Chapter 2: Out Past And Our Future

Scitus looked at his surroundings, one, two, three. He quickly began to count the goblins.

In total, there was thirtyfour goblins. Out of the thirty-four, fifteen were labeled as hostile.

“You god, I follow.” The older Goblin looked Scitus in the eyes, the hint of uneasiness was lost on Scitus.

The older goblin turned to the goblins behind him. "HE GOD WE FOLLOW!!" there was more force in his voice, suddenly three hostile goblins become subjects, state: unloyal. The old goblin was clearly the leader, Scitus felt some comfort in that but there was still a big problem. 9 were still hostile.

The goblins labeled as subjects kneeled the ones that did not, remained standing. The elder goblin turned to see his son still standing. "KNEEL!!!" he shouted with a voice that startled even Scitus.

"NO!!" The Goblin runs towards Scitus holding a blade in his right hand. The world slows down one more time for Scitus. Adrenaline jolts his Brain to work faster the normal, he considers his options.

Fight? Impossible, Scitus has a weak muscle structure, Run? Impossible, scitus has a weak muscle structure.

"NO!!!" The elder goblin tackles his son to ground only to meet an elbow to face, The goblin raised his blade prepared to slash his a father. Their eyes meet, "no." the son whispers before he turns back to a, still, frozen Scitus. The goblin peered into the human's eyes, they were vacant, as if his soul had left his body, the goblin looked both ways fearing that the human actually left his body. His conclusion was wrong, Scitus was only thinking, thinking of every option he could.

suddenly the goblin saw the life come back to his eyes. “I kill!!!” the goblin was only a foot away, he had already raised his hand to slash Scitus.

"CLOSE EARS!!!" Scitus shouted as he attempted to dodge the goblin, only to feel a painful slice of flesh opening his lips. His subjects do as they are told.

"lybird!!" Scitus yelled as he felt blood trickle down his face. The goblin pulled the blade back, he was preparing to stab Scitus.

"Riot noise!!!" it's too late, He thought as he felt the cold blade enter his body.

"EEEKKK!!!!!" a deafening noise cripples the goblins that did not listen to Scitus's orders, including the goblin that stabbed him, he screamed in pain. "AGH!!!!!" he felt as if his head was about to explode, he could see birds and animals flee from the utter pain that noise was emitting.

The God before him had empty eyes, his lip was split open, his knees were the only thing holding him up.

"Help." He whimpered and as if to answer his call, life returned to the human's eyes.

"CEASE!!" in the next moment, the cut lip disappeared and at the moment after that, the wound on his chest quickly vanished.

“did I just die?” no, I didn’t die, just before I died my body began to heal. It took one minute for the healing to take effect, I need to remember that.

While the goblin that rebled against him was still wallowing in pain, Scitus swiped the blade, almost dropping it, forgetting that his hands were still uncontrollably shaking.

He held the blade like a frighten child that just escaped certain death. His breath was unsteady, and his legs refused to listen to orders. His gaze turned to the elder, his hand was outstretched towards his son. This single gesture calmed Scitus, it reminded him of his own father. He remembered the times they use to play in the park, the times his father bought him ice cream to taste test. Those days were wonderful, he wished he could go back.

"you hate human?" Scitus said as he tossed the blade to the ground. Its blade sunk into the soft ground while its blunt side faced the sun. the Goblin crawled towards his blade, forcing himself to move despite the pain he felt in his ears. He could feel the blood trickling down his jaw. He turned to see his father, no words were necessary for this exchange. He knew those eyes, he had seen them few times before, only 4 times in his lifetime.

The first was when his uncle attacked his father. The second was the day that half the tribe refused to follow him into the oasis, and the last time he saw it was when his father looked at the human he killed his mother. Now he saw those very eyes being pointed at him. Their meaning was clear.

“I beg of you son.”

He grabbed hold of the blade and pulled it off the ground only to stab it in deeper.

"AGH!!!!!" he stabbed the ground again an again as he felt his tears trickle down his face. He had lost his resolve, he couldn't betray his father any more than he already had. After taking a few moments to calm himself, he kneeled before Scitus. The label above his head changed from hostile to subject, State Unloyal. In almost the same instant the other hostile goblins followed suit.

Exactly one minute later, a black aura surrounded a few goblins including the one that had attacked Scitus, and after it disappeared the goblins could hear as well, in a few cases even better, as before. The goblin in front of Scitus raised his palm to his ear and then looked at his blood-stained hand.

“I hear again.” the level healing magic was incomprehensible to them. the knew little about magic and had seen it a few times when fighting humans. In all those times, they had never seen happen so quickly and without a single word.

This was known as a passive ability, something that even Scitus knew little about, only that it was a feature of gods.

Now having subjects, Scitus was able to siphon mana out of his subjects. This mana was quantified in numbers, all the goblins had 20 mana. If collected in great number Scitus would receive god energy, an incredibly potent form of mana that could bend even reality itself. This was on top of the god energy he would eventually receive for having land.

Collecting it would prove valuable but he couldn't just steal all of it from the goblins. Mana was a part of their biology taking to much of it may interfere with certain processes, instead, Scitus decided to only take 10% of their mana. He did this by changing the way Mana is measured and making it large enough for him to take a percent of it. It wasn't much but eventually, it would become invaluable especially when his country would grow.

The elder goblin looks at Scitus.

"you feel that?" the elder nodded. He knew little of how gods functioned but what he did know was that Gods would often make humans weaker for a reason he didn't know until Scitus took a part of his mana.

The next thing Scitus had to do was investigate their food stock. The food game in bundles called food resource, he only had 20 but needed at least 68 to survive the month.

"you have food for many moons?" The language required many hand gestures and body movements, all along with a very rudimentary list of words. Scitus hated it. it was at that moment that he decided to teach the Goblins English.

"other goblins and ogre king steal." An ogre? Scitus thought. He still didn't comprehend the actual battle power of an ogre, but he knew that his goblin army would be no match for an ogre, at least that is what the expressions of the goblins around him said.

Ignoring the goblins, Scitus went to pick one of the small metallic cubes of the ground. It was the Echo. It was small six by six-inch cube. Its primary purpose was as a storage system, Libraries especially used them as assistants to help people in the library find a certain book.

Scitus searched the cube for its small activation button. The cube thereafter began to project a perfect replica of a human. It was a handsome man with white hair just long enough to reach below his brows. The cubes came in both male and female form, the female form was many times more popular to the public.

“Hello master Scitus, what may I do for you? The man gently smiled, making some of the female goblins blush.

“I need a book that can teach me how to make a bow.”

“I am now checking all 12,450,234 books in storage.” In only took the Echo a second to find the books its master needed.

“I found 3 books that will be the most suitable for your situation.”

“Is one of them a hologram book.”

“yes.”

The handsome man disappeared and in his place was the hologram of a book.

"primitive bow." The book flipped through hundreds of pages as the cube began to float into the air and disappear into small little nanites that projected a semi-solid tree and man chopping it down. Scitus picked up a piece of wood and showed it to the goblins who were still mesmerized by the magic cube.

"half look wood like this." The elder snapped out of his trance and instructed several goblins to look for the wood. Then Scitus instructed them to look for the other required ingredients.

After an hour of searching, the ingredients were brought back to the small treeless area. With Scitus's help, they managed to find some more ingredients, the help, although appreciated, startled the goblins because a god's assistance does not come easily.

A gathering of goblins was commonplace among goblin tribes, often they would listen to their elder and his instruction for the day. This gathering had a new leader, a mighty god that they hoped would protect them from the dangers of the world.

Scitus had been observing the goblins gathering the ingredients, one such goblin caught his interest. He called to the goblin. The goblin was young, her face was smoother then some of the other goblins he had seen, it made it obvious that it was a woman. At first, Scitus felt a sense of bewilderment, seeing another humanoid species so different from his own was fascinating to him. He guided the goblin girl to the desk-sized boulder at the center of the small plain.

On the boulder were all the ingredients necessary to make a bow: strong insect fabric, green wood, wood, and stone. Confusion struck the goblin's face. Scitus picked the wood that would be used as a bow and gave her a look that informed her to do the same.

Little by little, as her dexterous hands moved alongside her god, she began to realize what she was creating. "bow…" the words escaped her lips, entranced she brought the completed bow close to herself. Scitus cracked an almost no existent smile as he raised his hand above the goblins

"forgive!!!" She raised her arms in defense of what she thought was going to be a punishment, only to feel a soft pat on her head. The image of a child popped into his head, an image very different to what he was originally expecting. He thought the Goblins would be more savage in nature, but it seemed, at least for the goblins in front of him, they were simply trying to survive.

The other goblins trembled, Scitus straighten his back. "I not angry." Scitus had forgotten about his constant scowl, because of it, he always appeared to be irritated or even angry. He had grown accustomed to making a scowl because it was how he concentrated best while working on his software.

As Scitus dwelled on his nature, the young goblin raised the bow to her fellow tribesman and was met with glorious RAHH!!! The noise was enough to break Scitus from his thoughts and return to real world. There he saw the fascination and glee in the faces of the goblins. The act of creating something like a bow was nothing short of a miracle to them. Scitus wasn't finished quite yet he still needed to show them how to make arrows.

The way God energy worked was peculiar, god energy could only be used to create things that his subjects had created at least once. Once it item is completed, it becomes a blueprint inside the God’s subconscious.

Scitus concentrated on creating the bows and as he did, a thought entered his mind. This thought was the number 46 and the number 103. This number signified the quantity of bows and arrows he could create using God energy.

“I see, only resources that my subjects have collected can be used.” Precious god energy would be wasted if he used it to create such few items, but he had little choice, hunting would be necessary for their survival.

With a single thought, the resources collected were surrounded in a black aura, they were lifted into the air through what looked like a water like a gust of wind which forced the items into one another creating colorful explosion. When the glittery mist subsided, 46 bows and 103 arrows gently floated to the ground.

Scitus was captivated by the beauty of magic, it was odd and yet felt natural to him. The black aura was his mana and the strange way it created arrows was his mana being converted into something else that brought along with it a sense of loss as if he was a bucket losing water. This sensory feeling was small and almost non-existent but nevertheless clear.

The goblins, for more than Scitus, were captivated by it, they had never seen magic so beautiful so majestic. Their eyes reflected the colorful mist with fascination that could only be described as a hypnotic gaze.

The elder pried his eyes from the majesty just long enough to watch his god straightened his back once more, his look more disheveled than any human he laid eyes on. From his long greasy hair that reached his shoulders to his uneven facial hair, it wasn't cleanly in the least, but it brought comfort the elder.

“Good god!!” He shouted in a moment of excitement, the other goblins were quick to join in. it didn’t take long for every goblin in the tribe to shout praises at their new ruler, the being that would pull them from the hell they had lived in for so long.

When the cheers subsided, Scitus was ready with several bows on his shoulder. One by one he handed a bow to each member of the tribe.

“We hunt.”