Mash screamed as he woke up. Horrific monstrosities with the vague shape of men surrounded him. He sat up and prepared to fight. The scream died down, as he recognized his own creations. All were made of his wood, which did make them look like proper monsters. There were half a dozen of them two, and none had hum faces. He had been thinking of his many forms as he made them. One had a beak that resembled Priscilla’s. Two had dragonoid heads and their arms were larger and had claws. Two had wolf-shaped heads and the wood was shaped to give them bigger muscles. That was probably pointless considering it was made of wood. The final one was the replica of himself that he had made at the beginning.

The training had gone well. At the start, he hadn’t been able to do anything, but he soon got to the point where he could control them like additional limbs. Naturally, that had been annoying and complex and was too distracting to use in a fight. Finally, he tried to emulate Priscilla more directly. She had near-perfect control of her imitations regardless of distance. She could even treat them like they had their own intelligence and leave them to complete tasks based on commands. That was what he really wanted to do.

He had kind of succeeded. He figured out how to make them receptive to commands, though it was still pretty taxing. It had to due with mental mana. He needed to mix it in with his creation, which turned out to be horribly inefficient when he tried to do it outside of skill. That was the advantage of making imitations of Priscilla. When he did that, he was literally using his thunder-wood imitation. Using a skill turned out to be more efficient than using his affinities to replicate the effects.

It was a bit of disappointment as he wouldn’t be leading an army of clones into battle anytime soon. Honestly, just making a single imitation of himself that functioned like the skill was annoying. It felt like he was literally imparting his own mental capacity into the imitation. That made the process annoying, but not impossible. His mind simply couldn’t handle more than one or two imitations max. Even Priscilla would struggle to control something like it. She was familiar with the imitations of herself, but she would need to focus more on more complex creations. Mash would have an easier time than she which wasn’t very reassuring. The best heh ad managed last night was giving two of them very simple commands to defend him while he slept.

The beaked one that had been staring at him when he awoke was one of the two that got the command. The other was an identical replica of himself. He wondered why the others had moved around him. It was probably something he did, but he couldn’t remember. It was creepy. He moved away from the assortment of wooden sculptures. Two followed him, and he flinched a little as they moved within his domain. That would take some more getting used to. Mash wondered what the time was. He was still in the training area which was several feet underground. He had no way of knowing what it was like outside.

“Maaaaaaashhhh!”

He heard a scream from the room’s entrance. His sister had come down the stairs. Luna had been calling for him but started screaming when she saw the imitations. She was not alone either and his brother jumped in front of Luna. His blade formed from the air. The air in the room instantly grew cold. Mash’s eyes went wide as the two imitations which could follow his commands ran at his brother. They were surprisingly fast and lightning began sparking out of their body.

“Stop!”

Mash shouted the word. He controlled the imitations with his mind but saying the words made it easier to direct his commands. The statues froze in place. One was in the middle of taking a step, its leg was awkwardly raised in the air. With how scary the imitations looked; the scene became quite comical when they froze up like that. His brother was too fast with his attack though, and both statues were frozen in place. Ice crawled up them spreading from where he had swung his sword. It had spread out from the swing freezing the ground in front of him too.

Arthur had heard Mash’s yell, and his expression grew darker. That wasn’t the right way to put it. His brother was his usual stoic self, but the way his eyes examined the arena said revealed how he was really feeling.

“I can see that you had an eventful night.”

The flat tone didn’t bother him in the slightest. Mash replied easily, smirking a bit like a fool. For the first time in a long time, Mash felt genuinely good. It wasn’t like the past had changed at all, but he just felt better. There wasn’t any logic behind it, but his time spent with Priscilla had helped him regain some of his confidence.

“Yeah, that’s one way to describe it.”

His siblings walked into the arena, staring at the sculptures with some curiosity. Naturally, they forced a better explanation out of Mash, and he was happy to display his new skills. The explanation took a while, and he found it easier just to show him. It turned into a much bigger display as he went through his other skills. They kept at it for a while, well into the mid-morning when the others got up. At some point, they had joined him and were watching as he controlled two replicas of himself. He was commanding with simple orders, like having them run in circles.

After a short while, he finished playing with his skills. The others had fought the wooden monstrosities near the end. They weren’t strong enough to withstand that, and he ended up with an arena filled with rubble. It would eventually get cleaned, but none of them wanted to be the ones to do it. They planned on heading back to the snowfield as soon as they could, but his brother stopped them. He apparently had something important to share.

Arthur took a deep breath, his gaze washed over their group before he shared.

“I had told the king and church that Luke had become a demigod. I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t my place to reveal that.”

Mash was surprised. His brother wasn’t one to reveal information easily. There must be some reason behind the decision. The apology was directed at Luke, who shook his head and responded quickly.

“It’s not a big deal, but what happened?”

Arthur nodded at Luke, and that seemed like all was settled. Then his brother began giving more context to the situation. His brother wasn’t the type to give excuses even if they were justifiable at times.

“I was confronted by several people who had felt a divine presence enter the city. That was how they referred to it. Somehow, they were able to discern roughly where it was. Luna was willing to lie and say that it was her, but I decided that would cause more problems. I revealed Luke’s class to stop any further investigation since it could lead to them discovering Jill’s class.”

It was a reasonable explanation, although Mash didn’t understand what he meant by divine presence. Mash couldn’t feel anything with his domain. His brother had stressed the words in a way that indicated that he didn’t really know either. Luke responded next; some hesitation was in his voice now.

“Is there something I need to do?”

Mash hadn’t considered what would be required of Luke. Honestly, he kind of thought that nothing much would change. Well, he knew that something would be different, but he didn’t think that it would be a big deal. The looks on his siblings’ faces told Mash that there was probably going to be a lot for Luke to do.

“Yeah, for one, I was told to bring you over when I saw you next. Though I can’t really force you if you just want to do something else.”

Luna sounded a little annoyed as she spoke. She was not happy with being given such a job, and it was clear that she didn’t really want to do it. As she kept going, her voice became a little hopeful as she tried to do the exact opposite of what she was supposed to. Sadly, Luke didn’t give her the response that she wanted.

“No, I should do this. It is something I should’ve done before. What will you guys do?”

Luke turned the question to them. Red and Jill wouldn’t want to go around visiting gods. The undead and the god killer were probably not going to receive a warm welcome. Mash guessed that they could go back north without Luke, though they would need to be more careful without the healing.

“We’ll go visit my family. And by we, I mean me and Red.”

Jill had apparently had a plan that did not involve Mash. Although Red didn’t look like she was aware either. There was no chance to protest though as they vanished. Mash stared at the place where they had been standing and sighed.

“I guess I’ll come with you. Who knows, the gods might have something tasty to snack on.”

Mash would just go along with Luke. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. Plus, it would be cool if he could meet the gods too. He wanted to compare himself to them and see how close they were getting.

“You can’t try to eat any of the gods.”

Arthur spoke, his tone was so flat that Mash almost took it as an accusation. Although his sister and Luke started to laugh, Mash realized that it was a joke. His brother's delivery had been way too genuine but even he was grinning a little bit. His brother continued after the laughter died down.

“You will have to meet with the king as well.”

Mash almost expected another joke at his expense, but his brother wasn’t Jill. The rest of the conversation went by with his sister telling Luke of all he would need to do. It was a long list, and Mash probably wouldn’t stick around for all of it. Several of them involved extremely public displays of power. She was a healer too and had an idea for what Luke might be asked to do. The idea of sitting through all of that seemed boring. Although, he would still go to the temples. He wanted to meet a god and bet that this was probably his best opportunity to accomplish that.

The morning training had left them somewhat dirty. That was doubly true for Mash who had slept on a dirt floor. He went and got himself cleaned up. They also ate breakfast and just kind of relaxed for a little while. Luna had no desire to leave early, and they couldn’t just leave without her. Eventually, his sister finished whatever she was doing, and they left.

The city was slightly different now. The buildings looked newer, and there were no signs of the battle with the demons. Mash couldn’t help but look for broken or damaged buildings or roads but saw nothing. The city seemed to have returned to normal. Children and other people strolled through the streets. The general bustle of the city surrounded them as they walked toward Jill’s temple. Many people glanced at her as they passed. His sister wore causal clothing and would probably blend into the crowd if not for her paladin. Alex hovered around his sister, and she wore her resplendent armor.

It was very distinct, and he wondered how his sister dealt with all the odd stares. Alex oddly watched over Luke as if to protect him too. He wondered if she had the skill to detect a god, or maybe she had just been informed ahead of time. The many stares and whispers annoyed him. He debated whether to find something else to do or stick with Luke.