Chuck screamed as he fought to be free of whatever was holding him. Eventually, he succeeded, falling to the ground with a thump.

"You ok, Chuck?" Kalina asked from the bed he had just fallen out of. Why was he back here? He closed his eyes and looked for his blessing.

Blessing of the Creator

Resets In: 299:52 min

What? He died, what the hell killed him? Kalina was starting to sound worried about his lack of response. "Sorry, I'm fine, just a nightmare. I think I need some fresh air."

"Do you want me to walk with you?"

Chuck smiled, "Thanks for the offer but I just need to clear my head, I will see you in the morning."

She nodded and lay back down.

Chuck dressed and exited the tent, he was trying to recall what happened. His brain felt muddled. He recalled leaving Kalina's tent to go on patrol. Then he checked his skill to see if mana manipulation had finished leveling. Chuck froze, he remembered, he had opened that unknown skill book. Cold sweat formed on his brow, had the skill killed him?

He stopped and closed his eyes, concentrating on his skill page. Down at the bottom was a new skill. The name wasn't decipherable, the only thing he saw was the cost of the first level, the prerequisite, and it's rarity.

Name: Unknown

Rarity: Mythic

Level: 0 -1

Prerequisite: Mana Manipulation level 5

Damage Type: Unknown

Status: Active

Stat: Intuition

Range: Unknown

SP to Next level: 350000

Conditional Information: Unavailable

Description: Unavailable

Chuck needed to sit down and think.

He plopped down on a pile of logs that hadn't been loaded yet. The skill would take over two months to train. He held off on adding it to his training queue. If just adding the skill to his list killed him he was afraid to see what trying to train it would do.

There was also the new field called conditional information, what did that mean? He decided to leave it alone until he got through reading the magical theory book. Even then he might have to understand that ancient journal before he felt comfortable training this skill at all.

Chuck ran his hand through his hair and sighed. At least his blessing had been active at the time. He would have to take greater care in the future before learning new skills. It's possible this was not an unknown issue of learning skills too quickly or learning too many. He just didn't have the requisite knowledge to make an educated guess.

Chuck sighed one more time before he got up, he made a hard choice, pausing all of his skills until he learned more. That left stealth and multitasking in limbo. He was ok with that, the extra levels being put on hold weren't going to affect him that much. He checked his sword and dagger before heading off to patrol.

***

Gholob howled in rage, the pathetic creatures in front of him cowering in fear. He felt the soul god's power ripple across the land again, this time closer once again. He took his rage out on one of the uncorrupted goblin's, smashing its skull with one slap.

The use of his godly powers ripped the host's arm apart. He didn't care, he turned to his followers.

"Find me a new host!"

There were too many of the corrupted to command mentally in his weakened state. That was fine, they would sow chaos and corrupt others as they saw fit. When his rage subsided he turned back towards the ten goblins his forces had rounded up. He ordered them not to corrupt the creatures. He wanted to try something else. An evil smile split open his host's face causing the goblins to cringe in terror. 'Good.'

***

Firon stood at the edge of the whirlpool, a cold shudder running through his being. It was an alien feeling and had no place in a godly host, yet still, he felt it.

Darkness formed next to him and from it, his twin brother Niros stepped forth. "Did you feel it, brother?"

"Feel what?"

"Don't play coy, you felt the ripple!" he spat.

He had indeed felt that ripple, a third time now. His brother had only felt this most recent one. It wasn't a surprise, his brother was more interested in death and his goal of devouring souls. Something that remained out of reach for the god. To be honest, Firon didn't understand the reasoning for that either.

"I witnessed the ripple in the pool," he replied coldly.

Niros growled, "surely you know what it means?"

Firon turned to his brother, a pained look on his face as he saw the deranged state his brother had become. "You know as well as I that this pool existed before us, as well as this universe. How could I possibly know what a random ripple means?"

Niros cackled madly, "fool, I know what it means. It means someone stole from me. I am owed a life, yet it never arrived. Something is interfering with the timeline," he hissed out between broken teeth, his visage that of a beggar.

"Calm yourself brother, if you wish to find out you only need to step into the eddies of time," Firon replied, gesturing towards the pool.

Niros flinched back, they both knew that to step more than a foot into the raging waters of time was to be lost to it for eternity. More than one foolish lesser god had tried, only to be swept away, never to be seen again. Other gods eventually came into being and took up their vacant ideologies.

Firon wondered if some other god would take over in his place if he stepped forth into the waters. Somehow he doubted that. Something was different for him and his brother, Zirax as well, but she kept away from conflict, only interested in the weave.

It was still tempting, Firon constantly fought off challengers to his position within the pantheon. He didn't care about the petty squabbles of lesser gods, only when they challenged him directly did he strike them back down. He had disposed of more than one upstart by tossing them into the whirlpool. He liked to imagine that they saw enlightenment the moment they were torn to shreds by the ceaseless churning.

No, he wasn't too worried about the ripples his brother spoke of, it was the other feeling that concerned him. He needed to utilize some of his faithful to find out what was going on.

***

Genemi was deep in prayer, his god had blessed him with life, power, and a singular purpose to serve his will. He wasn't alone in the prayer hall, there were acolytes and priests about. Some in prayer, others maintaining the areas of worship.

He was finishing up his prayer when he felt a tug on his mind. Before he could think too much on it a voice boomed inside his head.

"I Firon am tasking you with a mission. Something is wrong on the continent of Nolatva, find out what and destroy it."

Genemi shook in ecstasy when he heard his god's voice. "Your will, be done, lord of the light and bringer of life," Genemi said, standing from his prayer position. He looked around the room, a few others had stood as well. Each nodding to him in return. He would cleanse the world if his god willed it.

Later that day a host of the faithful rode out from Garmon, capital of Vitor. Genemi knew where to start, the heathens in the south in the Kingdom of Nur were the likeliest culprits.

People watched in awe as the forty fully armed and armored faithful of Firon rode through the gate and headed south. Rumors had already spread through the town of a divine mission to purge the heretics. The rumor was that the King was calling up his armies to assist the faithful in their mission. There had always been tensions and minor skirmishes with the kingdom to the south, with the god of life on their side it seemed like a sign.

***

Chuck pulled his blade out of the last goblin, wiping the filthy blood off in the grass. He would have to clean the blade later.

He had spotted the three goblins sneaking through the forest. Using his stealth abilities and some magic he dispatched all three without them realizing he was there. He made sure to scan the area for any more goblin's. They seemed to like to run in packs. Chuck spun around when he heard some rustling in the bushes. He relaxed when he saw Erwin appear, the man putting a finger to his mouth and pointing down the trail.

Chuck nodded and followed along. Each of them followed on opposite sides of the path the goblins had created. Chuck smelled the rest of the goblins before he saw them, giving Erwin a nod before they both faded from view.

Chuck came to a small clearing where twenty goblins were setting up a rough camp. If you could even call it that. Sticks and leaves were stuck together with what smelled like shit, probably their shit from the smell wafting off of the things.

There were too many to take on by themselves, Chuck pulled back out of view of the camp. A few minutes later Erwin appeared.

"Chuck, go back to camp and get the others, we need to deal with this tribe before they settle in."

Chuck nodded and faded back into the forest, moving quietly back towards the logging camp.

It took him longer than he thought to get back, eventually, Chuck abandoned stealth when he figured he was far enough from the goblins and sprinted towards the camp.

He let out a whistle to alert anyone nearby that he was coming in, no need to alarm anyone. Mellas and Bargo rushed over to meet him as he entered the camp.

"What's going on?" Bargo asked.

"Tribe of goblins about half an hour from here. Erwin is watching them and sent me back to get help."

"How many?" Mellas asked.

"Twenty in the camp, but I came across one scout team of three."

Both men nodded, Mellas ran off to gather the other Guild members. The four of them might be able to take twenty goblin's in a fight but why risk it.

Ruhas and Dua joined Mellas as he came back. The other two would guard the camp until we returned.

Chuck quickly led them to the spot Erwin and he had met up. Erwin must have heard the racket that Ruhas and Dua made as he appeared a few minutes later.

"We should surround the camp and come in from all sides, Ruhas and Dua, I suggest you hold off for a minute unless you have some stealth abilities?"

Both men shook their heads. "We can wait back a little way."

Erwin nodded and the rest faded into the forest to surround the camp.

Chuck was running on pure adrenaline now. He tried to settle his nerves as he snuck through the forest. He froze when he heard an unfamiliar noise.

Less than ten feet in front of him ten more goblins were moving through the underbrush. That wasn't concerning, what was, was the three larger looking goblins with them. 'These had to be hobgoblin's,' Chuck thought.

He wanted to turn around and alert the others but it was too late. One of the ho goblin's turned towards him and said something in it's screeching language.

Chuck didn't wait to find out what it said, launching an ice arrow directly at its face. He smiled as it went down with a choking scream, then he ran.

A few crude spears flew past him as he ducked by a tree. He cast grease on the area behind him and kept running. He could already hear the sounds of pitched battle from the clearing.

He heard a thump behind him as one of the goblins slipped in the grease. A thud hit his back almost causing him to lose balance. He reached behind and pulled the offending spear from his armor, glad it wasn't sharp enough to penetrate the leather.

He breached the woodline into the clearing and saw one hell of a battle. There were over forty goblins engaged in battle with the six people they brought. 'Shit.' He had been hoping for some assistance with his own goblin problem. Now he was just making it more difficult for the others.

Chuck decided this wasn't the time to play coy. He cast his wind barrier spell and turned to the goblins rushing him from behind. The thrown spears were tossed away as they slammed into the wind.

A few dumb goblin's tried to force their way through his barrier, only to be carved up for their efforts. Level five had added some damage to anyone trying to force their way through. Chuck fired ice arrows through the barrier without issue. A few goblins managed to force their way inside anyway and he torched them with flame lance.

The hobgoblins were smarter and waited for his spell to end before they threw spears at him.

Chuck avoided two of the spears but the third skipped off his leg. He stumbled back as the five remaining goblin's tried to rush him.

"Fuck this, Flame Thrower!" chuck yelled.

Chuck didn't have time to enhance the spell but that didn't matter. The sticky flames reached four meters coating all five remaining goblins and one of the hobgoblins as he moved his hand about. 'God the smell of burning goblins was going to haunt his dreams.'

He gagged as he backed away, the other hobgoblins had fled in terror. He couldn't let them get away though. He steeled his stomach as he ran past the burning bodies. He was glad the jungle was too wet to set on fire.

Chuck managed to catch up to the fleeing monsters quickly, using ice arrow to cripple them before finally finishing them off. After making sure they were dead he ran back to the clearing.

The others were just finishing off the remaining goblins as he arrived. A few had cuts, but nothing major.

He got curious looks from Ruhas and Dua but they didn't comment. Chuck went around healing any cuts. Most of which his spell was capable of handling. Mellas had a nasty stab wound that his spell wasn't able to heal fully. The man limped back to the camp with the help of Erwin and Bargo.

The wound wouldn't keep the man down long, a few days at most. While they didn't have a healer in the convoy they had stocked plenty of healing herbs to speed up the process. They were much cheaper than a full-blown potion. Just not as quick.

A slightly angry Nadine came to pay us a visit. "No special skills eh? Look, I understand why you hid the kid's abilities but I can't do my job effectively if I don't know what I'm working with. Now spill."

"Sorry, Nadine, we didn't mean to cause any issues. I didn't omit anything about us three, perhaps the boy is willing to disclose his abilities to you," Erwin replied casually.

Nadine turned towards Chuck with a raised eyebrow, "Well?"

Chuck didn't go into explicit detail about his skills or at least some of the more interesting ones but he did add that he could use spells like flame lance, grease, the water, and wind blade spells as well as his shields. She gave him a look that said she believed he was still hiding something but chose not to push any further. Probably because she thought he may be a mage. The woman left after that, leaving Chuck time to eat and rest. It had been an exhausting day.