change?' I thought, before shaking my head.

Considering that Alicia was about to be sold off when we found her, and that her parents were already captured, it would make sense that there wouldn't be anyone guarding the hall when the protagonist found it. Well, I was curious about one thing though.

"Alicia, what would happen if someone else randomly found the hall without going through this gate? I mean, it is still on this mountain range, right?"

"You don't need to worry about that. The Kairea range is huge, it would be near impossible for someone to stumble upon it by chance. And the hall is protected by powerful illusion magic arrays. You'll have to make specific turns when you're close enough to bypass it"

"..."

'What ridiculous luck' I was patting my past self on the back for finding Alicia and accepting her request. Otherwise, I would have spent months on the mountain range not getting anywhere. Although, I was mad. Why did the protagonist have to be that lucky?

Krista, who had been staying silent until now, suddenly spoke up.

"Hey, what's this 'Hall of Divinity' thing you guys have been talking about? Tell me!"

...I forgot to tell Krista about it. Well, she would see it soon enough if this transfer gate did indeed do what Alicia said it did.

"Don't worry, you'll see" I said with a mysterious tone. It have been quite a while since I've teased Krista. And I quite enjoyed seeing that sulky face of hers.

Alicia then fiddled with some buttons, and the gate was activated.

mmmmmmm—!

The portal made a humming noise as we walked through it. This was my and Krista's first time travelling through a portal. To describe it, it was... weird. Even jumping through dimensions wasn't as weird as this. Everything just went black, pitch black. Within that empty space, I couldn't even do anything. The only thing for me to do is to stay still and observe the dark space.

'Hey, this kinda looks lik—'

It was then that a sense of vertigo assaulted me.

"Blaaaaaargh!" I was on the ground, vomiting, with my stomach churning.

It seemed that I wasn't the only one suffering as Krista was rolling on the ground, also puking.

"Oh, is this your first time using gates?" Alicia smirked mockingly.

"This brat, wait unti—"

Blaaargh—!

Another wave of nausea kept me from completing my sentence.

After 2 full minutes, I was finally free from barfing up all the meal I have had in the last 2 days. It was a terrible experience. I never want to go through portals again.

Alicia, however, was still smirking, while patting my back like and elder sister consoling her younger brother that came home crying after scraping his knees.

"There there, it's alright. You'll be fine soon!"

I glared at the 8-year-old that didn't act her age at all for a few seconds, before Krista's amazed voice directly my gaze elsewhere.

"Woah!" Krista exclaimed.

I looked up, and saw the most mesmerizing structure I've ever seen, the Hall of Divinity. Although its architecture greatly resembled ancient Rome, the vibe it gave off was completely different from any Roman buildings I've seen from Marcos' memory. It was white, pure white, shinning figuratively and literally with holy aura. I couldn't believe that an abandoned building could look like this.

If the existence of this was known to the continent, I'm sure that the nearby theocracies would have no qualms waging war with the Empire to acquire it.

Well, I wouldn't be sprouting about its existence to just anyone, and I didn't need to worry about the protagonist revealing it either since the Goddess of Light Lumaria explicitly told him and his harem to not disclose its existence to anyone. Guess she wanted to avoid internal conflict in the continent when the threat of the Void fiends was very apparent. Not that she succeeded though since there would be multiple great wars in the future, and most of those didn't even involve Void fiends.

Leaving the problem of solving wars and making peace aside for the protagonist to handle, I went into the hall with Krista and Alicia. Right at the entrance, there was the door leading to the statue of the Goddess of Light. I had nothing to do with her so I didn't really pay attention to it, though one quick glance was all it took to see that her door was much more lavishly decorated than the other gods'.

'Pretentious prick', I thought. 

I was sure that gods didn't have the ability to read minds as the Goddess Lumaria still haven't punished me for my blasphemous thoughts when I was literally the closest mortal to her right now. That or she was a complete pushover, just like the protagonist.

Well, come to think of it, they really couldn't read minds, as in the Church of Light arc, the Goddess couldn't even find spies working for Void fiends amongst her own believers. So much for omnipotent beings.

I asked Alicia to lead Krista to the God of Darkness Obscura and guide her on how to make a bond, to which she happily complied. While me? I was searching for the section of Lightning gods.

After walking for a good while, I arrived in front of the section for Lightning gods. Despite the bad treatments that Lightning mages received in the Empire, the Lightning gods still had many believers. Especially Zeus, he was feared even by the Goddness Lumaria. And he was precisely the god whose Celestials I was aiming to make a bond with.

As I was walking towards Zeus' room, a loud voice rang out.

|A MORTAL? HERE?|

|FINALLY, IT HAS BEEN SO LONG!|

"Can you keep it down? I feel like my eardrums are going to burst"

The reason why I was talking so casually was that neither Celestials nor gods could harm me here unless I pissed them off so badly that they decided that it was worth it to spend their precious powers to intervene with the mortal world.

The owner of the voice revealed herself. She was a woman who looked no older than 20. She wore an impressive white gown, which contrasted with her ashen gray hair and orangish-red eyes.

|Sorry, I was just too excited. It have been a really long time since any mortal has come to the Lightning gods!|

She spoke in a high-pitched voice, which I found very unbefitting of a demi-god.

"So, who are you?" I asked.

The Celestial looked at me with surprise before muttered something about humans nowadays have already forgotten about her achievements and whatnot.

She then cleared her throat before speaking with a dignified tone. Every movements she made was equally as graceful.

'Finally, she acted like a proper Celestial' I thought.

|My name is Lyra Myrsky| She said, holiness oozing out from every words she spoke.

|A Celestial under the almighty God of the Storms Vihar, with the rank of Great General!|

I widened my eyes in surprise, not at the fact that she was a Celestial Great General, but that

"Never heard of him."

|What?| Her face contorted, the dignity and gracefulness from before was nowhere to be seen.

"Your god, I've never heard of him" I clarified. This was the truth. After all, I have never heard of any gods named Vihar in my 16 years of living. And he wasn't even mentioned in the novel.

Instead of getting enraged, the Celestial had a look of sadness and regret.

|That can't be, how could he be forgotten| She murmured. 

As she was already wasting much of my time, I ignored her and continued walking towards Zeus' room.

|Hey wait! Where are you going!|

"Uh, to try my chances with Zeus?"

|Oh my Vihar! What's so good about that bastard that every mortals want to bond with his underlings!| She humped.

I ignored her again and continued to walk.

|WAIT!| She shouted, but I was still walking.

|You won't be able to make a bond with Zeus! That arrogant bastard won't send anyone down for a mortal like you!| 

Seeing that I was still ignoring her, she started to get more and more desperate, completely forgetting that she was supposed to be a Celestial Great General.

|Please reconsider! Look, I can shoot lightnings AND make cool tornadoes. Zeus can't do anything like that!| She spoke as she floated in front of me, creating an orangish-red lightning bolt on one hand and conjuring a small sized tornado on another.

|I guess it would still work out even with his pitiful Wind affinity| She said that part to herself in a low voice, but I could still hear it.

She continued to get more desperate, practically begging me. Seeing that I was already at the door to Zeus' room, she pulled out her trump card.

|Wait! I- I will make a- a- a V grade bond with you!|

I immediately spun around and grasped her hands.

"Deal!"

---

***

Just like battle arts, bonds were graded from I to V in ascending order. However, the disparity between grades was immense.

You could borrow up to 80% of a Celestial's or God's power if you had a V grade bond, provided that you could handle it.

IV grade bonds, however, only allowed up to 40% of your bonded Celestial's power.

The percentage of power that you could borrow kept reducing by a factor of 2 per grade, before reaching only 5% at grade I.

As Celestials of the same rank were roughly equal in power, regardless of which gods they serve (even if they served the Goddess of Light Lumaria), I would just strangle myself to death if I refused a V grade bond with a Celestial Great General just to be stubborn and try my chances with Zeus.

Thus, I made my bond with Celestial Great General Lyra Myrsky of the Storm Wyvern region, who served the God of the Storms Vihar.

|I can't believe I'm doing this| Lyra said and she kissed my forehead, finalizing our V grade bond.

Immediately, I felt a surge of power. Excited, I checked my Status.

=====

Name: Theodore Gray

Race: Human (Part-dragon)

Rank: F-

Strength: F-

Agility: F+

Stamina: F

Intelligent: F+

Mana capacity: F-

Profession: Swordsman (Lv.3)

--

Affinities:

[Perfect - Lightning magic]

[High - Space manipulation]

[Intermediate - Time manipulation]

[Intermediate - Wind magic]

--

Skills:

[B - Authority of fear] 

The innate skill of Theodore Gray that was evolved thanks to the user assimilating a true dragon's blood into his body. Upon glancing at his eyes, people at lower rank than his will experience great fear. However, its effects diminishes by half if used on people one major rank higher than Theodore himself. The effect of the skill is greatly reduced when used on people two major ranks higher than the user, while people stronger than that are not affected at all.

[F - Mana blood]

A degraded version of the innate skill [A - Fertilus' Blood] that every pure-blooded vampires has. Due to the user's barely qualified concentration of vampiric blood, he is granted the skill. The skill enables the user to recover Mana quicker than the average person, as well as control the Mana present within blood.

[F - Emotionless]

The skill consumes all of the user's emotion to boost the Strength and Intelligence stats while active, effectively raising the 2 aforementioned stats up to 2 minor ranks. However, it may backfire by amplifying emotions instead if the limit of the skill is reached.

[S – Monarch of the Storms]

Temporarily changes the user’s profession into [Monarch of the storm], boosting the user’s power up to a major rank at maximum. The casting speed as well as damage of Lightning and Wind related spells are greatly increased when the skill is active. This skill also nullifies any damage done by Lightning spells that the user uses on his or her own body while active. The user will fall into a state of vulnerability for 12 hours after the skill ends.

(Cooldown: 24 hours)

--

Battle arts:

[III - Roteare style]

Sword art created and developed by Swordsman Theodore Gray. The art is fast and concise, with strikes always aiming at the opponent's vital points. It specializes in using the force the enemies use in their attacks and the centrifugal force against them. As such, the practitioner will look like they are constantly half-spinning left to right from an outside perspective. As this sword art is dependent on the opponent's attacks, there are no named movements. The effectiveness of the art upon mastery is currently unknown.

[V – World splitter]

A battle art created by an unknown master Space mage. It allows the user to create a lingering trail of spatial distortion that shreds anything unprotected by mana to pieces. As the art is entirely dependent on the concentration of spatial attribute mana, it must be used in tandem with other battle arts. Thus, it doesn’t have any named movements. Upon mastery, the practitioner won’t even need a second to concentrate the necessary amount of space mana to execute the art.

=====

I instantly broke through to rank F-. Not just that, my lightning affinity jumped from High all the way to Perfect! Although my wind magic only jumped up to Intermediate, I couldn't ask for too much since I'm sure that she used some of her own power to boost my Lightning affinity to perfect. Furthermore, she actually gave me an S ranked skill that looked really powerful at a glance.

I guessed that she really didn't want me to regret bonding with her.

Though, I was very confused when I looked at the Race section.

"Hey Lyra"

|What?|

"Why does Status say that I'm part dragon?"

|Oh? That's because of the high grade bond you made with me. Part of the bloodline I had when I was a mortal must have assimilated with you|

I widened my eyes in surprise. This... it could be really good!

"D- does that means that I c- can turn into a cool dragon?" I asked with expectant eyes.

After all, dragons were extremely cool. Even the trash Marcos who had read countless fantasy novels had the same opinion as me. I was a bit jealous of the Dragon race since they could turn in to a massive and cool creature anytime they wanted. But now, maybe I could even do it myself!

|Hm? You can't. You're only part-dragon. The best you can do is create some scales for protection but you can't even do that. With the purity of dragon blood in you right now, it would just make your Magic eyes more potent since your eyes coincidently had the same property as one of the dragon's authority|

Now that I looked closely, my [Magic eyes of fear] skill was now B ranked. I should have been happy. After all, a skill ranking up was extremely rare. However, I hung my head down low. Not only could I not turn into a cool and gigantic dragon and act like an arrogant and pretentious prick, I would also scare people off even more. Who knows if sunglasses were enough to suppress my eyes now.

|Don't look so down| Lyra said.

|Look, you can purify your dragon bloodline if you can find some Wyrm's blood| She continued.

'But there aren't any Wyrms in the continent right now' I wanted to retort but I kept silent. After all, I would just be a bigger scumbag to her than I already was if I had said that when she tried to cheer me up.

I sighed, before accepting the situation. I had already made the bond, and there was no coming back now. But I could imagine my future being much harder than necessary, since halflings of any kinds were looked down upon just because Celestial Lumet Carsotian were one himself.

Well, as long as I don't show my Status to anyone, no one would know. Hopefully.

I turned to Lyra, who was now turned into a cute gray bird since she said that she would be accompanying me to the outside world.

"Can you lead me to God of the Storm Vihar's room?" I wanted to thank the Storm god for sending down his Great General.

|Sure!|

We arrived in front of his room, it didn't take long as it was literally right beside Zeus'. The door, however, looked really shabby. It definitely didn't look like the room of a god that had a Celestial Great General as his servant.

I opened the room and went inside, and was met with quite a sight. Vihar, he looked exactly like Odin from Norse mythology, without the eyepatch. His statue, however, was in a horrible shape. Cracks were all over the statue, and it was missing its right arm and both of its legs.

"Hey Lyra... Is Vihar dea—"

|DON'T YOU DARE FINISH THAT SENTENCE| Lyra roared. She looked like she could kill me right now, or at least she looked as threatening as a small bird could be. Still, she wasn't even this mad when I basically mocked her before. I was getting angry myself, not because she shouted at me. No, the anger wasn't mine, but it still affected me.

Lyra soon noticed that she had overreacted, calmed down and apologized to me. My emotions returned to normal as she did so.

'Weird'

|Sorry for getting mad, I get really sensitive when it comes to my god. No, he's isn't dead, he's just... gravely injured|

|That bastard, Zeus, left him to fend off against the Evil God alone to save his own skin in the Great war| She said with a tinge of distain and hatred.

"Is that why you wanted to make a bond with me so badly?" I asked.

|Yes. With your potential, you will surely spread the name of God Vihar again and he will gain enough power to heal. So you're basically my investment. Sorry if that makes you feel offended...| Lyra replied in a low voice.

"No worries," I said.

"I don't really care about it all that much. After all, it wouldn't hurt to spread the name of your god" I continued.

|Really? Thank you!| She said with a grateful face. Seriously, I didn't know that a bird's face could express so many emotions.

After that, I went back to the entrance of the hall. Krista and Alicia was already waiting for me.

"Brother! What's a bird doing on your head?" Krista asked.

"Krista, this 'bird' is a Celestial" I replied.

"Really?" She was intrigued.

|Yes, really| Lyra said.

"Uwah! The bird talked"

"S- she's a Celestial, o- of course she can talk" Alicia said as she hid behind Krista, trembling.

I was about to question why she was so scared, but I remembered that my [B- Magic eyes of fear] had just ranked up. 

'So just a pair of sunglasses can't suffice after all' I grimaced.

"Krista, do you have anymore of these sunglasses?" I asked.

"Huh? Sure" She handed me 2 more pairs of sunglasses.

I put them on, I probably looked really ridiculous right now. But, that seemed to have done the trick as Alicia stopped trembling soon after and could normally converse with me now.

"Sorry about that, I didn't know why you seemed so... scary a few moments ago" Alicia apologized.

I just laughed it off as I had no reasons to tell her of my skills.

"Krista, did you make a bond?" I asked.

"Mhm! I made a IV grade bond with a Celestial!" She smiled brightly.

That was really unexpected. In the novel, she only had a III grade bond. I wonder what changed about her...

Krista ignored my thinking face and turned towards Alicia.

"Alicia! You're coming with us after this, right?" Krista asked with expectant eyes.

"Sorry Krista... As much as I want to leave these boring mountains, I can't. What if someone bad came across this place?"

|Oh, you don't have to worry. A kid like you can't do anything about that anyways. In fact, the Gods appointed guardians just for formalities. You staying here or not wouldn't make a difference since the Divine power naturally repels anything that is related to the Evil God| Lyra spoke nonchalantly as she had just basically said that Alicia's entire family was doing something utterly useless for years.

And Alicia's reaction to that?

"Oh, okay, guess I can join the two of you after all" she said in a flat voice.

I was surprised, did she not feel anything about essentially being told that she had been something useless her entire life? Well, she probably did not, considering that her personality was pretty similar to mine. 

It looked like that I didn't actually have a say in whether or not Alicia would be joining us, since Krista had already accepted Alicia into our team.

"Let's just go back then"

"Okay"

---

***

November 18^th, year 787 of the Imperial calendar

It had been nearly a week since I've made a bond with Lyra. As expected, I and Krista puked for nearly 3 minutes after using the gate again.

Alicia shut down the transfer gate, and messed up the order of the mana circuit board deliberately so that anyone that came across it wouldn't be able to activate the transfer gate.

We threw a party that very same day, celebrating Alicia joining our team.

|Hey, could you get a Storm Wyvern? After all, you have to make a Storm Wyvern a mount if you're bonded with this Great General| Lyra suddenly asked me one morning.

"No" I replied bluntly.

|Why? You'd still look really cool if you could ride a Wyvern!|

"Not that! It's because we don't have time" I said

" 'Cause the Avaron academy's entrance exam is coming soon"