Now that most of my training of [Godly Language] is done I want to explore the effects of the skill. I know it can affect souls but it can also bend reality, I could whisper "your sword is unbreakable" to Hana and it might actually become true. I will need to put many more points on it than the current 20 I am willing to allocate to it but maybe I can do it with very small things like "this lock is open" or similar.

"Can you show me how you bend reality with [Godly Language]?", I ask.

Kyros stops stroking his goatee and speaks, "Boy, that is dangerous."

"I know. But I want to learn."

Kyros frowns and looks down, he doesn't seem very eager to teach me that.

"Boy, if you ever try to alter reality do it small, very, very small first," he says with weary eyes. "If something goes wrong, you dying is the least worst thing that could happen, a lot of people could die if you try something foolish."

"I'm a very cautious person, but also very curious."

"Evidently," he smiles wryly, then he sighs and continues, "The secret to altering reality is by visualization, just like magic, the more you know, the deeper you can imagine, and the more certain you can alter reality.

"Keep in mind that you are altering the laws of physics and magic to your wishes, this can cause some chaotic things if you don't know what you are doing. For example, if you ask something like 'create light', the skill does not create a [Spirit Light] or a flame, it simply creates a source of light, completely devoid of mass, fuel, mana, or logic. It won't create a real, physics-or-magic-abiding source of light unless if you specify it.

"To create something safely you need to imagine every single little piece that makes it, I don't think even the emperor is capable of that."

I see, opening a lock won't be so easy if I don't know the how the lock works. But the emperor doesn't have my knowledge of Earth and physics.

"I understand," I lower my head, "I won't abuse it, I swear I will take extreme care in what I do."

He spends a long minute staring at my lowered head. Perhaps he thinks that if he doesn't teach me, then I will experiment on my own, which I admit is kind of a possibility.

"Very well," he finally says and I raise my head, he pulls out a small handkerchief and bunches it up on the table, "Imagine this piece of cloth is igniting, not that it's on fire, it's catching fire, as if someone is holding a [Fireball] below it.

"Imagine every small fiber suddenly combusting into fire, a normal fire that consumes matter and leaves ashes on its behind. Focus on a very small spot, it should be enough to make it catch fire."

I focus and concentrate. Fire, rapid oxidation of material in a chemical reaction that releases heat and light. Oxygen, fuel, heat, a chain chemical reaction.

"Now say the words, 'this handkerchief will catch fire'."

I prepare myself. I only have 10 points on it right now so here comes nausea.

"This handkerchief will catch fire," I say, using the skill.

*Foosh*. A small flame suddenly bursts on the handkerchief.

I feel absolutely horrible. My vision decides that what I'm seeing isn't real and every color twirls into each other; my stomach receives a foreign package and wants to return my breakfast to sender; my brain rejects this reality and goes back home to my man-cave to sit in the computer and exhale air lightly every time I see a meme; my muscles enter a strike and ask for vacation into a thai massage-with-a-happy-ending resort.

Kyros puckers his lips into the shape of asterisk. "What," he says in a weak voice.

"What?" I ask, barely maintaining my grip on reality.

"You weren't supposed to do it this fast," he says and extinguishes his handkerchief with a use of [Conjure Water].

"Well... I did," I shrug and groan at the bloody revolution happening inside my body. Maybe I shouldn't have done it seriously on the first try.

Kyros pulls out two red potions with a *poof* and rolls one to me.

"Drink it, will help with the feedback. Not that you are actually wounded it's just that magic helps the world stabilize."

While seeing double I manage to grab the HP potion and chug it, tastes like honey. In a few seconds a wave washes over my body and removes the sludge that took over me.

"That was really odd," I say, "Way, way worse than just normal feedback or mana-radiation poisoning."

"Radiation?" He lifts one eyebrow.

"Mana leak poisoning during the gathering."

He nods in understanding. "Anyway, this is the feedback from a badly formed reality alteration. You now understand how dangerous this is, just a simple combustion caused even me to feel sick."

"I understand, thank you for showing it to me."

He nods repeatedly, "Well there's not much else to show, this is how you do it and the only way to get better is to improve your [Godly Language] or improve your visualization."

I calmly focus on my voice vortex, I had enough poisoning for today.

Space class is free practice, theoretical lessons are over so we are to focus on reviewing things until the final (and only) test. I get an idea about inverting [Gravity Crush] and trying to explode people, maybe I can teach it to Roxanne to improve her [Explosion].

I focus on my [Telekinesis], I have to chant it since I'm in front of the class so I focus on using it to dodge by sliding backward.

"Impressive," the gnome professor Ludwick says, "Are you planning on incorporating this on your martial arts?"

"Precisely."

"How novel. People would prefer to use [Fly] and fight at a distance. Show me the style when you create the skill. Actually, won't this be the third skill you have created?"

I can only smile wryly at his words.

"Three new skills alongside reviving an abandoned magic school. What an oddity you are, Mr. Ryder," he continues with a smirk and strokes his long white beard. " But then again, you do have a blessing from the Goddess of Knowledge."

"I will definitely show it to you, professor. I learned the most from your class so I owe you at least this," I smile faintly to him.

The professor gets very satisfied with my words and moves on in a renewed mood.

"Let's give Ciel and Lina a show," I say to Alissa during our trip back home.

"As if you had to ask," she answers.

-

"Yes, Ciel, I allow you to have a romantic relationship with my slave," I say with a smirk.

Ciel jolts awake and stares at me wide eyed.

"I, I…" Her mouth opens and closes repeatedly. "I will take care of her."

"Yes you will," Lina says lowly and giggles.

She pulls on my arm and brings me to Ciel, then she sits between us, smiling adorably with our arms entangled. She finally took what she wanted.

-

"We may be the most perverted family that has ever existed," Ciel says then snorts. "Maybe less perverted than the emperor's."

The evening is spent in a cuddle puddle as Lina uses both of us as her personal pillows. Ciel is awkward around Lina but the little girl is taking charge and keeping Ciel close to her at all times.

Today is the 17th.

-

My [Dodge] and [Mana Control] increased by 1 (now 5+6 and 0+14) and I learned [Washing] with 1 point.

I spend my morning reading over the "Soul Map" the girls created. They started up by setting an orientation axis and using the brain as a measuring unit, so the map is graded in "sorains", soul brains.

Ciel made the organization and most of the writing, her handwriting is beautiful. Alissa has quite the hand for drawing, in a methodical manner she sketched what she saw very well. The other girls were mainly responsible for searching up Alissa's soul while they gave her cuts.

The map is far from done, specifically the skin, it's literally our skin stretched into a sphere so the distortion can get quite heavy. There's also plenty of "dead spots" where there's simply no structure, they are breaks in continuity of skin. I wonder if the lack of continuity has any effect on the physical skin.

"Did you like it?" Alissa asks me casually yet her tail is wagging.

"Yes, very much," I say and smile at her, "I love you."

"Love you too," and she gives me a peck on the nose.

"And you too!" I yell to Ciel practicing [Judgment] outside.

Ciel lifts her head and smiles, then she returns to concentrating on her practice.

I go to the window and take a look at Ciel, her hand is glowing faintly yet I feel a large "threat" coming out of that hand. It's like when you see a dog growling at you and you think "oh shit, I'm about to get shredded", it provokes an instinctual need to run away;

Ciel focus on her hand and I see the glow slowly leave her hand. It forms into a faint blade that hovers near her hand. Then she exhales and the glow returns to her hand.

She stretches her legs and lays down on the grass. Hana is standing beside her, slashing the air while a blurry copy of her strikes in a different direction at the same time.

"The blurriness decreased, if you strike fast enough it could easily confuse someone," a Roxanne made of fire says. She hovers above Hana and slowly descends.

"But it will only work once, I need it to be perfect," Hana says and strikes again.

"Maybe she needs more 'Perception'?" I ask Alissa.

"Hmm... I think it's her control that's lacking. Hana, maybe you should train more of the MP and 'Magic Power' routines," Alissa says.

"Sounds good," Hana says and drops on the ground, immediately going into meditation.

Roxanne shoots up into the sky and lands with a heavy thud. The flames dramatically spread and lick the grass but no heat leaves them. From the "SFX", Roxanne appears on all fours and proudly rises.

"Maybe do a three-point landing, the one on all-fours is quite, uh, not-cool," I say.

"What?" Roxanne questions.

I show it to her, and she "ohoh's" me.

"Certainly looks cooler, though a little hard on the knees," she says.

"I know, right? Your robe also makes it more awkward to use," I say.

*WOOOOON~...*

An air raid siren starts to scream. I jump in surprise and freeze.

Ciel straightens up and yells, "Harpies!".

I store the golems on my "Items" and we all quickly change into our armor.

"Ciel, get Lina. Everyone, stay together while me and Alissa check on the hunter's guild. I will use the lithograph for communication," I say.

The girls nod, I pull out the dinghy for Ciel with a *poof* and mount Alissa.

The hunter's guild is as hectic as the wyvern attack, many tables are put out in front where attendants search the names of fellowships and where they are supposed to go.

A shining bald head catches my attention and I find Silas, the guildmaster. He nods once to me and then continues stroking his magnificent white beard.

During my moment of distraction Alissa led me to Carmen and I receive a very charming smile when she sees us. The line of hunters moves fast and soon comes our time.

"Fellowship 'Helios', support for nobility, inner tower two," Carmen says and then she gives me a slightly worried look, "Good luck, even though you are fighting among the nobles it's still dangerous."

"Thank you for the concern," Alissa says and we take our leave.

The people hurry to their homes. A slightly organized chaos is underway as the guards make sure people remain on the right of the road while moving forward. Take that, British, even in fantasy worlds right is the proper way.

Our destination takes us to the slums so we wait on a relatively safe area. On the lithograph I write to the girls "come to me, we are going to inner tower two."

We wait a while until the flimsy dinghy lands in front of us with the other girls, then we walk towards the tower.

The reason the slums is a slum is due to the incredible danger in living near the southern wall, it's the wall who always gets attacked by monsters so the properties get devalued. There's also a high chance of the house getting fully destroyed in the fighting if monsters cross the wall. The noble's quarters and the high value houses are all near the northern wall.

The town quickly turns into a ghost town where the only sounds are of the boots constantly moving around and the jingling of armor. The population has already locked themselves in their own basements.

In a few minutes of hurried walking we reach the second inner tower. It's a massive round tower made of blue-gray bricks. Nearby we see the main road that leads to the south gate. This gate is only used by the military since no one wants to cross the slums just to get out of town.

We near the tower and see rather tight security around it. The guards look at our ID's when we enter and cross-examines a list of approved adventurers.

We enter and move up the stairs. The lower floors have only melee well-armed guards, the middle floors are empty, and the upper floors have archers and mages positioned behind the arrow slits. The top floor has double the walking space than the lower floors and there's multiple retractable rectangular planks of wood for us to take cover.

On the battlements, I see Silvane, Nononya, and a few well-armed men and women. Nononya is summoning a second wind elemental, the elemental looks like a kind-looking mature wererabbit woman.

Silvane notices us and waves as we approach.

"A good day to fight, isn't it, Mr. Ryder?" Silvane asks with a wide smile.

"I would say there's no good day to fight but if we have to, then a sunny day like this one is perfect," I answer and bow lightly.

Nononya finishes her chanting and another mature female wererabbit elemental appears.

"Helloo!" She greets us with unbridled happiness, her bunny tail twitching wildly.

As the girls talk about the gruesome ways they are going to disembowel the harpies I fake my chants and summon 3 wind elementals and 2 fire elementals.

I have a good view of the forest on top of this tower, it's always amazing and also frightening the size of those trees. "Megalophobia" is what this feeling is called.

I see plenty of young men and women taking position along the wall or leaving for the field in front of the gate. They all have large shields and spears, the harpies are going to either suicide charge or pepper us with weak ranged attacks, most soldiers will only need to hunker down and wait.

Large stone structures are being raised by mages around the grassland, those are where the healers will remain, Hatara is going to stay at one of those structures but inside the town.

Most of the soldiers are slum dwellers, joining the guard is one of the most profitable jobs for the disadvantaged. You get free martial arts training, the opportunity to level up and gain more skills, free meals, and some even get to live on the barracks, if you survive. Curiously most prostitutes on town are also part of the guard, getting protection by making friends with the guards and also some extra money on duty is too advantageous to let it pass.

"Your elementals are certainly impressive," says a voice behind us.

I look back and see a tall and buff brown-haired bear of a man in full plate armor. He has two golden armbands on each arm and he holds a helmet with a red plume under his arm.

"Captain Entoli, reporting for duty," he says and bows quickly towards Silvane. "I am responsible for this tower, I assume you are the fellowship 'Helios'?"

"Yes we are," I say.

"Since you were requested by the Rizeks I assume you know what you are doing," his gaze turns stern, "so I will leave you to act as you wish. But know that I'm responsible for safeguarding the nobility, so when the time comes you will obey to me, understood?"

"Understood," I answer.

He nods to us and moves on the new arrivals, two groups come out of a [Gate] each. One is clearly a noble family and their knights that I don't recognize; the other is Horvath, Helena, Lyle, and two plated knights with large shields.

"Wolf! It is finally time for us to fight," Lyle says and we shake hands. He and his family admire the elementals before the greetings continue.

"Marvelous elementals, and women," Helena says with a smirk.

"Do not stare too much, dear, it could irk Mr. Ryder," Horvath says.

The pair is wearing a dazzling shiny black robe and I see black scale armor below it. The petite woman and the villainous man certainly look good even in their armor.

Horvath has a gloomy-looking ethereal little woman floating beside him. She has 4 transparent wings that beat so fast you can only see a blur, her body is made of dark clouds that occasionally light up with lightning. An [Electric Spirit].

Helena has a little water mermaid "swimming" in the air in circles around her. The mermaid has a cute face, hair made of algae, and a trident made of coral. She giggles softly once in a while. A [Water Spirit].

"Shouldn't you be with Haaran?" I ask Silvane.

"He'll be fine, I would rather keep my sweet Nono safe if I could help it," she answers and rubs one of Nononya's white rabbit ears.

We discuss tactics as we wait. Horvath and Silvane already fought together so it's only our group that has to know the other's abilities.