NOVEL NEXT Chapter 165 - Divine Potential
For a moment, Lucas was lost in the light, and he was certain he'd fucked up big time. As he staggered back, though, everything began to fade back in view, and he saw the laboratory fading in around him, along with Heisenburgle's familiar silhouette.
"Of course, it's you," a familiar voice grumbled. "Who else would it be but you?"
Lucas was about to give Heisenburgle the snark he deserved. He only stopped himself from doing so when he realized the gnome standing before him wasn't Heisenburgle. It was Thrazelwick.
Motherfucker, Lucas cursed silently as he looked around. This wasn't Heisenburgle, and this wasn't Heisenburgle's lab. It was somewhere vastly more complicated.
Lucas immediately tried to bring up his status to view the results of the achievement, but it didn't work. Something about where he was blocked that mental call and the way that Thrazelwick smiled slightly at the attempt made it clear that the God had seen him try and fail to do just that.
Last time, he almost destroyed your soul by accident, Lucas reminded himself. He can literally read you like a book if he wants to.
A moment ago, he'd been in Heisenburgle's office. There had been bookshelves on two sides, a desk, some windows, and a wall with a door. Where he stood now was still an office of sorts, with a gnome, a desk, and bookshelves, but there were no walls. Instead, they were on a platform overlooking a vast factory floor filled with vats and assembly lines. While it was almost exactly opposite of Lwyn's throne room, there was no denying that it suited the gnomish god.
Lucas took in all of that at a glance. He could guess what had happened, mostly, he just couldn't understand why exactly.
"I take it I'm not dead?" he said finally.
The gnome nodded, looking displeased to see him. "You are very much alive, though I can fix that if you like."
No angels then, Lucas decided. Probably no Lwyn either. It's just me and the little guy.
Lucas tried to go for the soft approach. "After all that work I put into brewing those potions, you don't seem happy to see me, Thrazelwick. Why is that?"
"Because that is not! How that boundary is supposed to be crossed!" the gnome insisted. "You can't treat everything as a numbers game! The achievement you unlocked is supposed to be the result of decades of hard work and good decisions, and you just crossed in with a couple of weeks of work."
"I wasn't aware I was breaking any rules," Lucas said, not quite apologizing, even if he was sure that was what the gnomish god wanted. "I'm just doing what you wanted me to do. I'm testing the bounds of alchemy with my science and—"
"Science. Bah!" the Thrazelwick answered, throwing up his hands and turning away as he walked to the railing to survey his tiny industrial empire. "The bounds don't need to be pushed. Don't you understand? I've got thousands of the honored dead everyday testing to make sure that my potion recipes are perfect in every way. Do you understand? Efficient, safe, and practical!"
And poisonous, usually, Lucas added mentally. He didn't say that, of course, but that didn't make it any less true. Instead, he said, "Well, if you've been keeping tabs on me, surely you see some value in my process."
"What makes you think I've been keeping tabs on you?" the diminutive god answered.
"Why wouldn't you be?" Lucas said, deciding not to throw Heisenburgle under the bus with his own deity. The alchemist had mentioned Thrazelwick asking after Lucas, but Lucas doubted very much he was supposed to know that. "I'm probably the most dangerous world you've unleashed on the world in at least a century, right?"
"Three centuries, in point of fact," Thrazelwick answered. "And you should know I've already told my peers that you might be too dangerous to continue. Your experiments have been very… disruptive."
"And yet here I am," Lucas answered. "Though, I'm not quite sure what I'm doing here. Perhaps you could—"
"Every god has their own way to make sure the best of their followers are destined for higher purposes," the gnome answered as he walked over to his desk and fished a scroll out of a drawer. "Mine is to let the nature of genius take its course, and this in no way counts as genius. It's pure brute force!"
The God of Alchemy unrolled the scroll on his desk. He wasn't sure quite what he'd expected to see, but what he found was a list of all his recent experiments, noting ingredients, amounts, batches, and even empowered effects. He was definitely being watched.
"So?" Lucas retorted. "This is good work. None of your gnomes would have ever made these discoveries for you."
"Perhaps they are discoveries that should not be made then," the gnome answered cryptically.
"You tell me, man," Lucas answered. Keeping his cool was easier with double his usual intelligence, but he could only take so much of someone half his height talking down to him."I conducted experiments and got results. Now, I'm here to find out why. What was the point?"
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Thrazelwick sighed heavily, trying to put off whatever he was about to say next, which seemed like a good sign to Lucas. "That you have come this far means that you may be destined for greater things."
The words sounded nice, but they said nothing, so Lucas didn't comment. He just stood there quietly until the gnomish god continued.
"Though your soul is a little on the weak side, there's certainly an argument to be made that you should indeed be given some kind of godhood in time," the gnome sighed. "Though I, for one, would argue for the God of Troublemakers, or perhaps blunderers."
Lucas liked the sound of that, but only until he thought about it a little. While the idea of becoming a God was cool, he had no wish to be separated from the world just yet, and all the Gods he'd met so far dwelled very far away from the mortal world.
"Well, I'm not in any hurry to die just yet," Lucas answered. "While being the God of Roguish, Goodlooking Chemists certainly has an appeal. Maybe we could put that off for a while. I've got some things to do and—"
"Oh, you thought that making a few potions would make yourself a god overnight?" the gnome chortled. "How very bold. This is but the first test! There are still quests to perform, deeds to do, and…"
The gnome kept talking, extolling item after item about the road to divinity, as he called it, but Lucas largely tuned it out as he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. For just a moment, he'd worried he was about to fuck up his life even more by suddenly ducking out on everyone at the last minute before taking care of business with Skylara.
"So I don't get anything for all this then?" Lucas asked. "Just a quest to get more quests?"
"Nothing?" Thrazelwick snorted. "If by nothing you mean the blessing and attention of the Gods as a whole, then yes, you get absolutely nothing." With a wave of his head, a pop-up appeared in Lucas' vision.
Divine Potential Achieved! +3 to all attributes.
Lucas did some quick math and realized that meant that right now, four of his six attributes were pinned at the absolute cap of thirty-eight he was working with. It didn't seem like that much of a boost, but considering it would have cost him more than thirty advancement points to purchase himself, it was large enough to make him wonder what the catch was.
So he asked. "Look, I appreciate that," Lucas answered. "But what's the catch here?"
"There is no catch," the gnomish god grumbled. "Much as I might dislike it. You might not have earned it, but you have reached a threshold few ever will. Now, we shall see what you make of the opportunity."
Unearned my ass, Lucas thought. While he had probably taken a shortcut no one was expecting, and he'd been given access to reagents for free, he'd been working on this for weeks, and he doubted that many other people would have been able to bridge the gap he had.
"So what happens next?" Lucas asked. He immediately regretted it when the God of Alchemy's first response was to smile smugly.
"That will be decided by your betters," Thrazelwick answered. "Any other questions?"
Lucas ignored the gnome's harsh words and looked past him to the factory that squirmed and squealed beyond them. "What are the rest of those guys doing? Testing your recipes?"
"Mostly," the gnome answered. "Some are testing new ideas that aren't ready for release yet."
Lucas smirked at that. He'd been about to tease the god for earlier declaring no new ideas were necessary, but Thrazelwick seemed to smell it and, with a wave of his hand, sent Lucas tumbling away into the light.
"You will hear from us again when your next task is decided upon," the gnome answered distantly as Lucas fell toward his body.
As soon as Lucas had returned to the real world, even before he reassured Heisenburgle he was fine, he checked his status. There, he found everything as he expected. His stats were still superhuman, which, of course, made sense because no time had passed. Still, he took a moment to appreciate them and consider Thrazelwick's words.
Name: Lucas Sharpe
Class: Magical Chemist
Level: 10
Agility: 16 (38)
Endurance: 17 (38)
Appearance 15 (38)
Intelligence: 17 (29)
Strength: 14 (38)
Soul: 13 (22)
Health: 100%
Mana: 19%
Status Effect: Blessed by the Gods.
Imbued Equipment: Ring of Vanishing (Fine Quality)
You have 20 unspent advancement points. Please use them to increase your ability scores or gain feats/perks.
When he told Heisenburgle he was fine, the gnome snapped, "Of course you're fine. You're standin' right there! I'm just standing back so you don't fall on me!"
Lucas smiled at that. While he was reasonably sure he'd feel like shit afterward, and he'd almost certainly miss how fiendishly clever he was in the moment, he was pretty sure the worse was over. He hadn't expected to be confronted by a god all over again, but in retrospect, it made a strange sort of sense. If Lwyn meddled in the affairs of mortals, then why wouldn't Thrazelwick? Why wouldn't all of them?
The stronger Lucas got, the more this seemed like a sort of Greek pantheon thing just waiting to happen. He had no idea if this Zeus liked to screw around on his wife the way the one on Earth did, but if he was going to get involved, to even the smallest degree, in their affairs, then it was well past time that he learned all he could about them.
He quickly decided not to tell Heisenburgle about the results of his experiment. The less he knew about Lucas playing footsie with his God, the better.